Economics Commons^™

Determinants Of Exchange Rate Hedging An Empirical Analysis Of U.S. Small-Cap Industrial Firms, Zachary M. Lehner

HIM 1990-2015

Using a sample of 141 U.S. small-cap industrial firms, I examine the firm characteristics that influence its use of foreign exchange derivatives to hedge exchange rate risk. Companies in the industrial sector produce goods and services that are used for the production of another final product. The performance of this sector is closely correlated to the level of demand from the final consumer. I find firm size, the amount of foreign sales, and firm liquidity influence the firm's decision to use foreign exchange derivatives to hedge exchange rate risk. For those firms that hedge exchange rate risk using derivatives, a …

Echoes From Geneva: Finding John Calvin’S Socio-Economic Interests In The Modern World, Brenda K. Savage

Master of Liberal Studies Theses

Through an examination of John Calvin’s intentions in ending the prohibition on usury and the practical application of his teachings in sixteenth-century Geneva, and a consideration of the elements of poverty, social outcasts, and exploitation common to both Geneva and the modern world, it can be argued that the Reformer has much to offer of continued relevancy for those seeking to engage their contemporary world by finding alternatives that can help the financially disenfranchised. Calvin is often referred to as the “Father of Modern Interest,” and as such many people have directly blamed him for the exploitation associated with capitalism. …

Finger Lickin’ Good: An Analytical Investigation Into The Urban Diet, Jennifer T.R. Tomlinson

Master of Liberal Studies Theses

In this analysis, the origins, customs and implications of fast-food culture will be explored with important focus on the customs of fast-food urban eating. Research indicates that lower-income urban areas are more likely to consume fast-food. The high consumption of fast-food subsequently results in the development of social and economical implications, which include health implications, economic dilemmas, a disconnection between consumers and their consumption and issues of social classification. This analysis also explores the customs of fast-food culture of Pine Hills, Florida with added emphasis on Pine Hills’ cultural uniqueness.

Rhode Island Current Conditions Index — May 2011, Leonard Lardaro

The Rhode Island Current Conditions Index

No abstract provided.

Text Mining For The Social Sciences, Walter Morris (Principal Investigator)

Cornerstone 3 Reports : Interdisciplinary Informatics

No abstract provided.

If You Don’T Build It... Mexican Mobility Following The U.S. Housing Bust, Brian C. Cadena, Brian K. Kovak

University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research Discussion Paper Series

This paper demonstrates the importance of earnings-sensitive migration in response to local variation in labor demand. We use geographic variation in the depth of the housing bust to examine its effects on the migration of natives and Mexican-born individuals in the U.S. We find a strong effect of the housing bust on the location choices of Mexicans, with movement of Mexican population away from U.S. states facing the largest declines in construction and movement toward U.S. states facing smaller declines. This effect operated primarily through interstate migration of Mexicans previously residing in the U.S. and, to a lesser extent, through …

The Disability Screening Process And The Labor Market Behavior Of Accepted And Rejected Applicants: Evidence From The Health And Retirement Study, Seth H. Giertz, Jeffrey D. Kubik

Department of Economics: Faculty Publications

This paper uses Social Security earnings records linked to data from the Health and Retirement Study to examine the labor market behavior of rejected and accepted disability applicants prior to their application. We find that rejected applicants have substantially lower earnings and labor force participation rates during the decade prior to application than beneficiaries. Also, we find some evidence of a divergence between these groups, with rejected applicants leaving the labor force at a faster rate than beneficiaries as their application date approaches.  One interpretation of these results is that the disability screening process on average separates those who are …

The Battle Between Multinaional Sic] Tax Avoidance And Corporate Competitiveness, Nico Koop

HIM 1990-2015

In the past decade, there has been a significant decrease in US corporate tax revenues. Multinational companies have been employing several different techniques of tax avoidance to get around paying corporate taxes. Tax avoidance is used by any large multinational corporation for a variety of reasons. The US has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world and is seeing many companies relocate their operations abroad to lower their tax expenses. The different methods of tax avoidance are discussed in this thesis, as well as the different reasons behind their use. To understand how companies implement tax avoidance …

The Impacts Of Drinking Alcohol, Using Marijuana, And Smoking Cigarettes As A Teenager On The Educational Attainment And The Income Of Young Adults, Thomas Carnot

All Theses

It is widely believed that activities such as drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes, and using marijuana during the teenage years have a harmful effect on a youth's development, thus damaging his or her value in the labor market once the individual reaches adulthood. There have been several studies in the past that have looked into the consequences of partaking in such activities during both the adult and college years, but this paper will investigate how the use of alcohol, marijuana, and cigarettes at the age of 16 affects the average individual's future income and the amount of education completed by the …

Empirical Likelihood For Regression Discontinuity Design, Taisuke Otsu, Ke-Li Xu

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

This paper proposes empirical likelihood based inference methods for causal effects identified from regression discontinuity designs. We consider both the sharp and fuzzy regression discontinuity designs and treat the regression functions as nonparametric. The proposed inference procedures do not require asymptotic variance estimation and the confidence sets have natural shapes, unlike the conventional Wald-type method. These features are illustrated by simulations and an empirical example which evaluates the effect of class size on pupils’ scholastic achievements. Bandwidth selection methods, higher-order properties, and extensions to incorporate additional covariates and parametric functional forms are also discussed.

Penalized Sieve Estimation And Inference Of Semi-Nonparametric Dynamic Models: A Selective Review, Xiaohong Chen

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

In this selective review, we first provide some empirical examples that motivate the usefulness of semi-nonparametric techniques in modelling economic and financial time series. We describe popular classes of semi-nonparametric dynamic models and some temporal dependence properties. We then present penalized sieve extremum (PSE) estimation as a general method for semi-nonparametric models with cross-sectional, panel, time series, or spatial data. The method is especially powerful in estimating difficult ill-posed inverse problems such as semi-nonparametric mixtures or conditional moment restrictions. We review recent advances on inference and large sample properties of the PSE estimators, which include (1) consistency and convergence rates …

Large Deviations Of Realized Volatility, Shin Kanaya, Taisuke Otsu

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

This paper studies large and moderate deviation properties of a realized volatility statistic of high frequency financial data. We establish a large deviation principle for the realized volatility when the number of high frequency observations in a fixed time interval increases to infinity. Our large deviation result can be used to evaluate tail probabilities of the realized volatility. We also derive a moderate deviation rate function for a standardized realized volatility statistic. The moderate deviation result is useful for assessing the validity of normal approximations based on the central limit theorem. In particular, it clarifies that there exists a trade-off …

Endogenous Leverage: Var And Beyond, Ana Fostel, John Geanakoplos

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We study endogenous leverage in a general equilibrium model with incomplete markets. We prove that in any binary tree leverage emerges in equilibrium at the maximum level such that VaR = 0, so there is no default in equilibrium, provided that agents get no utility from holding the collateral. When the collateral does affect utility (as with housing) or when agents have sufficiently heterogenous beliefs over three or more states, VaR = 0 fails to hold in equilibrium. We study commonly used examples: an economy in which investors have heterogenous beliefs and a CAPM economy consisting of investors with different …

Examples Of L 2 -Complete And Boundedly-Complete Distributions, Donald W.K. Andrews

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

Completeness and bounded-completeness conditions are used increasingly in econometrics to obtain nonparametric identification in a variety of models from nonparametric instrumental variable regression to non-classical measurement error models. However, distributions that are known to be complete or boundedly complete are somewhat scarce. In this paper, we consider an L 2 -completeness condition that lies between completeness and bounded completeness. We construct broad (nonparametric) classes of distributions that are L 2 -complete and boundedly complete. The distributions can have any marginal distributions and a wide range of strengths of dependence. Examples of L 2 -incomplete distributions also are provided.

Dynamic Strategic Information Transmission, Mikhail Golosov, Vasiliki Skreta, Aleh Tsyvinski, Andrea Wilson

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

This paper studies strategic information transmission in a dynamic environment where, each period, a privately informed expert sends a message and a decision maker takes an action. Our main result is that, in contrast to a static environment, full information revelation is possible. The gradual revelation of information and the eventual full revelation is supported by the dynamic rewards and punishments. The construction of a fully revealing equilibrium relies on two key features. The first feature is that the expert is incentivized, via appropriate actions, to join separable groups in which she initially pools with far-away types, then later reveals …

A Practical Asymptotic Variance Estimator For Two-Step Semiparametric Estimators, Daniel Ackerberg, Xiaohong Chen, Jinyong Hahn

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

The goal of this paper is to develop techniques to simplify semiparametric inference. We do this by deriving a number of numerical equivalence results. These illustrate that in many cases, one can obtain estimates of semiparametric variances using standard formulas derived in the already-well-known parametric literature. This means that for computational purposes, an empirical researcher can ignore the semiparametric nature of the problem and do all calculations “as if” it were a parametric situation. We hope that this simplicity will promote the use of semiparametric procedures.

Vertical Linkages And The Collapse Of Global Trade, Rudolfs Bems, Robert C. Johnson, Kei-Mu Yi

Dartmouth Scholarship

A common view is that cross-border vertical linkages played a key role in the 2008-2009 collapse of global trade. This paper presents two accounting results from a global input-output framework that shed light on this channel. We feed in observed changes in final demand and find that trade in final goods fell by twice as much as trade in intermediate goods. Nevertheless, intermediate goods account for more than two-fifths of the trade collapse. We also find that vertical specialization trade fell 13 percent, while value-added trade fell by 10 percent, because declines in demand were largest in highly vertically-specialized sectors.

An Explication And Analysis Of The Possible Economic Consequences Resulting From The Fiscal Position Of The United States And An Evaluation Of The Possible Corrective Fiscal Measures, Edward Francis Bukaty Iv

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Donor-Side Determinants Of Disaggregated Foreign Assistance: A Sur Approach To Understanding U.S. Economic, Military, And Food Aid Commitments, Stephanie Hugie

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This study addresses whether the absolute and relative impact of economic, political, and humanitarian variables that restrain or boost U.S. foreign assistance varies for different types of aid, from a strictly domestic decision-making framework. Using a SUR analysis for U.S. economic, military, and food aid obligations, the various aid budgets indeed behave differently with respect to the explanatory variables. GDP growth, the military budget, and Congressional orientation are more suitable predictors for economic assistance than for food or military assistance. Food aid is less likely to be correlated with the ideological orientation of the Congress and President, and is not …

House Prices And Marital Stability, Martin Farnham, Lucie Schmidt, Purvi Sevak

Economics: Faculty Publications

We investigate the effect of house price changes on divorce using data for 1991-2010 from the Current Population Survey and the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Our findings suggest that changing house prices significantly affect the share of a cohort that is divorced, and that these effects are asymmetric with respect to housing gains versus losses. In addition, we find differential effects for groups that are more likely to be homeowners versus renters. Some of this evidence is consistent with homeowners being locked into their homes-and hence marriages-by increased transactions costs in down markets.

How To Excel In The Fashion Industry, Elizabeth Weaver

Senior Honors Projects

How to Excel in the Fashion Industry

Elizabeth Weaver

Faculty Sponsor: Claire Lacoste Kapstein, Textiles, Merchandising and Design

Co-sponsor:  Art Mead, Economics

The fashion industry is most often thought of as a glamorous business filled with successful designers and supermodels.  For fashion students, however, the industry they seek to enter upon graduation is drastically different.  Students entering merchandising and retailing related careers will spend a large portion of their time analyzing data and working in Microsoft Excel. 
            As a graduating senior with a dual degree in Textiles, Merchandising and Design and Economics, I wanted to create a project that could …

Renegotiating Gender And Class In The Berry Fields Of Michoacán, Mexico, Donna Chollett

Anthropology Publications

This article examines the renegotiation of gender and class in a rural Mexican community where economic crisis in the sugar industry led foreign agribusinesses to promote blackberry and raspberry production for export and hire primarily women as berry pickers. Analysis focuses on the transition from a sugar economy where mostly men worked in the cane fields to non-traditional agricultural exports when women entered agricultural waged labor in unprecedented numbers. This restructuring of the regional economy raises important questions regarding the marginalization of differentiated subaltern groups and the nature of new sets of power relations between transnational agribusinesses, berry growers, and …

Preventing Pandemics: Contributing Factors To Susceptibility During The H1n1 Pandemic, Melanie A. Zilora

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

This paper uses Poisson and ordinary least squares (OLS) regression techniques on panel data from the United Nations World Health Organization’s FluNet to evaluate factors contributing to a country’s H1N1 influenza (swine flu) pandemic outcomes. Countries with higher development (as measured by gross domestic product and the United Nations Human Development Program’s development index) and higher mean annual temperature (as measured in the capital city) tended to have an earlier first reporting of cases. Though subject to reporting biases, the results also suggest that mass vaccinations have a negative effect on weekly reported cases. Countries that would vaccinate in the …

The Effects Of Walmart On Healthcare And Unionization: Is America Really Saving Money And Living Better?, Leyla Ziad

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

As the largest private sector employer in the United States, corporate retail giant Walmart continues to make waves in United States culture and the economy since launching its first store in 1962. As Walmart seeks to expand, the validity of its consumer guarantee to “save money, live better” has been increasingly scrutinized, given Walmart’s use of controversial business practices, most notably its employee benefit policies and anti-unionization efforts. With over 1.4 million employees in the United States, there is much talk surrounding the potential costs of Walmart’s low prices. This study analyzes selected healthcare and unionization impacts of Walmart in …

Sozialpolitik Nach Dem Verursacherprinzip : Beispiele Der Anwendung Bei Sucht, Gewichtsproblemen, Medikamentenmissbrauch, Arbeitslosigkeit, Prostitution, Isidor Wallimann

Books

Dieses einzigartige Buch ist der "Praxisband" des bekannten und renommierten Experten im Bereich der modernen Sozialpolitik. In mehr und mehr Ländern wird punktuell das Verursacherprinzip auch in der Sozial- und Gesundheitspolitik angewendet, leider zu bruchstückhaft und oft wenig reflektiert. Sozialpolitik nach dem Verursacherprinzip ist genau jenes Thema, dass kontroversiell diskutiert wird. Prominente Fallbeispiele wie zB im Bereich der Tabakindustrie in den USA prägen die Diskussion und gesellschaftspolitischen Diskurse.

Im Idealfall sollen mit dem Verursacherprinzip Soziale Probleme und Belastungen an alle dafür verantwortlichen Akteure zurückgebunden und so vermieden werden. Akteure, die andern Schaden zufügen, müssen dafür die Verantwortung übernehmen. Kosten zu …

Estimating Economic Impact Using Ex Post Econometric Analysis: Cautionary Tales, Robert Baumann, Victor Matheson

Economics Department Working Papers

This paper provides an overview of techniques that can be used to estimate the economic impact of stadiums, events, championships, and franchises on local economies. Utilizing data from National Collegiate Athletic Association championships, this paper highlights the potential problems that can be made if city and time effects are not handled and unit-roots are not accounted for. In addition, the paper describes the technique for estimating dynamic panel data and the advantages that come with these modeling techniques.

Spatial Variations In Willingness To Pay For Water At The Local And Regional Scales Using Geographically Weighted Regression, Robyn Lane Dennis

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Two decades of rapid urban growth and increasing per capita water consumption has left water providers in Northwest Arkansas concerned about their ability to meet future demand for water. Beaver Water District (BWD) is the largest of four regional water providers that draw from Beaver Lake, the only source of potable water in the region. Growth projections and per capita consumption patterns indicate that BWD could exhaust its raw water allocation as early as 2031. Municipal water customers served by BWD were surveyed about their stated priorities for water use, their water conservation behaviors, and their attitudes and perceptions about …

Pay Ratios And Pay Inequality, Kevin F. Hallock

Economics Faculty Publications

Some argue that reporting the ratio of CEO pay to that of the median-compensated worker in the organization is useful since it highlights the sometimes large discrepancy between the pay of an average worker and that of corporate executives. One argument against reporting the ratio of CEO pay to median worker pay is that this is much more difficult to calculate in practice than in theory. The hourly earnings of workers at the bottom have been incredibly flat for the last generation. Only the top 5% have seen large gains over time. For CEOs, the gains are substantial. the multiple …

Essays On The Link Between Alcohol Consumption And Youth Fertility, Inna Cintina

All Dissertations

In the first chapter, I use exogenous variation in state minimum legal drinking ages to examine the relationship between restrictions on teen alcohol consumption and youth fertility. Using individual level data, I find that a decrease in the minimum drinking age during the late 1970s and 1980s leads, surprisingly, to a decrease in pregnancy rate among 15-17 year-old white women. The pregnancy rate among 15-17 year-old black women, on the other hand, significantly increases with the decrease in the drinking age. I find similar racial variations for unwanted pregnancies among 15-17 years old. The differentiated response to changes in eligibility …

Industrial Diversity And Economic Performance: A Spatial Analysis, Hoa Phu Duy Tran

College of Business: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This study examines the linkage between industrial diversity and economic growth in the 48 contiguous states of the United States.  The period of analysis is 1992 through 2009.  Five diversity indices are considered and economic growth is measured as the growth rate of nonfarm earnings.  Other variables thought to influence economic growth are included in the analysis.  They are the growth rate of nonfarm employment, capital, and farm earnings.  Tests for the endogeneity of variables are conducted and the need for instrumental variable estimation methods is demonstrated.

First, I consider multivariate model that relates nonfarm earnings growth to the diversity …