Economics Commons^™

Equity Crowdfunding—A Wolf In Sheep's Clothing: The Implications Of Crowdfunding Legislation Under The Jobs Act, Sharon Yamen, Yoel Goldfeder

Brigham Young University International Law & Management Review

No abstract provided.

State Obligations Concerning Socio-Economic Rights In Times Of The European Financial Crisis, Jernej Letnar Černič

Brigham Young University International Law & Management Review

No abstract provided.

The Vietnam Report: National Landscape, Current Challenges And Opportunities For Growth, Institute For Societal Leadership, John W. Ellington

Institute of Societal Leadership Research Collection

Although most of Southeast Asia is home to religions and cultures carrying significant Indic influence, Vietnam alone is the mainland’s only Sinicised culture. Chinese emperors directly ruled northern Vietnam for most of the period spanning 111 BCE to 938 CE. The next eight hundred years saw a series of independent Vietnamese kingdoms administered by Chinese-style mandarins gradually extend control over and supplant the Indic Champa civilisation to the south—even as French incursions began chipping away at Vietnamese territory as early as 1858.

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

The Rhode Island Current Conditions Index

No abstract provided.

Exploring Exit From The Vocational Rehabilitation System, Rebecca Goe, Catherine Ipsen, University Of Montana Rural Institute

Employment

In the U.S. labor force, the unemployment rate is more than twice as high for people with disabilities (17.9%) than it is for people without disabilities (7.7%; U.S. Census Bureau, 2013). In actuality, this disparity is much higher because many people with disabilities have stopped actively seeking employment. Although unemployment rates are influenced by many intersecting factors, premature exit from Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) services likely contributes to the stubbornly high unemployment rates for people with disabilities.

Impact Of Household And Demographic Characteristics On Poverty In Bangladesh: A Logistic Regression Analysis, Nusrat Farah

2015 Awards for Excellence in Student Research and Creative Activity - Documents

Poverty is multi-dimensional in nature and depends on interactions of various socio-economic factors. Several demographic and health factors can shape up the economic status of a household, and theory suggests that the ability of a household to earn a given level of income can depend on the characteristics internal to the household. While most studies done on poverty measurements rely on the income, expenditure and consumption data, this study has used data from Bangladesh Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS). The main objective of this paper is to identify the factors that have relative effect on poverty of the household. The …

Retirement Planning Among Middle-Aged And Older Hispanics, Luisa Blanco, Emma Aguila, Arturo Gongora, Beverly Weidmer, O. Kenrik Duru

School of Public Policy Working Papers

The goal of this study is to deepen the understanding of how middle age and older Hispanics plan for retirement, where we conducted four focus groups in the Los Angeles area with a total of 38 participants. Our study provides interesting findings, specifically for women since 84 percent of the participants were female. We find that that most participants, whether they were already retired or not, are not well prepared for retirement since they have been unable to save for retirement and have not made specific retirement plans, such as determining desired retirement age, estimating retirement budget, and collecting information …

Book Review, Political Science. Volume 1, The Indian State. Icssr Research Surveys And Explorations, Aseema Sinha

CMC Faculty Publications and Research

This book maps the scholarly terrain on the Indian state. The book holds great promise, as the last survey was done in 1995. The volume seeks to understand the state through an analysis of the “social character” of the Indian state, the political economy of the Indian state, social policy, and law and rights. It is a well-edited collection from scholars based in India.

China And India: Globalization With Different Paths, Joseph Tse-Hei Lee, Satish K. Kolluri, Pan Zhen

Global Asia Journal

This occasional paper has three essays written by professors from Pace University and Nanjing Normal University that address a host of structural challenges facing China and India in pursuit of sustainable development in the early twenty-first century. Pan Zhen gives a critical overview of China’s economic policies, and finds the top-down development model to be fraught with tensions. Joseph Tse-Hei Lee argues that the ability of China to pursue sustainable growth and social betterment is largely contingent upon many circumstantial factors, especially the negative attributes of globalization and the rise of domestic discontents. Satish K. Kolluri shifts the focus of …

Economic Impacts Of The Ethanol Industry In Nebraska, Dennis Conley, Kathleen Brooks, Cory Walters, Eric Thompson

Bureau of Business Research Publications

The U.S. Department of Energy data on Nebraska’s ethanol production started in 1985 at 9 million gallons per year. Ten years later in 1995 it was 200 million gallons as shown below. A little over ten years later starting in 2007, the big jump in production was 858 million gallons, and five years later by 2011 it was 2,062 million. The twenty year growth from 1995 to 2014 was approximately tenfold. Since 2007 the effects on Nebraska’s economy and rural areas have been both sustained and substantial.

The purpose of this economic study is to estimate for a five year …

Carbon Free Energy Development And The Role Of Small Modular Reactors: A Review And Decision Framework For Deployment In Developing Countries, Geoffrey Black, Meredith A. Taylor, David Solan, David Shropshire

Economics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Global energy demand is projected to continue to grow over the next two decades, especially in developing economies. An emerging energy technology with distinct advantages for growing economies is small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs). Their smaller size makes them suitable for areas with limited grid capacities and dispersed populations while enabling flexibility in generating capacity and fuel sources. They have the ability to pair well with renewable energy sources, the major source of increased energy capacity for many developing economies. Further advantages include their passive safety features, lower capital requirements, and reduced construction times. As a result, SMRs have potential …

Numeric Tuning Of Surface Plasmon Enhanced Spontaneous Emission Inducted By Nano-Metallic Particle Systems Embedded In Gan-Based Led, Ying Chou Lin, Duan Yang Liu, Jin Wei Gao

Economics Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this work, spontaneous emission enhancement inducted by surface plasmon on nano-metallic particle systems embedded in GaN-based LED is investigated numerically. The systems under study consist of two nano-Ag balls or cylinders. By numerically tuning geometrical parameters of the system and polarization of the photon emitting source, we investigate the dependence of spontaneous emission enhancement effect on those factors. It is found that the enhancement magnitude level and peak position are subject to geometrical characteristics of the nano-Ag components in different manners for symmetrical and asymmetrical systems respectively. Higher enhancement ratio for a specific wavelength can be obtained by tweaking …

The Implementation Duality, Georg Nöldeke, Larry Samuelson

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We use the theory of abstract convexity to study adverse-selection principal-agent problems and two-sided matching problems, departing from much of the literature by not requiring quasilinear utility. We formulate and characterize a basic underlying implementation duality. We show how this duality can be used to obtain a sharpening of the taxation principle, to obtain a general existence result for solutions to the principal-agent problem, to show that (just as in the quasilinear case) all increasing decision functions are implementable under a single crossing condition, and to obtain an existence result for stable outcomes featuring positive assortative matching in a matching …

Insurance In Extended Family Networks, Orazio P. Attanasio, Costas Meghir, Corina Mommaerts

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We investigate partial insurance and group risk sharing in extended family networks. Our approach is based on decomposing income shocks into group aggregate and idiosyncratic components, allowing us to measure the extent to which each is insured, having accounted for public insurance programs. We apply our framework to extended family networks in the United States by exploiting the unique intergenerational structure of the PSID. We find that over 60% of shocks to household income are potentially insurable within family networks. However, we find little evidence that the extended family provides insurance for such idiosyncratic shocks.

Pundits And Quacks, Jesper Rudiger, Adrien Vigier

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

Do asset prices aggregate investors’ private information about the ability of financial analysts? We show that as financial analysts become reputable, the market can get trapped: Investors optimally choose to ignore their private information, and blindly follow analyst recommendations. As time goes by and recommendations accumulate, arbitrage based on the inferred ability of analysts may become profitable again. The market can thus be trapped at times and yet be able, in the long run, to sort the pundits from the quacks. However, this process is impaired when asset fundamentals are volatile: in this case, the market might be trapped indefinitely.

Buying Locally, George J. Mailath, Andrew Postlewaite, Larry Samuelson

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

“Buy local” arrangements encourage members of a community or group to patronize one another rather than the external economy. They range from formal mechanisms such as local currencies to informal “I’ll buy from you if you buy from me” arrangements, and are often championed on social or environmental grounds. We show that in a monopolistically competitive economy, buy local arrangements can have salutary effects even for selfish agents immune to social or environmental considerations. Buy local arrangements effectively allow firms to exploit the equilibrium price-cost gap to profitably expand their sales at the going price.

Learning To Disagree In A Game Of Experimentation, Alessandro Bonatti, Johannes Hörner

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We analyse strategic experimentation in which information arrives through fully revealing, publicly observable “breakdowns.” With hidden actions, there exists a unique equilibrium that involves randomization over stopping times. This randomization induces belief disagreement on the equilibrium path. When actions are observable, the equilibrium is pure, and welfare improves. We analyse the role of policy interventions such as subsidies for experimentation and risk-sharing agreements. We show that the optimal risk-sharing agreement restores the first-best outcome, independent of the monitoring structure.

The Marriage Market, Labor Supply And Education Choice, Pierre-André Chiappori, Monica Costa Dias, Costas Meghir

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We develop an equilibrium lifecycle model of education, marriage and labor supply and consumption in a transferable utility context. Individuals start by choosing their investments in education anticipating returns in the marriage market and the labor market. They then match based on the economic value of marriage and on preferences. Equilibrium in the marriage market determines intrahousehold allocation of resources. Following marriage households (married or single) save, supply labor and consume private and public under uncertainty. Marriage thus has the dual role of providing public goods and offering risk sharing. The model is estimated using the British HPS.

The Marriage Market, Labor Supply And Education Choice, Pierre-André Chiappori, Monica Costa Dias, Costas Meghir

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We develop an equilibrium life cycle model of education, marriage and labor supply and consumption in a transferable utility context. Individuals start by choosing their investments in education anticipating returns in the marriage market and the labor market. They then match based on the economic value of marriage and on preferences. Equilibrium in the marriage market determines intrahousehold allocation of resources. Following marriage households (married or single) save, supply labor and consume private and public commodities under uncertainty. Marriage thus has the dual role of providing public goods and offering risk sharing. The model is estimated using the British HPS.

Relational Contracts With Subjective Peer Evaluations, Joyee Deb, Jin Li, Arijit Mukherjee

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We study optimal contracting in a setting where a firm repeatedly interacts with multiple workers, and can compensate them based on publicly available performance signals as well as privately reported peer evaluations. If the evaluation and the effort provision are done by different workers (as in a supervisor/agent hierarchy), we show that, using both the private and public signals, the first best can be achieved even in a static setting. However, if each worker is required to both exert effort and report on his co-worker’s performance (as in a team setting), the worker’s effort incentives cannot be decoupled from his …

Insurance In Extended Family Networks, Orazio P. Attanasio, Costas Meghir, Corina Mommaerts

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We investigate partial insurance and group risk sharing in extended family networks. Our approach is based on decomposing income shocks into group aggregate and idiosyncratic components, allowing us to measure the extent to which each component is insured. We apply our framework to extended family networks in the United States by exploiting the unique intergenerational structure of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. We find that over 60% of shocks to household income are potentially insurable within extended family networks. However, we find little evidence that the extended family provides insurance for such idiosyncratic shocks.

Estimation Of Heterogeneous Panels With Structural Breaks, Badi Baltagi

Center for Policy Research

This paper extends Pesaran's (2006) work on common correlated effects (CCE) estimators for large heterogeneous panels with a general multifactor error structure by allowing for unknown common structural breaks. Structural breaks due to new policy implementation or major technological shocks, are more likely to occur over a longer time span. Consequently, ignoring structural breaks may lead to inconsistent estimation and invalid inference. We propose a general framework that includes heterogeneous panel data models and structural break models as special cases. The least squares method proposed by Bai (1997a, 2010) is applied to estimate the common change points, and the consistency …

Bicycle Tourism Plan For Economic Development: A Template For Rural Agricultural Towns And A Case Study For The City Of Winters, California, Marisa Rene Lee

Master's Theses

Bicycling is a method of tourism transportation that is healthy, non-invasive, environmentally responsible, and economically sustainable. It allows freedom, mobility, and sightseeing potential that is not made possible by other modes of transit. Thousands of bicycle tourists travel from all over the globe annually to explore California on touring bikes via established cycling routes and robust determination. Thousands of additional domestic and international visitors take weekend trips, plan family vacations, travel for business, or tour California from abroad, many of whom are excellent candidates for local and regional bicycle touring at a more gentle intensity level.

The increasing popularity and …

Interest Rate Elasticity Of Private Sector Credit In Nigeria, A. Bamidele, K. O. Oji, E. S. Smith, L. S. Jimoh

Economic and Financial Review

This study estimated the interest rate elasticity of private sector credit in Nigeria using the Vector Error Correction mechanism. The variables specified included real private sector credit. real GDP. Prime and maximum lending rates, exchange rate, 9)-day Treasury bill rate, inflation rate and all share index of the Nigerian Stock Exchange. The data utilised covered the period: 1998 Q1 to 2013 Q4. Granger causality tests were performed, and the co-integration analysis of the Johansen system-wide procedure was employed. The results indicated thot private sector credit was fairly interest inelastic in terms of both maximum and prime lending rates. The estimated …

Measuring The Depth Of Liquidity And Efficiency Of The Nigerian Capital Market, M. Tule, P. Ogiji, U. B. Ndako, U. Ujunwa, S. L. Jimoh, C. E. Lhediwa, O. O. Afiemo

Economic and Financial Review

The study developed a spectrum of indicative measures of capital market liquidity using Nigerian monthly stock market indices for the period January 2000 — June 2014. If identified four broad measures of liquidity common in the literature transaction cost, volume price and market impact measures. Based on these three sub-measures of market efficiency coefficient, variance ratio, turnover ratio and illiquidity index were developed based on data availability and other market factors specific to the Nigerian environment. The study examined the impact of capital market liquidity on asset price returns. using a vector auto regression [VAR] model which showed that the …

Capital Flows To Nigeria: A Structural Var Analysis, K. B. Ajide

Economic and Financial Review

One of the utmost desire of every developing economy nurturing the aspiration of joining the league of developed nations is to pursue a course of plan that would makes it realisable. Undeniably, different channels have been identified in the economic literature as possible ways through which growth can be achieved. Attraction of foreign capital inflows has been identified of possible channel through which sustainable growth can be easily achieved. To this end. the paper empirically unravels both the pull and push factors in determining foreign capital flows, with special reference to the Nigerian economy. An empirically tractable structural VAR model …

Monetary Policy And Asset Prices In Nigeria, M.K. Tule, P. Ogiji, G. Okorie, D. Mbaka

Economic and Financial Review

This paper attempts to contribute to the debate on the linkages between monetary policy and asset prices in the woke of the recent global financial crisis. The study employs vector error correction (VEC) mode! on Nigerian weekly data from January 2007 to October 2013. A pair-wise granger causality test indicated a unidirectional causality from asset prices to monetary policy. Exchange rate at lag one was negatively related to the All Share Index. suggesting that exchange rate appreciation is likely to lead to excessive appreciation in asset prices. The results further indicated a positive relationship between financial system stability and asset …

A Circuit Breaker For New York State?, 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.

The Implementation Duality, Georg Nöldeke, Larry Samuelson

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

Conjugate duality relationships are pervasive in matching and implementation problems and provide much of the structure essential for characterizing stable matches and implementable allocations in models with quasilinear (or transferable) utility. In the absence of quasilinearity, a more abstract duality relationship, known as a Galois connection, takes the role of (generalized) conjugate duality. While much weaker, this duality relationship still induces substantial structure. We show that this structure can be used to extend existing results for, and gain new insights into, adverse-selection principal-agent problems and two-sided matching problems without quasilinearity.

Does Online Availability Increase Citations? Theory And Evidence From A Panel Of Economics And Business Journals, Mark J. Mccabe, Christopher M. Snyder

Dartmouth Scholarship

Does online availability boost citations? Using a panel of citations to economics and business journals, we show that the enormous effects found in previous studies were an artifact of their failure to control for article quality, disappearing once fixed effects are added as controls. The absence of aggregate effects masks heterogeneity across platforms: JSTOR has a uniquely large effect, boosting citations around 10%. We examine other sources of heterogeneity, including whether JSTOR disproportionately increases cites from developing countries or to ‘‘long-tail’’ articles. Our theoretical analysis informs the econometric specification and allows citation increases to be translated into welfare terms.