Economics Commons^™

The Dwight Lee Reader: Collected Columns From The Freeman, Dwight Lee, Joshua Hall, Zachary Rodriguez

Center for Free Enterprise

A collection of articles written by economist Dwight Lee for The Freeman from 1976-2013. The articles are organized into sections on Basic Economics, Markets and Morality, The Market as a Process, Constitutional Economics, Government and Markets, International Trade, Social Welfare, and Environmental Policy.

The Success Of Bottled Water: The Hidden Costs Hurt Us And The Environment, Cassandra Sevigny

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

Bottled water is consumed worldwide as both a matter of necessity and preference. People who need bottled water live in areas with compromised water sanitation, such as developing countries. People who prefer bottled water despite its higher price tag tend to live in areas that already have ready access to clean water, such as developing countries. These preferences for bottled water stem partly from taste and convenience, but are largely driven by advertising efforts by bottled water companies. The preference for bottled water leads to increased sales as well as increased cost. Costs include damages to health and the environment. …

Examining Renewable Energy And Economic Growth: Evidence From 22 Oecd Countries, David Neitzel

Honors Program Theses

A growing amount of electricity is produced from renewable sources. For this reason, it is important to understand the effect that this developing industry has on economic growth. This paper examines this relationship between economic growth and renewable energy consumption within a multivariate framework using a panel of 22 OECD countries over the period 1995-2012. The results of the Fully-Modified Least Squares regression indicate a statistically significant, albeit small, negative relationship between real GDP and renewable energy. Granger Causality tests indicate bidirectional causality running between GDP and renewable energy. The small effect of renewable energy on growth implies that policies …

Indigenous Peoples Boxed In By Brazil’S Political Crisis, Manuela Carneiro Da Cunha, Ruben Caixeta, Jeremy M. Campbell

Arts & Sciences Faculty Publications

Agribusiness has unprecedented leverage over highly unpopular Brazilian president Michel Temer, who is faced with several corruption charges and is struggling for political survival. In a little over one year, the agribusiness lobby and its allies have managed to erode thirty years of human rights and conservation laws. Indigenous peoples and their territorial rights are among the main targets of such policies, and there is no resolution to the situation in sight. With the insight of several scholars, the following forum assesses the consequences of losing the protection the Citizens’ Constitution of 1988 once afforded indigenous peoples in Brazil.

Identifying Gentrification: The Case Of Portland, Lindsey M. Buck

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

Portland, Oregon has been considered a candidate for gentrification in recent media due to its changing populations, businesses, and landscapes. Authors have worked to study the effects of gentrification across the United States, focusing on large cities such as Detroit and San Francisco. While these results are increasingly interesting, they tend to focus on census data many years in the past. There is also a gap within the literature: west cities that are not coastal cities. This is extremely important; many people are being displaced or seeing their neighborhoods change character and composition due to gentrification. Using census tract data …

Professional Sports Events, Concerts, And Urban Place Based Policy: Evidence From The Staples Center, Yulia Chikish, Brad Humphreys, Crocker H. Liu, Adam Nowak

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

Abstract We analyze the relationship between sports events and concerts, important hospitality demand drivers and key components of many urban renewal projects, in the Staples Center in Los Angeles, an arena home to three pro teams, and nearby hotel performance, exploiting exogenous daily variation in the timing of games and concerts from 2002 to 2017. Results show a small positive impact on revenue per available room at hotels within one mile of the arena and an offsetting decrease at hotels located one to four miles away. Granting nearby hotels exemptions from Los Angeles hotel taxes reduces potential tourism-generated hotel tax …

Tuition Increases Geaux Away? Evidence From Voting On Louisiana's Amendment 2, Joshua C. Hall, Serkan Karadas

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

In many states, public institutions of higher education have the autonomy to raise tuition. This has not been the case in Louisiana since a 1995 constitutional amend-ment required a two-thirds majority of the state legislature for any tuition increase. In November of 2016, voters in Louisiana rejected Amendment 2, a constitutional amendment that would have given state institutions of higher education autonomy in setting tuition. We examine parish-level voting on Amendment 2 using an empirical political economy model and find that parishes with a greater percentage of African-Americans and university employees were more likely to vote yes. Student enrollment at …

The Effect Of Health Care Entrepreneurship On Local Health: The Case Of Medexpress In Appalachia, Amir B. 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 …

Evaluating Crime As A Negative Externality Of Hosting Mega-Events: Econometric Analysis Of The 2012 London Summer Olympics, Nicholas Le

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

Analysis of the benefits and the drawbacks of hosting large-scale sporting events like the Olympics or World Cup frequently ignore the effects of crime due to its relatively small economic impact in comparison to employment and consumption effects. Literature has frequently tied sporting events and tourism to crime, in addition to observing proximity effects on crime during sporting events. This research seeks to confirm both by implementing a difference-in-difference regression that can show whether crime increased during the Olympics, in particular in London boroughs which hosted venues for the Games. Ultimately, the research concludes that crime in London as a …

دور الروابط التنظيمية والمجتمعية في تعزيز قراري المشاركة والأداء دراسة تحليلية لآراء عينة من العاملين في مديرية توزيع كهرباء الديوانية, عامر علي حسين العطوي

Muthanna Journal of Administrative and Economics Sciences

يهدف البحث الحالي إلى اختبار دور الروابط التنظيمية والمجتمعية في تعزيز قراري المشاركة والأداء في عينة من العاملين في مديرية توزيع كهرباء الديوانية بلغ عددها (100) فرد. وتفترض الدراسة ان الروابط التنظيمية والمجتمعية تزيد من مستوى الأداء الوظيفي ومستوى سلوك المواطنة التنظيمية، كما تفترض الدراسة ان ارتفاع الروابط التنظيمية والمجتمعية يقلل من نوايا العاملين في ترك العمل. وقد استخدم الاستبيان كأداة قياس رئيسة لجمع بيانات البحث والتي تم تصميمها بالاعتماد على مقاييس جاهزة في الدراسات السابقة. وقد استخدم البحث عدد من الوسائل الإحصائية المناسبة مثل المتوسط الحسابي والانحراف المعياري ومعامل الارتباط البسيط. وقد أظهرت نتائج الدراسة صحة اغلب الفرضيات وفي …

Kentucky Annual Economic Report 2017, Christopher R. Bollinger, William H. Hoyt, David Blackwell, Michael T. Childress

Kentucky Annual Economic Report

No abstract provided.

Performance Of The Producer Accumulator In Corn And Soybean Commodity Markets, Chad Te Slaa

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research quantifies risk reduction and performance of the producer accumulator contract in corn and soybean markets. To quantify performance, we use three alternative theoretical pricing models to estimate historical producer accumulator contract specifications in corn and soybean markets. We then compare the performance of the producer accumulator to eight alternative agricultural marketing strategy portfolios that are also used in new generation grain contracts. The performance measures we compare are: average bushel price that would be received by the producer, daily portfolio risk, and the Sharpe ratio. The period we examine performance was between 2008 and 2017. We investigate performance …

The Effects Of The Dodd-Frank Act On Community Banks, Hoanh Le

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this paper, I study the effects on community banks of seven final rules associated with the Dodd-Frank Act. I use quarterly data on US bank holding companies from 1991 through 2016 to test working hypotheses that several bank performance measures—including pretax returns on assets, loans per employee, changes in the number of employees, and salaries to assets—responded to the passage of these seven final rules in ways that reflected regulatory burdens that these rules imposed on banks. I find that these seven final rules affected banks differently according to their scale. Taken together, my results imply that these seven …

Encouraging Organic Agriculture: The Effects Of Conversion Subsidies, Sarah Adams Inkoom

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the importance of conversional subsidies in accounting for an increase in organic acreage in the 12 North-Central States in the United States. Monthly time series data that spans from January 2002 to December 2014 was used in the analysis. Empirical evidence suggests that increase in organic acreage is due in part to the availability of conversion subsidies. Without government assistance, most small-scale farmers are not sufficiently motivated to switch to organic production due to the high initial costs involved in transitioning. Further, increased institutional support could facilitate organic adoption and its absence is detrimental to increasing the …

The Fiscal Theory Of The Price Level In Sub-Saharan Africa: A Structural Break Analysis, Christian Tchamda

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this paper, I provide empirical evidence of the fiscal theory of the price level (FTPL) using sub-Saharan African countries. While the traditional view of the inflation is driven and explained by the quantity theory of money, the FTPL argues that the government deficit has an impact on the price level. However, the empirical literature of the FTPL is not extensive. This paper adds to this literature in that it substantiates this theory. I determine using primary balance and liabilities data when available to classify a country as under either a monetary dominant regime (the traditional view) or under a …

Price Discovery And Volatility Spillover Effects: The Agricultural Etps And Their Underlying Commodities, Yu Chen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates the price discovery and volatility spillover effects between agricultural ETPs and commodity underlying. We analyze historical prices of five most popular grain ETPs and their underlying commodities using VEC model and BEKK model. Price discovery is confirmed by bidirectional relationships between ETPs and underlying commodity in the long term, and the WEAT_ETP and CBOT Wheat Futures December Contracts. In addition, findings show unidirectional relationships between ETPs and underlying, mostly in the short term. In the process of price discovery, the information share of ETPs is much lower than that of underlying, with a potential downward trend. Volatility …

Factors Affecting Feedlots' Decisions On Cattle Marketing Options: A National Study, Charlotte Owusu-Smart

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates the economic implication of changing slaughter volume patterns across the cash and contract markets in the US cattle industry. Weekly time series data that spans from November 2002 to December 2015 was used in the analysis. Empirical evidence suggests that Mandatory Price Reporting (MPR) played an important role in changing slaughter volumes across the cash and contract markets. Additionally, price of feeder cattle, cattle quality characteristics (Choice-Select spread and the percentage of animals grading choice or better) among others influence feedlots’ decision to use a particular marketing arrangement.

The Determinants Of Rural Outmigration In The United States: 2010-2014, Munia Sunjid

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study focuses on both economic and noneconomic determinants of geographical migration out of rural areas in the United States. In line with existing studies on individual’s decision to migrate from rural to urban areas, our analysis compares expected returns in rural to those in urban areas. Using annual U.S. countylevel count data spanning the period from 2010 to 2014, Fixed Effect and Negative Binomial methods are used to evaluate the effects of both economic and noneconomic variables on geographical outmigration from rural to urban areas. Determining factors investigated include distance between place of origin and potential destination, median household …

A Second Child? No, Thank You! The Impact Of Chinese Family Planning Policies On Fertility Decisions, Yinghan Qi

Scripps Senior Theses

In 1979, the Chinese government introduced the One-child Policy for the purpose of controlling population growth. Thirty years later, the fertility rate in China has declined to a very low level and one-child families have become the norm. At the same time, the consequences of low fertility rates have emerged. In 2015, the government announced a new policy that encouraged couples to have two children in order to raise the total fertility rate. In this paper, I analyze the economic and legal implications of the Chinese family planning policies. By examining to what extent fertility decisions are affected by government …

The Role Of Behavior In The Effectiveness Of Indoor Air Pollution Interventions: Results From The Artis Study, Madison J. Cole

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Using panel data from a randomized placebo-controlled trial of a wood stove changeout and air filter interventions, this study addresses the role of behavior in the efficacy of air quality interventions. The effectiveness of an intervention in improving air quality depends on how households respond to and use them. Two important responses are whether the target population complies with the requirements of the intervention and whether users adjust other behaviors that can affect air quality.

This paper’s results are consistent with prior studies in finding that in the absence of interventions, a number of behaviors can affect indoor air pollution, …

An Outlay Equivalence Analysis Of South African Households, Samuel Peevey

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

A significant amount of evidence suggests that gender inequality in the developing world negatively impacts women and girls’ health, education and future wage potential. This thesis investigates whether households in South Africa discriminated against their girl children, in favor of their boy children. Additionally, I will investigate whether household heads favored children matching their own sex. Using the 1^st wave of the National Income Dynamics Study and Angus Deaton’s outlay-equivalence ratio method, I will estimate the impact, 8 age and sex categories have on their household’s adult goods expenditure. I found statistically significant but practically insignificant evidence, from a …

Failure Or Adjustment?: An Analysis Of The Slowing Growth Of The Chinese Economy, Kay G. Degraw

Honors Theses

With GDP growth for the 2016 fiscal year reported at 6.7%, it appears that the Chinese economy has departed from the three-decade period in which GDP growth averaged plus-10%. While both academic journals and media outlets have accredited this slowdown to a variety of factors, existing research has failed to conflate the economic and political factors into a comprehensive explanation. Consequently, this thesis examines the causative factors behind the slowing of the Chinese economy though the analysis of three contesting plausibility probes centered on the impact of corruption, statism, and structural economic change. The results of the plausibility probes indicates …

Growth Performance Of Transition Countries After 25 Years, Alena Kalodzitsa

Masters Theses

The present study provides with the most recent summary of growth performance in transition countries after 25 years since the change of the regime. The empirical analysis estimates growth, applying Generalized Least Squares (GLS) estimation technique using a panel of 26 transition countries for the period of 25 transition years (1990-2014). Empirical findings of this study confirm that growth performance can be explained by the degree of structural reforms, stabilization, and initial conditions along with other factors (external growth, regional tensions, government expenditure, and oil balance). Even if initial conditions are important for growth, its influence consistently declines.

The transition …

The S&P 500© Is Not A Leading Indicator For Us Gdp Over Policy-Relevant Time Frames, William D. Campbell Sr.

Masters Theses

Simply, we find S&P 500© returns are no longer a statistically meaningful leading indicator for growth in "real" per capita GDP. Technically, we find the SP500 fails to Granger cause real per capita GDP over policy relevant time frames while confirming nominal (non-inflation adjusted) SP500 quarterly returns continue to Granger cause one-period ahead quarterly growth in inflation adjusted (real) US Per-Capita GDP over very long (and perhaps less meaningful from fiscal and monetary perspectives) time frames. In addition, we identify a likely transition period when the SP500 switched from a leading indicator to a lagging indicator. Therefore, in keeping with …

Determinants Of The Utilization Of Maternal Health Services In Myanmar, Myat Thu San

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

This study explored determinants of the utilization of three types of maternal health services in Myanmar: antenatal care (ANC), institutional delivery, and postnatal care (PNC), testing in particular the predisposing factors, enabling factors and perceived need factors. This study used a secondary dataset drawn from the Myanmar Demographic and Health Survey 2015-16 (MDHS). In this nationally representative survey, the number of households that were originally involved was 12,500, among which 12,885 women and 4,737 men were interviewed. The final sample used for analyses in this study consisted of over 3,800 women who had delivered at least one child within 5 …

Narrative Economics, Robert J. Shiller

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

This address considers the epidemiology of narratives relevant to economic fluctuations. The human brain has always been highly tuned towards narratives, whether factual or not, to justify ongoing actions, even such basic actions as spending and investing. Stories motivate and connect activities to deeply felt values and needs. Narratives “go viral” and spread far, even worldwide, with economic impact. The 1920-21 Depression, the Great Depression of the 1930s, the so-called “Great Recession” of 2007-9 and the contentious political-economic situation of today, are considered as the results of the popular narratives of their respective times. Though these narratives are deeply human …

Consequences Of The Clean Water Act And The Demand For Water Quality, David A. Keiser, Joseph S. Shapiro

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

Since the 1972 U.S. Clean Water Act, government and industry have invested over $1 trillion to abate water pollution, or $100 per person-year. Over half of U.S. stream and river miles, however, still violate pollution standards. We use the most comprehensive set of files ever compiled on water pollution and its determinants, including 50 million pollution readings from 170,000 monitoring sites, to study water pollution’s trends, causes, and welfare consequences. We have three main findings. First, water pollution concentrations have fallen substantially since 1972, though were declining at faster rates before then. Second, the Clean Water Act’s grants to municipal …

The Benefit Of Collective Reputation, Zvika Neeman, Aniko Öry (Oery), Jungju Yu

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We study a model of collective reputation and use it to analyze the benefit of collective brands. Consumers form beliefs about the quality of an experience good that is produced by one firm that is part of a collective brand. Consumers’ limited ability to distinguish among firms in the collective and to monitor firms’ investment decisions creates incentives to free-ride on other firms’ investment efforts. Nevertheless, we show that collective brands induce stronger incentives to invest in quality than individual brands under two types of circumstances: if the main concern is with quality control and the baseline reputation of the …

Consequences Of The Clean Water Act And The Demand For Water Quality, David A. Keiser, Joseph S. Shapiro

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

Since the 1972 U.S. Clean Water Act, government and industry have invested over $1 trillion to abate water pollution, or $100 per person-year. Over half of U.S. stream and river miles, however, still violate pollution standards. We use the most comprehensive set of files ever compiled on water pollution and its determinants, including 50 million pollution readings from 240,000 monitoring sites and a network model of all U.S. rivers, to study water pollution’s trends, causes, and welfare consequences. We have three main findings. First, water pollution concentrations have fallen substantially. Between 1972 and 2001, for example, the share of waters …

Weak Σ- Convergence: Theory And Applications, Jianning Kong, Peter C.B. Phillips, Donggyu Sul

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

The concept of relative convergence, which requires the ratio of two time series to converge to unity in the long run, explains convergent behavior when series share commonly divergent stochastic or deterministic trend components. Relative convergence of this type does not necessarily hold when series share common time decay patterns measured by evaporating rather than divergent trend behavior. To capture convergent behavior in panel data that do not involve stochastic or divergent deterministic trends, we introduce the notion of weak σ-convergence, whereby cross section variation in the panel decreases over time. The paper formalizes this concept and proposes a simple-to-implement …