Economics Commons^™

Affordable Fares, Sustainable Public Transport: The Fare Review Mechanism Committee Report, Sock Yong Phang

Research Collection School Of Economics

The public transport system in Singapore is the main mode of transport for the majority of the population. It is important that public transport remains generally affordable and accessible, with measures to help various commuter groups through fare assistance schemes. Household surveys show that public transport has become more affordable as a proportion of monthly household income over the years. Public transport fares have increased, but at a much lower rate than increases in income. At the same time, increasing fuel costs and other changes in the public transport landscape since 2005 mean that the public transport industry faces declining …

Robust Bayesian Model Selection, Yong Li, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper extends the robust Bayesian inference in misspecified models of Müller (2013, Econometrica) to Bayesian model selection of a set of misspecified models. It is shown that when a model is misspecified, under the Kullback-Leibler loss function, the risk associated with Müller's posterior is less (weakly) than that with the original posterior distribution asymptotically. Based on this new result, two new information criteria are proposed for model selection under model misspecification. Sufficient conditions are provided for the risk associated with Müller's posterior to be strictly smaller.

Grandchild Care, Intergenerational Transfers, And Grandparents’ Labor Supply, Christine Ho

Research Collection School Of Economics

One-fifth of children aged below five with employed mothers benefit from grandparent provided child care as their main source of daycare in the U.S. Using data from the Health and Retirement Study, we investigate how grandchild care needs relate to intergenerational transfers of time and money and grandparents’ labor supply behavior. We find that grandparents with a new born grandchild are more likely to provide grandchild care while married grandparents are also more likely to be employed and provide financial help. Grandparents with grandchildren living close by provided higher time transfers while married grandmothers with resident grandchildren also worked longer …

A Spatial Analysis Of The Italian Second Republic, Massimiliano Landi, Ricardo Pelizzo

Research Collection School Of Economics

The Optimal Classification method is applied to a newly created data set to provide a spatial map of the Italian Second Republic (1996–2008). A bi-dimensional political space was found in the XIII Legislature and virtually a one-dimensional political space in the XIV and XV Legislatures. In addition, the main dimension is explained along the government–opposition dimension rather than on the traditional left–right dimension. During the Second Republic, Italy experienced changes in the electoral system and in the format of parties. The data are used to discuss the implications of either change on the dimensionality space. It was found that the …

Geographic Decomposition Of Inequality In Health And Wealth: Evidence From Cambodia, Tomoki Fujii

Research Collection School Of Economics

Applying the small-area estimation methods to Cambodia data, we decompose the total inequality in wealth (consumption) and health (child undernutrition) indicators into within-location and between-location components. Because the knowledge of the pattern of spatial disparity in poverty and undernutrition is important for the geographic targeting of resources, we conduct a geographic decomposition of the variance of the Foster-Greere-Thorbecke index in addition to the standard decomposition exercise based on the generalized entropy measures. We find that a sizable proportion of wealth inequality is due to between-location inequality, whereas health inequality is mainly due to within-location inequality.

Geographic Decomposition Of Inequality In Health And Wealth: Evidence From Cambodia, Tomoki Fujii

Research Collection School Of Economics

The small-area estimation developed by Elbers, Lanjouw and Lanjouw (2002, 2003), in which a census and a survey are combined to produce the estimates of welfare measures for small geographic areas, has become a standard tool for poverty analysis in developing countries. The small-area estimates are typically plotted on a map, which are commonly called a poverty map. Poverty maps proved useful for policy analysis and formulation, and have become increasingly popular among policy-makers and researchers. In Cambodia, poverty maps have been used by various international organizations, ministries and non-governmental organizations for analyzing the poverty situations for their operation areas, …

Semiparametric Estimation In Triangular System Equations With Nonstationarity, Jiti Gao, Peter C. B. Phillips

Research Collection School Of Economics

A system of multivariate semiparametric nonlinear time series models is studied with possible dependence structures and nonstationarities in the parametric and nonparametric components. The parametric regressors may be endogenous while the nonparametric regressors are assumed to be strictly exogenous. The parametric regressors may be stationary or nonstationary and the nonparametric regressors are nonstationary integrated time series. Semiparametric least squares (SLS) estimation is considered and its asymptotic properties are derived. Due to endogeneity in the parametric regressors, SLS is not consistent for the parametric component and a semiparametric instrumental variable (SIV) method is proposed instead. Under certain regularity conditions, the SIV …

The Influence Of Parental Aspirations, Attitudes, And Engagement On Children's Very Low Food Security, Elizabeth T. Powers

University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research Discussion Paper Series

Survey of Income and Program Participation data are used to investigate the relationship between parenting and children’s very low food security. Parenting is characterized along five domains (emotional outlook, support, education desires, activities with the child excluding meals, and television viewing rules). Food security definitions are obtained from questions in a special SIPP module that are based on the USDA’s core food security module. Graphical evidence indicates that parenting patterns differ distinctly for households experiencing various levels of food insecurity. Descriptive regression evidence suggests that some of the parenting attributes are significantly associated with children’s food insecurity, even controlling for …

Risk And Protective Factors Associated With Prevalence Of Vlfs In Children Among Children Of Foreign-Born Mothers, John Cook

University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research Discussion Paper Series

This research examined VLFS in children among households with foreign-born (FB) mothers compared to US-born mothers through three research questions: Is mother’s foreign-born status (FBS) associated with VLFS in children, and can association be explained by mothers’ socio-demographic characteristics? Are FB mothers more or less likely to receive nutrition or non-nutrition assistance benefits, or work for pay than US-born mothers? Do mothers’ FBS, or protective/risk factors associated with FBS, modify associations of negative economic shocks and hardships with VLFS in children? Data are on approximately 44,000 mother-child (ages<48 Mos.) dyads collected from household surveys administered under a "sentinel surveillance" system over 1998-2012 at teaching hospitals and clinics in seven US cities. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression models tested study hypotheses. Mothers' FBS is strongly positively associated with VLFS in children after controlling for available risk and protective factors. FB mothers are less likely to receive SNAP and non-nutrition assistance (TANF, LIHEAP or housing subsidies), but more likely to receive WIC and to be employed than US-born mothers. FB mothers are no more likely to report negative reasons for not receiving SNAP or TANF, or losing jobs or decreasing work hours than US-born, and reported "immigration concerns" rarely. No need/chose not to participate are most frequently reported reasons for not receiving SNAP and TANF; pregnancy/maternity leave and "market conditions" for lost jobs and decreased work hours. Economic shocks and hardships are positively associated with VLFS in children, but Mothers' FBS does not interact with shocks and hardships to modify those associations.

Food Insecurity During Childhood: Understanding Persistence And Change Using Linked Current Population Survey Data, Sheela Kennedy, Catherine A. Fitch, John Robert Warren, Julia A. Rivera Drew

University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research Discussion Paper Series

Our paper examines the prevalence and determinants of children’s transitions into and out of food insecurity since 2001. We use longitudinally linked data from the Food Security Supplements to the Current Population Surveys to estimate one-year transition probabilities of entry and exit from food insecurity. Our results indicate that child hunger is typically short-lived, but children experiencing very low food security frequently experience multiple consecutive years of food insecurity. We demonstrate large demographic and socioeconomic differences in rates of entry into very low food security and persistence in children's food insecurity. Income and employment shocks are important predictors of child …

Use Of Alternative Financial Services And Childhood Food Insecurity, Katie Fitzpatrick

University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research Discussion Paper Series

Low- and moderate-income (LMI) households with children often face considerable difficulties in ensuring enough financial resources for an adequate diet. This project investigates the use of financial services and other financial decisions parents make that may affect the risk of very low food security and food insecurity of children. With households in both the December 2008 Current Population Survey (CPS) Food Security Supplement and the January 2009 CPS Unbanked and Underbanked Supplement, the project studies the relationship between bank account ownership, use of alternative financial service (AFS) providers, the organization of household finances, and the food security of children. Both …

Competition As A Discovery Procedure: Schumpeter Meets Hayek In A Model Of Innovation, Pedro Bento

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

I incorporate an insight of Friedrich Hayek - that competition allows a thousand flowers to bloom, and discovers the best among them -into a model of Schumpeterian innovation. Firms face uncertainty about the optimal direction of innovation, so more innovations implies a higher expected value of the `best' innovation. The model accounts for two seemingly contradictory relationships reported in recent empirical studies - a positive relationship between competition and industry-level productivity growth, and an inverted-U relationship between competition and firm-level innovation. Notwithstanding the positive relationship between competition and growth, I find antitrust policy reduces industry-level growth.

How To Keep The Bakken Oil Boom From Becoming A Bursting Bubble, Louis D. Johnston

Economics Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Religiosity And Election Partisanship In Presidential Races: The Case Of New Jersey, Tyler M. Ransom, Dr. Richard Butler

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Research has shown that voters show partisanship—propensity to vote along party lines—in Presidential elections. My project explores whether a person’s religiosity, as measured by affiliation variables, has an impact on partisanship and vote choice. My coauthors and I develop a religious partisanship index (RPI) that gauges the relative importance of religion between Democrats and Republicans in Presidential elections from 1980 to 2000. We find that, in every election of the 1980s, religion increased Republican partisanship, but since President Clinton (the elections of 1992, 1996 and 2000), religion increased partisanship among Democratic voters.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission’S Line Of Business Program And Innovation Research, John T. Scott

Dartmouth Scholarship

This paper examines how the resources of the Line of Business (LB) Program of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) leveraged academic research to develop understanding of science and technology policy and to point to new directions for both research and policy. The paper provides an overview and discussion of the birth and death of the FTC LB Program and its unique LB data, the innovation research using the LB data, and the legacy of the program.

Determinants Of Weekly Review Session Attendance And The Effect Of Review Sessions On Student Performance In Economics 110, Bradley Hunter, Dr. Eric Eide

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Every semester, each of the fifteen teaching assistants for Economics 110 classes hold two weekly review sessions, during which they solve practice test questions, discuss the implications of lecture material, and help students solidify difficult concepts. These review sessions, while provided at a relatively low cost by the Economics department (approximately $4500), also constitute for an estimated 100 student-hours per week in just one of BYU’s six sections of Econ 110.

Desegregation And Teenage Pregnancy, Ryan Fairchild, Dr. Joseph Price

Journal of Undergraduate Research

In the United States, two out of three teenagers have sex before graduating from high school. As a result there is a high probability that young women are at risk to become pregnant while still in high school . Studies have shown that teenage pregnancy is associated with a number of adverse outcomes for both mother and child, including less human capital investment and lower future wages . Because of this, factors that could lower teenage pregnancy are important in improving the lives of both young women and future generations. Over the last 50 years, researchers have investigated various mechanisms …

Student Absences And Academic Achievement, Ian Filmore, Dr. Eric Eide

Journal of Undergraduate Research

While researchers have explored a wide variety of measures designed to improve student performance, the obvious issue of absenteeism has gone largely ignored. This is even more puzzling when we consider that most policy measures implicitly rely on the students’ physical presence in the classroom in order to work. We view this project as a first step toward understanding the role of absenteeism in shaping student outcomes.

On The Inevitability Of Divided Government And Improbability Of A Complete Separation Of Powers, Rodger D. Congleton

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

This paper provides a tightly written overview and modest extension of the constitutional exchange and evolution model developed in Perfecting Parliament and uses that approach to analyze the division of authority that one would expect to see in contemporary constitutional governments. The analysis suggests that constitutions tend to be written, based on the king and council template, and buttressed by a more or less independent court system. Moreover, it suggests that constitutions change at the margin through time as constitutional bargaining takes place. This suggests that a complete separation of power is unlikely to be observed in the long run. …

Helping Without Hurting: Thinking Critically About Global Poverty Alleviation, Sarah Estelle

Faculty Presentations

Principles of Microeconomics students read, discuss, and write about the philosophy of Asset-Based Community Development and potential responses of Christians to this thought-provoking approach to fighting poverty through reconciliation. The material is drawn heavily from _When Helping Hurts_ (Corbett and Fikkert, 2012) and writings by Robert Lupton of FCS Urban Ministries.

Capital Gains Tax And Stock Market Volume, Robert Couch, Dr. Mark Showalter

Journal of Undergraduate Research

I completed my research project concerning the capital gains tax and stock market volume. I spent approximately one hundred hours uncovering previous research on this topic, gathering my own data, performing statistical regressions on this data, drawing conclusions from this data, and writing up my results with prose, charts, and tables.

Analysis Of The Strength And Influence Of Demographic Factors In Determining Convert Baptism Rates In Lds Missions, Darin G. Clay, Dr. Mark Showalter

Journal of Undergraduate Research

It is a well-known fact that the success of the missionary effort of the Church is highly correlated with economic prosperity. Specifically, the convert baptism rates are higher in less prosperous nations than in relatively wealthy nations. Opponents of the Church have cited this fact in support of the claim that the church appeals to potential members because of its relatively wealthy membership rather than because of any spiritual experiences or “House-of-Israel” arguments. Church adherents assert that poor nations more readily accept the church because of “unmeasurables” such as humility and heritage (i.e. descendants of the Nephite/Lamanite populations). This study …

Equilibrium And Strategies Of Horizontal Mergers Inasymmetric Differentiated Oligopoly, Juan Lu

Lingnan Theses

Building an asymmetric differentiated goods quantity competition model, the present paper explores how substitutability of products, one of the factors affecting the unilateral effect, determines horizontal mergers and acquisitions equilibrium and strategies. It seems intuitively obvious that the merger between firms with goods that are sufficiently close substitutes can be more profitable. However, this thesis's counter-intuitive results show that, for some parameter values, a merger is more profitable for the merging firm when the target firm produces a distant substitutes (i.e., when it is not the closest competitor to the acquiring firm in the market).The theoretical analysis shows that to …

A Comparison Of Outlier Resistant Estimators Of Linear Regression Models, Brian H. Boyer, Dr. James B. Mcdonald

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Regression analysis is a technique routinely used by researchers in many disciplines to fit some type of mathematical model to observed data. A basic two dimensional linear regression model is mathematically expressed as yi = + xi + Ji for i = 1, n, where y1 … Yn is an observed sample of n data points on the dependent variable y, x1 . . . xn is an observed sample of n data points on an explanatory variable, x, and the parameters and define the true linear relationship between x and Y. The variable J represents a random disturbance term …

The State Of Play In Poland”S Unconventional Shale And Oil Development, J Wesley Burnett, Randall Jackson, Robert Blobaum

Regional Research Institute Working Papers

Following the huge gas and oil rush in the US, the world”s gas and oil companies have been eyeing reserves in other countries including Poland, which is believed to be sitting on one of the largest reserves in the European Union. The Poles, seeking to diversify their energy sources and meet EU emissions standards, which are driving up electricity costs, met the news with tremendous fanfare. Following initial geological assessments, major international oil and gas companies soon made announcements to begin drilling operations in Poland. However, one of the major challenges of shale gas development is that is often requires …

A Quantile Regression Analysis Of Respiratory Health And Pm10 Pollution, Rebecca L. Brunson, Dr. Mark Showalter

Journal of Undergraduate Research

In 1991 Dr. C Arden Pope published a study on the effect of changes in fine particulate pollution (PM10) on respiratory health, as measured by peak expiratory flow (PEF). The study found that respiratory health (PEF) was affected by changes in PM10 even when the levels were well below the national ambient air quality standard. The results of the study were statistically significant. “Elevated PM10 levels were associated with statistically significant reductions in lung function as measured by reductions in PEF and increased reported symptoms of respiratory disease and asthma medication use” (1).

The Effect Of Utah’S Ban On Smoking In Public Buildings On Restaurant Revenues, Brant Avondet, Dr. Arden C. Pope Iii

Journal of Undergraduate Research

My analysis of available data was unable to determine the effect of Utah’s ban on smoking in public buildings on restaurant revenues.

Valuation Of The Ecosystem Services Provided By Coastal Ecosystems In Shandong, China: Developing A Non- Market Valuation System, Jing Guo

Working Papers

Non-market valuation assesses the contributions of ecosystem services to human well-being by determining the preference of users. That is how much money users are willing to pay for ecosystem improvements or how much they are willing to accept for ecosystem losses. Through exploring these preferences, the natural capital can be accounted for economically and quantitatively. It can not only lead to better understanding of ecosystem benefits, but also make it possible to compare ecosystem services with other conventional goods and services (e.g. real estate) in monetary terms.

Shandong is a coastal province of China, which is located on the eastern …

Demographics, Skills Gaps, And Market Dynamics, Randall W. Eberts

Conference Papers

No abstract provided.

Building More And Better Jobs: Lessons From The United States, Randall W. Eberts

Conference Papers

No abstract provided.