Economics Commons^™

No. 69: Calibrating Informal Cross-Border Trade In Southern Africa, Sally Peberdy, Jonathan Crush, Daniel Tevara, Eugene Campbell, Inês Raimundo, Maxton Tsoka, Nomsa Zindela, Godfrey Tawodzera, Ndeyapo Nickanor, Chileshe Mulenga, Thuso Green, Ntombi Msibi

Southern African Migration Programme

Informal cross-border trade (ICBT) is a significant feature of regional trade and international mobility in Southern Africa. The exact number of participants and economic importance of this trade is unknown because no official statistics are collected. Despite its obvious presence at every border post throughout the SADC region, ICBT remains largely invisible to policy-makers. Indeed, in government circles it is more often associated with smuggling, tax evasion and illegality than with innovation, enterprise and job creation. On the research side, there is a growing body of case study evidence that ICBT plays a critical role in poverty alleviation, food security …

No. 68: Entrepreneurship And Inclusive Growth In South Africa, Zimbabwe And Mozambique, Jonathan Crush, Caroline Skinner, Abel Chikanda

Southern African Migration Programme

While increasing attention is being paid to the drivers and forms of entrepreneurship in informal economies, much less of this policy and research focus is directed at understanding the links between mobility and informality. This report examines the current state of knowledge about this relationship with particular reference to three countries (Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe) and four cities (Cape Town, Harare, Johannesburg and Maputo), identifying major themes, knowledge gaps, research questions and policy implications. In many African cities, informal enterprises are operated by internal and international migrants. The extent and nature of mobile entrepreneurship and the opportunities and challenges …

No. 70: International Migrants And Refugees In Cape Town’S Informal Economy, Godfrey Tawodzera, Abel Chikanda, Jonathan Crush, Robertson Tengeh

Southern African Migration Programme

This report is the most comprehensive study yet of the contribution of migrant and refugee entrepreneurs to Cape Town’s local economy. The survey of over 500 entrepreneurs engaged in trade, services and manufacturing in different areas of the city dispels some of the more prevalent myths that often attach to the activities of migrants. The vast majority are not “illegal foreigners”, but have a legal right to be in South Africa and to run a business. Most are highly motivated individuals who enter the informal economy to earn revenue to support themselves, their families, and because they have a strong …

Good Girl, Bad Boy: Corrupt Behavior In Professional Tennis, Michael Jetter, Jay K. Walker

Economics Faculty Publications

This paper identifies matches on the male and female professional tennis tours in which one player faces a high payoff from being "on the bubble" of direct entry into one of the lucrative Grand Slam tournaments, while their opposition does not. Analyzing over 378,000 matches provides strong evidence for corrupt behavior on the men's tour, as bubble players are substantially more likely to beat better ranked opponents when a win is desperately needed. However, we find no such evidence on the women's tour. These results prevail throughout a series of extensions and robustness checks, highlighting gender differences regarding corrupt and …

Essays On Horizontal Divestitures And Product Market Relationships, Norkeith Ervin Smith

Wayne State University Dissertations

This dissertation is the first to study the product effect of horizontal divestitures on upstream and downstream firms. This first essay examines product market impact of a sample of horizontal asset sales from 1988 to 2005 on corporate customers, suppliers, and industry rivals. I create a sample of firms that classifies corporate customers, suppliers, and industry competitors of firms proposing horizontal asset sales, and employ this data set to investigate the wealth effects at announcement. This study also considers post-divestiture changes in abnormal operating performance for divesting firms, customers, and suppliers.

I document evidence that divestiture related wealth effects for …

Hometown, Usa: A Community Economic Digest About Searcy, Arkansas, Fourth Edition, Don P. Diffine Ph.D.

Belden Center Monographs

Local tradition has it that about 60 years ago, then-Mayor Frank Headlee appeared on a Little Rock television talk show program to promote Searcy, Arkansas. Proclaiming that the town was indeed “rich,” in a colorful play on words he went on: “Every blade of grass has a ‘green’ bulk, every bird has a ‘bill,’ the chimneys have their ‘drafts,’ the streets are ‘flushed,’ the lawns get a ‘rake off,’ the clouds have a ‘silver lining,’ and every flower has at least ‘one scent.’”

2015 American Incentive System Almanac, Don P. Diffine Ph.D.

Belden Center Monographs

No abstract provided.

What Were They Thinking? The Federal Reserve In The Run-Up To The 2008 Financial Crisis, Stephen S. Golub, Ayse Kaya, M. Reay

Political Science Faculty Works

The Federal Reserve (the Fed) is responsible for monitoring, analyzing and ultimately stabilizing US financial markets. It also has unrivalled access to economic data, high-level connections to financial institutions, and a large staff of professionally trained economists. Why then was it apparently unconcerned by the financial developments that are now widely recognized to have caused the 2008 financial crisis? Using a wide range of Fed documents from the pre-crisis period, particularly the transcripts of meetings of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), this paper shows that Fed policymakers and staff were aware of relevant developments in financial markets, but paid …

Part 2: Northern Virginia: Standing At A Fork In The Road, Center For Economic Analysis And Policy, Old Dominion University

State of the Commonwealth Reports

Direct federal employment and procurement spending accounts for almost 40 percent of all economic activity in Northern Virginia, which in turn accounts for more than 40 percent of all economic activity in Virginia. Sequestration has hobbled Northern Virginia’s growth. However, George Mason University’s leading economic index suggests better times are on the horizon.

Part 7: Consolidating Or Merging The Public Service Provision In Virginia Cities And Counties: Where Can We Save The Most Money?, Center For Economic Analysis And Policy, Old Dominion University

State of the Commonwealth Reports

Controlling for variables such as the cost of living and local characteristics, we examine the provision of 25 distinct public services by the 95 counties and 39 independent cities in Virginia. Could we save money and perhaps provide better services if we combined the provision of some of these services across county and city lines? The evidence suggests that the answer is yes for at least 13 of these public services and perhaps for another four.

The Eu Budget's Impact On Public Opinion, Kai Stern

Claremont-UC Undergraduate Research Conference on the European Union

Public opinion on the European Union (EU) is significant and therefore a worthwhile topic of consideration. Analyses have identified and ordered the factors that impact public opinion on the EU, as well analyzed the efficacy of EU funds. Yet the confluence of these two lines of inquiry is understudied. Some Member States have surpluses and others deficits relative to the EU budget, which could impact citizens’ perceptions of the EU. To gauge this potential relationship, this article notes deficit and surplus Member States and responses to one Eurobarometer question about trust in the European Commission from 2000-2013. These variables are …

Ascetic Entrepreneurship: How The Christian Work Ethic Creates Long-Term Value For Business And Society, David Kee D.B.A.

Belden Center Monographs

No abstract provided.

Health Care Inflation And It's Implications For Monetary Policy, Takeshi Yagihashi, Juan Du

Economics Faculty Publications

Motivated by recent findings on the cyclical movement of both health and health spending, we construct a general equilibrium model that distinguishes health care demand from the demand for other goods. Using this model, we are able to generate inflation dynamics and cyclicality of health that match the US data. When the model is subjected to an expansionary monetary policy shock, it yields different output and inflation responses compared with a two-sector model with homogeneous demand. We show that the trade-off between leisure and health spending plays an important role in model dynamics. The model further predicts different degrees of …

Corporate Sustainability Practices In The Plastics Industry, Bonnie Bachman, Shikhar P. Acharya, Margaret Baumann, Shristy Bashyal

Economics Faculty Research & Creative Works

The objective of the survey for the plastics industry was to determine the role of sustainability in the plastics industry. We also wanted to determine the level of understanding of the concept of sustainability and the degree of commitment that this industry had to sustainability. Is it a passing trend or would it have a substantial impact on the industry and company strategy? In addition, the relation between company size as measured by its revenue and sustainability spending in plastics industry was investigated. It is logical and sensible to think that the bigger the company, the more they are likely …

The Determinants Of Chinese Household Saving During 1978-2012, Nan Zhi

Honors Theses, 1963-2015

This project focuses on how the household saving ratio changes from 1978-2013 in China and what factors caused the changes. Based China’s household saving rate changes from 1953-2000 by using the framework of the life-cycle hypothesis, Modigliani concluded that the rate of growth income and the demographic structure are the major determinant of the rate of private saving. This project attempts to extend Modigliani’s research using the data after 2000 and take changes of Chinese policy and additional factors into consideration. Estimates of coefficients of saving function will be obtained by using OLS method to analyze the relationship between household …

U.S. State Social Spending And Economic Growth, Chris Heitzig

Honors Theses, 1963-2015

U.S. state social spending has increased both as a percentage of national GDP and a percentage of the national budget since 1960. Growth in spending across states, however, has not been uniform. Those advocating for more conservative spending argue that large social expenditure budgets dampen the growth of society as a whole. In this paper, I examine the effect that state social spending has on the growth rate of personal income per capita. I follow the model proposed by Peter Lindert (2004), who studied the relationship between social spending and economic growth at the national level. I examine the period …

The Syllabus Evolved: Extended Graphic Syllabi For Economics Courses, Katherine M. Sauer, Lauren Calimeris

Economics Faculty/Staff Publications

An extended graphic syllabus is an artifact that contains limited jargon within a visual representation of a traditional course outline (i.e. a classic graphic syllabus) and incorporates visual elements into other parts of the traditional syllabus (e.g. course policies, assessments) in order to hold and focus the students’ attention on the document. Its purpose is to give students a sense of the course’s “big picture”, to make their initial encounter with the course topics more meaningful, and to induce them to actually read and reference the syllabus throughout the semester. In addition to providing rationale for using extended graphic syllabi, …

Conflicted Emotions Following Trust-Based Interaction, Eric Schniter, Roman M. Sheremeta, Timothy W. Shields

ESI Publications

We observed reports of conflicted (concurrent positive and negative) emotions activated after interactions in the Trust game. Our analyses reveal that activation of 20 emotional states following trust-based interaction is better explained by predictions derived from a multi-dimensional Recalibrational perspective than by predictions derived from two-dimensional Valence and Arousal perspectives. The Recalibrational perspective proposes that emotions are activated according to their functional features – for example, emotions help people achieve short or long-sighted goals by up or down-regulating behavioral propensities, whereas Valence and Arousal perspectives consider simpler hedonic dimensions lacking functional specificity. The Recalibrational perspective is also distinguished from the …

To Trust, Or Not To Trust: Cognitive Reflection In Trust Games, Brice Corgnet, Antonio M. Espín, Roberto Hernán-González, Praveen Kujal, Stephen Rassenti

ESI Publications

We present results from two studies that show a positive relation between cognitive reflection and trusting behavior, but no significant relation with trustworthy behavior. Our finding holds regardless of individual distributional social preferences and risk aversion. Our results add to a growing body of literature that illustrates the role of cognitive ability in helping explain outcomes in economic experiments.

Dynamic Optimization And Conformity In Health Behavior And Life Enjoyment Over The Life Cycle, Hernán D. Bejarano, Hillard Kaplan, Stephen Rassenti

ESI Publications

This article examines individual and social influences on investments in health and enjoyment from immediate consumption. Our lab experiment mimics the problem of health investment over a lifetime (Grossman, 1972a,b). Incentives to find the appropriate expenditures on life enjoyment and health are given by making in each period come period a function of previous health investments. In order to model social effects in the experiment, we randomly assigned individuals to chat/observation groups. Groups were permitted to freely chat between repeated lifetimes. Two treatments were employed: In the Independent-rewards treatment, an individual's rewards from investments in life enjoyment depend only on …

Informality, Trade Policies And Smuggling In West Africa, N. Benjamin, Stephen S. Golub, A. A. Mbaye

Economics Faculty Works

In West Africa, recorded intra-regional trade is small but informal cross-border trade (ICBT) is pervasive, despite regional integration schemes intended to promote official trade. We argue that ICBT must be understood in light of two features of West African national boundaries: divergent economic policies between neighboring countries and the ease with which informal operators can ship goods across borders. We focus on two ICBT clusters: Senegal–The Gambia and Nigeria–Benin–Togo. Nigeria and Senegal have protected their domestic industries with high import barriers, whereas Benin, Togo and The Gambia have maintained lower import taxation. These differential trade policies, together with high mobility …

Front Matter: The State Of The Region: Hampton Roads 2015, Center For Economic Analysis And Policy, Old Dominion University

State of the Region Reports: Hampton Roads

Cover, front matter, table of contents, sponsors, and other materials for the 2015 The State of the Region report authored by the Center for Economic Analysis and Policy at Old Dominion University

Part 1: Running In Place? Our "So-So" Regional Economy, Center For Economic Analysis And Policy, Old Dominion University

State of the Region Reports: Hampton Roads

2015 has been another “Goldilocks” year – not too hot, not too cold – economically speaking. We grew faster than the rest of Virginia, but slower than the U.S. It appears that 2016 will reprise this scenario.

Part 2: Defense Expenditures In Hampton Roads: Digging Deeper, Center For Economic Analysis And Policy, Old Dominion University

State of the Region Reports: Hampton Roads

While defense expenditures are decelerating, in FY 2015, Newport News (dominated by Huntington Ingalls) received $1.13 billion in new defense contract awards, while Virginia Beach received $838 million, Norfolk $774 million and Hampton $166 million. Atlantic Diving, headquartered in Virginia Beach, was our second-largest contractor with $206 million.

Part 3: The Port Of Virginia: A Primer, Center For Economic Analysis And Policy, Old Dominion University

State of the Region Reports: Hampton Roads

The economic importance of the Port of Virginia has increased as it is handling record cargo volumes and now is recording positive net operating income. The Port is challenged to find ways to deal effectively with congestion and logistical problems in and around the Port as well as to secure the funds necessary to modernize its infrastructure and equipment.

Part 4: The Third Economic Sector: Nonprofit Organizations In Hampton Roads And The United Way, Center For Economic Analysis And Policy, Old Dominion University

State of the Region Reports: Hampton Roads

A total of 2,009 nonprofit organizations in Hampton Roads filed tax returns with the IRS in 2012. This does not include most churches. Collectively, these organizations are big business: their revenues approached $9.6 billion.

Part 5: Early Childhood Care And Education: Should They Be Our No. 1 Economic Development Strategy?, Center For Economic Analysis And Policy, Old Dominion University

State of the Region Reports: Hampton Roads

Investments in early childhood care and preschool programs generate higher rates of return on public dollars than investments in conventional economic development programs that emphasize either attracting new firms, or public-private partnerships to build arenas and hotels.

Part 6: Is Hampton Roads Facing A Shortage Of Nurses?, Center For Economic Analysis And Policy, Old Dominion University

State of the Region Reports: Hampton Roads

Our region does not face a debilitating shortage of nurses. With a few tweaks to our policies, we will have a sufficient number of nurses to meet our needs in the years to come.

Part 7: The Economics Of Casino Gambling In Hampton Roads, Center For Economic Analysis And Policy, Old Dominion University

State of the Region Reports: Hampton Roads

The experience of other cities tells us that casino gambling would not have a large economic effect upon Hampton Roads. Further, casino gambling brings with it a variety of other costs that must be considered. The net effect may be close to zero.

تأثير المزيج الترويجي للخدمات المصرفية في تحقيق رضا الزبون دراسة تحليلية لأراء عينة من الزبائن في بعض المصارف الاهلية في مدينة الديوانية, حيدر حمزه صالح

Muthanna Journal of Administrative and Economics Sciences

لقد تناول البحث الحالي احد العناصر الاساسية والحيوية في العمل التسويقي للمنظمات المصرفية من خلال استعراض احد الانشطة المهمة والمؤثرة في تحقيق اهدافها التسويقية والمتمثل بالمزيج الترويجي الذي يشتمل على خمسة متغيرات هي ( الاعلان، البيع الشخصي، تنشيط المبيعات، العلاقات العامة والنشر) وهدف البحث الى دراسة واقع المزيج الترويجي في المصارف الاهلية . واعتمد البحث جمع البيانات من عينة شملت (5) مصارف اهلية في مدينة الديوانية ، ولتحقيق هدف البحث قام الباحث بتوزيع استبانة عدت لهذا الغرض على مجتمع البحث المكون من الزبائن التابعة لهذه المصارف وشملت (78 ) زبون. وفي ضوء دلك جرى جمع و تحليل البيانات و اختيار …