Economics Commons^™

Heartbreak And Defiance: Stories Of Crisis In Puerto Rico, Andrea C. González-Ramírez

Capstones

No abstract provided.

Oil Exploration Economics: Empirical Evidence From Indonesian Geological Basins, Hari Patria, Vid Adrison

Economics and Finance in Indonesia

Oil exploration has been subject to economic research for decades. Earlier studies of exploration models are mostly discussed the behavior of exploration at the macro-level analysis such as field, firm, region, and continental. This paper then focuses on the geological and economic factors that determine the well-drilling decision at the micro-level using disaggregated panel data of 32 geological basins in Indonesia over the period of 2004-2013. This study shows that the number of drilled wells is determined significantly by the lag of success rate, lag of discovery size, lag of global oil price, and regional location of geological basin.

Managing Productivity In The Infrastructure Sector: A Case Study From Indonesia, Eric R. W. Knight

Economics and Finance in Indonesia

This paper considers the nature of assessing productivity and effectiveness in infrastructure investment in the context of governments increasing investment in new infrastructure. Taking the case of energy infrastructure investment within Indonesia, this paper makes three contributions: (i) develops a model for assessing infrastructure productivity based on landscape, regime and niche-level changes, (ii) suggests the interconnection between these levels based on sequencing multi-level changes over time, and (iii) shows the role of supply and demand side initiatives in enabling new infrastructure investment is evaluated.

Determinants Of Firm Innovation In Indonesia: The Role Of Institutions And Access To Finance, Edo Mahendra, Ubaidillah Zuhdi, Ratnawati Muyanto

Economics and Finance in Indonesia

This paper investigates the determinants of firm innovation in Indonesia. Using quality of local regulations index constructed by the Indonesia's Regional Autonomy Watch (KPPOD) as measure of institutions, We found that better institutional quality at the local level was associated with more innovation and that firms experiencing major obstacle in access to finance were less likely to innovate. Access to finance is more critical for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) whereas institutional quality is more important for large firms. The positive impact of better institutions on innovation is asymmetrically distributed. Better local institutional quality disproportionately benefited non-constrained firms.

Unequal Impact Of Price Changes In Indonesia, Ruly Pratikno, Mohamad Ikhsan

Economics and Finance in Indonesia

The main idea of this study is to determine the impact of relative inflation on poverty incidents and to investigate whether inflation inequality has occurred in Indonesia. Interesting results were found at regional level. Firstly, Jakarta had different poverty response with respect to price increases. Processed food and transportation inflation were more imperative for the poor in Jakarta. Secondly, the poor in province with low poverty figures were more prone to inflation. In general, the results show that food inflation has the major adverse impact on the poor. Moreover, we found that inflation in Indonesia has not been pro-poor.

In The Race To Reach New Wine Drinkers Old World Taste Is Losing Out, Lillian Knoepp

Capstones

But this old world is losing its grip on the wine industry. French wine production and consumption are falling while the New World of wine is gaining ground in both areas. Experts say that new wine making techniques and higher consumption in New World markets like the United States have changed the French wine industry.

For the French, more than just their wine industry is at stake. For many, the loss of French wine is a loss of French identity.

“They can't choose between the two. Because French people - we are wine and cheese - we are everything,” said …

Assessing The Effectiveness Of State-Owned Shippers’ Councils : The Case Of The Ghana Shippers’ Authority, Helena Claudia Amanfu

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Private Ownership Of Shipping Lines In Ghana : The Challenges And The Way Forward, Priscilla Akua Afful

World Maritime University Dissertations

Private Shipping Line is a business venture in the shipping industry that Ghana cannot boast of as compared to the ports in the country and as such the research seeks to delineate the challenges associated with private ownership of shipping lines in Ghana and the way forward towards the future.

An account is given on the challenges of private ownership of shipping lines which takes into consideration the challenges faced by the national shipping line which led to its demise. Policies made by government are assessed and examined to determine their effects on private entities. A number of solutions are …

A Forecasting Model For Container Throughput : Empirical Research For Laem Chabang Port, Thailand, Pitinoot Kotcharat

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Fish Landings At The World’S Commercial Fishing Ports, Tim Huntington, Fiona Nimmo, Graeme Macfadyen

Journal of Ocean and Coastal Economics

In 2009, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) adopted the Agreement on Port State Measures to Prevent, Deter and Eliminate Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing (PSMA). Countries that ratify the treaty commit to exert greater control at ports over foreign-flagged vessels to detect IUU catch before it is offloaded from vessels, and prevent the ill-gotten catch from entering the world’s markets. The PSMA, when effectively implemented globally, will be a major deterrent to IUU fishing. A major challenge to selecting ports for enhanced controls has been the lack of data on which ports are the world’s largest …

Partners Diversification And Exposure Of African Countries To International Crises: The Case Of Kenya, Giscard Assoumou Ella

International Journal of African Development

The objective of this paper is to characterize the exposure of Kenyan's income to international income, monetary and price shocks. The results suggest that the partners’ diversification permits them to resist to international shocks. In fact, Chinese conjuncture tends to be less exposed to OECD countries' income and inflation shocks. Also, income in this country more depends on domestic investment and household consumption, in comparison to the exposure to OECD country shocks. In this context, we observe that the exposure of Kenyan income to OECD shocks regresses when the dependence to Chinese conjuncture progresses.

Examining Human Capital Capacity’S Influence On Human Development And Poverty Reduction In Sub-Saharan Africa, Theodore J. Davis Jr.

International Journal of African Development

The aim of this paper is to examine and expand our focus on human capital capacity building as a foundation for poverty reduction in Sub-Saharan Africa. The data showed significant differences in the human capital capacity building characteristics as measured by demographic, education and gender equality characteristics. In analyzing select human capital capacity building markers, the findings suggest that the educational indicators were among the strongest in explaining the variation in human development in Sub-Saharan Africa. The findings showed that gender inequality was a serious inhibitor of human development in Sub-Saharan Africa. Overall, the Sub-Saharan nations with the lowest level …

Deindustrialization In Africa, Richard Grabowski

International Journal of African Development

Economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa has been characterized by deindustrialization. Conventional economists argue that this is due to a bad environment for business decision making. This paper provides a classical explanation for deindustrialization, the failure to solve the food problem. That is, food staple prices have risen rapidly resulting in labor becoming costly, although physically abundant. This has prevented the evolution of a comparative advantage in labor intensive manufacturing. Structural change is an important element of the process of economic development, especially in the early stages. Productivity grows by shifting labor out of agriculture where productivity is low, and into …

Does Farmer Field School Training Improve Technical Efficiency? Evidence From Smallholder Maize Farmers In Oromia, Ethiopia, Admassu Tesso, Workneh Negatu, Sisay Asefa, Adugna Lemi, Bamlaku Alemirew

International Journal of African Development

This study carries out the impact evaluation of Farmer Field School (FFS) training program on the technical efficiency of smallholder farmers. The FFS program was sponsored by the Ethiopian government and launched in 2010 to scale-up best agricultural practices in the country. The study aims to compare changes in the technical efficiency of those FFS graduate and non-FFS graduate maize producing farmers in Ethiopia, Oromia. For this, panel data were collected in two rounds from 446 randomly selected households from three districts consisting of 218 FFS graduate farmers and 228 non-FFS graduate farmers. The analytical procedure has involved three stages: …

Inflation, External Market Performance And Government Policy: An Empirical Investigation Using Var-Vecm Approach In The Context Of Ethiopia, Nardos M. Beyene

International Journal of African Development

This study aims at determining the effectiveness of demand management policies in stabilizing the macroeconomic environment of Ethiopian economy. Inflation and Balance of Payments are used as the two indicators of stability. The researcher made use of Co-integrated VAR approach and estimates inflation and balance of payments equations. All together the researcher used data for the period 1976-2011. The findings of the study imply the existence of two-way relationship between inflation and balance of payments. Excess balance of payment surplus leads to inflationary pressures in the economy while inflation booming deteriorates the country’s external balance.

International Journal Of African Development, Vol. 3, Issue 1

International Journal of African Development

Complete issue of International Journal of African Development, Volume 3, Issue 1 - Fall 2015.

What Matters More For Economic Development, The Amount Of Funding Or The Number Of Projects Funded? Evidence From The Community Development Financial Investment Fund, Kaitlyn M. Harger, Amanda Ross, Heather M. Stephens

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

Governments try to attract entrepreneurs to specific areas by providing incentives to new businesses that locate within their jurisdiction. However, there is a debate over how best to allocate these funds. Using establishment-level data from the National Establishment Time Series (NETS) database for California, and data on the location of disbursements from the Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) and New Market Tax Credit (NMTC) programs, we consider the effectiveness of these two programs in attracting new businesses to disadvantaged areas. Investors are eligible to receive funding through these programs if the census tract where they are located has a median …

Coordination Failure, Ishrat Husain Dr.

Faculty Research - Newspaper and Magazine Articles

Pakistan would be an excellent case study for anyone studying topics such as ‘perpetual confrontation and polarisation of all kinds’, ‘blame game’, ‘passing the buck’ and ‘don’t accept responsibility’. Recent examples of public squabbling include those of: electric power regulator Nepra and the water and power ministry; the Planning Commission and the two energy ministries; the Privatisation Commission and the Sindh government on the steel mills; the interior ministry and Sindh on the Rangers; and the tussle over CPEC routes as well as that related to the Nandipur project and LNG procurement.

Money And The Scale Of Cooperation, Maria Bigoni, Gabriele Camera, Marco Casari

ESI Working Papers

This study reveals the existence of a causal link between the availability of money and an expanded scale of interaction. We constructed an experiment where participants chose the group size, either a low-value partnership or a high-value group of strangers, and then faced an intertemporal cooperative task. Theoretically, a monetary system was inessential to achieve cooperation. Empirically, without a working monetary system, participants were reluctant to expand the scale of interaction; and when they did, they ended up destroying surplus compared to partnerships, because cooperation collapsed in large groups. This economic failure was reversed only when participants managed to concurrently …

Do Psychological Traits Explain Differences In Free Riding? Experimental Evidence, Gregory Deangelo, Hannes Lang, Bryan C. Mccannon

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

We explore the relationship between common psychological traits, such as Theory of the Mind, Rational‐Experiential Inventory, and Big Five Personality styles, and willingness to contribute to public goods. Then, motivated by research that has indicated a relationship between past social interactions and cooperativeness, we consider the interaction between past game outcomes and psychological traits on free riding. We show that psychological traits of individuals have both a direct effect on free riding behavior, as well as an indirect effect as it enhances the correlation between past strategic behavior and public goods giving. Thus, the measurement tools of social psychology and …

The Role Of The State, Multinational Oil Companies, International Law & The International Community: Intersection Of Human Rights & Environmental Degradation Climate Change In The 21st Century Caused By Traditional Extractive Practices, The Amazon Rainforest, Indigenous People And Universal Jurisdiction To Resolve The Accountability Issue, Marcela Cabrera Luna

Master's Theses

Local, national and international conventions that protect indigenous sovereignty and their territories, where many of the resources are extracted from by multinational corporations (MNCs) particularly oil, the number one commodity of the world and cause of climate change, continue to be jeopardized because of the lack of a clear international legal framework that can protect them and potentially hold multinationals accountable for their actions. These practices are causing not only environmental issues to the indigenous and surrounding communities, but climate change is in fact, the real human rights issue of the 21^st century and it affects everyone. By using …

Two Essays In Finance And Economics: “Investment Opportunities In Commodity And Stock Markets For G7 Countries” And “Global And Local Factors Affecting Sovereign Yield Spreads”, Selma Izadi

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In chapter 1, I investigate the return links and dynamic conditional correlations between the equity and commodity returns for G7 countries from 2000:01 to 2014:10. The commodity futures include BCOM Index which contains the futures and spot price of 22 commodities, Brent and Crude oil futures, gold and silver futures, Wheat, Corn and Soybean futures and CRB index. The finding indicates that during the full sample period GOLD, WHEAT and CORN have the smallest dynamic conditional correlations with all the Equity indexes. In addition, the correlations between the GOLD/Equity pairs are negative during the financial crisis. This fact indicates the …

Mothers' Long-Term Employment Patterns, Alexandra Killewald, Xiaolin Zhuo

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

Previous research on maternal employment has disproportionately focused on married, college-educated mothers and examined either current employment status or postpartum return to employment. Following the life course perspective, we instead conceptualize maternal careers as long-term life course patterns. Using data from the NLSY79 and optimal matching, we document four common employment patterns of American mothers over the first 18 years of maternity. About two-thirds follow steady patterns, either full-time employment (38 percent) or steady nonemployment (24 percent). The rest experience “mixed” patterns: long-term part-time employment (20 percent), or a multiyear period of nonemployment following maternity, then a return to employment …

Inter-Organizational Network Effects On The Implementation Of Public Health Services, Glen P. Mays

Health Management and Policy Presentations

Background: The Affordable Care Act created new incentives for hospitals, insurers, public health agencies, and others to contribute to disease prevention and health promotion activities, potentially changing inter-organizational relationships and expanding implementation of strategies that improve population health. This study uses data from the 1998-2014 National Longitudinal Survey of Public Health Systems to examine: (1) the extent and nature of change in inter-organizational contributions to public health activities; (2) whether network changes attenuate or exacerbate disparities in public health implementation across communities; and (3) how network changes affect preventable mortality and resource use.

Methods: We follow a longitudinal cohort of …

An Inventory Of Sports Economics Courses In The Us, Joshua C. Hall, Brad R. Humphreys, Hyunwoong Pyun

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

Sports economics is a young, growing field in the discipline of economics. An examination of course catalogs at 169 national liberal arts colleges and 254 national universities uncovered undergraduate sports economics classes offered at 17% of the liberal arts colleges and 29.5% of the universities. The characteristics of colleges and universities offering sports economics courses are analyzed. The state of the undergraduate curriculum in economics and barriers to the creation of new elective course offerings are also discussed.

The Political Economy Of Soda Taxation, Sriparna Ghosh, Joshua C. Hall

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

There has been an increase in the prevalence of obesity in the United States over the past several decades. The academic literature has highlighted numerous possible causes, including the consumption of soda and other sugar-sweetened beverages. Soda taxes have been suggested as a way of reducing the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages and a number of U.S. states "disfavor" sugar-sweetened beverages relative to food in their tax code. In this note we employ a political economy model to explain the adoption of these \soda taxes." We find that more Democratic states and those with a higher rate of adult obesity are …

The Production And Stock Of College Graduates For U.S. States, John V. Winters

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

The stock of human capital in an area is important for regional economic growth and development. However, highly educated workers are often quite mobile, and there is a concern that public investments in college graduates may not benefit the state if the college graduates leave the state after finishing their education. This paper examines the relationship between the production of college graduates from a state and the stock of college graduates residing in the state using microdata from the decennial census and American Community Survey. The relationship is examined across states and across cohorts within states. The descriptive analysis suggests …

Migration And Housing Price Effects Of Place-Based College Scholarships, Timothy J. Bartik, Nathan Sotherland

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

Place-based college scholarships, such as the Kalamazoo Promise, provide students who live in a particular place, and/or who attend a particular school district, with generous college scholarships. An important potential benefit from such “Promise programs” is their short-term effects on local economic development. Generous Promise scholarships provide an incentive for families to locate in a particular place, which may change migration patterns, and potentially boost local employment and housing prices. Using data from the American Community Survey, this paper estimates the average effects of eight relatively generous Promise programs on migration rates and housing prices in their local labor market. …

Technical Analysis Under Knightian Uncertainty, Andre Mouton

Student Theses and Dissertations

Technical analysis, or the forecasting of asset price movements using past prices, is commonly practiced in financial markets but poorly explained by mainstream economic theory. I show that a technical rule can have predictive power when an asset’s payoffs are subject to Knightian uncertainty, defined as variation that cannot be described probabilistically (Knight, 1921). I present an asset-pricing model in which asset payoffs undergo periodic shifts in trend, and agents form expectations about these payoffs using a constant gain least squares (CGLS) rule. I investigate whether a second CGLS rule, operating on price, can provide a more accurate forecast of …

The Determinants Of The High School Graduation Rate In Mclean County, Michael A. Anstirman

Student Research – Stevenson Center

No abstract provided.