Economics Commons^™

Evolving Tenure Rights And Agricultural Intensification In Southwestern Burkina Faso, Michael Kevane, Leslie C. Gray

Economics

Popular and official representations of the environment in Burkina Faso present soils as fragile and potentially subject to catastrophic collapse in fertility. In the cotton growing zone of southwestern Burkina Faso, researchers and policy makers attribute changes in land cover and land quality to population growth. This paper presents evidence questioning the dominant "population-degradation narrative" as applied to Burkina. We find that farmers are intensifying their production systems. While population has led to land scarcity, farmers are responding to both the resulting uncertainty in land rights and reductions in soil quality by intensifying the production process. Investments are used both …

Economic Education And Government Reform In The Republic Of Georgia, Craig Macphee

Department of Economics: Faculty Publications

The author describes public education through the media and training for government officials and for journalists undertaken as part of economic reform efforts in the Republic of Georgia of the former Soviet Union. The article concludes with a discussion of the necessary conditions for success of these broad-based educational efforts.

Geography, Industrial Organization, And Agglomeration Heteroskedasticity Models With Estimates Of The Variances Of Foreign Exchange Rates, Chihwa Kao

Center for Policy Research

This paper proposes a robust estimation procedure, the bounded influence estimate (BIS), which is robust against departure from the conditional normality of the autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (ARCH) models to describe the behavior of exchange rates. First, the BIE identifies the additive outliers (AO, e.g., Fox 1972) caused by abnormal information arrivals which may be triggered by changes in domestic policies and international shocks. Identification of outliers allows us to analyze the major economic and political factors that contribute directly to the dramatic changes in exchange rates. Second, the performance of the BIE is compared with the maximum likelihood estimate (MLE) …

Effectiveness And Efficiency Of Investment Strategies: A Simulation Model, Ellen Denise Bruno Ramsey

Graduate Student Dissertations, Theses, Capstones, and Portfolios

This dissertation, through an historical study, attempts to give the reader a clear depiction of different types of investment strategies. The four diverse investment strategies, as compared to the Optimal Strategy, were tested from December 1, 1997, through January 30, 2001 Three years of daily closing price data was obtained and utilized within a simulated model. Ten stocks, from ten diverse sectors, listed on the S&P 500 as well as the National Association of Investment Clubs (NAIC) 1999 Individual Investor's Top 100 Index, were analyzed and evaluated for each investment strategy over the duration of the study. By using Standard …

Theory, Application And The Canon: The Case Of Mill And Jevons, Sandra J. Peart

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

Whatever disputes remain about the nature and content of the "canon" of economics, it is widely accepted that the boundary of economic science was narrowed throughout the nineteenth century (Winch 1972). This chapter offers a partial explanation for that narrowing in the methodological developments that occurred during the second half of the century. For reasons of practicality in the face of pronounced "multiplicity of cause," John Stuart Mill called, In his 1836 Essay On the Definition of Political Economy; and on the Method of Investigation Proper to It, and again in his 1843 Logic, for a separate …

The Role Of Fdi And Rural-Urban Migration In The Future Of Indonesian Economic Growth, Iwan Jaya Azis, Ari Kuncoro

Jurnal Ekonomi dan Pembangunan Indonesia

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Behind China's Success Story: Comparing The Economic Development Of China And India, Ari A. Perdana

Jurnal Ekonomi dan Pembangunan Indonesia

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Unpacking ‘Adam Smith: Critical Theorist?’, Spencer J. Pack

Economics Faculty Publications

This paper responds to Keith Tribe's provocative Journal of Economic Literature article, “Adam Smith: Critical Theorist?” There Tribe argued that most people most of the time grossly misread Smith, due, among other things, to their quite inadequate appreciation of Smith's linguistic, social, moral, and theological context. Against Tribe, the paper argues that Smith can profitably be read as both an eighteenth-century moralist and a twenty-first century critic. Smith can be a source of inspiration, wisdom and profundity for contemporary economists. Moreover, Smith can be successfully employed by modern economists to change, deepen, and broaden contemporary economic theory.

An Econometric Look At Inefficiency Among Us States, 1977-1986, Gregory J. Brock

Economics: Faculty Publications

U.S. states during the 1977-1986 business cycle are found to have small but significant technical inefficiency in the private sector. Inefficiency is influenced by several factors, including prior economic performance, location, Hicks labor augmenting technical progress in the manufacturing sector in an earlier 1970s period, college graduation, and income inequality. The existence of a monetary channel, urban agglomeration, and a high school diploma "sheepskin" effect for improved technical efficiency are rejected. Results from earlier studies using noneconometric methods to measure technical efficiency are independently confirmed, indicating that interstate technical inefficiency exists and can be measured using both parametric and nonparametric …

Risk Based Urban Watershed Management Under Conflicting Objectives, Vladimir Novotny, David E. Clark, Robert J. Griffin, Douglas Booth

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

Ecological impairment and flooding caused by urbanization can be expressed numerically by calculating the risks throughout the watershed (floodplain) and along the main stems of the streams. The risks can be evaluated in terms of the present and/or future. This article describes the methodologies for ascertaining the risks in the Geographical Information Systems (GIS) environment. The objectives of urban flood controls and ecological preservation/restoration of urban waters are often conflicting and, in the past, the sole emphasis on flood control led to destruction of habitat and deterioration of water quality. An optimal solution to these two problems may be achieved …

Optimum Currency Areas: The Case Of Iceland, Kristal Ford

Masters Theses

This paper applies Mundell's criteria of Optimum Currency Areas to Iceland. The three criteria examined are: the openness of Iceland with the European Monetary Union, the symmetry of shocks in Iceland and the European Monetary Union, and the wage flexibility and labor mobility of Iceland. In all three cases it is found that Iceland should be in the European Monetary Union. This paper then discusses three possible exchange rate arrangements for Iceland, which are keep their current exchange rate system, adopt the euro, and join the European Monetary Union. The conclusion for Iceland's exchange rate policy is to join the …

Agent Identity In Economics, John B. Davis

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Introduction To Economics Broadly Considered, Jeff E. Biddle, John B. Davis, Steven G. Medema

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Gifts And Trade: Microwskian, Gudemanian, And Milbergian Themes, John B. Davis

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Donald E. Moggridge As An Historian Of Economic Thought, John B. Davis

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of Financial Reform On Private Savings In Bangladesh, Abdur Chowdhury

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

Over the course of the last decade, Bangladesh has implemented a broad-based program of financial and market reforms, encompassing changes in the structure of the financial system, prudential and supervisory frameworks, and monetary management. This paper estimates a savings function to evaluate the impact of various determinants of private savings in Bangladesh—with special emphasis on the impact of financial reform. The results show that the level of income, real interest rates, and the share of agriculture in GDP have a positive impact on the savings rate. Dependency rate and public savings rate, on the other hand, have a negative impact …

External Debt And Growth In Developing Countries: A Sensitivity And Causal Analysis, Abdur Chowdhury

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

The paper aims to enhance the existing literature on the debt-growth nexus by analysing the relationship in two separate country groups using the extreme bounds analysis for sensitivity tests and the mixed, fixed, and random coefficient approach that allows for heterogeneity in the causal relationship between debt and growth. Irrespective of the debt measure used, the results are robust across the two country groups—HIPC and non-HIPC—as well as two different testing procedures. The extreme bounds analysis shows that the relationship between a debt measure and economic growth is robust to changes in the conditioning set of information included in the …

Introduction To Guiding Global Order: G8 Governance In The Twenty First Century, John J. Kirton, Joseph P. Daniels, Andreas Freytag

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

The G8'S Contributions To Twenty-First Century Governance, John J. Kirton, Joseph P. Daniels, Andreas Freytag

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of Large Plant Closure On Small Firm Creation In Kitchener, Ontario, 1987 To 1998, Christopher William Charman

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The impact of restructuring in the manufacturing sector of Kitchener, Ontario has been felt in many ways. For those who were displaced, the alternatives for re-employment were limited. In some cases, workers have turned to self employment and small firm creation as a source of income. This study attempts to quantify the business dynamic at work in the Manufacturing and Business Service sectors in Kitchener between 1987 and 1998. Using a database developed from the Kitchener Business Directory the process of manufacturing loss and service industry increase is studied. The examination follows new business creation, the change in activity within …

Switching, Mean-Seeking, And Relative Risk With Two Or More Risky Assets, Gregory M. Gelles, Douglas W. Mitchell

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

This paper relates and extends two strands of literature on behavioral implications of utility function features. A class of utility functions switching preference no more than once between W0 r~ and W0 s~ is identified (r~ and s~ being per-dollar returns of alternative portfolios), as is the subclass permitting only switches to the higher-mean portfolio. This latter subclass, which permits expected utility to be expressed in terms of the mean and suitably defined relative risk of final wealth, never decreases expected per-dollar final wealth and never decreases relative risk of final wealth in optimal n-asset portfolios as initial wealth rises.

Nipa Profits Vs S&P Earnings, Anwar Shaikh Phd

Archives of Anwar Shaikh

This collection includes:

• Shaikh, A. NIPA profits vs. S&P earnings; r_corp; Q-values (Unpublished work).
• Petrick, K. A. (2001). Comparing NIPA profits with S&P 500 profits. Survey of Current Business, U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.
• Shaikh, A. (2001). Handwritten comments on comparing NIPA profits with S&P 500 profits (Unpublished manuscript).
• Larkins, D., & Morris, R. W. (2001). Note on profitability of domestic nonfinancial corporations, 1960–2000. Survey of Current Business, U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.
• Shaikh, A. (2001). Handwritten annotations on profitability of domestic nonfinancial corporations (Unpublished manuscript).

Ral And Labor Wage Curve, Misc. Papers, Anwar Shaikh Phd

Archives of Anwar Shaikh

This collection includes:

• Asymmetries in U.K. wage share and employment rate, 1855-1999 [Annotated research paper on Goodwin growth-cycle asymmetries]. (2001).
• Screpanti, E. (1998, December). Wages, employment and militancy: A simple model and some empirical tests [Working paper]. Quaderni del Dipartimento di Economia Politica, Universita degli Studi di Siena.

What Moves Stock Markets? Evidence That Uk Stock Prices Deviate From Fundamentals, David E. Allen, Wenling Yang

Research outputs pre 2011

This article examines the deviation of the UK market index from market fundamentals implied by the simple dividend discount model and identifies other components that also affect price movements. The components are classified as permanent, temporary, excess stock returns and nonfundamental innovations in terms of a multivariate moving average model (Lee (1998)). We find that time varying discounted rates play an active role in explaining price deviations.

Skewness Is The Name Of The Game, Y. H. Cheung

Research outputs pre 2011

Theoretical models of risk taking attempt to explain why risk-averse individuals participate in unfair gambles. This paper evaluates the two explanations as to why rational individuals would accept gambles with negative expected returns. It is found that it is skewness, not the mean or the variance of the prize distribution that attracts risk-averse gamblers. However, evidence shows that there seems to be an optimal trade-off between operators’ sales revenues and skewness of the pay-off; a point that designer of gambling games needs to heed to.

Gender Differences In Information Resource Usage When Making Retirement Saving Decisions, Marilyn Clark-Murphy, Paul Gerrans

Research outputs pre 2011

Population ageing is raising the profile of retirement incomes policy. In Australia assets of retirement savings funds are growing rapidly and fund members are assuming a greater role in determining funds' investment strategies. The decision processes of fund members have not been extensively researched, however, these decisions are significant not only for members but also for employers and government. This paper provides information on retirement savings in Australia and reports on a survey of members of the Superannuation Scheme for Australian Universities (SSAU). In 1999 members of SSAU were asked to choose between a defined benefit scheme or one of …

Another Look At The Size And Book-To-Market Effects On Stock Returns, Chien-Ting Lin

Research outputs pre 2011

In this study, I test the robustness of size and book-to-market effects on average stock returns reported by Fama and French (FF, 1992, 1993) using a sample that is less subject to survivorship bias and a longer sampling period. Specifically, I exclude NASDAQ stocks in the sample to reduce survivorship bias that has largely been induced by Compustat during an expansion project in 1978. Survivorship bias exists when the sustaining and successful firms are included in the data and those firms that fail or merge with other firms are omitted. Since NASDAQ stocks tend to have relatively smaller stocks than …

M-Garch Hedge Ratios And Hedging Effectiveness In Australian Futures Markets [Working Paper], Wenling Yang

Research outputs pre 2011

This study estimates optimal hedge ratios using various econometric models. Applying daily AOIs and SPI futures on the Australian market, optimal hedge ratios are calculated from the OLS regression model, the bivariate vector autoregressive model (BVAR), the error-correction model (ECM) and the multivariate diagonal Vec GARCH Model. The hedging effectiveness is measured in terms of ex-post and ex-ante risk-return tradeoff at various forecasting horizons. It is generally found that the GARCH time varying hedge ratios provide the greatest portfolio risk reduction, particularly for longer hedging horizons, but they do not generate the highest portfolio return.

Mutual Fund Company Mergers And Their Impact On Investment Flows, David Allen, Jerry Parwada

Research outputs pre 2011

No abstract provided.

Historical Foundations Second Paper, Anwar Shaikh Phd

Archives of Anwar Shaikh

This collection includes.

• Anwar Shaikh. (n.d.). Partial list of topics for the second paper in economics 104: Historical foundations of political economy, focusing on Marx’s analysis of commodities, value, money, and profits [Unpublished course document; probable authorship attributed to Anwar Shaikh, PhD]. Author.