Economics Commons^™

What Is Brewing In Your Latté? An Economic Analysis Of The Fair Trade Coffee Movement, Erin E. Troland

Kaleidoscope

No abstract provided.

Education And Marriage Decisions Of Japanese Women And The Role Of The Equal Employment Opportunity Act, Linda N. Edwards, Takuya Hasebe, Tadashi Sakai

Economics Working Papers

Prompted by concordant upward trends in both the university advancement rate and the unmarried rate for Japanese women, this paper investigates whether the Equal Employment Opportunity Act (EEOA), which was passed in 1985, affected women's marriage decisions either directly or via their decisions to pursue university education. To this end, we estimate a model that treats education and marriage decisions as jointly determined using longitudinal data for Japanese women. We find little evidence that the passage of EEOA increased the proportion of women who advance to university, but strong support for the proposition that it increased the deterrent effect of …

Comparing Advantages: Us Trade With The Rest Of The World, 1968-2008, Roger White, David Buelher

Economics

Calibrating a stylized version of the Dornbusch-Fischer-Samuelson model, this paper finds that relative to a cohort of 97 trading partners, the US capital stock, labor force, and nominal GDP per capita decreased, while the level of technology embodied in its output increased. These observed dynamics suggest a shift in comparative advantage that, coupled with increased production at the extensive and intensive margins, yields an expectation of labor market churning. Grouping trading partners by World Bank income classifications reveals that observed changes for low and lower middle income cohorts resulted in more pronounced shifts in comparative advantage. Examining employment and earnings …

Of Land, Food, And Scale, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

The competing needs for infrastructure, agriculture, and scale could decide the success of The Asian century

Rhode Island Current Conditions Index -- September 2015, Leonard Lardaro

The Rhode Island Current Conditions Index

No abstract provided.

Temporary Assistance For Needy Families, James P. Ziliak

University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research Discussion Paper Series

The provision of public assistance to families with children in America faced a watershed moment with the passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA). PRWORA replaced the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program, which was an entitlement funded via a federal-state matching grant, with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), which is no longer an entitlement and is financed with a fixed federal block-grant to the states. The impetus for reform had been building for at least the two decades prior to passage, but took on greater currency with the dramatic growth …

Exploring International Differences In Inflation Dynamics, Yamin Ahmad, Olena Mykhaylova

Economics Department Working Papers

Standard closed-economy DSGE models have difficulty replicating the persistence of inflation. We use a multicountry dataset to establish some empirical regularities on persistence and volatility of aggregate consumer prices for 161 countries. We find persistence to be high (low) on average for developed (developing) countries, while volatility is low (high) on average for the same country groupings. We then employ a two-country DSGE framework to investigate the extent to which structural open economy features, such as incomplete exchange rate pass-through, the existence of nontraded goods, and international financial market incompleteness, can help in replicating the persistence and volatility of consumer …

Genocide: Perspectives From The Social Sciences, Charles Anderton

Economics Department Working Papers

This article surveys risk factors for genocide and genocide prevention from the perspectives of four social science disciplines: sociology, social psychology, political science, and economics. Each discipline brings a valuable set of concepts and tools to bear in genocide research. Moreover, fruitful multi- and inter-disciplinary collaboration across the four disciplines (and other fields) is shedding new insights into why genocide has have been such a recurring tragedy in human affairs and how such atrocities can be prevented.

Climate And Energy: Opinions Of Nonmetropolitan Nebraskans 2015 Nebraska Rural Poll Results, Rebecca J. Vogt, Cheryl A. Burkhart-Kriesel, Randolph L. Cantrell, Bradley Lubben, L. J. Mcelravy, Tonya Haigh

Nebraska Rural Poll

Many rural Nebraskans are concerned about more severe droughts or longer dry periods in their area, insect-borne diseases like West Nile Virus, and more extreme summer temperatures in their area. Fewer rural Nebraskans are concerned about the availability of water for their community or home or more frequent extreme rains or floods. Residents of the North Central region are more likely than residents of other regions of the state to be concerned about more severe droughts or longer dry periods in their area.

Few rural Nebraskans reported their household experiencing health problems during the drought of 2012. However, many persons …

Perspectives On Community Life In Nonmetropolitan Nebraska: 2015 Nebraska Rural Poll Results, Rebecca J. Vogt, Cheryl A. Burkhart-Kriesel, Randolph L. Cantrell, Bradley Lubben, L. J. Mcelravy

Nebraska Rural Poll

By many different measures, rural Nebraskans are positive about their community. Many rural Nebraskans rate their community as friendly, trusting, and supportive. Most rural Nebraskans also say it would be difficult to leave their community. In addition, most rural Nebraskans disagree that their community is powerless to control its future.

However, the proportion of rural Nebraskans satisfied with many social services and entertainment services has decreased across all nineteen years of the study. Declines in satisfaction levels across all 19 years are seen with nursing home care, medical care services, senior centers, mental health services, entertainment, retail shopping and restaurants. …

Taking Into Account Sustainable Development For Mena Countries: The Calculation Of A Modified Hdi Index, Nathalie Hilmi, Alain Safa, Nicolas Peridy, Messaoud Zemouri

Topics in Middle Eastern and North African Economies

GDP, a measure of economic welfare, may be supplemented with other measures of economic welfare and environmental sustainability. This article discusses alternative measures which have been proposed in the literature concerning pollution, which can be used to augment GDP as a measure of welfare to produce a better index.

Historical Perspectives On Trade And Risk On The Silk Road, Middle East And China, E. Mine Cinar, Katherine Geusz, Joseph Johnson

Topics in Middle Eastern and North African Economies

In this paper we examine historical trends in the Silk Road where we discuss historical trade risks, Chinese dynasties and trade. We examine trade risks along the land and sea routes through Central Asia and Middle East. We discuss Chinese balance of payments during different dynasties and the changes in the land and the sea routes. We examine how the trade patterns and routes shifted with the discovery of the New World and when the Dutch and the British formed pooled risk trade associations.

Shattered Health For Women: How Gender Roles Affect Health Socio-Economic Status Nexus Over Life Cycle?, Burcu Duzgun Oncel

Topics in Middle Eastern and North African Economies

The main objective of this paper is to assess the relationship between health and socio-economic status (SES) across ages by including gender roles for men and women. Although life expectancy of women is greater than men, women's average subjective health measure is worse and morbidity rates are higher. Gender roles in society would be one of the causes of this distinction. Gender roles are proxied by time spent in household work, childcare, active & passive leisure and employment. Mean comparison tests show that women spend more time in household work and childcare and less time in employment and leisure. By …

The Determinants Of Youth Unemployment In Qatar, Edward Sayre, Nada Abdelqader Benmansour, Samantha Constant

Topics in Middle Eastern and North African Economies

While Qatari unemployment is low compared to regional standards, unemployment is even more concentrated among first time job-seeking youth than in other countries in the Arab world. This paper examines the factors that influence unemployment by young Qataris when they are first entering the labor market. This paper first introduces the set of labor market policies that govern the employment of Qatari nationals. Next, the paper examines the labor market outcomes of Qatari youth from 1995 to 2014 to evaluate the effect of these policies. Finally, the paper uses a unique data set of 2,000 primarily young Qataris to model …

Why Do Women Prefer Part-Time Employment In Turkey?, Burcu Duzgun Oncel, Bilge Eris Dereli

Topics in Middle Eastern and North African Economies

Female part-time employment among female total employment has increased substantially in Turkey between 2005 and 2011. Part-time employment accounted for 13%, 22% and 27% of female employment in 2005, 2008 and 2011, respectively. The main objective of this paper is to outline some stylized facts concerning the key characteristics of female part time employment and to assess the reasons behind the increase in part-time employment for females in Turkey. We present general profile and labor status profile of part-time female workers via rich descriptive analysis by using Turkstat Household Labor Force Surveys for the period 2005 and 2011. Moreover we …

Measuring Trade Advantages Of The Qualifying Industrial Zones Program Of Jordan And Egypt Offered By The United States For Having Signed Peace Treaties With Israel, Austin Carter, Yun Gong, Jeffrey B. Nugent

Topics in Middle Eastern and North African Economies

This paper uses detailed cross country and over time data to show that despite various limitations, the QIZs of Jordan and subsequently Egypt, along with certain US FTAs, have contributed significantly to an increase in participating countries’ shares of exports to the US in the nine most common categories of clothing items for which the effects of tariff and quota exemptions are likely to be strongest. These influences, although perhaps diminishing after a certain period of time, are stronger than those of exchange rate, transport cost and changes in openness over time. What is perhaps most surprising is that these …

Inflation And The Exchange Rate: The Role Of Aggregate Demand Elasticity, Ben L. Kyer, Gary E. Maggs

Economics Faculty/Staff Publications

This paper examines the effect of aggregate demand elasticity on the exchange rate when inflation occurs. We discover that both the source of the inflation, whether demand-pull or cost-push, and the elasticity of aggregate demand with respect to the price level, are of consequence for the exchange rate. We obtain two primary conclusions. First, the effect on the exchange rate of cost push inflation is ambiguous and is partially determined by the price level elasticity of aggregate demand. In particular, and assuming that the two examined countries have equivalent aggregate supply elasticities, we conclude that the nation with the less …

Institutional Convergence: Exit Or Voice?, Joshua C. Hall

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

There is a small but growing literature on the determinants of economic freedom. In this paper I contribute to this literature in two ways. First, I empirically show that beta-convergence in economic freedom occurred from 1980 to 2010. Countries with low levels of economic freedom in 1980 "catch up" at a rate of 0.7 percent a year on average, ceteris paribus. Second, I document the structural characteristics that contribute to this institutional convergence. My conditional convergence estimates suggest democratic institutions do not contribute to conditional convergence. Exitability, a variable that captures how easy it is for citizens to \vote …

Trouble In The Tails? What We Know About Earnings Nonresponse Thirty Years After Lillard, Smith, And Welch, Christopher R. Bollinger, Barry T. Hirsch, Charles M. Hokayem, James P. Ziliak

University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research Discussion Paper Series

Earnings nonresponse in household surveys is widespread, yet there is limited evidence on whether and how nonresponse bias affects measured earnings. This paper examines the patterns and consequences of nonresponse using internal Current Population Survey individual records linked to administrative Social Security Administrative data on earnings for calendar years 2005-2010. Our findings confirm the conjecture by Lillard, Smith, and Welch (1986) that nonresponse across the earnings distribution is U-shaped. Left-tail “strugglers” and right-tail “stars” are least likely to report earnings. Household surveys understate earnings dispersion, reporting too few low and too few extremely high earners. Throughout much of the earnings …

Analysing The Performance Of Economic Discourses, Joseph Fitzgerald, Brendan O'Rourke

Conference papers

We focus on the methods used in analyzing broadcast interviews with economists on Morning Ireland, a prominent Irish radio news programme. Few would doubt that economists have taken a prominent role as experts on policy issues (Carrick-Hagenbarth and Epstein 2012, p.45) and some contend that no other social science discipline has gained such prominence (Schneider and Kirchgassner 2009, p.324). This paper comes from a larger research project, which uses a tailored methodological approach, incorporating a number of analytical methods. Keller (2011, p.63) has argued that a tailored methodological approach is often required to give special consideration to the ‘knowledge side’ …

Essays On Gender, Ethnicity, And Health In The United States And Turkey, Tunay Oguz

Economics ETDs

This dissertation is composed of three studies examining barriers to health and healthcare that affect individuals on the basis of their race, ethnicity, and gender. The first study examines access to care disparities between non-Hispanic whites and Hispanics. I find that observed characteristics explain all of the disparities in access to care between these two groups, a marked change from a decade ago when characteristics explained only 65 percent. However, disparities in access to care between women and men remain unexplained even when differences in their attitudes and beliefs regarding healthcare are controlled for, especially for Hispanic men and women. …

Economic Analysis Of Infrastructure Investment And Irrigation Budget Issues In A Southwestern U.S. Water Utility, Heidi Pitts

Economics ETDs

The three chapters of this dissertation investigate two policy issues faced by water utilities: infrastructure investment and water budget programs. Water utilities have infrastructure that is deteriorating at an increasing rate, necessitating higher rates of investment from ratepayers. At the same time utilities must improve their management of existing water supplies in order to postpone the need to procure water supplies with a higher marginal cost. Water budgets are a way to manage scarce water resources more efficiently. The first chapter focuses on customer preferences for infrastructure investments. Individuals are willing-to-pay to have fewer outages at home, shorter average outage …

Implication Of Closure Of Rdas And Wdas Segment Of The Foreign Exchange Market In Nigeria, Akin Dawodu

Bullion

The Nigeria foreign exchange market has transitioned a great deal since the country gain independence. Nigeria had a pegged exchange control until the introduction of the structural adjustment program (SAP) in 1986. which brought about dual exchange rate system, the first and second tier foreign exchange market that later metamorphosed into the Foreign Exchange Market (FEM). Hence there continue to be policy reversals as a result of the volatility in the exchange rate.

The Role Of The Media In Communicating Developments In Foreign Exchange Management In Nigeria, Stanley Egbochukwu

Bullion

The branch of journalism that tracks, record, analyses and interprets the economic changes that took place in a society is Financial Journalism. it is said to be a subject of unprecedented circumstance because financial and business stories nowadays move at a digital driven speed. the interpretation and presentation of the up to day activities in the financial world comes with high level of research and cooperate understanding. the Nigeria economy is heavily dependent on import and this records can be presented to the public through the media.

Are We Approaching An Economic Singularity? Information Technology And The Future Of Economic Growth, William D. Nordhaus

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

What are the prospects for long-run economic growth?, the present study looks at a more recently launched hypothesis, which I label Singularity . The idea here is that rapid growth in computation and artificial intelligence will cross some boundary or Singularity after which economic growth will accelerate sharply as an ever-accelerating pace of improvements cascade through the economy. The paper develops a growth model that features Singularity and presents several tests of whether we are rapidly approaching Singularity. The key question for Singularity is the substitutability between information and conventional inputs. The tests suggest that the Singularity is not near.

Modeling Uncertainty In Climate Change: A Multi‐Model Comparison, Kenneth Gillingham, William D. Nordhaus, David Anthoff, Geoffrey Blanford, Valentina Bosetti, Peter Christensen, Haewon Mcjeon

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

The economics of climate change involves a vast array of uncertainties, complicating both the analysis and development of climate policy. This study presents the results of the first comprehensive study of uncertainty in climate change using multiple integrated assessment models. The study looks at model and parametric uncertainties for population, total factor productivity, and climate sensitivity. It estimates the pdfs of key output variables, including CO 2 concentrations, temperature, damages, and the social cost of carbon (SCC). One key finding is that parametric uncertainty is more important than uncertainty in model structure. Our resulting pdfs also provide insights on tail …

An Empirical Investigation Of The Determinants Of Asymmetric Pricing, Marc Remer

Economics Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

The Renter Effect Part 3: Policy Implications, John Yinger

Center for Policy Research

It’s Elementary is a series of essays on topics in education and education policy. The main focus is on education finance in New York State, but general research findings in education and education policy issues in several other states are also discussed. John Yinger, Professor of Economics and Public Administration at the Maxwell School, Syracuse University is the author of most of these essays, although a few are written by or co-authored with other scholars.

An Analysis Of Drivers Of Mega-Events In Emerging Economies, Robert Baade, Victor Matheson

Economics Department Working Papers

Developing countries that host mega-events such as the Olympic Games and World Cup invest enormous sums in stadiums and collateral infrastructure projects. The paper examines the motivations of countries to host these events and the typical economic outcome for those host sites lucky(?) enough be awarded the games. For both efficiency and equity reasons, these events are risk propositions at best, and they generally represent an even worse investment for developing countries than for industrialized nations.

Potential Effects Of The Affordable Care Act On Loss Calculations, Joshua Congdon-Hohman, Victor Matheson

Economics Department Working Papers

This paper examines how the Affordable Care Act might affect the analysis of future care costs in medical malpractice, product or accident liability, or workplace injury cases. Prior to the ACA, it was reasonable to presume that a great deal of a victim’s future health care costs would be paid for out-of-pocket as there was little guarantee that the plaintiff would have access to affordable insurance. Since January 2014, however, a plaintiff can obtain insurance that will cover a significant portion of any future medical costs. This paper examines the basic structure of the ACA, how it has affected health …