Economics Commons^™

Comprehensive Study Of Regionalism: Tools For Comparison And Evaluation, George A. Erickcek, Jason M. Preuss, Brad R. Watts, Kevin O'Brien, Claudette Robey, Daila Shimek, Jim Robey, Jacob Duritsky

Reports

No abstract provided.

Local Polynomial Estimation Of Nonparametric Simultaneous Equations Models, Liangjun Su, Aman Ullah

Research Collection School Of Economics

We define a new procedure for consistent estimation of nonparametric simultaneous equations models under the conditional mean independence restriction of Newey et al. [1999. Nonparametric estimation of triangular simultaneous equation models. Econometrica 67, 565-603]. It is based upon local polynomial regression and marginal integration techniques. We establish the asymptotic distribution of our estimator under weak data dependence conditions. Simulation evidence suggests that our estimator may significantly outperform the estimators of Pinkse [2000. Nonparametric two-step regression estimation when regressors and errors are dependent. Canadian Journal of Statistics 28, 289-300] and Newey and Powell [2003. Instrumental variable estimation of nonparametric models. Econometrica …

Skilled And Unskilled Wages In A Globlizing World, 1968-1998, Davin Chor

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper constructs a data set on purchasing-power-parity (PPP) adjusted skilled and unskilled wages in 139 countries for the period 1968-1998, based on the International La- bor Organization's (ILO) annual October Inquiry and the Freeman and Oostendorp (2000) Occupational Wages Around the World (OWW) le. It nds strong evidence for the ex- istence of well-integrated markets for skilled and unskilled labor, justifying the approach of constructing a skilled wage series and an unskilled wage series. Several signi cant re- sults emerged from an analysis of a representative subset of 67 countries which provided unbroken coverage for 1970-1994: (i) there is …

Indescribability And Asymmetric Information At The Contracting Stage, Takashi Kunimoto

Research Collection School Of Economics

Maskin and Tirole [Maskin, E., Tirole, J., 1999. Unforeseen contingencies and incomplete contracts. Review of Economic Studies, 66, 83–114] show that indescribability does not matter for contractual incompleteness when there is symmetric information both at the contracting stage and at the trading stage. Following their setup, I show that with asymmetric information at both stages, indescribability can matter.

New Mexico Labor Market Review 04-30-2008, New Mexico Department Of Human Services

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 March 2008.

Does Quality Matter? An Hedonic Analysis Of College Tuition Price, Joshua Delano

Business and Economics Honors Papers

The purpose of this paper is to explore the factors that ultimately make up the concept of quality in college institutions. Using several proxies to measure this concept of quality, this paper will seek to determine what effect the qualities of institutions have on tuition prices. By assessing this relationship, conclusions will be drawn about colleges' tuition prices as they pertain to the calculated value of the education being received. Before exploring these factors the paper will first set out to discuss the current trends involved with college tuition, specifically those trends involved in four-year private institutions.

Market Efficiency : Testing Price Discovery In The Bond And Credit Derivative Markets, Justin M. Polselli

Honors Theses

Recent developments in credit markets over the past few months have seen credit spreads widen dramatically for a range of debt products. Almost overnight, credit spreads for both investment grade and high yield bonds jumped as news continued to worsen about credit quality. The speed with which credit spreads increased this past summer led many investors to ask if markets were efficient in conveying material information, and to see if there were any indications prior to the credit crunch that the market for credit was going to tighten. New products such as credit derivatives have increased the number of indicators …

Haven For Hope: Providing Hope For San Antonio’S Homeless, Ashley Hamilton

Economics Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

An Economic Analysis Of The Effects Of Steroids On Season Best Performances In Track And Field, Allison Fisher '08

Honors Projects

This paper investigates the relationship between steroids and an athlete's ability to run a season best time in track and field. Certain event groups have seen a faster drop in season bests than others. Medical research indicates which of these event groups (sprinters, distance, throwers, jumpers) would most benefit from steroids. I hypothesize that steroids allow sprinters to improve on their season bests more than other event groups. This hypothesis is based on a production theory from the economics literature where inputs such as coaching, facilities and steroids produce season best performances. Using ordinary least-squares regression, I use a dummy …

Productivity Spillovers In Healthcare: Evidence From The Treatment Of Heart Attacks, Amitabh Chandra, Douglas O. Staiger

Dartmouth Scholarship

A large literature in medicine documents variation across areas in the use of surgical treatments that is unrelated to outcomes. Observers of this phenomena have invoked “flat of the curve medicine” to explain these facts, and have advocated for reductions in spending in high-use areas. In contrast, we develop a simple Roy model of patient treatment choice with productivity spillovers that can generate the empirical facts. Our model predicts that high-use areas will have higher returns to surgery, better outcomes among patients most appropriate for surgery, and worse outcomes among patients least appropriate for surgery, while displaying no relationship between …

Stock Index Pricing With Random Walk And Agent-Based Models, Scott N. Swisher Iv '08

Honors Projects

The objective of this work is to empirically test the EMH (efficient market hypothesis) and compare its results to those of a viable agent-based competitor using computational simulation. The models are not directly fit to the data; random walk and agent-based methods of stock price determination are statistically compared using the criteria of stationarity, randomness, and autoregressive behavior. The agent-based approach used, styled the "ant trader" model, is based on the ant model established by Kirman in his 1993 work "Ants, Rationality, and Recruitment". Daily returns of the Hang Seng and Nikkei 225 indices are used over the periods 1987-2007 …

Economic Sanctions Against Human Rights Violations, Buhm Suk Baek

Cornell Law School Inter-University Graduate Student Conference Papers

The idea of human rights protection, historically, has been considered as a domestic matter, to be realized by individual states within their domestic law and national institutions. The protection and promotion of human rights, however, have become one of the most important issues for the international community as a whole. Yet, with time, it has become increasingly difficult for the international community to address human rights problems collectively. Despite a significant development in the human rights norms, effective protection of fundamental human rights and their legal enforcement has a long way to go.

This paper will argue that economic sanctions …

Determinants Of Crack Cocaine Trial And Addiction, Elizabeth Taylor, Robert Leekley, Faculty Advisor

John Wesley Powell Student Research Conference

No abstract provided.

The Effects Of Gender On Small Businesses: A Case Study Of Kasigau, Kenya, Leslie Abell, Jerry Daday

Sociology Faculty Presentations

Small businesses are seen as an agent of economic growth in developing countries. Recently, the idea of micro-lending has received increased attention due to its promising effects on employment and personal economic growth in rural developing areas. However, we lack an in depth understanding of how male and female business owners differ.

In the summer of 2007, our research group from Western Kentucky University spent three and a half weeks in a small rural area of Kenya, Africa. This area called Kasigau was situated at the base of Mount Kasigau in eastern Kenya. During our time there, we surveyed the …

New York Camp Econometrics Iii Program, Center For Policy Research

Camp Econometrics-Programs

No abstract provided.

Brazilian Ethanol And U.S. Industrial Organization: An Analysis Of Bilateral Trade Barrier Removal, Michael X. Feeney '08

Honors Projects

With rising petroleum costs and a plethora of other influences causing international ethanol demand to grow at an unprecedented rate, discussion of trade liberalization has become an important point of debate for the ethanol production industry. Although there have been many studies on the results of the removal of trade barriers there has been little emphasis on the potential impact it would have on domestic industrial organization. This paper looks to analyze the possible effects of ethanol trade barrier removal between Brazil and the United States on U.S. industrial organization through evaluation of the removal's ,influence on incentives for consolidation …

Energy Efficiency, Business Competitiveness, And Untapped Economic Potential In Maine, Charles S. Colgan, Samuel Merrilll, Jonathan Rubin

Regional Studies

The economic stresses on Maine’s businesses are growing. A slowing economy and rising input costs, particularly for energy, are increasing pressures in a state where concerns about the costs of doing business remain high. But there is much that businesses can do on their own to relieve some of these pressures. Even a quick examination of Maine’s energy situation shows that there are both real challenges and opportunities. Perhaps the single most effective action to enhance Maine’s business climate and economic competitiveness is to aggressively increase the energy efficiency of Maine’s economy.

Micro-Economic Foundations Of Economic Policy Performance In Pakistan, Ishrat Husain Dr.

Faculty Research - Talks, Speeches, & Discourse

The topic of this Conference “Micro-Economic Foundations of Economic Policy Performance in Asia” is both relevant and timely for South Asian Policy makers and researchers. I am pleased that I am able to share my thoughts with this august gathering about the microeconomic policy reforms in Pakistan with which I was associated for the past eight years. Having the interests of a researcher and academic at the same time I have chosen to present an analytical narrative of Pakistan’s reform episode. T

Are Two Carrots Better Than One? The Effects Of Adding Employment Services To Financial Incentive Programs For Welfare Recipients, Philip K. Robins, Charles Michalopoulos, Kelly Foley

Economics Articles and Papers

The Self-Sufficiency Project (SSP) was a social experiment conducted in two Canadian provinces during the 1990s that tested a generous financial incentive program for welfare recipients. A little-known subsidiary experiment, called SSP Plus, had a three-way design that tested the incremental effect of adding employment services to the generous financial incentive program. Employment services are viewed by many welfare analysts as an important component of an overall strategy for helping welfare recipients escape poverty and achieve stable employment. This paper presents the results of the SSP Plus experiment. Adding employment services encouraged more people to take up the earnings supplement, …

Semiparametric Deconvolution With Unknown Error Variance, William C. Horrace, Christopher F. Parmeter

Economics - All Scholarship

Deconvolution is a useful statistical technique for recovering an unknown density in the presence of measurement error. Typically, the method hinges on stringent assumptions about the nature of the measurement error, more specifically, that the distribution is entirely known. We relax this assumption in the context of a regression error component model and develop an estimator for the unknown density. We show semi-uniform consistency of the estimator and provide an application to the stochastic frontier model.

Reflective Intensions: Two Foundational Decision-Points In Mathematics, Law, And Economics, Robert C. Hockett

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This Article, transcribed from a symposium talk given by the author, examines two critical junctures at which foundational decisions must be made in three areas of theoretical inquiry - mathematics, law, and economics. The first such juncture is that which the Article labels the "arbitrary versus criterial choice" juncture. This is the decision point at which one must select between what is typically called an "algorithmic," "principled," "law-like," or "intensionalist" understanding of those concepts which figure foundationally in the discipline in question on the one hand, and a "randomized," "combinatorial," or "extensionalist" such understanding on the other hand.

The second …

Exploring A Us Immigrant – Intra-Industry Trade Link, Roger White

Economics

We extend two strands of literature: the determinants of intra-industry trade (IIT) and the effect of immigration on trade flows. Product-level (HS10) data for US trade with 62 nations spanning the years 1989–2001 are used to construct industry-level (HS6) IIT values. A positive relationship is reported between immigration and the level of aggregate IIT. Immigration also increases vertical IIT and horizontal IIT; however, coefficients are of greater magnitude for the latter measure. Examining variation across home countries, immigrants from lower income countries appear to exert a greater influence on IIT measures than do immigrants from higher income countries.

Fixed-Effect Estimation Of Highly-Mobile Production Technologies, William C. Horrace, Kurt E. Schnier

Economics - All Scholarship

We consider fixed-effect estimation of a production function where inputs and outputs vary over time, space, and cross-sectional unit. Variability in the spatial dimension allows for time-varying individual effects, without parametric assumptions on the effects. Asymptotics along the spatial dimension provide consistency and normality of the marginal products. A finite-sample example is provided: a production function for bottom-trawler fishing vessels in the flatfish fisheries of the Bering Sea. We find significant spatial variability of output (catch) which we exploit in estimation of a harvesting function.

Perspectives On Development In Arid And Semi-Arid East Africa: Results Of A Ranking Exercise, John G. Mcpeak, Cheryl R. Doss, Christopher B. Barrett, Patti Kristjanson

Economics - All Scholarship

This study investigates perspectives on development held by individuals living in arid and semi-arid areas of northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia. Overall, we find that interventions to meet basic human needs (access to water, health care and education) are the most highly desired. Projects supporting pastoral livelihoods (livestock health and marketing-oriented, restocking and conflict resolution) are second most important, followed by those that support alternatives to pastoralism (cropping, other income generating activities). Econometric analysis indicates that variation in rankings is mostly driven by variation across communities rather than across households within communities, lending support to community-based approaches to priority setting.

Economics Works! Experiments In High School Classrooms, Stephen L. Jackstadt, Paul Johnson, Bart J. Wilson

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

Economic experiments are a unique form of active learning. Students apply the scientific method by testing hypotheses and discovering for themselves how markets work. The authors conducted teacher training courses in experimental economics over a three-year period and conducted surveys to track teachers' adoption of classroom experiments. This paper discusses the survey results and describes how the training was revised accordingly. The primary conclusion of this article is that classroom experiments must be compatible with the school environment; that is, they should emphasize non-monetary incentives and hand-run experiments as well as be explicitly tied to school curricula.

Front Matter, Esr Review

Journal of Microfinance / ESR Review

No abstract provided.

Rhode Island Current Conditions Index — April 2008, Leonard Lardaro

The Rhode Island Current Conditions Index

No abstract provided.

End Matter, Esr Review

Journal of Microfinance / ESR Review

No abstract provided.

Vol. 10 No. 1 Esr Review, Esr Review

Journal of Microfinance / ESR Review

No abstract provided.

Economic Development At A New Level, Ned C. Hill

Journal of Microfinance / ESR Review

No abstract provided.