Economics Commons^™

Learning Effects Of The Flipped Classroom In A Principles Of Microeconomics Course Running Header: Flipped Principles Of Micro, Erik Craft, Maia K. Linask

Economics Faculty Publications

The authors of this article estimate the learning effects of the flipped classroom format using data from 16 sections of principles of microeconomics over a 4-year period. The experimental design is unique in that two treatment and two control sections were taught during the fall semester in four consecutive years. Further, the instructor switched the time of day when the treatment and control sections were taught each year. Controlling for gender, ACT score, a normed high school GPA, Pell Grant award, time of day, and initial knowledge of economics, the authors find no evidence of increased learning using end-of-semester measures …

What Should We Teach In Intermediate Macroeconomics?, Dean D. Croushore

Economics Faculty Publications

The major focus of a course in Intermediate Macroeconomics is building and understanding macroeconomic models and how they work. The course is the most analytical course in the curriculum and should lead students to embark on deep thinking about models and equilibrium. Students learn the essentials of a model and develop the concept of how to simplify a model to understand key concepts. Once the core of a model is developed, additional model features can be added to increase realism. Perhaps the most important macroeconomic concept in the course is that of general equilibrium—students learn to go beyond examining initial …

Fiscal Surprises At The Fomc, Dean D. Croushore, Simon Van Norden

Economics Faculty Publications

We examine a new set of U.S. fiscal forecasts from FOMC briefing books. The forecasts were precisely those presented to monetary policymakers and include frequently updated estimates covering six complete business cycles and several fiscal-policy regimes. We detail the performance of forecast federal expenditures, revenues, surpluses, and structural surpluses in terms of accuracy, bias, and efficiency. We find that forecast errors can be economically large, even at relatively short forecast horizons. While economic activity became less volatile after 1990, fiscal policy became harder to forecast. Finally, cyclically adjusted deficit forecasts appear to be overoptimistic around both business cycle peaks and …

Switching Majors – Into And Out Of Economics, Tisha L. N. Emerson, Kimmarie Mcgoldrick

Economics Faculty Publications

Using student transcripts from six institutions over a 23-year timespan, the authors investigate the movement of students into and out of the economics major. Considerable movement between majors occurs with 83 percent of economics graduates switching in after their first principles course. These eventual majors come from a variety of sources, but primarily from business, engineering, science & math. In an absolute sense, weaker students (as measured by cumulative GPA) switch into economics. However, students appear to move to disciplines of relative academic strength (as indicated by relative grades). While females from other majors are less likely to switch into …

Coordination Costs, Market Size, And The Choice Of Technology, Haiwen Zhou

Economics Faculty Publications

Impact of coordination costs and market size on a firm’s choice of technology is studied in a general equilibrium model in which firms engage in oligopolistic competition. A firm establishes an organizational hierarchy to coordinate its production. First, it is shown that an increase in market size leads a firm to choose a more specialized technology. Second, surprisingly, a robust result is that an increase in the level of coordination efficiency leads a firm to choose a less specialized technology.

Honoring Veterans Means Funding Suicide Prevention, Brendan Cushing-Daniels, Christopher R. Fee

Economics Faculty Publications

Many Americans may not know that it was Dwight D. Eisenhower who in 1954 issued the official proclamation celebrating the service of all veterans by designating Nov. 11, formerly known as Armistice Day, in honor of our vets. Eisenhower, of course, was supreme commander of Allied Forces in Europe during World War II and commander in chief as the 34th president of the United States.

In Ike’s words, “on that day let us solemnly remember the sacrifices of all those who fought so valiantly, on the seas, in the air, and on foreign shores, to preserve our heritage of freedom, …

The Exporting And Subcontracting Decisions Of Viet Nam's Small- And Medium-Sized Enterprises, Catherine Y. Co, Thu Kim Nguyen, Tung Nhu Nguyen, Que Nguyet Tran

Economics Faculty Publications

The exporting and subcontracting decisions of a panel of Vietnamese private small- and medium-sized enterprises is investigated. We find that among subcontractors, subcontracting is a supplementary rather than primary activity; the propensity to export increases with managers' or owners' knowledge of customs law; and, there is some evidence that subcontractors are more likely to have made product improvements while exporters are more likely to have adopted new processes or technologies. Our study provides useful insights into SME exporting and subcontracting strategies made more relevant by the expected reductions in trade costs associated with the World Trade Organization's Trade Facilitation …

Adjusting For Guessing And Applying A Statistical Test To The Disaggregation Of Value-Added Learning Scores, Ben O. Smith, Jamie Wagner

Economics Faculty Publications

In 2016, Walstad and Wagner developed a procedure to split pre-test and post-test responses into four learning types: positive, negative, retained, and zero learning. This disaggregation is not only useful in academic studies; but also provides valuable insight to the practitioner: an instructor would take different mitigating actions in response to zero versus negative learning. However, the original disaggregation is sensitive to student guessing. This article extends the original work by accounting for guessing and provides adjusted estimators using the existing disaggregated values. Further, Monte Carlo simulations of the adjusted learning type estimates are provided. Under certain assumptions, an instructor …

Can Maternity Benefits Have Long-Term Effects On Childbearing? Evidence From Soviet Russia, Olga Malkova

Economics Faculty Publications

This paper quantifies the effects of Russia’s 1981 expansion in maternity benefits on completed childbearing. The program provided one year of partially paid parental leave and a small cash transfer upon a child’s birth. I exploit the program’s two-stage implementation and find evidence that women had more children as a result of the program. Fertility rates rose immediately by 8.2% over twelve months. The increase in fertility rates not only persisted for the ten-year duration of the program, but it reflected large increases in higher-order births to older women who already had children before the program started.

Effects Of The Affordable Care Act On Health Care Access And Self-Assessed Health After 3 Years, Charles J. Courtemanche, James Marton, Benjamin Ukert, Aaron Yelowitz, Daniela Zapata

Economics Faculty Publications

Using data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, we examine the causal impact of the Affordable Care Act on health-related outcomes after 3 years. We estimate difference-in-difference-in-differences models that exploit variation in treatment intensity from 2 sources: (1) local area prereform uninsured rates from 2013 and (2) state participation in the Medicaid expansion. Including the third postreform year leads to 2 important insights. First, gains in health insurance coverage and access to care from the policy continued to increase in the third year. Second, an improvement in the probability of reporting excellent health emerged in the third year, with …

Employment-Based Health Insurance And Aggregate Labor Supply, Zhigang Feng, Kai Zhao

Economics Faculty Publications

We study the impact of the U.S. employment-based health insurance system on the employment rate, the shares of full-time/part-time workers, and aggregate hours worked in a general equilibrium life cycle model with incomplete markets and idiosyncratic risks in both income and medical expenses. In contrast to most Europeans, who get universal health insurance from the government, most working-age Americans get health insurance through their employers. We find that the employment-based health insurance system provides Americans with an extra incentive to work and work full-time. In a calibrated version of the model, we assess the extent to which the different health …

Estimating State-Industry Employment, With An Application To Industrial Localization, Andrew J. Cassey, Ben O. Smith

Economics Faculty Publications

We describe a method to construct an industry-by-state repeated cross-section of employment at the most disaggregated level publicly available, covering 1963–2012. Nondisclosed data are estimated with a procedure using the hierarchical information structure. To illustrate the usefulness of the procedure, the resulting estimated data are tested to determine if industrial localization of the processed food sector has changed over the last 50 years in the United States. Our findings suggest it has not changed systemically despite variation in levels of localization within industries.

The Effects O F Financial Education On Short-Term And Long-Term Financial Behaviors, Jamie Wagner, William B. Walstad

Economics Faculty Publications

This study investigates how financial education in high school, college, or in the workplace affects the short‐ and long‐term financial behaviors of adults using the 2015 National Financial Capability Study (NFCS) data. Financial education appears to have generally insignificant effects on short‐term behaviors for which there is regular feedback and penalties, and thus greater opportunity for learning by doing. If consumers do not pay off their credit card bill, they get a monthly statement showing interest charges and penalties. Financial education appears to have more positive and stronger effects on long‐term behaviors with less timely feedback, and for which the …

Congenital Chagas Disease In The United States: Cost Savings Through Maternal Screening, Eileen Stillwaggon, Victoria Perez-Zetune, Stephanie R. Bialek, Susan P. Montgomery

Economics Faculty Publications

Chagas disease, caused by Trypanosoma cruzi, is transmitted by insect vectors through transfusions, transplants, insect feces in food, and from mother to child during gestation. Congenital infection could perpetuate Chagas disease indefinitely, even in countries without vector transmission. An estimated 30% of infected persons will develop lifelong, potentially fatal, cardiac or digestive complications. Treatment of infants with benznidazole is highly efficacious in eliminating infection. This work evaluates the costs of maternal screening and infant testing and treatment of Chagas disease in the United States. We constructed a decision-analytic model to find the lower cost option, comparing costs of testing and …

Create Random Assignments: A Cloud-Based Tool To Help Implement Alternative Teaching Materials, Jadrian J. Wooten, Ben O. Smith

Economics Faculty Publications

Research has shown that learning is enhanced by variety (Bransford, Brown, and Cocking 2000; Halpern and Hakel 2003) such as popular press books, podcasts and videos. However, these mediums do not contain question banks and further, while learning management systems (LMS) can be used to generate random quizzes, they are not designed for long-form open-ended responses that might be answered over the course of a few days to weeks; open-ended questions are often ideal in upper-level undergraduate and MBA courses where there are less definitive correct answers. We solve these problems by developing software to generate assignments with randomized open-ended …

Multiplatform Software Tool To Disaggregate And Adjust Value-Added Learning Scores, Ben O. Smith

Economics Faculty Publications

In 2016, Walstad and Wagner released an article that suggested practitioners should disaggregate value-added learning scores into four categories: positive, negative, retained, and zero learning. Positive learning is said to occur when a student answers a question incorrectly on the pre-test and correctly on the post-test. Negative learning is said to occur when the student correctly answers the question on the pre-test but incorrectly on the post-test. Retained learning is said to occur when the student answers the question correctly on both exams and zero learning is said to occur when the student answers the question incorrectly on both exams. …

Compensation Negotiation And Corporate Governance: The Evidence From China, Xinjun Lyu, Christopher Decker, Jinlan Ni

Economics Faculty Publications

This paper examines CEO pay dispersion for the listed companies in China. We apply a two-tier stochastic frontier model to the CEO compensation framework where asymmetric information generates a surplus between the minimum wage that CEOs accept and the maximum payment that firms offer. This surplus leads to CEO pay dispersion coming from the negotiation power between the CEO and the firm. We generate the surplus extracted by each CEO-firm pair and analyze how corporate governance affects them. An empirical analysis finds that: (1) On average, CEOs are paid 23.26% more than the benchmark; (2) additionally, we examine the bargaining …

Understanding Hiv/Aids In The African Context, Eileen Stillwaggon, Larry Sawers

Economics Faculty Publications

This book of readings is intended for courses in Global Health. The editors asked Prof. Stillwaggon to contribute a chapter summarizing her years of work on the spread of HIV/AIDS in populations among whom bacterial, fungal, parasitic, and viral diseases are extremely common, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. Her work has demonstrated that differences in behavior cannot explain differences in HIV rates between world regions.

Measuring Faculty Teaching Effectiveness Using Conditional Fixed Effects, Maia K. Linask, James Monks

Economics Faculty Publications

Using a dataset of 48 faculty members and 88 courses over 26 semesters, the authors estimate Student Evaluation of Teaching (SET) ratings that are conditional on a multitude of course, faculty, and student attributes. They find that ratings are lower for required courses and those where students report a lower prior level of interest. Controlling for these variables substantially alters the SET ratings for many instructors. The average absolute value of the difference between the faculty ratings controlling just for time effects and fully conditional ratings is nearly one-half of a standard deviation in the students’ rating of how much …

Bicycle Infrastructure And Traffic Congestion: Evidence From Dc's Capital Bikeshare, Timothy L. Hamilton, Casey J. Wichman

Economics Faculty Publications

This study explores the impact of bicycle-sharing infrastructure on urban transportation. We estimate a causal effect of the Capital Bikeshare on traffic congestion in the metropolitan Washington, D.C., area. We exploit a unique traffic dataset that is finely defined on a spatial and temporal scale. Our approach examines within-city commuting decisions as opposed to traffic patterns on major thruways. Empirical results suggest that the availability of a bikeshare reduces traffic congestion upwards of 4% within a neighborhood. In addition, we estimate heterogeneous treatment effects using panel quantile regression. Results indicate that the congestion-reducing impact of bikeshares is concentrated in highly …

Untangling The Health Impacts Of Mexico - U.S. Migration, David Ortmeyer, Michael A. Quinn

Economics Faculty Publications

Research has found that immigrant health has a tendency to decline with time spent in the United States. Using data from the Mexican Migration Project from 2007-2014, this paper is the first to test the impact of domestic and international migration on different types of health measures. Results find cumulative U.S. migration experience has a negative impact both on self-reported and objective health measures. By contrast, the number of trips to the United States and migrations made within Mexico impact individual’s self-assessment of their health but not objective health measures. The analyses suggest that differences in self-reported versus objective health …

Teacher Training For Phd Students And New Faculty In Economics, Sam Allgood, Gail Hoyt, Kimmarie Mcgoldrick

Economics Faculty Publications

Past studies suggest that a majority of economics graduate students engage in teaching-related activities during graduate school and many go on to academic positions afterwards. However, not all graduate students are formally prepared to teach while in graduate school nor are they fully prepared to teach in their first academic position. The authors characterize current teaching experience and training of graduate students from the point of view of directors of graduate studies and of newly minted academic economists. The authors also query department chairs and new faculty about teacher training, support available for new faculty, and the degree to which …

The Gender Gap In Economics Degrees: An Investigation Of The Role Model And Quantitative Requirement Hypotheses, Tisha L. N. Emerson, Kimmarie Mcgoldrick, John J. Siegfried

Economics Faculty Publications

Using a panel of 159 institutions over 10 years, we investigate the role model effect of women faculty and quantitative requirements on the female proportion of undergraduate economics majors. We find no evidence that female faculty attract female students. Calculus, however, does matter. A one semester calculus requirement is associated with more female majors at institutions offering business degrees and liberal arts colleges. A second semester calculus requirement deters women from majoring in economics at Ph.D.–granting universities, but is associated with more female majors at liberal arts colleges. Econometrics requirements are unrelated to the gender gap in economics majors.

The High Costs Of Large Enrollment Classes: Can Cooperative Learning Help?, Tisha L. N. Emerson, Linda K. English, Kimmarie Mcgoldrick

Economics Faculty Publications

We examine the potential for cooperative learning activities to offset costs of large enrollment courses. We use a quasi-experimental research design to examine achievement and course perceptions in small and large enrollment sections of microeconomic principles. While large enrollment sections attain lower levels of achievement (measured by course score) than those with smaller enrollments, this effect is partially mitigated by use of cooperative learning. Furthermore, while students in large enrollment sections report lower levels of satisfaction and learning than students in smaller sized classes, the use of cooperative learning eliminates the negative effects of increased class size on student perceptions.

Nonlinear Taylor Rules: Evidence From A Large Dataset, Jun Ma, Eric Olson, Mark E. Wohar

Economics Faculty Publications

In this paper we estimate nonlinear Taylor rules over the 1986–2008 sample time period and augment the traditional Taylor rule by including principal components to better model Federal Reserve policy. Including principal components is useful in that they extract information about the overall economy from multiple economic indicators in a statistically optimal way. Additionally, given that uncertainty may influence Federal Reserve decisions, we incorporate an uncertainty index in the reaction function of the Federal Reserve. We find substantial evidence that the Federal Reserve responded to increases in macroeconomic uncertainty by cutting the Federal Funds rate over the sample period. We …

Lesson Plans For Teaching Economics With The Big Bang Theory, Wayne Geerling, G. Dirk Mateer, Ben O. Smith, James E. Tierney, Jadrian J. Wooten

Economics Faculty Publications

Using examples in the classroom from current and past television shows and movies is becoming increasingly common. Being able to relate ideas back to a popular clip or episode allows the instructor to reach students in ways the traditional lecture cannot. Building on the work of Tierney, Mateer, Smith, Wooten, and Geerling (2016), this paper introduces five lesson plans tied to clips from The Big Bang Theory that can be used in high school (9-12) economics courses.

How Culture Affects Doing Business In The Global Economy, Mingming Pan, Ndem Tazifor, Benjamin Widner, Chrstina Medina, Carl Enomoto

Economics Faculty Publications

While several studies have examined the effects of culture on economic growth,
/="/">economic development, foreign direct investment, and the formation of joint ventures, few if any have analyzed the effects of culture on specific aspects of doing business such as starting a business, dealing with construction permits, registering property, obtaining credit, enforcing contracts, and resolving insolvency. Using different cultural variables, this study found that the emphasize individuals placed on religion, leisure time, family, the environment, nationality, prostitution, gender roles, power distance, individualism, and uncertainty avoidance, had significant effects on different business activities. Due to the complex nature of culture, …

Fiscal Forecasts At The Fomc: Evidence From The Greenbooks, Dean D. Croushore, Simon Van Norden

Economics Faculty Publications

This paper examines fiscal policy forecasts prepared for the Federal Open Market Committee and its influence on U.S. monetary policy. The forecasts contain useful information beyond that in the CBO’s forecasts. Fiscal forecast errors are only weakly correlated with forecast errors for inflation and output growth, but those for the budget surplus are highly correlated with those for the unemployment rate and the output gap. Some fiscal variables can also account for a significant fraction of the “exogenous” changes in the federal funds rate target that Romer and Romer (2004) studied, consistent with the board’s statements on the importance of …

The Role Of Teaching And Teacher Training In The Hiring And Promotion Of Ph.D. Economists, Sam Allgood, Gail Hoyt, Kimmarie Mcgoldrick

Economics Faculty Publications

Surveys suggest that a majority of graduate students seek academic positions after completing their degree. We survey groups involved in the job market to determine the roles of teaching and research in hiring and the subsequent success of new faculty. We find that while characteristics that signal research potential are highly valued by both graduate directors and department chairs, there are significant discrepancies in the extent that teaching is valued in the hiring process across institution types. Furthermore, although new faculty devote half of their time to teaching, only half of them agree that graduate school prepared them to teach.

One Potential Problem With The Fed’S Vote To Raise Interest Rates: The Fed Might Not Know How The Economy Works, Louis D. Johnston

Economics Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.