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Articles 451 - 480 of 686

Full-Text Articles in Economics

Do Capital Tax Incentives Attract New Businesses? Evidence Across Industries From The New Markets Tax Credit, Kaitlyn M. Harger, Amanda Ross Jun 2014

Do Capital Tax Incentives Attract New Businesses? Evidence Across Industries From The New Markets Tax Credit, Kaitlyn M. Harger, Amanda Ross

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

All levels of government pursue policies to attract new businesses with the hope that these enterprises will create local economic growth. In this paper, we use the New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) to determine the effect of a capital tax credit on where firms in different types of industries locate. When estimating the impact of the NMTC on business location, there are likely to be unobservable local characteristics that are correlated with where businesses choose to open that would cause OLS estimates to be biased. To control for the endogenous selection, we use a plausibly exogenous eligibility cutoff and compare …

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Bubbles, Post-Crash Dynamics, And The Housing Market, Crocker H. Liu, Adam Nowak, Stuart Rosenthal May 2014

Bubbles, Post-Crash Dynamics, And The Housing Market, Crocker H. Liu, Adam Nowak, Stuart Rosenthal

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

This paper documents and explains previously unrecognized post-crash dynamics following the collapse of a housing bubble. A simple model predicts that speculative developers ensure stable pre-crash relative prices between small and large homes while their post-crash exit allows smallhome relative values to fall. Evidence from Phoenix supports the model. Although home prices doubled 2004-2006, relative prices of small-to-large homes remained nearly constant but then plummeted post-crash. As speculative developers return relative prices must return to pre-boom levels, consistent with patterns since 2011. Anticipated mean reversion indicates that cities can reduce post-crash volatility and mispricing by publicizing size-stratified house price indexes.

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Matlab Code For Structural Decomposition Analysis, Juan Tomas Sayago Gomez May 2014

Matlab Code For Structural Decomposition Analysis, Juan Tomas Sayago Gomez

Regional Research Institute Technical Documents

This TechDoc describes the steps necessary to apply the Structural Decomposition Analysis (SDA) using Matlab. The code has two stages. The first stage, which comprises PrepSDA.m and RAS SDA.m, prepares the data and the input required for SDA based on the accounting identities defined in Miller and Blair (2009) and Jackson and Schwarm (2011). The second stage (SDA.m) carries out the analysis and estimates the results based on the mathematical procedure in Yang and Lahr (2010) and Zhang and Lahr (2014). The end results can be exported into a csv file.

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Teaching Students To “Do” Public Choice In An Undergraduate Public Sector Course, Joshua C. Hall, Kaitlyn R. Harger May 2014

Teaching Students To “Do” Public Choice In An Undergraduate Public Sector Course, Joshua C. Hall, Kaitlyn R. Harger

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

This paper discusses one approach to using writing assignments in an undergraduate public economics to get students actively involved in doing public choice. Our goal is to provide an overview of the course and its writing assignments with an emphasis on how the scaffolding of assignments helps contribute to the development of interesting and publishable ideas in public choice. A course in public economics provides a good opportunity for an instructor to develop student interest in applied public choice.

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Contests With A Prize Externality And Stochastic Entry, Xiaogang Che, Brad R. Humphreys May 2014

Contests With A Prize Externality And Stochastic Entry, Xiaogang Che, Brad R. Humphreys

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

We analyze a contest with stochastic participation and a prize externality. A unique symmetric equilibrium exists in the contest. We demonstrate that the presence of a prize externality affects individual equilibrium spending but active participants always face the same expected payout as in a contest without a prize externality. A positive prize externality gives a higher impact on individual equilibrium spending than a negative prize externality. Regardless of the existence and the sign of a prize externality, ex-post over-dissipation occurs if the actual number of participants is sufficiently large. Independent of the prize externality's sign, active participants spend less but …

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Generating Matlab Matrices From Implan Cge Files, Mason Pierce Mar 2014

Generating Matlab Matrices From Implan Cge Files, Mason Pierce

Regional Research Institute Technical Documents

This document describes the process used to create usable tables from the 27 individual GAMS files in .DAT format generated by IMPLAN software. 26 of these are social accounting matrix (SAM) data files and 1 is an employment-by-industry data file. By performing the appropriate command in MATLAB, the user can create the desired table, for example the use or make tables, which can then be used for various purposes. IMPLAN 2 and IMPLAN 3 produce .DAT files of different formats. This document details the process of handling each of these file formats.

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A Spatial Analysis Of Incomes And Institutional Quality: Evidence From Us Metropolitan Areas, Jamie Bologna, Donald J. Lacombe, Andrew T. Young Mar 2014

A Spatial Analysis Of Incomes And Institutional Quality: Evidence From Us Metropolitan Areas, Jamie Bologna, Donald J. Lacombe, Andrew T. Young

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

We use the Stansel (2013) metropolitan area economic freedom index and 25 conditioning variables to analyze the spatial relationships between institutional quality and economic outcomes across 381 U.S. metropolitan areas. Specifically, we allow for spatial dependence in both the dependent and independent variables and estimate how economic freedom impacts both per-capita income growth and per-capita income levels. We find that while economic freedom and income levels are directly and positively related, increases in economic freedom in one area result in negative indirect effects on income levels in surrounding areas. In addition, we find that economic freedom has an insignificant relationship …

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Female Brain Drains And Women’S Rights Gaps: A Gravity Model Analysis Of Bilateral Migration Flows, Maryan Naghsh Nejad, Andrew T. Young Mar 2014

Female Brain Drains And Women’S Rights Gaps: A Gravity Model Analysis Of Bilateral Migration Flows, Maryan Naghsh Nejad, Andrew T. Young

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

In this paper we model the migration decisions of high-skilled women as a function of the benefits associated with moving from an origin with relatively low women´s rights to a destination with a relatively high women´s rights. However, the costs faced by women are decreasing in the level of women´s rights provided. The model predicts a non-linear relationship between the relative levels of women’s rights in destination versus origin countries (the women’s rights gap) and the gender gap in high-skilled migration flows (the female brain drain ratio). In particular, starting from large values of the women´s rights gap (where women´s …

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Globalization And Income Convergence, Kaitlyn R. Wolfe, Andrew T. Young Jan 2014

Globalization And Income Convergence, Kaitlyn R. Wolfe, Andrew T. Young

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

The income convergence literature suggests that poor countries can catch-up to rich ones conditional on sharing certain characteristics with rich countries. Good institutions such as strong property rights and rule-of-law are key amongst those characteristics. From a policy perspective this is disheartening because economists have little understanding of how to transplant those institutions to developing countries. Worse, good informal institutions seem to be a necessary condition for formal institutions to “stick”. However, to the extent that good institutions can arise as a “spontaneous order” from individuals interacting with one another, allowing for an “open society” may be an effective development …

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A Review And Analysis Of The Effectiveness Of Alternative Teaching Methods On Student Learning In Economics, Ninos P. Malek, Joshua C. Hall, Collin Hodges Jan 2014

A Review And Analysis Of The Effectiveness Of Alternative Teaching Methods On Student Learning In Economics, Ninos P. Malek, Joshua C. Hall, Collin Hodges

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

Drawing largely on educational literature outside of economics, we provide a survey of perspectives on alternative teaching methods. We then report results regarding the effectiveness of various alternative methods such as cooperative learning, class discussions, and the use of multimedia sources compared to lecture-only instruction. A difference-in-means test is utilized to compare gains in learning between control classes and treatment classes. Alternative teaching methods were not shown to increase student performance in a statistically significant manner.

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Obedience And Income Levels, Kaitlyn Harger, Joshua C. Hall Jan 2014

Obedience And Income Levels, Kaitlyn Harger, Joshua C. Hall

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

We revisit the relationship between informal institutions and income levels. The empirical literature on institutions finds that indices of “informal institutions” such as trust, respect, respect, self-determination, and obedience are more important than “formal institutions” such as constitutional constraints in explaining income levels across countries. We add to this literature in two ways. First, we separate out the index of informal institutions into its component parts to see which informal institutions are primary. Second, we construct two new measures of obedience to test the robustness of obedience. Our reduced-form results indicate the primacy of obedience over other informal institutions

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The Importance Of Credible Commitments In Marriage: The Effect Of Recognizing Homemakers' Contribution In Property Division At Divorce In Law On Marital Formation And Dissolution, Ho-Po Crystal Wong Jan 2014

The Importance Of Credible Commitments In Marriage: The Effect Of Recognizing Homemakers' Contribution In Property Division At Divorce In Law On Marital Formation And Dissolution, Ho-Po Crystal Wong

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

The unilateral divorce reform in the 1970's has been accompanied by a secular de- cline in marriage. This paper investigates how the homemaking provision in divorce law that gives recognition to homemakers' contribution during marriage in divorce property division affects marital formation and dissolution. Hypothetically the provision enhances the commitment to homemakers in marriage, which would increase the incentives to form marriage as it encourages spousal co-operation in time-allocation and marriage-specific investment. I find evidence that the homemaking provision stimulates marriage using both state and individual level data. The law also lowers divorce risk for individuals married prior to the …

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An Integrated Environmental And Economic Modeling Framework For Technological Transitions, Randall Jackson Jan 2014

An Integrated Environmental And Economic Modeling Framework For Technological Transitions, Randall Jackson

Regional Research Institute Working Papers

There is an increasing demand for models that address both environment and economy, and that also estimate or forecast the impacts of introducing new and markedly different technologies from those already existing in the systems under study. Because most conventional models are calibrated to recent data characterizing current economic structure and conditions, their standard turn-key operation will need to be replaced by more comprehensive algorithms and procedures designed to explicitly accommodate shifts in technology and economic structure. This paper lays out one viable alternative for integrating environmental and economic modeling frameworks, and focuses specifically on one of the major challenges …

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Low Priority Laws And The Allocation Of Police Resources, Amanda Ross, Anne Walker Jan 2014

Low Priority Laws And The Allocation Of Police Resources, Amanda Ross, Anne Walker

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

There is an ongoing literature in economics examining the deterrent effect of police officers on criminal activity. However, this literature tends to focus on the aggregate number of officers employed versus the relative allocation of an officer’s time. In this paper, we examine how the reallocation of police resources affects police behavior and criminal activity using the adoption of low priority initiatives by some jurisdictions. Low priority initiatives mandated that minor marijuana possession offenses be the lowest enforcement priority for police officers. We first test whether adoption of the initiative decreased the arrest rate for minor marijuana possession offenses. If …

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Economic Freedom Research: Some Comments And Suggestions, Jamie Bologna, Joshua C. Hall Jan 2014

Economic Freedom Research: Some Comments And Suggestions, Jamie Bologna, Joshua C. Hall

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

The Economic Freedom of the World (EFW) index is extensively used in academic research to show how economic freedom relates to a wide array of economic and social outcomes. Given this, it is important that researchers understand the goal of the index and how to properly utilize this index in their research. There seem to be several common misconceptions about the EFW index resulting from a simple misunderstanding of the index itself. This paper discusses each of these misconceptions in turn and makes suggestions for future research. This paper aims to significantly improve the quality of research using the EFW …

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The Seventeenth Amendment, Senate Ideology, And The Growth Of Government, Danko Tarabar, Joshua C. Hall Jan 2014

The Seventeenth Amendment, Senate Ideology, And The Growth Of Government, Danko Tarabar, Joshua C. Hall

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

The 17th Amendment disturbed the existing electoral system in the United States by requiring direct elections for state Senators. Scholars have argued this made the Senate more populist and contributed to the growth of government in the US post-1913. We employ econometric tools to investigate whether the mean ideology of the Senate and its winning policies experienced a structural change around the time of the enactment. We find no compelling evidence of a structural break at that time but do find some evidence for a change in the mid-to-late 1890s.

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Economic Freedom And Recidivism: Evidence From Us States, Joshua C. Hall, Kaitlyn Harger, Dean Stansel Jan 2014

Economic Freedom And Recidivism: Evidence From Us States, Joshua C. Hall, Kaitlyn Harger, Dean Stansel

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

This paper provides an exploratory analysis into factors contributing to differences across states in recidivism rates. We provide the first such examination that incorporates differences in economic freedom. Using a panel data set from 1998- 2010, we find that higher levels of economic freedom within a state are associated with lower recidivism rates within that state. A one percent increase in economic freedom is associated with a 0.47 percent decrease in recidivism. The relationship is stronger and more statistically significant for labor market freedom, with a one percent increase in labor market freedom being associated with a 0.67 percent decline …

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The Effect Of Informal Employment And Corruption On Income Levels In Brazil, Jamie Bologna Jan 2014

The Effect Of Informal Employment And Corruption On Income Levels In Brazil, Jamie Bologna

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

This paper exploits a unique dataset on corruption and informal sector employment in 476 Brazilian municipalities to estimate whether corruption impacts GDP or income levels once variation in informal economic activity is taken into account. Overall, I find that higher levels of corruption and a larger informal economy are generally associated with poor economic outcomes. However, only the size of the informal economy has a statistically significant effect. This effect is robust to the inclusion of a variety of controls and fixed effects, as well as an instrumental variable analysis. Further, these effects are large in magnitude. For example, a …

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Cross-Hauling And Regional Input-Output Tables: The Case Of The Province Of Hubei, China, Yongming Huang, Anthony T. Flegg, Timo Tohmo Jan 2014

Cross-Hauling And Regional Input-Output Tables: The Case Of The Province Of Hubei, China, Yongming Huang, Anthony T. Flegg, Timo Tohmo

Regional Research Institute Working Papers

Data for the Chinese province of Hubei are used to assess the performance of Kronenberg’s CHARM, a method that takes explicit account of cross-hauling when constructing regional input−output tables. A key determinant of cross-hauling is held to be the heterogeneity of the products of individual sectors, which is estimated using national data. However, contrary to the authors’ earlier findings for Finland, CHARM does not generate reliable estimates of Hubei’s sectoral exports, imports and volume of trade. It is crucial, therefore, especially in relatively small regions, to make adequate allowance for any known divergence between regional and national technology and heterogeneity.

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Revisiting The Question “More Guns, Less Crime?” New Estimates Using Spatial Econometric Techniques, Donald J. Lacombe, Amanda Ross Jan 2014

Revisiting The Question “More Guns, Less Crime?” New Estimates Using Spatial Econometric Techniques, Donald J. Lacombe, Amanda Ross

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

In a highly debated paper, Lott and Mustard (1997) found that allowing citizens to carry concealed handguns reduced crime. Since then, numerous researchers have questioned the validity of the findings. In addition, ongoing work has shown there is an important spatial component to crime. In this paper, we use spatial econometric techniques to estimate the impact of adoption of concealed weapons laws by some states on crime rates across the U.S. We find there are spillover effects of concealed weapons laws and that spatial dependence plays an important role when estimating the effect of these laws on crime.

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Religion And Aids In Sub-Saharan Africa: Unbundling Religious Institutions, Amanda Mandzik, Andrew T. Young Jan 2014

Religion And Aids In Sub-Saharan Africa: Unbundling Religious Institutions, Amanda Mandzik, Andrew T. Young

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

Evidence of relationships between religious affiliation and the African AIDS pandemic is found in the medical, religion, and sociology literatures. In particular, studies have shown that predominantly Christian countries tend to have higher HIV rates than predominantly Muslim countries. These relationships have been largely unexplored by economists and we seek to identify underlying institutions using a panel of up to 43 sub-Saharan African countries for 1990- 2010. Catholic antagonism towards condom use has often but proposed, but we report that the protestant (rather than the Catholic) population share drives the Christianity/HIV correlation. (Also, condom use actually correlates positively with HIV …

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State Bankruptcy Law And Entrepreneurship: Evidence From A Border Analysis, Shawn M. Rohlin, Amanda Ross Jan 2014

State Bankruptcy Law And Entrepreneurship: Evidence From A Border Analysis, Shawn M. Rohlin, Amanda Ross

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

This paper examines how differences in state bankruptcy laws, specifically the amount of the homestead exemption, affect business location decisions within a few miles of the state boundary. By focusing on these border areas, we are able to more effectively control for unobserved local attributes and isolate the effect of more wealth protection. We find that an increase in the homestead exemption attracts new businesses. We also find that a more generous homestead exemption has a positive impact on existing businesses, suggesting that asset protection through bankruptcy law encourages successful entrepreneurs to incur the risks. Our results indicate that the …

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Local Government Border Congruence And The Fiscal Commons: Evidence From Ohio School Districts*, Joshua C. Hall Jan 2014

Local Government Border Congruence And The Fiscal Commons: Evidence From Ohio School Districts*, Joshua C. Hall

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

School district and municipal borders do not always align. Noncongruent borders can create a fiscal commons problem where new development does not entirely “pay its way.” In response, frustrated citizens often respond by voting for lower school spending. Using GIS data on Ohio school districts, the degree of non-congruence between school district and municipal territory is calculated. The results indicate that school districts with non-congruent borders generate less revenue from local sources and that these effects seem to increase with the degree of non-congruence. The findings are robust between OLS and treatment effects regression.

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Housing Vouchers And The Price Of Rental Housing, Michael D. Eriksen, Amanda Ross Jan 2014

Housing Vouchers And The Price Of Rental Housing, Michael D. Eriksen, Amanda Ross

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

We estimate the effect of increasing the supply of housing vouchers on rents using a panel of housing units in the American Housing Survey. We do not find that an increase in vouchers affected the overall price of rental housing, but do estimate differences in effects based on an individual unit’s rent before the voucher expansion. Our results are consistent with voucher recipients renting more expensive units after receiving the subsidy. We also find that the largest price increases were for units near the maximum allowable voucher rent in cities with an inelastic housing supply.

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Loss Aversion, Team Relocations, And Major League Expansion, Brad Humphreys, Li Zhou Jan 2014

Loss Aversion, Team Relocations, And Major League Expansion, Brad Humphreys, Li Zhou

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

Professional sports teams receive large public subsidies for new facility construction. Empirical research suggests that these subsidies cannot be justified by tangible or intangible economic benefits. We develop a model of bargaining between local governments and teams over subsidies that includes league expansion decisions. The model features loss aversion by fans that captures lost utility when a team leaves a city. The model predicts that teams exploit this loss aversion to extract larger than expected subsidies from local governments, providing an explanation for these large subsidies and highlighting the importance of anti-trust exemptions in enhancing teams' bargaining positions.

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Has The War Between The Rent Seekers Escalated?, Russell S. Sobel, Joshua C. Hall Jan 2014

Has The War Between The Rent Seekers Escalated?, Russell S. Sobel, Joshua C. Hall

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

Vedder and Gallaway (1991) develop and test a unique theory about the interactions between the levels of spending captured by rent-seeking interest groups. They hypothesize that initially rent seekers cooperate in ways that expand government spending and rents. At some point, however, groups can only expand their rents at the expense of other rent-seekers and that this relationship will strengthen over time. In this brief note, we update their empirical model 20 years into the future and find their prediction was accurate. The relationship is now stronger and more states have moved into the negative range.

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The Direct And Indirect Effects Of Small Business Administration Lending On Growth: Evidence From U.S. County-Level Data, Andrew T. Young, Matthew J. Higgins, Donald J. Lacombe, Briana Sell Jan 2014

The Direct And Indirect Effects Of Small Business Administration Lending On Growth: Evidence From U.S. County-Level Data, Andrew T. Young, Matthew J. Higgins, Donald J. Lacombe, Briana Sell

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

Conventional wisdom suggests that small businesses are innovative engines of Schumpetarian growth. However, as small businesses, they are likely to face credit rationing in financial markets. If true then policies that promote lending to small businesses may yield substantial economy-wide returns. We examine the relationship between Small Business Administration (SBA) lending and local economic growth using a spatial econometric framework and a sample of 3,035 U.S. counties for the years 1980 to 2009. We find evidence that a county’s SBA lending per capita is associated with direct negative effects on its income growth. We also find evidence of indirect negative …

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A Replication Of “The Political Determinants Of Federal Expenditure At The State Level” (Public Choice, 2005), Stratford Douglas, W. Robert Reed Dec 2013

A Replication Of “The Political Determinants Of Federal Expenditure At The State Level” (Public Choice, 2005), Stratford Douglas, W. Robert Reed

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

This paper replicates and analyses a study by Hoover and Pecorino (2005) on federal spending in US states. H&P followed on path-breaking research by Atlas et al. (1995) in which evidence was claimed in favour of the “small state effect;” namely, that since every state is represented by two senators, small states have a disproportionate influence relative to their population size. Using H&P’s data, we both replicate their results, and demonstrate strong support for the small state effect when we formally test their predictions. The contribution of this study is that we demonstrate that this empirical support vanishes when we …

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An Aggregation Matrix Matlab Function, Caleb Stair Dec 2013

An Aggregation Matrix Matlab Function, Caleb Stair

Regional Research Institute Technical Documents

This Technical Document describes the foundations for an aggregation matrix function implemented in MATLAB, including the format and structure of the required aggregation vector used as an argument to the function. The function is passed with the Ndimensional aggregation vector as an argument. The aggregation vector contains N values ranging from 1 to M, each of which is the aggregate index corresponding to the N preaggregation indices. The function returns an aggregation matrix with M rows and N columns. Pre-multiplying an existing matrix with N rows by the aggregation matrix reduces the row dimensionality from N to M by adding …

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Integrating Input-Output And Life Cycle Assessment: Mathematical Foundations, Randall Jackson Dec 2013

Integrating Input-Output And Life Cycle Assessment: Mathematical Foundations, Randall Jackson

Regional Research Institute Resource Documents

Input-output (IO) and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) modeling share a strikingly similar mathematical foundation and formulation, yet melding the two frameworks is not completely straightforward. In particular, the boundaries of the two systems must be brought into alignment carefully, so as to avoid double counting. In this document, the two frameworks and their mathematical foundations are presented in brief, and the salient issues that enter into procedures integrating the two are highlighted.

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