Economics Commons^™

Using Student Response Systems In Economics And Finance Classes, Jean Snavely, Michelle Trawick

Finance Faculty Publications

Student response systems (clickers) offer the potential for student engagement and active learning in the classroom. Use of the technology can also help instructors identify areas of uncertainty and use student feedback to customize lectures. Earlier identification of problem areas for both student and instructor should lead to more efficient and effective use of class time and better learning outcomes. This presentation covers best practices in the use of clickers in introductory statistics and principles of managerial finance classes. Topics include how to use clickers, sample exercises, what has worked and what hasn’t worked from personal experience, how to produce …

Why Is The Oecd Involved In The Heiligendamm Process?, Richard Woodward

Books/Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

Aging And Inflammation In Two Epidemiological Worlds, Michael Gurven, Hillard Kaplan, Jeffrey Winking, Caleb Finch, Eileen M. Crimmins

ESI Publications

Humans evolved in a world with high levels of infection resulting in high mortality across the life span and few survivors to advanced ages. Under such conditions, a strong acute-phase inflammatory response was required for survival; however, inflammatory responses can also promote chronic diseases of aging. We hypothesize that global historical increases in life span at older ages are partly explained by reduced lifetime exposure to infection and subsequent inflammation. To begin a test of this hypothesis, we compare C-reactive protein (CRP); levels in two populations with different epidemiological environments: the Tsimane of Bolivia and persons in the United States. …

A Positive Theory Of Income Taxation Where Politicians Focus Upon Swing And Core Voters, John E. Roemer

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We construct an equilibrium model of party competition, in which parties are especially concerned with their core and swing voters, concerns which American political scientists have focused upon in their attempts to understand party behavior in general elections. Parties compete on a large policy space of possible income-tax policies. An element in this infinite-dimensional space is a function which maps pre-fisc income into post-fisc income. The only restrictions are that the function be continuous, and satisfy exogenously specified upper and lower bounds on its derivative, where it is differentiable. Only a fraction of each voter type will vote for each …

Efficient Estimation Of Semiparametric Conditional Moment Models With Possibly Nonsmooth Residuals, Xiaohong Chen, Demian Pouzo

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

For semi/nonparametric conditional moment models containing unknown parametric components (theta) and unknown functions of endogenous variables (h), Newey and Powell (2003) and Ai and Chen (2003) propose sieve minimum distance (SMD) estimation of (theta, h) and derive the large sample properties. This paper greatly extends their results by establishing the followings: (1) The penalized SMD (PSMD) estimator (hat{theta}, hat{h}) can simultaneously achieve root- n asymptotic normality of theta hat and nonparametric optimal convergence rate of hat{h}, allowing for models with possibly nonsmooth residuals and/or noncompact infinite dimensional parameter spaces. (2) A simple weighted bootstrap procedure can consistently estimate the limiting …

Do Local Economic Development Programs Work? Evidence From The Federal Empowerment Zone Program, Matias Busso, Patrick Kline

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

This paper evaluates the impact of Round I of the federal urban Empowerment Zone (EZ) program on neighborhood level labor and housing market outcomes over the period 1994-2000. Using four decades of Census data in conjunction with information on the proposed boundaries of rejected EZs, we find that neighborhoods receiving EZ designation experienced substantial improvements in labor market conditions and moderate increases in rents relative to rejected and future zones. These effects were accompanied by small changes in the demographic composition of the neighborhoods, though evidence from disaggregate Census tabulations suggests that these changes account for little of the observed …

Communication And Learning, Luca Anderlini, Dino Gerardi, Roger Lagunoff

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We study the intergenerational accumulation of knowledge in an infinite-horizon model of communication. Each in a sequence of players receives an informative but imperfect signal of the once-and-for-all realization of an unobserved state. The state affects all players’ preferences over present and future decisions. Each player observes his own signal but does not directly observe the realized signals or actions of his predecessors. Instead, he must rely on cheap-talk messages from the previous players to fathom the past. Each player is therefore both a receiver of information with respect to his decision, and a sender with respect to all future …

Efficient Estimation Of Semiparametric Conditional Moment Models With Possibly Nonsmooth Residuals, Xiaohong Chen, Demian Pouzo

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

This paper considers semiparametric efficient estimation of conditional moment models with possibly nonsmooth residuals in unknown parametric components ( theta ) and unknown functions ( h ) of endogenous variables. We show that: (1) the penalized sieve minimum distance (PSMD) estimator ( theta\hat,h\hat ) can simultaneously achieve root- n asymptotic normality of theta\hat and nonparametric optimal convergence rate of h\hat , allowing for noncompact function parameter spaces; (2) a simple weighted bootstrap procedure consistently estimates the limiting distribution of the PSMD theta\hat ; (3) the semiparametric efficiency bound formula of Ai and Chen (2003) remains valid for conditional models with …

Achieving Proficiencies In Economics Capstone Courses, Michael Seeborg

Scholarly Publications

This paper argues that capstone courses in economics should be integrative experiences that require students to demonstrate six core proficiencies. The capstone economics senior seminar at Illinois Wesleyan University is used as an example of how a capstone course that requires completion of an original research paper might achieve these proficiencies. Also, carefully designed co-curricular activities, such as student-edited undergraduate journals, and participation in undergraduate research conferences are recommended as complements to capstone research courses.

The Interaction Of Customary Law And Microfinance: Women's Entry Into The World Economy, Shana Hofstetter

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

This note examines the complicated relationship between microfinance and customary law. Microfinance, the practice of giving small, collateral-free loans to the poorest members of society, has gained great popularity in the last thirty years. These loan programs specifically target women and use women's traditional emphasis on groups to ensure success. Customary law can hinder microfinance ventures because of the restrictions these laws place on women's roles and responsibilities. Case studies on the Dominican Republic, Morocco, and Bangladesh explore how individual customary laws can hinder microfinance programs and women's micro-businesses. This note also discusses how microfinance programs act as catalysts of …

Property Tax Relief In New York State, 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.

East Asia And Global Imbalances: Saving, Investment, And Financial Development, Hiro Ito, Menzie David Chinn

Economics Faculty Publications and Presentations

We investigate the role of budget balances, financial development and openness, in the evolution of global imbalances. Financial development – or the lack thereof – has received considerable attention as a possible contributing factor to the development of persistent and expanding current account imbalances. Several observers have argued that the depth and sophistication of US capital markets have caused capital to flow from relatively underdeveloped East Asian financial markets. In this paper, we extend our previous work by examining the effect of different types and aspects of financial development. Our cross-country analysis, encompassing a sample of 19 industrialized countries and …

The Hedonistic Paradox: Is Homo Economicus Happier?, James Konow, Joseph Earley

Economics Faculty Works

The “Hedonistic Paradox” states that homo economicus, or someone who seeks happiness for him- or herself, will not find it, but the person who helps others will. This study examines two questions in connection with happiness and generosity. First, do more generous people, as identified in dictator experiments, report on average greater happiness, or subjective well-being (SWB), as measured by responses to various questionnaires? Second, if the answer is affirmative, what is the causal relationship between generosity and happiness? We find a favorable correlation between generosity and happiness (i.e., SWB is directly related to several measures of happiness and …

Federal Economic Development Funding In Ohio: Survey Findings, Afia Yamoah

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

The objective of the survey on federal funding for economic development was to assess some of the challenges facing county governments in the state of Ohio as they attempt to access federal funding for economic development purposes. Federal funding is important to local governments because it is a significant resource to communities that are able to secure such grants. Competition for federal grants is usually very strong due to limited funds and counties have to be well equipped if they are to be successful in receiving grants. Local governments should know about the availability of funds and should have access …

Openness And The Efficiency Of Fdi: A Panel Stochastic Production Frontier Study, Farrokh Nourzad

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

This paper uses a stochastic translog production frontier to estimate technical inefficiency indices whose conditional mean is specified as a function of FDI and its interaction with openness of the economy. The model is estimated using an annual panel of 46 countries for the years, 1981–2001. The results suggest that increased FDI increases potential output in both developed and developing countries with the effect being more profound in the former. It is also found that increased FDI reduces technical inefficiencies the more open is the economy but that this effect holds only for developed economies. Thus qualified support is found …

Designated Market Areas: Using Zip Codes As A Marketing Tool: 2008, Melissa Bruns-Dubois

Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research Publications

This report converts zip codes of nonresident visitors to Montana into 210 Designated Market Areas and provides an investigation of four population segments. The first analysis looks at DMA representation divided by visitors’ primary reason for being in Montana with vacationers as the primary focus. The second section looks at repeat and first time vacationers to Montana while the third subset explores visitors who indicated that at least one reason for their trip to Montana was to either purchase property or visit a second home or condo. Finally, the zip codes of vacationers who spent at least one night in …

Sensitivity Testing Of Net Impact Estimates Of Workforce Development Programs Using Administrative Data, Kevin Hollenbeck

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

This paper addresses the question of whether administrative data sources, such as performance monitoring data, can be used for program evaluation purposes. It argues that under certain circumstances, such data can be used. In particular, program performance data that are routinely gathered and monitored by administrators of many workforce development programs meet these circumstances. The paper goes on to demonstrate the point by using administrative data from the state of Washington to examine the net impact on earnings and employment of services provided to adults under the Workforce Investment Act (WIA). Because of a lack of consensus about appropriate net …

Optimal Collusion With Internal Contracting, Gea Myoung Lee

Research Collection School Of Economics

In this paper, we develop a model of collusion in which two firms play an infinitelyrepeated Bertrand game when each firm has a privately-informed agent. The colluding firms, fixing prices, allocate market shares based on the agent’s information as to cost types. We emphasize that the presence of privately-informed agents may provide firms with a strategic opportunity to exploit an interaction between internal contracting and market-sharing arrangement: the contracts with agents may be used to induce firms’ truthful communication in their collusion, and collusive market-share allocation may act to reduce the agents’ information rents.

Mapping The Discipline Of The Olympic Games An Author-Cocitation Analysis, Peter Warning, Rosie Ching, Kristine Toohey

Research Collection School Of Economics

The authors conducted an author cocitation analysis on prominent authors writing about the Olympics during the 1990s. Author cocitation is an established bibliometric technique that can be used to measure the relative similarities of topics written about by the cited authors. This enables a visual representation of the “intellectual space” of the discipline, in this case the Olympics, to be created for the period under review. So core and peripheral research areas are identified, along with their major contributors. The representation appears as a two-dimensional cluster-enhanced map. Subject expertise was then applied to the results to place labels on the …

What Explains Insider Trading Restrictions? International Evidence On The Political Economy Of Insider Trading Regulation, Laura N. Beny

Law & Economics Working Papers Archive: 2003-2009

This article investigates the determinants of insider trading regulation across countries. The article presents a political economy analysis of such regulation that takes into account both private (distributional) and public (economic efficiency) considerations. The model cannot be tested directly because the relevant private preferences and social costs are unobservable. However, existing theories of capital market development suggest that various observable social factors can explain the diversity of insider trading policies across countries. In turn, these social factors should reveal the underlying preferences and social costs motivating such regulation.

The main finding, based on data from a cross section of countries …

The Economic Development Effects Of Early Childhood Programs, Timothy J. Bartik

Reports

No abstract provided.

International Trade And Unemployment: Theory And Cross-National Evidence, Pushan Dutt, Devashish Mitra, Priya Ranjan

Economics - All Scholarship

In this paper, we present two alternative models of trade and unemployment, in which unemployment is generated through a search mechanism. The basic framework of the first model is Ricardian in that the only factor of production is labor and trade is based on relative technological differences. The second model has a Heckscher-Ohlin (H-O) framework with two factors of production, namely labor and capital that are intersectorally mobile. Using cross-country data on various measures of trade policy, unemployment and a variety of controls, we find strong evidence for the Ricardian prediction that unemployment and trade openness are negatively related (protection …

Workforce Program Performance Indicators For The Commonwealth Of Virginia, Kevin Hollenbeck, Wei-Jang Huang

Upjohn Institute Technical Reports

No abstract provided.

Annual Economic Outlook Conference 2008, University Of New Mexico Bureau Of Business And Economic Research

BBER Publications

The economic outlook conference report gives a well-rounded summary and future projections for the New Mexico economy. This paper is separated by national and state data, county and community data, and county profiles of employment, industry and population.

Crop Decisions In 2008, Burton Pflueger, Jack Davis, Don Guthmiller

Economics Commentator (1972- 2016)

No abstract provided.

Do Buyer-Size Discounts Depend On The Curvature Of The Surplus Function? Experimental Tests Of Bargaining Models, Hans-Theo Normann, Bradley J. Ruffle, Christopher M. Snyder

Dartmouth Scholarship

A number of recent theoretical papers have shown that, for buyer‐size discounts to emerge in a bargaining model, the total surplus function over which parties bargain must have certain nonlinearities. We test the theory in an experimental setting in which a seller bargains with a number of buyers of different sizes. Nonlinearities in the surplus function are generated by varying the shape of the seller's cost function. Consistent with the theory, we find that quantity discounts emerge only in the case of increasing marginal cost, corresponding to a concave surplus function. We provide additional structural estimates to help identify the …

Complex Emergencies And The Challenge Of Achieving Development In Afghanistan, Mahitab Mohamed Marzouk

Archived Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

An Examination Of The Relationship Of Employment Classification And Self-Directedness In A Large Scale Manufacturing Setting, Jennifer Brown

Faculty Bibliography

No abstract provided.

Economics, Law And Institutions: The Shaping Of Chinese Competition Law, David J. Gerber

All Faculty Scholarship

China has been considering enactment of an anti-monopoly (antitrust) law since 1993, and it has now enacted such a law. Given the potential importance of this legislation, there is much uncertainty about what the enactment means and what roles it is likely to play in influencing the development of the Chinese economy. This article applies a neo-institutionalist analysis in examining some of the factors that have influenced the shaping of the legislation and that are likely to influence the operation of competition law and its organizations. The main argument is that the central dynamic in both the creation of the …

Japan And The World: Japan’S Contemporary Geopolitical Challenges – A Volume In Honor Of The Memory And Intellectual Legacy Of Asakawa Kan’Ichi, Frances Rosenbluth, Masaru Kohno

CEAS Occasional Publication Series

Yale CEAS Occasional Publication Series - Volume 2