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Articles 421 - 450 of 686

Full-Text Articles in Economics

Fellows Address: Are Industry Clusters And Diversity Strange Bedfellows?, Randall Jackson Jan 2015

Fellows Address: Are Industry Clusters And Diversity Strange Bedfellows?, Randall Jackson

Regional Research Institute Working Papers

In this address, I review industry clustering and diversification strategies to compare and contrast their underlying foundations. The lack of consensus choice of one or the other for regional economic development strategies along with the recognition that in the dynamic process of development these two processes are related leads me to conclude that clusters and diversity need not be such strange bedfellows after all, and that a rational approach to economic development can leverage the strengths of each and offset weaknesses. I follow this discussion by introducing a cluster assessment diversification strategy (CADS) apparatus that can be used to measure …

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Financial Competence, Overconfidence, And Trusting Investments: Results From An Experiment, Bryan C. Mccannon, Colleen Tokar Asaad, Mark Wilson Jan 2015

Financial Competence, Overconfidence, And Trusting Investments: Results From An Experiment, Bryan C. Mccannon, Colleen Tokar Asaad, Mark Wilson

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

Financial transactions sometimes occur in an environment where third-party enforcement is lacking. Behavioral explanations typically allude to the social preferences, where an individual’s utility is directly affected by another’s outcome, as the driver of the trusting investments and reciprocal returns. We hypothesize that, in part, these decisions are determined by an individual’s financial literacy. Experimental evidence is coupled with an innovative financial literacy assessment, which measures general competence, numeracy skills, and overconfidence in one’s knowledge. Results indicate that overconfidence is a significant determinant of behavior. Specifically, overconfident individuals make larger contributions in the investment game. We also document that there …

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Toward Consistent Cross-Hauling Estimation For Input-Output Regionalization, Christa D. Court, Randall Jackson Jan 2015

Toward Consistent Cross-Hauling Estimation For Input-Output Regionalization, Christa D. Court, Randall Jackson

Regional Research Institute Working Papers

Although the literature has provided steps in the right direction, conceptual shortcomings still exist in the cross-hauling adjustment methods that are currently being applied in the literature. This paper represents an attempt to 1) characterize the cross-hauling adjustment methods that exist in the literature; 2) identify the shortcomings that exist with the most widely applied method, CHARM; 3) provide an empirical analysis to tackle the notion of just how ubiquitous crosshauling is and the potential impact it has on input-output multiplier estimates; and 4) suggest directions for future conceptual and theoretical development that will lead to consistent cross-hauling measures for …

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Creating The Environment For Entrepreneurship Through Economic Freedom, Joshua C. Hall, Robert A. Lawson, Saurav Roychoudhury Jan 2015

Creating The Environment For Entrepreneurship Through Economic Freedom, Joshua C. Hall, Robert A. Lawson, Saurav Roychoudhury

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

In this paper we argue that the ability of people to freely trade, enter into contracts, and start businesses in a system of private property and the rule of law is crucial for productive entrepreneurship. One measure of how freely individuals can engage in economic activity is the Economic Freedom of the World (EFW) index. After examining the economic policies that harm economic freedom and possibly entrepreneurship, we highlight the correspondence between economic freedom and a number of measures of entrepreneurship. We conclude with some thoughts regarding future research involving economic freedom and entrepreneurship.

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Economic Freedom Studies At The State Level: A Survey, Joshua C. Hall, Dean B. Stansel, Danko Tarabar Jan 2015

Economic Freedom Studies At The State Level: A Survey, Joshua C. Hall, Dean B. Stansel, Danko Tarabar

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

This chapter synthesizes and elaborates on much of the existing research using the Economic Freedom of North America (EFNA) index. Our consensus after reading this literature is that the EFNA index, similarly to the Economic Freedom of the World (EFW) index, is largely positively related with “good” outcomes, and negatively related with “bad” ones, although there are a few exceptions. The literature using the EFNA is growing rapidly and can provide a useful guide towards future policy changes and economic outcomes.

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Production Of Wind Energy And Agricultural Land Values: Evidence From Pennsylvania, Chris Schultz, Joshua C. Hall, Michael P. Strager Jan 2015

Production Of Wind Energy And Agricultural Land Values: Evidence From Pennsylvania, Chris Schultz, Joshua C. Hall, Michael P. Strager

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

Given the push toward renewable and alternative energy, a new energy mix is emerging. Wind is the fastest growing source of renewable electricity in the United States. The siting of wind turbines has proven controversial with multiple operations facing local resistance. Opponents cite issues such as noise, bird deaths, and aesthetics. Given that farmer portfolios are heavily comprised of land assets, the possibility that surrounding wind energy operations may reduce agricultural land value is of concern. This study examines that possibility using a hedonic regression analysis comparing per acre land value to a series of land characteristics and distance variables …

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The Political Economy Of The Essential Air Service Program, Joshua Hall, Amanda Ross, Christopher Yencha Jan 2015

The Political Economy Of The Essential Air Service Program, Joshua Hall, Amanda Ross, Christopher Yencha

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

We find that congressional influences affect the amount of airport subsidies that a congressional district receives from the Essential Air Service (EAS) program. The EAS program was passed with the goal of helping to continue commercial air service to rural communities following the deregulation of the airline industry. Using subsidy data from 1998-2014, we find strong evidence that subsidies are higher in districts having congressional representation on the House Transportation Committee. Representation on the House Appropriations Committee is also associated with higher subsidies. Our empirical results, combined with news reports, are consistent with the EAS serving private as well as …

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Nonpublic Competition And Public School Performance: Evidence From West Virginia, Richard J. Cebula, Joshua C. Hall, Maria Y. Tackett Jan 2015

Nonpublic Competition And Public School Performance: Evidence From West Virginia, Richard J. Cebula, Joshua C. Hall, Maria Y. Tackett

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

In this study, we investigate whether nonpublic school enrollment affects the performance of public school districts. If homeschooling and private schools act as competition, public school districts test scores should be positively associated with nonpublic enrollment. Using data on West Virginia county school districts, and controlling for endogeneity with an instrumental variables approach, we find that a one standard deviation increase in relative nonpublic enrollment in a county is associated with statistically significant increases in public school district test scores. Our findings thus confirm that nonpublic enrollment and the competition it provides act to improve, rather than impede, public school …

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The Liberal Arts And Scholarship On The Fiscal Effects Of Statehood, Joshua C. Hall Jan 2015

The Liberal Arts And Scholarship On The Fiscal Effects Of Statehood, Joshua C. Hall

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

This comment highlights several important questions in two major areas that were inspired by reading The Fiscal Case Against Statehood. The first major area concerns the sociology of business disciplines, accounting in particular, with respect to interdisciplinary scholarship. Questions in the second major area focus on methodological questions surrounding the fiscal effects of statehood.

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An Investigation Of Confucius Institute’S Effects On China’S Ofdi Via Cultural Difference And Institutional Quality, Chensheng Xu, Feng Yao, Fan Zhang Jan 2015

An Investigation Of Confucius Institute’S Effects On China’S Ofdi Via Cultural Difference And Institutional Quality, Chensheng Xu, Feng Yao, Fan Zhang

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

This paper uses a panel data of China's outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) from 2004-2012 to investigate the influence of Confucius Institute on China's OFDI. We find that Confucius Institute, as a comprehensive platform for China's foreign cultural exchange, has a significant positive effect on China’s OFDI. Interestingly, the positive effect can be reduced with larger cultural difference and can be increased in host countries with lower institutional quality. Correspondingly, we find that Confucius Institute’s impact on China’s OFDI is more obvious in host countries with smaller cultural difference or lower institutional quality.

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Was Adam Smith Right About Religious Competition?, Peter J. Boettke, Joshua C. Hall, Kathleen M. Sheehan Jan 2015

Was Adam Smith Right About Religious Competition?, Peter J. Boettke, Joshua C. Hall, Kathleen M. Sheehan

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

Adam Smith famously argued that increased competition in religion would result in more religious tolerance and that the benefits of competition in the marketplace would also be seen in religious instruction when many religious sects are tolerated. We use a cross-section of a maximum of 167 countries to explore whether increased religious competition results in less governmental regulation of religion and less governmental favoritism of religion. Our measure of religious regulation and favoritism comes from the Association of Religion Data Archives. Our empirical analysis also explores the influence of economic and political factors, including the size of the economy, openness …

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Social Accounts For Cge In A Multi-Software Environment: Implan, Gams And Excel, Amir Borges Ferreira Neto, Randall Jackson Dec 2014

Social Accounts For Cge In A Multi-Software Environment: Implan, Gams And Excel, Amir Borges Ferreira Neto, Randall Jackson

Regional Research Institute Resource Documents

No abstract provided.

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On The Evolution Of Organizational Governance: Divided Governance And Survival In The Long Run, Roger D. Congleton Dec 2014

On The Evolution Of Organizational Governance: Divided Governance And Survival In The Long Run, Roger D. Congleton

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

This paper analyzes the formation, refinement, and evolution of organizational decisionmaking processes, e.g. organizational governments. In doing so, it develops a framework for analyzing a broad cross section of private and non-private formal organizations. Formal organizations are all founded, e.g. they have a beginning. As a consequence, decisionmaking authority within an organization is often initially distributed in a manner that provides their founders (formeteurs) with substantial control over their organizations. However, that control is rarely, if ever, complete, because formeteurs have interests that can often be advanced by trading and/or delegating authority to others in exchange for services and other …

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The Relationship Between Stock Returns And Investor Sentiment: Evidence From Social Media, Zachery Mcgurk, Adam D. Nowak Dec 2014

The Relationship Between Stock Returns And Investor Sentiment: Evidence From Social Media, Zachery Mcgurk, Adam D. Nowak

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

The recent behavioral finance literature has found investor sentiment having some predictive ability in equity returns. This differs from the standard finance theory provides no role for investor sentiment. We examine the relationship between investor sentiment and stock returns by employing textual analysis on social media posts. Overall we find that our investor sentiment measure has a positive and significant effect on stock returns. These finds are consistent across a number of different models and specifications, thus finding further evidence against the standard finance theory.

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Crises And Government: Some Empirical Evidence, Jamie Bologna, Andrew T. Young Nov 2014

Crises And Government: Some Empirical Evidence, Jamie Bologna, Andrew T. Young

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

We examine a panel of 70 countries during 1966-2010 and utilize Reinhart and Rogoff crisis dates to estimate the effects of crises on the size and scope of government over both 5-year and 10-year horizons. We also estimate cross section regressions using 40-year (1970-2010) changes in government variables. Banking crises appear to be associated with decreases in the size and scope of government, while sovereign external debt crises are associated with increases. Otherwise, the size and scope of government appears to be persistent to the extent that even crisis episodes fail to leave a significant mark upon them. A notable …

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From Caesar To Tacitus: Changes In Early Germanic Governance Circa 50 Bc-50 Ad, Andrew T. Young Nov 2014

From Caesar To Tacitus: Changes In Early Germanic Governance Circa 50 Bc-50 Ad, Andrew T. Young

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

Julius Caesar and Cornelius Tacitus provide characterizations of early Germanic (barbarian) society around, respectively, 50 BC and 50 AD. The earlier date corresponds to expansion of Rome to the Rhine and Danube. During the subsequent century Germanic governance institutions changed in a number of ways. In particular, (1) temporary military commanders elected from the nobility gave way to standing retinues under the leadership of professional commanders, (2) public assemblies met more frequently and regularly, (3) councils made up of nobility gained agenda control in the assemblies, and (4) these councils relinquished their control over the allocations of land. I account …

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Setting Up A Sam In Excel Using Vba, Amir Borges Ferreira Neto Oct 2014

Setting Up A Sam In Excel Using Vba, Amir Borges Ferreira Neto

Regional Research Institute Technical Documents

This technical document describes how to set up a full Social Accounting Matrix from its own partition in a spreadsheet file. This is done using VBA code.

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Using A Spreadsheet Sam For Gams Cge Modeling, Amir Borges Ferreira Neto Oct 2014

Using A Spreadsheet Sam For Gams Cge Modeling, Amir Borges Ferreira Neto

Regional Research Institute Technical Documents

This technical document provides in a single document a template to follow when using spreadsheet Social Accounting Matrix data to drive a GAMS-based Computable General Equilibrium model.

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Disaggregating Input-Output Models, Xueting Zhao Oct 2014

Disaggregating Input-Output Models, Xueting Zhao

Regional Research Institute Technical Documents

This Technical Document describes the steps to disaggregate an industry sector in an I-O table using Python. A disaggregation method that based on weight factors is used in this document. The calculation has three parts. The first part is to calculate the disaggregated input matrix DIM, which represents all the input from common sectors into the new sectors. The second part is to calculate the disaggregated output matrix DOM, which represents all possible output weights of new sectors into common sectors. The last part is to calculate the intra matrix DINM, which represents the allocation of intra-industry sales in the …

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Estimation Of China Sectoral Emission Intensity: Based On Input-Output Model, Xueting Zhao Oct 2014

Estimation Of China Sectoral Emission Intensity: Based On Input-Output Model, Xueting Zhao

Regional Research Institute Resource Documents

No abstract provided.

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But Who Will Get Billy? The Effect Of Child Custody Laws On Marriage, Elaina Rose, Crystal (Ho Po) Wong Oct 2014

But Who Will Get Billy? The Effect Of Child Custody Laws On Marriage, Elaina Rose, Crystal (Ho Po) Wong

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

Under the tender years doctrine in effect until the 1970’s, custody was virtually always awarded to the mother upon divorce. Gender-neutral custody laws introduced beginning in the 1970’s provided married fathers, in principle, equal rights to custody. Subsequent marriage-neutral laws extended the rights to unmarried fathers. We develop a theoretical model of the effect of custody regime on marriage and test the model’s predictions using a unique data set that merges custody law data with data from the Current Population Survey and Vital Statistics. We find that, under marriage non-neutrality, the introduction of gender-neutral laws reduced the hazard into marriage …

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The Effects Of Endogamous Marriage On Family Outcomes: Evidence From Exogenous Variation In Immigrant Flows During 1900-1930 In The United States, Ho Po Crystal Wong Sep 2014

The Effects Of Endogamous Marriage On Family Outcomes: Evidence From Exogenous Variation In Immigrant Flows During 1900-1930 In The United States, Ho Po Crystal Wong

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

Positive assortative matching in terms of traits like ethnicity, race and personality has been prevalent in marital formation. One possible explanation for this is that husbands and wives in endogamous marriages have complementary skills and tastes that increase marital surplus. This paper aims to estimate the effects of ethnic assortative matching on a variety of household outcomes by using the exogenous variation in immigrant flows in the United States during the period 1900-1930 to disentangle the selection effect of partners. The major finding is that the complementarities in home production from same ethnic marriage enhances investment in household public goods …

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Remittances And Governance: Does The Government Free Ride?, Durga P. Gautam Sep 2014

Remittances And Governance: Does The Government Free Ride?, Durga P. Gautam

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

Through what channel and to what extent does the inflow of remittances affect the quality of governance in the recipient countries? Recent studies suggest that a rise in remittances reduces public goods provision. Scholars generally agree that remittances increase consumption expenditure of the recipient households. This implicit positive correlation between remittances and the ratio of household to government consumption indicates an increasing share of private goods in household consumption. The decreasing share of public goods, on the other hand, tends to reduce households0 incentives to monitor and hold the government accountable. As a result, the external benefits generated by household …

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Technical Document For Price Adjustment, Zheng Tian, Mulugeta Kahsai, Randall Jackson Sep 2014

Technical Document For Price Adjustment, Zheng Tian, Mulugeta Kahsai, Randall Jackson

Regional Research Institute Technical Documents

This document presents the basis for the price adjustment mechanisms in a time series IO model. The essentials of the price adjustment and price change propagation algorithms are presented, along with a matrix permutation algorithm that facilitates the implementation of the price adjustment mechanism. The Matlab function is provided.

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The Ncaa Athletics Arms Race: Theory And Evidence, Adam Hoffer, Brad R. Humphreys, Donald J. Lacombe, Jane E. Ruseki Sep 2014

The Ncaa Athletics Arms Race: Theory And Evidence, Adam Hoffer, Brad R. Humphreys, Donald J. Lacombe, Jane E. Ruseki

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

We develop and empirically test a model of intercollegiate athletic department expenditure decisions. The model extends general dynamic models of nonprice competition and includes the idea that nonprofit athletic departments may simply set expenditure equal to revenues. Own and rival prestige is included in the athletic departments' utility function, generating rivalrous interaction. The model predicts that current own and rival investment has multiperiod effects on prestige since investment is durable. We test the model using data from NCAA Division I athletic programs from 2006-2011; the models incorporate spatial autocorrelation that capture dynamic rivalrous interaction. Results support the prediction of both …

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Adolescent Steroid Use And Intercollegiate Athletic Incentives, Brad R. Humphreys, Jane E. Ruseki Aug 2014

Adolescent Steroid Use And Intercollegiate Athletic Incentives, Brad R. Humphreys, Jane E. Ruseki

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

We examine the relationship between college athletic scholarships and adolescent use of performance enhancing drugs. Annually, 4.5 million male high school athletes compete for about 132,000 athletic scholarships offered by NCAA Division I and II universities. Estimates from a probit model of self-reported steroid use among US adolescent males using data from the YRBSS suggest each sanction-related athletic scholarship reduction at NCAA institutions in a state increases the probability that high school males in that state report using steroids by 3%. Competition for athletic scholarships generates incentives for adolescent males to improve athletic performance through use of steroids.

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Peer Enforcement In Teams: Evidence From High-Skill Professional Workers With Repeated Interactions, Brad Humphreys, Jie Yang Aug 2014

Peer Enforcement In Teams: Evidence From High-Skill Professional Workers With Repeated Interactions, Brad Humphreys, Jie Yang

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

Organizing employees into teams increases productivity but also generates incentives to shirk. Recent research suggests that peer enforcement plays an important role in deterring shirking in teams. We analyze 10 years of performance and compensation data for NFL offensive linemen, a high-skill, high-salary and repeatedly interacting team, using the Hausman-Taylor estimator to control for unobservable individual-specific heterogeneity. We find evidence that teammates' effort signals reduce the salaries of individual offensive linemen, providing an optimal, low powered sanctioning mechanism for individual workers in this setting, and that a separate, independently monitored individual effort signal also reduces salaries.

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Repeat Sales Methods For Growing Cities And Short Horizons, Karl L. Guntermann, Crocker Liu, Adam D. Nowak Jul 2014

Repeat Sales Methods For Growing Cities And Short Horizons, Karl L. Guntermann, Crocker Liu, Adam D. Nowak

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

The accurate estimation of real estate indices is important for many purposes. A common method to estimate these indices is to use a repeat‐sales procedure. Although this does not require property attributes, this method discards a large amount of sales. This paper proposes a method that can be used to incorporate a significant percentage of these discarded observations without requiring additional data collection by the researcher. We apply our method to the metropolitan statistical areas of Phoenix and Seattle and find that standard errors are on average two‐thirds the value of standard errors from a repeat‐sales procedure in Seattle and …

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The Louis-Schmelling Paradox And The League Standing Effect, Brad R. Humphreys, Li Zhou Jul 2014

The Louis-Schmelling Paradox And The League Standing Effect, Brad R. Humphreys, Li Zhou

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

Fifty years on we examine two key propositions in Neale's (1964) "Peculiar Economics": the need for competitors in sport to have opponents of similar ability in order to earn large revenues and the effect of frequent changes sports leagues' standings on consumer demand. We develop a consumer choice model under uncertainty, and a structural econometric model, to motivate and test these ideas. Unfortunately, neither receives much empirical or theoretical support relative to alternative factors affecting consumer choice like loss aversion and home win preference.

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Cross-Hauling In Input-Output Tables: Comments On Charm, Randall Jackson Jun 2014

Cross-Hauling In Input-Output Tables: Comments On Charm, Randall Jackson

Regional Research Institute Working Papers

This brief note draws further attention to cross-hauling in regional input-output table estimation, and specifically identifies conceptual issues associated with Kronenberg”s CHARM method for adjusting input-output regionalization methods. Despite the shortcomings of the CHARM approach as it now stands, this is a very important line of research. I believe that progress made on the CHARM method is encouraging, and hope that future work will resolve remaining issues.

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