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Articles 301 - 330 of 686
Full-Text Articles in Economics
A ‘Model’ Model: Mccloskey And The Craft Of Economics, Joshua C. Hall
A ‘Model’ Model: Mccloskey And The Craft Of Economics, Joshua C. Hall
Economics Faculty Working Papers Series
In this essay, I highlight some of the contributions of Deirdre McCloskey to the practice of economics as a teacher and scholar. I highlight her influence on my teaching and scholarship in the areas of economic education and economic freedom.
The Sinuous Dragon: Economic Freedom And Economic Growth In China, Joshua Hall, Yang Zhou
The Sinuous Dragon: Economic Freedom And Economic Growth In China, Joshua Hall, Yang Zhou
Economics Faculty Working Papers Series
With sinuous reforms and economic openness over the last four decades, China has enjoyed substantial economic development. Though still a developing country, its GDP per capita has grown over 10% annually, from $183(US) in 1977 to $7,590 (US) in 2014. This miracle in economic growth is attributed by some to a series of pro-market policies and reforms. Although the general trend is greater economic freedom, China has experienced brief periods of decreasing or stagnant economic freedom that correspond with slowdowns in the growth rate. In this paper we trace these changes in economic freedom in China and discuss prospects for …
The Effect Of Health Care Entrepreneurship On Local Health: The Case Of Medexpress In Appalachia, Amir Borges Ferreira Neto, Joshua C. Hall
The Effect Of Health Care Entrepreneurship On Local Health: The Case Of Medexpress In Appalachia, Amir Borges Ferreira Neto, Joshua C. Hall
Economics Faculty Working Papers Series
We test the hypothesis that the opening of an Urgent Care Center (UCC) has positive impacts on the local community. There are several mechanisms through which a UCC can have an impact: lower health care costs, emergency room decongestion, and improved access to medical information. We examine the entry of MedExpress into Appalachian counties between 2001 and 2013. Employing data from Health Resources Files, which provides information for all counties for specific years, we use Propensity Score Matching to create a year 2000 control group for the counties “treated” by MedExpress entry beginning in 2001. We then employ a standard …
The Impact Of Marketization On Entrepreneurship In China: Recent Evidence, Yang Zhou, Joshua C. Hall
The Impact Of Marketization On Entrepreneurship In China: Recent Evidence, Yang Zhou, Joshua C. Hall
Economics Faculty Working Papers Series
While marketization has been linked to provincial-level economic growth in China, how marketization leads to growth has not been explored. We hypothesize that marketization creates an environment that encourages entrepreneurship, which manifests itself in economic growth. While this argument is not new, it has not been explored in the Chinese context. We fill this gap by empirically testing the relationship between marketization and measures of entrepreneurship across Chinese provinces. Our primary measures of entrepreneurship are level changes in the number of “private enterprises” and “self-employed individuals”. We find that higher levels of marketization are positively related to higher levels of …
The Dwight Lee Reader: Collected Columns From The Freeman, Dwight Lee, Joshua Hall, Zachary Rodriguez
The Dwight Lee Reader: Collected Columns From The Freeman, Dwight Lee, Joshua Hall, Zachary Rodriguez
Center for Free Enterprise
A collection of articles written by economist Dwight Lee for The Freeman from 1976-2013. The articles are organized into sections on Basic Economics, Markets and Morality, The Market as a Process, Constitutional Economics, Government and Markets, International Trade, Social Welfare, and Environmental Policy.
Professional Sports Events, Concerts, And Urban Place Based Policy: Evidence From The Staples Center, Yulia Chikish, Brad Humphreys, Crocker H. Liu, Adam Nowak
Professional Sports Events, Concerts, And Urban Place Based Policy: Evidence From The Staples Center, Yulia Chikish, Brad Humphreys, Crocker H. Liu, Adam Nowak
Economics Faculty Working Papers Series
Abstract We analyze the relationship between sports events and concerts, important hospitality demand drivers and key components of many urban renewal projects, in the Staples Center in Los Angeles, an arena home to three pro teams, and nearby hotel performance, exploiting exogenous daily variation in the timing of games and concerts from 2002 to 2017. Results show a small positive impact on revenue per available room at hotels within one mile of the arena and an offsetting decrease at hotels located one to four miles away. Granting nearby hotels exemptions from Los Angeles hotel taxes reduces potential tourism-generated hotel tax …
Tuition Increases Geaux Away? Evidence From Voting On Louisiana's Amendment 2, Joshua C. Hall, Serkan Karadas
Tuition Increases Geaux Away? Evidence From Voting On Louisiana's Amendment 2, Joshua C. Hall, Serkan Karadas
Economics Faculty Working Papers Series
In many states, public institutions of higher education have the autonomy to raise tuition. This has not been the case in Louisiana since a 1995 constitutional amend-ment required a two-thirds majority of the state legislature for any tuition increase. In November of 2016, voters in Louisiana rejected Amendment 2, a constitutional amendment that would have given state institutions of higher education autonomy in setting tuition. We examine parish-level voting on Amendment 2 using an empirical political economy model and find that parishes with a greater percentage of African-Americans and university employees were more likely to vote yes. Student enrollment at …
The Effect Of Health Care Entrepreneurship On Local Health: The Case Of Medexpress In Appalachia, Amir B. Neto, Joshua C. Hall
The Effect Of Health Care Entrepreneurship On Local Health: The Case Of Medexpress In Appalachia, Amir B. Neto, Joshua C. Hall
Economics Faculty Working Papers Series
We test the hypothesis that the opening of an Urgent Care Center (UCC) has positive impacts on the local community. There are several mechanisms through which a UCC can have an impact: lower health care costs, emergency room decongestion, and improved access to medical information. We examine the entry of MedExpress into Appalachian counties between 2001 and 2013. Employing data from Health Resources Files, which provides information for all counties for specific years, we use Propensity Score Matching to create a year 2000 control group for the counties “treated” by MedExpress entry beginning in 2001. We then employ a standard …
Evaluating Crime As A Negative Externality Of Hosting Mega-Events: Econometric Analysis Of The 2012 London Summer Olympics, Nicholas Le
Economics Faculty Working Papers Series
Analysis of the benefits and the drawbacks of hosting large-scale sporting events like the Olympics or World Cup frequently ignore the effects of crime due to its relatively small economic impact in comparison to employment and consumption effects. Literature has frequently tied sporting events and tourism to crime, in addition to observing proximity effects on crime during sporting events. This research seeks to confirm both by implementing a difference-in-difference regression that can show whether crime increased during the Olympics, in particular in London boroughs which hosted venues for the Games. Ultimately, the research concludes that crime in London as a …
Efficiency, But At What Cost? Evidence From A Dea Analysis Of Wv School Districts, Eduardo Minuci, Amir B. Neto, Joshua C. Hall
Efficiency, But At What Cost? Evidence From A Dea Analysis Of Wv School Districts, Eduardo Minuci, Amir B. Neto, Joshua C. Hall
Economics Faculty Working Papers Series
West Virginia schools are consistently below the national average on the NAEP. Using Data Envelopment Analysis, we estimate the technical efficiency of West Virginia school districts. We find less variation in technical efficiency in West Virginia than in similar studies conducted in other states. This appears to be because of state policy imposing homogeneity of input usage. Due to the limited variation in technical efficiency across districts, we cannot analyze how non-school inputs such as socioeconomic factors affect technical efficiency across districts. Summary statistics organized by county economic status, however, suggest that socioeconomic status plays a role. Our results highlight …
Some Remarks On Real Estate Pricing, Crocker H. Liu, Adam Nowak, Patrick S. Smith
Some Remarks On Real Estate Pricing, Crocker H. Liu, Adam Nowak, Patrick S. Smith
Economics Faculty Working Papers Series
This paper develops a framework for addressing the omitted variable bias that plagues most real estate research. We incorporate qualitative information from text to control for property attributes that are generally unobserved. The textual information is entered by real estate agents for every property sold on a Multiple Listing Service (MLS). The agents, who arguably have the most local market and property specific knowledge, use the unstructured text to highlight important information that is not clearly conveyed in other areas of the listing. Although the framework can be applied universally in real estate research, we demonstrate its effectiveness in the …
Chinese Superstition And Real Estate Prices: Transaction-Level Evidence From The Us Housing Market, Brad Humphreys, Adam Nowak, Yang Zhou
Chinese Superstition And Real Estate Prices: Transaction-Level Evidence From The Us Housing Market, Brad Humphreys, Adam Nowak, Yang Zhou
Economics Faculty Working Papers Series
We investigate the impact of Chinese superstition on prices paid by Chinese home buyers in Seattle, Washington. Chinese consider 8 lucky and 4 unlucky. Empirical results indicate Chinese buyers pay a 1-2% premium for addresses including an 8 and a 1% discount for addresses including a 4. These results are unrelated to unobserved property quality: no premium exists when Chinese sell to non-Chinese. Absent explicit identfiers for Chinese individuals, we develop a binomial name classifier using methods from the biomedical and document classification literature, allowing for falsification tests using other ethnic groups and mitigating ambiguity attributable to transliteration of Chinese …
Charity And Public Libraries: Does Government Funding Crowd-Out Donations?, Amir Borges Ferreira Neto
Charity And Public Libraries: Does Government Funding Crowd-Out Donations?, Amir Borges Ferreira Neto
Economics Faculty Working Papers Series
There are over 9,000 public libraries in the United States servicing more than 1.5 billion people and raising over $11.5 billion dollars in revenue with approximately 8% of this total coming from donations. This paper analyzes the determinants of donations to public libraries testing the following hypothesis: is there a crowding-out effect from government funding of public libraries? I address this issue by looking at novel data, the Public Library Survey, and use panel from 2000 to 2013. The results suggest a crowding in effect in all levels of government: 4 to 6 cents in local government, 20 to 23 …
The Economic Impact Of City-County Consolidations: A Synthetic Control Approach, Joshua C. Hall, Josh Matti, Yang Zhou
The Economic Impact Of City-County Consolidations: A Synthetic Control Approach, Joshua C. Hall, Josh Matti, Yang Zhou
Economics Faculty Working Papers Series
Although more rapid development is a primary motivation behind city-county consolidations, relatively few empirical papers explore the actual impact of consolidation on development. This study uses the synthetic control method (SCM) to examine the long-term impact of city-county consolidations on per capita income, population, and employment. The results from the three cases explored indicate that consolidation does not guarantee development and can actually have negative effects. Additionally, the effects vary based upon the county, time horizon, and development measure.
Do National Basketball Association Players Need Higher Salaries To Play In High Tax States? Evidence From Free Agents, Candon Johnson, Joshua Hall
Do National Basketball Association Players Need Higher Salaries To Play In High Tax States? Evidence From Free Agents, Candon Johnson, Joshua Hall
Economics Faculty Working Papers Series
This paper investigates the impact of taxes on the salaries received by National Basketball Association free agents from 2010-2014. High state income tax rates affect the after-tax income received by players from their team as well as on any ancillary income. Using data on 576 free agents, we find statistically significant evidence that free agents signing in high tax states receive higher salaries, ceteris paribus. Our results suggest that a one-unit increase in the average tax rate experienced by a free agent in a state leads to free agent salaries being over $60,000 higher.
An Overview Of Sports Betting Regulation In The United States, Brad Humphreys
An Overview Of Sports Betting Regulation In The United States, Brad Humphreys
Economics Faculty Working Papers Series
The United States employs an ad hoc, unconventional method of regulating sports betting, banning it almost everywhere while granting a monopoly to firms in a single state, Nevada. This approach encourages illegal sports betting markets, ignores negative externalities, and generates welfare losses among the large population of responsible recreational gamblers. I review the current state of sports betting regulation in the U.S. and assess its economic viability in advance of the Supreme Court of the United States decision on the landmark Christie v. National Collegiate Athletic Association case.
Does Economic Freedom Affect The Production Frontier? A Semiparametric Approach With Panel Data, Fan Zhang, Joshua C. Hall, Feng Yao
Does Economic Freedom Affect The Production Frontier? A Semiparametric Approach With Panel Data, Fan Zhang, Joshua C. Hall, Feng Yao
Economics Faculty Working Papers Series
This paper applies a multi-step semiparametric stochastic production frontier estimator proposed by Yao et al. (2017) to investigate the effects of economic freedom on the production frontier and technical efficiency. We allow output elasticities and technical efficiency to depend on the economic freedom variable, estimate a smooth coefficient stochastic production frontier, and compare with parametric alternatives, the Cobb-Douglas and translog estimates. Our results add to the literature on economic freedom and growth in three ways. First, our results highlight the flexibility of semiparametric approaches as we find the commonly used parametric approaches to be too restrictive in estimating the marginal …
Economic Freedom And Government Efficiency: Recent Evidence From China, Shaoment Jia, Yang Zhou
Economic Freedom And Government Efficiency: Recent Evidence From China, Shaoment Jia, Yang Zhou
Economics Faculty Working Papers Series
We investigate the effects of economic freedom (marketization) on governance efficiency defined with the newest provincial level economic indicator data (NBSC, 2017) and economic freedom data (Fan et al., 2017) from 2008 to 2014 in China. With two different measures, the results suggest that economic freedom is positively correlated with governance efficiency. Moreover, the liberalization and marketization progress in the “factors market” is the single most significant area for both governance efficiency measures, while other areas like “market intermediary & legal system” have no significant effects.
The Effect Of An Increase In Lead In The Water System On Fertility And Birth Outcomes: The Case Of Flint, Michigan, Daniel Grossman, David J.G. Slutsky
The Effect Of An Increase In Lead In The Water System On Fertility And Birth Outcomes: The Case Of Flint, Michigan, Daniel Grossman, David J.G. Slutsky
Economics Faculty Working Papers Series
Flint changed its public water source in April 2014, increasing lead exposure. The effects of lead in water on fertility and birth outcomes are not well established. Exploiting variation in the timing of births we find fertility rates decreased by 12%, fetal death rates increased by 58% (a selection effect from a culling of the least healthy fetuses), and overall health at birth decreased (from scarring), compared to other cities in Michigan. Given recent efforts to establish a registry of residents exposed, these results suggests women who miscarried, had a stillbirth or had a newborn with health complications should register.
Are Fair Weather Fans Affected By Weather? Rainfall, Habit Formation And Live Game Attendance, Qi Ge, Brad Humphreys, Kun Zhou
Are Fair Weather Fans Affected By Weather? Rainfall, Habit Formation And Live Game Attendance, Qi Ge, Brad Humphreys, Kun Zhou
Economics Faculty Working Papers Series
We analyze habit formation in sports attendance utilizing rainfall as an unexpected, transitory shock to attendance costs. Using attendance data from Major League Baseball (MLB) and NOAA weather data, we analyze the impact of variation in game day weather conditions on current and future MLB attendance. The empirical strategy permits identification of both the formation and persistence of habit from exogenous weather shocks. Past adverse weather shocks increase future attendance by about 200 fans per game. Our study contributes to the literature developing empirical evidence of habit formation in the field and provides policy implications for optimal ticket pricing strategies.
Agent Intermediation And Racial Price Differences, Adam Nowak, Patrick S. Smith
Agent Intermediation And Racial Price Differences, Adam Nowak, Patrick S. Smith
Economics Faculty Working Papers Series
Most housing transactions are brokered wherein the buyer and seller do not meet in person. In which case the buyer’s race is not revealed to the seller, so the seller cannot discriminate based on race. Despite this observation, previous studies find racial price differentials based on the race of the buyer. We provide evidence that these estimates suffer from an omitted variable bias attributable to the time-varying attributes of the house. After controlling for the time-varying attributes of the house, we find that minority (black and Hispanic) and non-minority (white) buyers pay a similar price for comparable housing. We also …
Learning The Ropes: General Experience, Task-Specific Experience, And The Output Of Police Officers, Gregory Deangelo, Emily Owens
Learning The Ropes: General Experience, Task-Specific Experience, And The Output Of Police Officers, Gregory Deangelo, Emily Owens
Economics Faculty Working Papers Series
We estimate the role that law enforcement officer experience has on the probability of punishment, using a unique data set of tickets issued by the Idaho State Police linked to human resource records. All else equal, officers issue fewer tickets earlier in their career than later in their career. Quasi-exogenous shocks to an officer’s task-specific experience, generated by law changes, cause a temporary reduction in the frequency with which a subset of troopers “use” those laws, creating disparities in the likelihood that individual citizens are cited for law violations. The reduction in ticketing in response to a law change is …
Homeowner Preferences After September 11th, A Microdata Approach, Adam Nowak, Juan Sayago-Gomez
Homeowner Preferences After September 11th, A Microdata Approach, Adam Nowak, Juan Sayago-Gomez
Economics Faculty Working Papers Series
The existence of homeowner preferences - specifically homeowner preferences for neighbors -is fundamental to economic models of sorting. This paper investigates whether or not the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 (9/11) impacted local preferences for Arab neighbors. We test for changes in preferences using a differences-in-differences approach in a hedonic pricing model. Relative to sales before 9/11, we find properties within 0.1 miles of an Arab homeowner sold at a 1.4% discount in the 180 days after 9/11. The results are robust to a number of specifications including time horizon, event date, distance, time, alternative ethnic groups, and the …
The Effect Of Superstar Players On Game Attendance: Evidence From The Nba, Brad Humphreys, Candon Johnson
The Effect Of Superstar Players On Game Attendance: Evidence From The Nba, Brad Humphreys, Candon Johnson
Economics Faculty Working Papers Series
Economic models predict that “superstar” players generate externalities that increase attendance and other revenue sources beyond their individual contributions to team success. We investigate the effect of superstar players on individual game attendance at National Basketball Association games from 1981/82 through 2013/14. Regression models control for censoring due to sellouts, quality of teams, unobservable team/season heterogeneity, and expected game out-comes. The results show higher home and away attendance associated with superstar players. Michael Jordan generated the largest superstar attendance externality, generating an additional 5,021/5,631 fans at home/away games.
The Relative Value Of Aer P&P Economic Education Papers, J.R. Clark, Joshua C. Hall, Ashley Harrison
The Relative Value Of Aer P&P Economic Education Papers, J.R. Clark, Joshua C. Hall, Ashley Harrison
Economics Faculty Working Papers Series
The CEE had been allocated one session in the AER Papers and Proceedings (P&P) since 1964. In 2008, the American Economic Association evaluated the allocation of AER Papers and Proceedings sessions to various AEA Committees. In response, the CEE was asked to prepare a one-page rationale for keeping that session. Their response (Committee on Economic Education, 2008) made several important defenses of the session, including that the quality of the papers published in these sessions must speak for itself. In this paper, we propose to evaluate the relative quality of AER P&P papers through citation analysis. Using the Social Science …
The Economic Impact Of City-County Consolidations: A Synthetic Control Approach, Joshua Hall, Josh Matti, Yang Zhou
The Economic Impact Of City-County Consolidations: A Synthetic Control Approach, Joshua Hall, Josh Matti, Yang Zhou
Economics Faculty Working Papers Series
Although more rapid development is a primary motivation behind city-county consolidations, few empirical studies explore the impact of consolidation on economic development. No studies look at government consolidation in the United States using modern causal inference methods. We use the synthetic control method (SCM) to examine the long-term impact of city-county consolidations on per capita income, population, and employment. The results from the three cases explored indicate that consolidation does not guarantee development and actually can have negative effects. Additionally, consolidation can deepen the urban-rural divide by accelerating the decline of rural populations relative to those of urban areas. The …
Match Fixing And Sports Betting In Football: Empirical Evidence From The German Bundesliga, Christian Deutscher, Eugen Dimant, Brad R. Humphreys
Match Fixing And Sports Betting In Football: Empirical Evidence From The German Bundesliga, Christian Deutscher, Eugen Dimant, Brad R. Humphreys
Economics Faculty Working Papers Series
Corruption in sports represents an important challenge to their integrity. Corruption can take many forms, including match fixing by players, referees, or team officials. Match fixing can be difficult to detect. We use a unique data set to analyze variation in bet volume on Betfair, a major online betting exchange, for evidence of abnormal patterns associated with specific referees who officiated matches. An analysis of 1,251 Bundesliga 1 football matches from 2010/11 to 2014/15 reveals evidence that bet volume in the Betfair markets in these matches was systematically higher for four referees relative to matches officiated by other referees. Our …
Scientific Output: Labor Or Capital Intensive? An Analysis For Selected Countries., Elham Erfanian, Amir Borges Ferreira Neto
Scientific Output: Labor Or Capital Intensive? An Analysis For Selected Countries., Elham Erfanian, Amir Borges Ferreira Neto
Economics Faculty Working Papers Series
Scientific research contributes to sustainable economic growth environments. Hence, policy-makers should understand how the different inputs - namely labor and capital - are related to a country's scientific output. This paper addresses this issue by estimating output elasticities for labor and capital using a panel of 31 countries in nine years. Due to the nature of scientific output, we also use spatial econometric models to take into account the spillover effects from knowledge produced as well as labor and capital. The results show that capital elasticity is closer to the labor elasticity. The results suggest a decreasing return to scale …
How Much Does Talent Matter? Evidence From The Brazilian Formal Cultural Industry, Ricardo Da Silva Freguglia, Amir Borges Ferreira Neto
How Much Does Talent Matter? Evidence From The Brazilian Formal Cultural Industry, Ricardo Da Silva Freguglia, Amir Borges Ferreira Neto
Economics Faculty Working Papers Series
The goal of this paper is to evaluate how much does talent – the individual non-observed characteristics – matter to explain the wage differences between workers from the cultural industry and workers from other formal industries in Brazil. To do so we use the data from 2003 to 2008 of the Rais-Migra – MTE, which is a true panel of formal workers from Brazil, and use fixed effects estimators to capture the talent measure and the Blinder (1973) and Oaxaca (1973) decomposition to seek for evidences of wage difference. The results imply that the talent is important in the determination …
Economic Freedom And Governance Efficiency: Recent Evidence From China, Shaoment Jia, Yang Zhou
Economic Freedom And Governance Efficiency: Recent Evidence From China, Shaoment Jia, Yang Zhou
Economics Faculty Working Papers Series
We investigate the effects of economic freedom (marketization) on governance efficiency defined with the newest provincial level economic indicator data (NBSC, 2017) and economic freedom data (Fan et al., 2017) from 2008 to 2014 in China. With two different measures, the results suggest that economic freedom is positively correlated with governance efficiency. Moreover, the liberalization and marketization progress in the “factors market” is the single most significant area for both governance efficiency measures, while other areas like “market intermediary & legal system” have no significant effects.