Economics Commons^™

Mexico Consensus Economic Forecast, Volume 16, Number 3, Thomas M. Fullerton Jr., Adam G. Walke

Departmental Papers (E & F)

No abstract provided.

Economic Indices: Managing By The Numbers, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

Understanding indices is not just about crunching numbers, but appreciating how it is constructed

Rhode Island Current Conditions Index -- July 2013, Leonard Lardaro

The Rhode Island Current Conditions Index

No abstract provided.

An Economic Survey Analysis Of The Legal Literature Pertaining To The Privacy Implications Of Radio Frequency Identification Technology, Stephen M. Jerbic

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

A Qualitative Analysis Of The Use Of Financial Services And Saving Behavior Among Older African Americans And Latinos In The Los Angeles Area, Luisa Blanco, Maria Ponce, Arturo Gongora, O. Kenrik Duru

School of Public Policy Working Papers

For this study, we conducted 7 focus groups in the Los Angeles area with a total of 70 participants (42 Latinos and 28 African Americans) recruited from 3 senior centers and a church. Overall, participants were not well prepared for the future in terms of their health care financing. African Americans in the study tended to participate more in the formal financial sector and show a high level of sophistication when managing their finances than Latinos. African Americans also were more likely to save than Latinos, but their level of saving was not very large. We also find that participants …

Income Polarization And Income Inequality In Connecticut During The Great Recession, A. E. Rodriguez, Scott J. Lane

Economics & Business Analytics Faculty Publications

In this paper, using Bureau of the Census family income data we formally examine the income polarization hypothesis for the State of Connecticut. We ask and answer two questions. First, did the polarization of income deteriorate over the Great Recession years of 2007-2009? If the observed clustering around two opposite poles that existed in Connecticut prior to the Great Recession increased between the years immediately prior to the recession and immediately after (2006-2010) it would be consistent with the perception that the size of the middle class decreased over this period. Second, have income polarization and income inequality fared significantly …

On The Relationship Between Exchange Rates And Stock Prices: Evidence From Emerging Markets, Esin Cakan, Demissew D. Ejara

Economics & Business Analytics Faculty Publications

This study examines dynamic linkages between the exchange rates and stock prices for twelve emerging market countries for the period from May 1994 to April 2010 by using linear and non-linear Granger causality tests. Our empirical results show that stock prices and exchange rates have linear and non-linear bi-directional causality in most cases. The exceptional countries are Brazil, Poland and Taiwan, in that there is no evidence for a non-linear Granger causality from stock prices to exchange rates. The results support both the portfolio balance and the goods market theories for eight out of twelve countries. JEL Classifications Codes: F30, …

The Economists Of The Reformation: An Overview Of Reformation Teaching Concerning Work, Wealth, And Interest, David Eaton

Faculty & Staff Research and Creative Activity

This article provides an overview of the teaching of the Protestant Reformers (Luther, Calvin, and the Puritans) toward issues of wealth, work, interest, and calling. The purpose is to highlight some of the teachings that could be said to lead to a “Protestant Work Ethic.” The Reformers were not uniform in their views of economic matters and in some cases their views of economic matters were influenced by the society around them. While much of the teaching continued in the Catholic tradition, the reformers did elevate the views of calling and work; what had been toil was elevated to Divine …

Workers' Responses To Incentives: The Case Of Pending Mlb Free Agents, Joshua Congdon-Hohman, Jonathan A. Lanning

Economics Department Working Papers

This study examines ways in which workers respond to implicit incentives. Specifically, we examine the extent to which workers shift their effort to activities that are measured and which have been previously rewarded in the labor market. To examine this question, we examine the changes in the performance measures of professional baseball players in the season prior to the opportunity to freely negotiate their contract (free agency). We will examine different eras in baseball to examine if we can identify changes in behavior in this pivotal year based on changes to the current premium outputs for each time period.

Two Essays On Ceo Inside Debt Compensation, Nilakshi Borah

Doctoral Dissertations

In the first chapter, I examine the effect CEO inside debt holdings on firm cash holdings, as measured by the ratio of cash and marketable securities to net assets using a sample of EXECUCOMP firms over the period of 2006 to 2008. Following prior literature on CEO inside debt holdings (Cassell et al., 2012), I use the following two measures as proxies for CEO inside debt compensation: (1) the CEO to firm debt/equity ratio, which is calculated as the CEO's debt/equity ratio scaled by the firm's debt to equity ratio and 2) an indicator variable equal to one when the …

Explaining China’S Economic Performance From The Perspective Of Non-Conventional Determinants, Jingjing Yang, Sana Khalil

Business Review

We analyze forecasts concerning China’s growth slow-down and future prospects concerning its economic performance. Extending the discussion on China’s possibility of going through a slow-down in future, we focus on the avoidance of such a possibility by drawing forth the role of gross capital formation, trade openness, higher education enrollment ratio, higher education expenditure, R&D expenditure, population growth and number of inventions in determining per capita income. These non-conventional determinants: number of inventions, government R&D expenditure, higher education enrollment ratio and higher education expenditure, show not only significantly positive link with per capita income but also exhibit strong explanatory power …

Implementing A Green Economy In Least-Developed Countries The Challenges Of Intellectual Property Rights And Technology Transfers Within The Trips Agreement, Spencer Schloss

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The world has come to a stage where technology is the crux of development and growth. Vast technological advances allow for opportunities to produce at rates more efficient than even the most prodigal of scientists could have imagined. As the world simultaneously experiences development and growth, there is an unfortunate environmental tradeoff. The same industries that lead to economic advancement are causing extreme environmental degradation and least developed countries are the ones to bear the burden.

LDCs are dependent upon natural capital as their economic survival base. If the world continues to develop without considering the detrimental impacts on LDCs, …

Sequential Information Disclosure In Auctions, Dirk Bergemann, Achim Wambach

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We propose a sequential auction mechanism for a single object in which the seller jointly determines the allocation and the disclosure policy. A sequential disclosure rule is shown to implement an ascending price auction in which each losing bidder learns his true valuation, but the winning bidder’s information is truncated from below. As the auction ends, the winning bidder only has limited information, namely that his valuation is sufficiently high to win the auction. The sequential mechanism implements the allocation of the handicap auction of Esö and Szentes [10] but strengthens the participation constraints of the bidders from interim to …

Competing For Consumer Inattention, Geoffroy De Clippel, Kfir Eliaz, Kareen Rozen

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

Consumers purchase multiple types of goods and services, but may be able to examine only a limited number of markets for the best price. We propose a simple model which captures these features, conveying some new insights. A firm’s price can deflect or draw attention to its market, and consequently, limited attention introduces a new dimension of competition across markets. We fully characterize the resulting equilibrium, and show that the presence of partially attentive consumers improves consumer welfare as a whole. When consumers are less attentive, they are more likely to miss the best offer in each market; but the …

Financial Innovation, Collateral And Investment, Ana Fostel, John Geanakoplos

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We show that financial innovations that change the collateral capacity of assets in the economy can affect investment even in the absence of any shift in utilities, productivity, or asset payoffs. First we show that the ability to leverage an asset by selling non-contingent promises can generate over-investment compared to the Arrow-Debreu level. Second, we show that the introduction of naked CDS can generate under-investment with respect to the Arrow-Debreu level. Finally, we show that the introduction of naked CDS can robustly destroy competitive equilibrium.

Financial Innovation, Collateral And Investment, Ana Fostel, John Geanakoplos

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

Financial innovations that change how promises are collateralized can affect investment, even in the absence of any change in fundamentals. In C-models, the ability to leverage an asset always generates over-investment compared to Arrow Debreu. The introduction of CDS always leads to under-investment with respect to Arrow Debreu, and in some cases even robustly destroys competitive equilibrium. The need for collateral would seem to cause under-investment. Our analysis illustrates a countervailing force: goods that serve as collateral yield additional services and are therefore over-valued and over-produced. In models without cash flow problems there is never marginal under-investment on collateral.

Sequential Information Disclosure In Auctions, Dirk Bergemann, Achim Wambach

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We consider the design of an optimal auction in which the seller can determine the allocation and the disclosure rule of the mechanism. Thus, in contrast to the standard analysis of a optimal auctions, the seller can explicitly design the disclosure of the information received by each bidder as his private information. We show that the optimal disclosure rule is a sequential disclosure rule, implemented in an ascending price auction. In the optimal disclosure mechanism, each losing bidder learns his true valuation, but the winning bidder only learns that his valuation is sufficiently high to win the auction. We show …

Comparative Approaches To Studying Strategy: Towards An Evolutionary Account Of Primate Decision Making, Sarah F. Brosnan, Michael J. Beran, Audrey E. Parrish, Sara A. Price, Bart J. Wilson

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

How do primates, humans included, deal with novel problems that arise in interactions with other group members? Despite much research regarding how animals and humans solve social problems, few studies have utilized comparable procedures, outcomes, or measures across different species. Thus, it is difficult to piece together the evolution of decision making, including the roots from which human economic decision making emerged. Recently, a comparative body of decision making research has emerged, relying largely on the methodology of experimental economics in order to address these questions in a cross-species fashion. Experimental economics is an ideal method of inquiry for this …

Using Economic Instruments To Develop Effective Management Of Invasive Species: Insights From A Bioeconomic Model, Shana M. Mcdermott, Rebecca E. Irwin, Brad W. Taylor

Economics Faculty Research

Economic growth is recognized as an important factor associated with species invasions. Consequently, there is increasing need to develop solutions that combine economics and ecology to inform invasive species management. We developed a model combining economic, ecological, and sociological factors to assess the degree to which economic policies can be used to control invasive plants. Because invasive plants often spread across numerous properties, we explored whether property owners should manage invaders cooperatively as a group by incorporating the negative effects of invader spread in management decisions (collective management) or independently, whereby the negative effects of invasive plant spread are ignored …

Dampak Kapasitas Fiskal Terhadap Penurunan Kemiskinan: Suatu Analisis Simulasi Kebijakan, Vera Lisna, Bonar M. Sinaga, Muhammad Firdaus, Slamet Sutomo

Jurnal Ekonomi dan Pembangunan Indonesia

This study examines the impacts of fiscal capacity on the acceleration of poverty alleviation through a dynamic simultaneous equations model using empirical data of 23 provinces and conducting historical simulation. The increasing of fiscal capacity from local taxes and tax-revenue sharing have significant impact on poverty reduction, particularly in agricultural household, which has the largest share in number of poor in Indonesia indicated by larger decline of agricultural headcount index than industrial and trade headcount index. However, the increasing of General Allocator Fund/Dana Alokasi Umum (DAU) has negative impact on agricultural headcount index. The policy implication is to increase revenue …

Compensation Tournaments, Kevin F. Hallock

Economics Faculty Publications

From beach volleyball and soccer to tennis and golf to playoffs for the Little League World Series, tournament play has lessons for workplace compensation. A tournament scheme can motivate workers the same if workers are risk neutral. A rich place to study tournament pay, performance, output, effort and the like is professional golf, because so much is measured. Great data are available on the incentive structure; for example, the distance in dollars between the first place price and the second place prize, and the distance in dollars between the second place prize and the third place prize, and so on.

On The Effect And Remedies Of Shrinkage On Classification Probability Estimation, Zhengxiao Wu, Yufeng Liu, Zhengxiao Wu

Research Collection School of Economics

Shrinkage methods have been shown to be effective for classification problems. As a form of regularization, shrinkage through penalization helps to avoid overfitting and produces accurate classifiers for prediction, especially when the dimension is relatively high. Despite the benefit of shrinkage on classification accuracy of resulting classifiers, in this article, we demonstrate that shrinkage creates biases on classification probability estimation. In many cases, this bias can be large and consequently yield poor class probability estimation when the sample size is small or moderate. We offer some theoretical insights into the effect of shrinkage and provide remedies for better class probability …

Nonparametric Analysis Of Random Utility Models: Testing, Yuichi Kitamura, Jörg Stoye

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

This paper develops new tools for the analysis of Random Utility Models (RUM). The leading application is stochastic revealed preference theory, that is, the modeling of aggregate choice behavior in a population characterized by individual rationality and unobserved heterogeneity. We test the null hypothesis that a repeated cross-section of demand data was generated by such a population, without restricting unobserved heterogeneity in any form whatsoever. Equivalently, we empirically test McFadden and Richter’s (1991) Axiom of Revealed Stochastic Preference (ARSP, to be defined later), using only nonsatiation and the Strong Axiom of Revealed Preference (SARP) as restrictions on individual level behavior. …

In Search Of A Foreign Economic Policy, Ishrat Husain Dr.

Faculty Research - Newspaper and Magazine Articles

There hasn’t been any attempt in Pakistan so far to articulate, coherently and comprehensively, the contours of Pakistan’s foreign economic policy. On the other hand, making sense of the bits and pieces of scattered statements and pronouncements can be a highly subjective exercise.

In designing foreign economic policy we should always keep in mind that such a policy would be a by-product of the country’s larger foreign and domestic economic policies. For example, if foreign policy with one particular country or group of countries is silent, ambivalent or agnostic then a foreign economic policy cannot be built upon strong economic …

Economics Of Redd+ And Community Forestry, Randall Bluffstone

Economics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Reducing Emission from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) is a payment for ecosystem services (PES) system created under the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) that tries to reduce deforestation and degradation in countries not subject to requirements under the convention (non-Annex 1 countries) and, therefore, release less and sequester more carbon. Other cobenefits have been added, such as biodiversity protection, poverty reduction and afforestation, which make up the '+' in REDD+. The '+', therefore, attempts to address potentially negative, unintended effects on non-carbon ecosystem services and take account of effects on those who currently have claims to forests. Many …

Acquisitions Driven By Stock Overvaluation: Are They Good Deals?, Fangjian Fu, Leming Lin, Micah S. Officer

Finance Faculty Works

Theory and recent evidence suggest that overvalued firms can create value for shareholders if they exploit their overvaluation by using their stock as currency to purchase less overvalued firms. We challenge this idea and show that, in practice, overvalued acquirers significantly overpay for their targets. These acquisitions do not, in turn, lead to synergy gains. Moreover, these acquisitions seem to be concentrated among acquirers with the largest governance problems. CEO compensation, not shareholder value creation, appears to be the main motive behind acquisitions by overvalued acquirers.

Editor's Note, Marites Tiongco

DLSU Business & Economics Review

No abstract provided.

The Contributors, Marites Tiongco

DLSU Business & Economics Review

No abstract provided.

A Cut From Above: The Impact Of Loyalty Program Status On Member’S Behavior, Fredelita Espiritu-De Mesa

DLSU Business & Economics Review

This study identified the differences on the behavior between elite and non-elite members of a loyalty program. Behaviors measured were personal referrals, personal information sharing, openness to store promotions, increasing purchases, and marketing research support. Results showed the significant differences on behavior such as personal referrals and increasing purchases. The store benefits personal referrals from the non-elite members while increasing purchases from elite members.

Consumption Pattern Of Poor Households In Metro Manila – A Microeconometric Evaluation, Cesar C. Rufino

DLSU Business & Economics Review

This study is an attempt to analyze through survey design-consistent consumption profiling the budget allocation pattern of urban poor in Metro Manila. Econometric models of a complete system of Engel curves for the various consumption items are to be employed in the analysis. A value-added characteristic of this research is the incorporation of the complex survey design features of the 2009 Family Income and Expenditure Survey to produce consistent and unbiased standard errors and parameter estimates used in a variety of inferences implemented.