Economics Commons^™

Latinos In Massachusetts: Selected Economic Indicators, Ramon Borges-Mendez, Nicole Lavan, Charles Jones

Gastón Institute Publications

This brief presents an analysis of various economic indicators pertaining to the Latino population in metropolitan areas of high Latino concentration in Massachusetts. It includes information on and comparisons of the Primary Metropolitan Areas of Boston and the Metropolitan Statistical Area of Springfield and when available the Primary Metropolitan Area of Lawrence. The information comes from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey of 2004.

Applications Of Time-Varying-Parameter Models To Economics And Finance, Peng Huang

Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on applying time-varying-parameter models to the field of financial and monetary economics. The first two essays analyze the cross-sectional returns on the U.S. stock market by emphasizing the dynamics of risk loadings. The third essay studies the impact of a tight monetary policy on weak currencies during financial crises by examining the time-varying relationship between interest rates and exchange rates.

Motivated by the pricing errors found in small size and low book-to-market ratio portfolios in the Fama-French three-factor model, the first essay proposes a time-varying four-factor model. As small size and low book-to-market ratio firms are more …

An Evaluation Of Michigan Regional Skills Alliances (Mirsas): Final Report, Kevin Hollenbeck, Randall W. Eberts

Reports

No abstract provided.

Protection For Sale Under Monopolistic Competition: An Empirical Investigation, Pao Li Chang, Myoung-Jae Lee

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper proposes a general empirical framework to estimate the protection-for-sale model, where the protection regime shifts according to a sector's market structure (perfectly or monopolistically competitive). We base the protection structure on Grossman and Helpman (1994) for the subset of perfectly competitive sectors and on Chang (2005) for the subset of monopolistically competitive sectors. The two protection regimes are simultaneously estimated with joint constraints. The results of the J-test consistently reject the homogeneous (perfect competition) protection-for-sale model often adopted in previous literature and suggest a direction of improvement toward the proposed heterogeneous protection structure model.

Characterizing Exchange Rate Policy In East Asia: A Reconsideration, Hwee Kwan Chow

Research Collection School Of Economics

Frankel and Wei [Frankel, J. A., & Wei, S.-J. (1994). Yen bloc or dollar bloc: Exchange rate policies of the East Asian economies. In I. Takatoshi & A. Krueger (Eds.), Macroeconomic linkages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press] developed and popularized a method for uncovering the implicit weights assigned to major international currencies constituting a currency basket. We extend the methodology in two dimensions: include regional competitive pressure and employ a vector autoregressive (VAR) model to overcome simultaneity bias. With these modifications, we confirm the prominent role of the US dollar in the exchange rate policy of East Asian economies beyond …

The Political Economy Of Poverty Reduction: A Comparative Study Of Two Chinese Provinces, John A. Donaldson

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Is growth good for the poor? In theory, yes. As one influential report on China’s “War on Poverty” suggested, ”Obviously robust economic growth helps reduce poverty, as long as the gains are reasonably distributed” (Rozelle et al. 2000). In practice as well, growth is often a crucial ingredient in the poverty reduction recipe. While this relationship is well founded, important exceptions present themselves – some areas grow, but poverty persists; the economies of other areas remain apparently stagnant, yet poverty diminishes. These exceptions, if studied, will not only illuminate further the causal relationship between these two concepts, but also provide …

The Coevolution Of Economic And Political Development, Fali Huang

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper establishes a simple model of long run economic and political development, which is driven by the inherent technical features of different production factors, and political conflicts among factor owners on how to divide the outputs. The main capital form in economy evolves from land to physical capital and then to human capital, which enables their respective owners (landlords, capitalists, and workers) to gain political powers in the same sequence, shaping the political development path from monarchy to elite ruling and finally to full suffrage. When it is too costly for any group of factor owners to repress others, …

Spectral Density Estimation And Robust Hypothesis Testing Using Steep Origin Kernels Without Truncation, Peter C.B Philips, Yixiao Sun, Sainan Jin

Research Collection School Of Economics

A new class of kernels for long-run variance and spectral density estimation is developed by exponentiating traditional quadratic kernels. Depending on whether the exponent parameter is allowed to grow with the sample size, we establish different asymptotic approximations to the sampling distribution of the proposed estimators. When the exponent is passed to infinity with the sample size, the new estimator is consistent and shown to be asymptotically normal. When the exponent is fixed, the new estimator is inconsistent and has a nonstandard limiting distribution. It is shown via Monte Carlo experiments that, when the chosen exponent is small in practical …

Why Do We Fear Globalization, Ishrat Hussain Dr.

Faculty Research - Talks, Speeches, & Discourse

The present study by SPDC clearly demonstrates that trade liberalization is good for growth as well as poverty reduction. Trade liberalization is just one component of the phenomenon broadly termed as globalization. Other components are financial flows and integration, migration of labor and technology transfer. In my recent travels across a number of developing countries I came back with an uneasy feeling that our best efforts to liberalize and integrate our economy in the globalizing economy are not yet good enough to keep up with the growing competition. I realize that a deeper process of reforms going beyond top layer …

New Mexico Labor Market Review 07-31-2006, New Mexico Department Of Labor

Historic Publications

The New Mexico Labor Market Review is a monthly publication presenting statistical data and analysis on labor market conditions throughout New Mexico. Issues examine statewide and regional trends in employment, unemployment, labor force estimates, industry activity, wages, occupational demand, and related economic conditions, often accompanied by feature articles on topics affecting the state’s economy. This issue covers June 2006.

Priors That Do Not Rule Out Strategic Uncertainty Cannot Lead To Nash Equilibrium, Eduardo Zambrano

Economics

Consider a two player game that is to be played once. The players receive information that they use to help them predict the choices made by each other. A decision rule for each player captures how each player uses the information received in making their choices. Priors in this context are probability distributions over the information that may be received and over the decision rules that their opponents may use. I investigate the existence of prior beliefs for each player that satisfy the following properties: (R) they do not rule out their opponent using a rational decision rule, (K) they …

Economic Impacts Of Alternative Sized Dairies In South Dakota, Erik Gerlach, Larry Janssen, Gary Taylor, Alvaro Garcia

Economics Commentator (1972- 2016)

No abstract provided.

Ringing The Bell On The Nyse: Might A Nonprofit Stock Exchange Have Been Efficient?, Stephen F. Diamond

ExpressO

Abstract

This spring the New York Stock Exchange, Inc. (Exchange or NYSE) completed an historic restructuring. On March 7, 2006, the NYSE completed its merger with Archipelago Holdings Inc. (Archipelago), a publicly traded electronic trading platform. As a result, the old NYSE itself became the New York Stock Exchange LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of NYSE Group, Inc. (NYSE Group). The former members, or seat holders, of the NYSE received one of three forms of consideration: all cash, all stock in NYSE Group, or a package of cash and stock. The NYSE Group then allowed those former members to offer …

Why Reform The Government?, Ishrat Husain Dr.

Faculty Research - Newspaper and Magazine Articles

The recent decision taken by the Government of Pakistan to establish a National Commission for Government Reform (NCGR) has evoked a varied set of reactions and also heightened expectations about the outcome of these reforms in some quarters.

The purpose of this article is to explain the rationale, lay down the scope of work and to apprise the general public as to ways in which they can contribute to the task of the Commission.

Can't Afford To See A Doctor? The Difficulties Of Reforming China's Healthcare System, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

An article co-published on May 22 by China Social Science Literature Publishing house and China Medical Industry Magazine, entitled “Healthcare Greenpaper,” reviews a series of problems associated with China’s healthcare reform over the past 10 years. Of the five biggest problems identified by the paper, the worst one is prohibitively expensive treatment. To examine this issue, Knowledge@Wharton interviewed a variety of experts and officials on the state of health care in China and the changing relationships between hospitals and patients.

Does The Quality Of Training Programs Matter? Evidence From Bidding Processes Data, Alberto Chong, Jose Galdo

Economics - All Scholarship

We estimate the effect of training quality on earnings using a Peruvian program, which targets disadvantaged youths. The identification of causal effects is possible because of two attractive features in the data. First, selection of training courses is based on public bidding processes that assign standardized scores to multiple proxies for quality. Second, the evaluation framework allows for the identification and comparison of individuals in treatment and comparison groups six, 12, and 18 months after the program. Using difference-indifferences kernel matching methods, we find that individuals attending high-quality training courses have higher average and marginal treatment impacts. External validity was …

Changing Maine, 1960-2010: Teaching Guide, Richard Barringer, New England Environmental Finance Center

Maine History & Policy Development

Unlike forty years ago, none of us is now certain what the future holds for Maine – except that it will be different. Maine has been transformed by the events of the recent decades. We have come into a new world, a new time – a new historical era, if you will. This new era, like previous eras in Maine history, will require of us new ways of thinking, new ways of understanding, new ways of organizing ourselves as a community of people, if the values and culture we share and cherish are to endure and flourish.

Rhode Island Current Conditions Index -- July 2006, Leonard Lardaro

The Rhode Island Current Conditions Index

No abstract provided.

Monte Carlo Methods For Estimating, Smoothing, And Filtering One- And Two-Factor Stochastic Volatility Models, Garland B. Durham

Finance

One- and two-factor stochastic volatility models are assessed over three sets of stock returns data: S&P 500, DJIA, and Nasdaq. Estimation is done by simulated maximum likelihood using techniques that are computationally efficient, robust, straightforward to implement, and easy to adapt to different models. The models are evaluated using standard, easily interpretable time-series tools. The results are broadly similar across the three data sets. The tests provide no evidence that even the simple single-factor models are unable to capture the dynamics of volatility adequately; the problem is to get the shape of the conditional returns distribution right. None of the …

Reviewed Work: Understanding Institutional Diversity By Elinor Ostrom, Jonathan G.S. Koppell

Publications from President Jonathan G.S. Koppell

No abstract provided.

The Determinants Of Executive Compensation In The Commercial Banking Industry, David A. Romer

Doctoral Dissertations

The primary purpose of this study is to examine the viability of two basic theories of compensation to explain executive compensation in the banking industry. The two executive compensation motivation theories are sales/sales growth maximization and profit/shareholder wealth maximization. Overall, strong support is found for both theories. This research also seeks to significantly expand, compared to previous research, the number of banks investigated. This study succeeds, with over a four-fold increase in the number of banks analyzed, including over 330 banks not previously used in the literature. This investigation is further motivated by the paucity of banking studies on compensation …

Incorporating Policymaker Costs And Political Competition Into Rent-Seeking Games, R. Kenneth Godwin, Edward J. Lopez, Barry J. Seldon

Faculty Publications

We incorporate policymaker costs of supplying rents and variable intensities of competition among rent seekers into the standard rent-seeking game. By incorporating these aspects, the game has greater verisimilitude to the lobbying process. The first aspect captures the fact that in rent-seeking contests there is a positive probability that neither firm will obtain the rent. The second aspect captures the fact that firms seeking different rents still must compete for policymakers' resources. We find that lobbying expenditures, rent-seeking profits, and rent dissipation depend on the intensity of competition and the value of the rent relative to policymaker costs. For example, …

Purification In The Infinitely-Repeated Prisoners’ Dilemma, V. Bhaskar, George J. Mailath, Stephen Morris

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

This paper investigates the Harsanyi (1973)-purifiability of mixed strategies in the repeated prisoners’ dilemma with perfect monitoring. We perturb the game so that in each period, a player receives a private payoff shock which is independently and identically distributed across players and periods. We focus on the purifiability of a class of one-period memory mixed strategy equilibria used by Ely and Valimaki (2002) in their study of the repeated prisoners’ dilemma with private monitoring. We find that all such strategy profiles are not the limit of one-period memory equilibrium strategy profiles of the perturbed game, for almost all noise distributions. …

Money And Production, And Liquidity Trap, Pradeep Dubey, John Geanakoplos

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We prove the existence of monetary equilibrium in a finite horizon economy with production. We also show that if agents expect the monetary authority to significantly decrease the supply of bank money available for short term loans in the future, then the economy will fall into a liquidity trap today.

The Theory Of Money And Financial Institutions: A Summary Of A Game Theoretic Approach, Martin Shubik

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

A game theoretic approach to the theory of money and financial institution is given utilizing both the strategic and coalitional forms for describing the economy. The economy is first modeled as a strategic market game, then the strategic form is used to calculate several cooperative forms that differ from each other in their utilization of money and credit and their treatment of threats. It is shown that there are natural upper and lower bounds to the monetary needs of an economy, but even in the extreme structures the concept of “enough money” can be defined usefully, and for large economies …

Extreme Adverse Selection, Competitive Pricing, And Market Breakdown, George J. Mailath, Georg Nöldeke

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

Extreme adverse selection arises when private information has unbounded support, and market breakdown occurs when no trade is the only equilibrium outcome. We study extreme adverse selection via the limit behavior of a financial market as the support of private information converges to an unbounded support. A necessary and sufficient condition for market breakdown is obtained. If the condition fails, then there exists competitive market behavior that converges to positive levels of trade whenever it is first best to have trade. When the condition fails, no feasible (competitive or not) market behavior converges to positive levels of trade.

Can We Talk? Feminist Economists In Dialogue With Social Theorists, Julie A. Nelson

Economics Faculty Publication Series

The article focuses on the issues regarding the social and political theory of feminism. It has been mentioned that political action will be dynamized rather than compromised by a more alive observation of economic organizations and activities. The author has suggested that feminist social theorists across the disciplines must join the several feminist economists who are dropping the negative one-size-fits-all prescription of protection from markets. It is essential to have more positive results in the complex contemporary economies.

Working Hours In Japan: Who Is Time-Privileged?, Scott M. Fuess Jr.

Department of Economics: Faculty Publications

In the U.S. the relationship between hours worked and employee earnings has been reversed. Whereas the highest earners used to work the shortest hours, now they work the longest hours. This study examines whether such a reversal has occurred elsewhere, namely, Japan. Since the early 1990s the Japanese government has sought to transform the country into a “lifestyle superpower” by trying to encourage more daily time for leisure and less time on the job. Analyzing data for 1976-2003, it is clear that scheduled and actual working hours did indeed fall after 1990. During the early years of the sample, 1976-89, …

Rejecting The 65-Percent Solution, John Yinger

Center for Policy Research

It’s Elementary is a series of essays on topics in education and education policy. The main focus is on education finance in New York State, but general research findings in education and education policy issues in several other states are also discussed. John Yinger, Professor of Economics and Public Administration at the Maxwell School, Syracuse University is the author of most of these essays, although a few are written by or co-authored with other scholars.

Consumer Confidence Surveys: Can They Help Us Forecast Consumer Spending In Real Time?, Dean D. Croushore

Economics Faculty Publications

In 1993, the Philadelphia Fed undertook a project to develop a real-time data set for macroeconomists, who can use these data in many ways — for example, when analyzing indexes of consumer confidence. existing research indicates that consumer-confidence measures, though highly correlated with future spending, do not improve forecasts of future spending. but these studies used revised data that were not available to forecasters at the time they made their forecasts. In this article, Dean Croushore uses the real-time data set to investigate an important question: Does using data available to forecasters at the time — that is, real-time data …