Economics Commons^™

The College Admissions Problem: Effects Of Income And Ability Of Postsecondary Education Outcomes, Martha Whamond

Honors Theses

This paper examines the effects of students’ pre-college income on student outcomes and college admissions decisions. Under the assumption that colleges maximize utility by maximizing student outcomes, a two-stage regression model for student outcomes is building using data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) and the 1997 National Youth Longitudinal Survey (NLSY97). The first stage estimates a model for college quality using the IPEDS dataset. The college quality estimates are then used as independent variables in the second stage. The second stage estimates student outcomes as a function of pre- college income, ability, college quality, and demographic characteristics …

Loss Aversion, Upset Preference, And Sports Television Viewing Audience Size, Brad Humphreys, Levi Pérez

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

A growing body of research examines the effect of loss aversion (LA) on consumers’ decisions to watch or attend sporting events. Much of this research focuses on live game attendance. In contrast to the predictions of uncertainty of outcome hypothesis (UOH), loss-averse consumers prefer watching either potential upsets, or dominant performances by strong favorites, to events with uncertain outcomes. We test for LA vs. UOH effects in television viewing audience data for free over-the-air broadcasts of 304 Spanish football matches from 2008/09 to 2015/16. This setting generates substantial variation home team win probabilities because of the presence of Real Madrid …

Do Tourists Tip More Than Consumer? Evidence Of Taxi Rides In New York City, Amir B. Neto, Adam Nowak, Amanda Ross

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

We revisit the mechanisms that drive tipping behavior by comparing tourists and locals in New York City. It is unlikely a tourist will tip as a way of enforcing repeated interactions since they are not from the area, while a local may tip as an enforcement mechanism. However, if people tip because of social norms, we should see both tourists and locals tipping similar amounts. We compare locals and tourists who are theatergoers to control for education and income, as these factors are likely to affect tipping behavior. Using data from the New York City and Limousine Commission on yellow …

A ‘Model’ Model: Mccloskey And The Craft Of Economics, Joshua C. Hall

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

In this essay, I highlight some of the contributions of Deirdre McCloskey to the practice of economics as a teacher and scholar. I highlight her influence on my teaching and scholarship in the areas of economic education and economic freedom.

The Sinuous Dragon: Economic Freedom And Economic Growth In China, Joshua Hall, Yang Zhou

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

With sinuous reforms and economic openness over the last four decades, China has enjoyed substantial economic development. Though still a developing country, its GDP per capita has grown over 10% annually, from $183(US) in 1977 to $7,590 (US) in 2014. This miracle in economic growth is attributed by some to a series of pro-market policies and reforms. Although the general trend is greater economic freedom, China has experienced brief periods of decreasing or stagnant economic freedom that correspond with slowdowns in the growth rate. In this paper we trace these changes in economic freedom in China and discuss prospects for …

The Effect Of Health Care Entrepreneurship On Local Health: The Case Of Medexpress In Appalachia, Amir Borges Ferreira Neto, Joshua C. Hall

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

We test the hypothesis that the opening of an Urgent Care Center (UCC) has positive impacts on the local community. There are several mechanisms through which a UCC can have an impact: lower health care costs, emergency room decongestion, and improved access to medical information. We examine the entry of MedExpress into Appalachian counties between 2001 and 2013. Employing data from Health Resources Files, which provides information for all counties for specific years, we use Propensity Score Matching to create a year 2000 control group for the counties “treated” by MedExpress entry beginning in 2001. We then employ a standard …

The Impact Of Marketization On Entrepreneurship In China: Recent Evidence, Yang Zhou, Joshua C. Hall

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

While marketization has been linked to provincial-level economic growth in China, how marketization leads to growth has not been explored. We hypothesize that marketization creates an environment that encourages entrepreneurship, which manifests itself in economic growth. While this argument is not new, it has not been explored in the Chinese context. We fill this gap by empirically testing the relationship between marketization and measures of entrepreneurship across Chinese provinces. Our primary measures of entrepreneurship are level changes in the number of “private enterprises” and “self-employed individuals”. We find that higher levels of marketization are positively related to higher levels of …

Growing Portland: Not Whether, But How, Richard Barringer Phd, Joseph Mcdonnell Phd

Faculty Publications

In the 400 years since European settlement, Portland has survived the ravages of war, invasion, pestilence, conflagration, and economic depression and recession. Once a renowned manufacturing, trade, and shipping center, it now enjoys what might be called a post-industrial renaissance as a vibrant center for the arts, education, entertainment, and banking, legal, and medical services; and is frequently cited as one of America’s best small cities. As a result, Portland is growing today and is positioned for more growth.

The question, then, is not whether Portland will grow, but how well it will grow; or, how best to manage the …

The Role Of Snap And Habit Formation On Household Consumption Behavior, Shaheer Burney

Theses and Dissertations--Agricultural Economics

This collection of essays examines the impact of two antecedents of household food consumption: SNAP and habit formation to nutrients. Household food choice invariably plays a substantial role in health outcomes such as obesity. Low-income households may be especially vulnerable to obesity as they face a more restricted set of food choices due to income constraints and may have less information on healthy eating relative to high-income households. This dissertation unravels this dynamic by providing causal estimates of the effect of two major determinants of food choice.

Chapter 2 and chapter 3 test the impact of SNAP participation on consumption …

Environmental Values, Stated Preferences, And Hypothetical Bias, Jerrod M. Penn

Theses and Dissertations--Agricultural Economics

Contingent Valuation (CV) methods are a primary tool in environmental economics to ascertain non-use or other values not observable through existing market mechanisms. Because common CV approaches typically rely on hypothetical answers from surveys in order to generate welfare estimates, these are often labelled stated preferences. Results from stated preference methods often diverge from those obtained when actual preference or behavior are involved. This divergence is commonly known as Hypothetical Bias (HB). This dissertation addresses HB as it applies to environmental applications. To begin, a meta-analysis using a sample of studies many times larger than previous works was performed. Its …

Net Impact And Benefit-Cost Estimates Of The Workforce Development System In Washington State, Kevin Hollenbeck, Wei-Jang Huang

Employment Research Newsletter

No abstract provided.

The Effect Of Employee Ownership On Employment Stability And Firm Survival During The Past Two Recessions, Fidan Ana Kurtulus, Douglas L. Kruse

Employment Research Newsletter

No abstract provided.

How Has The Valuation Of Technology Ipos Changed Since The Dot-Com Bubble?, Andrew Rush

Honors Undergraduate Theses

In my paper, I extended Aggarwal, Bhagat and Rangan’s “The Impact of Fundamentals on IPO Valuation”. I examine IPO valuations over three time periods: 2002-2006, 2007-2011 and 2012-2016. In these time periods, I analyze the first day returns these firms experience along with testing the significance of four variables on their valuations: Total Assets, Previous Year’s Sales, Previous Year’s R&D Expense, and Sales-to-Assets Multiple. The results point to a shift in valuation tactics from valuing in line with investors’ expectations in the early years to undervaluing them in more recent years. Also, Sales and R&D have statistical significance for firm’s …

The Colonial Legacies Of Trade Agreements With The European Union, Mia R. Warshofsky

Honors Undergraduate Theses

As European colonialism was the dominant system of long-distance governance and resource appropriation for centuries, its economic legacies are diverse albeit understated. The existing research looks mainly at the effects of colonialism on a former colony's internal development. This study broadens that scope, looking at which factors are correlated with the presence or absence of a trade agreement with the European Union as well as the number of restrictions to free trade within them. This was carried out through four large-n regressions. The first compared current former- and non-colony trading partners. The second narrowed the scope by comparing only former …

Does Lowering The Interest Rate Stimulate Economic Growth? An Analysis Of Current Macroeconomic Policy, Tomas Araujo

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The effectiveness of monetary policy moving forward from the subprime mortgage crisis has come into question by academics and economists from around the world. The unconventional monetary policy tools implemented have left central banks in a tough spot in terms of an exit from these policies in an environment where economic growth and inflation targets still have not been reached ten years after the onset of the recession. One of the main criticisms by economists is the prolonged easy monetary policy implemented by central banks, which have left interest rates at near zero levels since the recession and are just …

Loose Math Notes, Anwar Shaikh Phd

Archives of Anwar Shaikh

This collection includes:

• Loose mathematical notes. Unpublished manuscript materials. Author: Anwar Shaikh, PhD.
• The analytical solution of the distribution of wages. Unpublished manuscript. Author: Anwar Shaikh, PhD. Date: February 6, 2017.
• Wealth of the world’s richest publicly traded companies per industry and per employee: Gamma, log-normal and Pareto power law as universal distributions? Soriano-Hernández, P. G., del Castillo-Mussot, M., Campirán-Chavez, I., & Montemayor-Aldrete, J. A. (2017). Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 476, 143–157.
• Handwritten mathematical calculations and derivations. Manuscript notes. Author: Anwar Shaikh, PhD.
• Mathematical derivations related to probability distributions, wage distributions, and wealth …

Internationalisation Of Indigenous Start-Ups: Economic Development In A Small Peripheral Economy, Clare O'Mahony

Conference papers

Ireland’s economic development is intrinsically linked to its success at attracting Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). For decades, indigenous industry has lagged behind the foreign-owned sector, giving rise to concerns of a dualistic industrial structure. An over-reliance on FDI carries a number of risks associated with its footloose nature and weak linkages in the domestic economy. The development of a strong export-oriented indigenous sector is therefore seen as essential to ensure sustainable economic growth and employment security. Since the 1990s, Irish industrial policy has placed a greater emphasis on indigenous industry. At the same time technological change and the decentralisation of …

Who Reacts To Income Tax Rate Changes? The Relationship Between Income Taxes And The Motivation To Work: The Case Of Azerbaijan, Orkhan Nadirov, Bruce Dehning, Khatai Aliyev, Minura Iskandarova

Accounting Faculty Articles and Research

This research investigates the effects of income taxation on the motivation to work by employing a survey method for the Azerbaijan population. The two research questions of interest are, if subjects consider income taxes when deciding how many hours to work and how subjects would react to a hypothetical 5% income tax rate increase. Also examined are the responses to these questions between subjects with different socio-economic characteristics. Examining cross-sectional data of 326 respondents reveals that income taxes do not influence Azerbaijan labour market participants’ motivation to work, regardless of their socio-economic characteristics. Empirical results indicate that reactions to hypothetical …

Happiness Index Methodology, Laura Musikanski, Scott Cloutier, Erica Bejarano, Davi Briggs, Julia Colbert, Gracie Strasser, Steven Russell

Journal of Sustainable Social Impact

The Happiness Index is a comprehensive survey instrument that assesses happiness, well-being, and aspects of sustainability and resilience. The Happiness Alliance developed the Happiness Index to provide a survey instrument to community organizers, researchers, and others seeking to use a subjective well-being index and data. It is the only instrument of its kind freely available worldwide and translated into over ten languages. This instrument can be used to measure satisfaction with life and the conditions of life. It can also be used to define income inequality, trust in government, sense of community and other aspects of well-being within specific demographics …

Happiness In Communities: How Neighborhoods, Cities And States Use Subjective Well-Being Metrics, Laura Musikanski, Carl Polley, Scott Cloutier, Erica Berejnoi, Julia Colbert

Journal of Sustainable Social Impact

This essay, the fourth and last of a series published by the Journal of Social Change, is intended as a tool for community organizers, local policy makers, researchers, students and others to incorporate subjective well-being indicators into their measurements and management of happiness and well-being in their communities, for policy purposes, for research and for other purposes. It provides case studies of community-based efforts in five different regions (São Paulo, Brazil; Bristol, United Kingdom; Melbourne, Australia; Creston, British Columbia, Canada; and Vermont, United States) that either developed their own subjective well-being index or used the Happiness Alliance’s survey instrument …

Evaluation Of Monetary, Fiscal And External Inflationary Sources In Nigeria, Samson A. Aladejare

Journal for the Advancement of Developing Economies

This study focuses on evaluating the monetary, fiscal and external inflationary sources in Nigeria. The Auto-Regressive Distributive Lag estimation technique was adapted to capture these effects. Empirical findings of the study showed that overall, the main determining cause of inflation in both short run and long run periods in Nigeria, are more of monetary and external factors and less of fiscal sources. Specifically, the problem of inflation in Nigeria appears to be more of structural phenomenon than monetary in the short run. However, in the long run, combinations of monetary and external factors tend to be the major cause of …

Land Tenure, Governance And Accountability In Nigeria: The Implications On Food Production To Feed The Present And The Future, Abiodun E. Obayelu, Aisha O. Arowolo, Olatokunbo H. Osinowo

Journal for the Advancement of Developing Economies

Land is very vital for agricultural production, and for any nation that wants to be self-food sufficient. Different land reforms have taken place in Nigeria since 1960 with the aim of facilitating access to agricultural land, and make the nation self-sufficient in food production, but little changes have only been recorded. Bureaucracy by approving authorities in practice in communities where land is situated still hinders land acquisition for agricultural investment. This study therefore analyzes land policy, governance and accountability and draw out some implications on food production in Nigeria. The percentage of arable land to the total land area was …

Internal Control Activities As A Tool For Financial Management In The Public Sector: A Case Study Of Ghana Post Company Limited, Kwakye E. Agyapong

Journal for the Advancement of Developing Economies

The case, Ghana Post Company Limited, allows for the observation of internal control activities as a tool for financial management in the public sector. The objective of the research is to examine the control environment of the Ghana Post Company to ensure there is segregation of duties, proper information and communication between employees and management; and monitoring of the policies implemented by management. The sample size of 36 included individuals from all of the departments within the company. The departments are Auditing and Finance, Human Resource, Mail and Parcels, and Financial Services. The work established had continued lapses in the …

A Better Calculus For Regulators: From Cost-Benefit Analysis To The Social Welfare Function, Matthew D. Adler

Faculty Scholarship

The “social welfare function” (SWF) is a powerful tool that originates in theoretical welfare economics and has wide application in economic scholarship, for example in optimal tax theory and environmental economics. This Article provides a comprehensive introduction to the SWF framework. It then shows how the SWF framework can be used as the basis for regulatory policy analysis, and why it improves upon cost-benefit analysis (CBA).

Two types of SWFs are especially plausible: the utilitarian SWF, which sums individual well-being numbers, and the prioritarian SWF, which gives extra weight to the well-being of the worse off. Either one of these …

التحديات الاقتصادية للإرهاب و ممكنات تجفيفه مع إشارة لحالة العراق, مهدي خليل شديد

Muthanna Journal of Administrative and Economics Sciences

يتناول البحث التحديات الاقتصادية للإرهاب وسبل معالجته من خلال تقديم البرامج والسياسات الاقتصادية التي تساعد في معالجة الفقر والتوزيع العادل للثروة والدخل بين فئات وأفراد المجتمع ، ولاسيما بعد زيادة حدة الإرهاب بعد أحداث 11 ايلول 2001 .على أن البحث استنتج إمكانية تجنب الإرهاب باستخدام المتغيرات الاقتصادية على أساس أن كلا من الإرهاب والاقتصاد إنما يعبران ضمنا عن السلوك الإنساني مع خصوصية كلٍ منهما ، كما استنتج البحث أن البلدان النفطية أكثر عرضة لطموحات الجماعات الإرهابية لسهولة السيطرة على منابع النفط من جهة وضعف وهشاشة مؤسسات الدولة من جهة أخرى ، إلا أن هذا الاستنتاج لا ينطبق على العراق لان …

Life Insurance: Nudges And Adverse Selection, Timothy F. Harris

Theses and Dissertations--Economics

Death of a breadwinner can have devastating financial consequences on surviving dependents through lost earnings and medical expenses. Life insurance is designed to help mitigate these financial burdens. Nonetheless, there are documented shortages in life insurance coverage. Adverse selection---where higher risk individuals are more likely to purchase coverage leading to market failure---could be one of the causes of uninsured vulnerabilities. I analyze both the existence of and welfare costs from adverse selection in individual term life insurance and employer-sponsored life insurance (ESLI) at a large public university. In the individual term market, using a representative sample of purchasers, I do …

Three Essays On Population Dynamics, Trade And Growth, Anna Maximova

Theses and Dissertations--Economics

Changes in immigration patterns and differential fertility choices shape the economies of both developed and developing countries. However, these changes affect the economies of developed and developing nations in different ways. This study aims to understand the changes in population dynamics, brought about by differences in cross--country differential fertility choices and migration patterns, and how these changes affect economic development via the channels of international trade and cross--country human capital accumulation.

Chapter 1 discusses the background, data and literature on the patterns and composition of immigration and international trade, which are further explored in Chapter 2 for the world sample …

Essays On Intergenerational Dependency And Welfare Reform, Robert Paul Hartley

Theses and Dissertations--Economics

This dissertation consists of three essays related to the effects of welfare reform on the intergenerational transmission of welfare participation as well as effects on labor supply and childcare arrangements. States implemented welfare reform at different times from 1992 to 1996, and these policies notably introduced work requirements and other restrictions intended to limit dependency of needy families. One mechanism reforms were intended to address was childhood exposure to a "culture" of ongoing welfare receipt. In Essay 1, I estimate the effect of reform on the transmission of welfare participation for 2961 mother-daughter pairs in the Panel Study of Income …

The Economic Impact Of The Seattle Area’S Transportation Infrastructure Expansions And Changes, Meredith Crane

Theses and Dissertations--Economics

This paper uses annual, tract-level data to estimate the economic impact of the Seattle area’s newly operational light rail system and recently implemented toll on a bridge traversing Lake Washington, the large lake immediately east of Seattle that bisects the region. Two modeling approaches are utilized in the estimation of each transit intervention’s economic impact: the primary model allows the transit intervention to affect the designated impact area prior to the system’s operation, under the assumption that individuals will respond to the knowledge of the change and relocate accordingly. The secondary model accounts for an impact from the intervention upon …

The Impact Of Public Educational Investments And Education Spillovers On The Economic Growth Of States: Are State Educational Investments Affecting Earnings And Employment?, Carla J. Nietfeld

Theses and Dissertations--Economics

The first chapter provides an introduction to my investigation of the impact of state-level educational investments in public K-12 education on future labor markets, specifically earnings and employment. In Chapter 2, the current literature supporting this investigation is examined while I offer a hole in the literature that I intend to fill. Then, in Chapter 3 I present a two-period, balanced-budget theoretical model in which I relate educational investments, mobility, and future earnings. This theoretical model is then implemented in Chapter 4 using state-level data and again in Chapter 5 using individual-level data.

Chapter 4 examines the impact of state-level …