Economics Commons^™

Monetary Policy And Energy Price Shocks, Bao Tan Huynh

Research Collection School Of Economics

A New Keynesian framework with endogenous energy production is proposed to investigate the role of monetary policy in addressing disturbances in energy markets. The novelty of the model lies in the endogenous production of energy with convex costs, explicit modeling of goods with different degrees of energy-dependency and sectoral price rigidities. Our analyses prescribe the desirable monetary responses to four types of energy price shocks, highlighting the distinct characteristics of each shock and affirming the need for diverse policy considerations. We also found several points of divergence in relation to previous studies on addressing energy supply shocks. In addition, we …

Robust Jump Regressions, Jia Li, Viktor Todorov, George Tauchen

Research Collection School Of Economics

We develop robust inference methods for studying linear dependence between the jumps of discretely observed processes at high frequency. Unlike classical linear regressions, jump regressions are determined by a small number of jumps occurring over a fixed time interval and the rest of the components of the processes around the jump times. The latter are the continuous martingale parts of the processes as well as observation noise. By sampling more frequently the role of these components, which are hidden in the observed price, shrinks asymptotically. The robustness of our inference procedure is with respect to outliers, which are of particular …

Love, Money, And Parental Goods: Does Parental Matchmaking Matter?, Fali Huang, Ginger Zhe Xu, Lixin Colin Xu

Research Collection School Of Economics

While parental matchmaking has been widespread throughout history and across countries, we know little about the relationship between parental matchmaking and marriage outcomes. Does parental involvement in matchmaking help ensure their needs are better taken care of by married children? This paper finds supportive evidence using a survey of Chinese couples. In particular, parental involvement in matchmaking is associated with having a more submissive wife, a greater number of children, a higher likelihood of having any male children, and a stronger belief of the husband in providing old age support to his parents. These benefits, however, are achieved at the …

The Value Of Trading Relations In Turbulent Times, Marco Di Maggio, Amir Kermani, Zhaogang Song

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper investigates how dealers’ trading relations shape their trading behavior in the corporate bond market. Dealers charge lower spreads to dealers with whom they have the strongest ties and more so during periods of market turmoil. Systemically important dealers exploit their connections at the expense of peripheral dealers as well as clients, charging higher markups than to other core dealers. Also, intermediation chains lengthened by 20% following the collapse of a flagship dealer in 2008 and even more for institutions strongly connected to this dealer. Finally, dealers drastically reduced their inventory during the crisis.

Singapore’S Life Program: Actuarial Framework, Longevity Risk And Impact Of Annuity Fund Return, Koon Shing Kwong, Yiu Kuen Tse, Wai-Sum Chan

Research Collection School Of Economics

The Central Provident Fund (CPF) is a defined-contribution savings plan forming the key pillar of the pension system in Singapore. The CPF Lifelong Income For the Elderly (LIFE) program, which provides lifetime income for retirees, is a mandatory pension scheme for all Singapore residents. In this paper we construct an actuarial framework to analyze the LIFE program. We use this framework to study the plan payout outcomes with respect to changes in mortality and annuity fund return assumptions. We also examine the effects of some possible changes in the program on the payouts and bequests.

Gender, Punishment, And Cooperation: Men Hurt Others To Advance Their Interests, Terence C. Burnham

ESI Working Papers

A laboratory experiment that reports on gender, cooperation, and punishment in two repeated public goods game using high-powered punishment. In a repeated public goods game with punishment, no statistically significant differences between men and women are reported. In a modified game that adds an explicit payoff for relative performance, men punish more than women, men obtain higher rank, and punishment by males decreases payoffs for both men and for women. These results contribute to the debate about the origins and maintenance of cooperation.

Exploring Individual’S Explanations Of Economic Mobility Through The Gaze Of Intersectionality, Adam Alexander Broyles

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study looks at whether or not adopting intersectionality as a theoretical framework allows for a better understanding of individual’s explanations of economic mobility, rather than examining variables such as race, gender, and class as mutually exclusive from one another. The reason for this follows from the understanding that race, gender, and class can intersect to create unique views and opinions of the world and how it operates. Using the 2009 PEW Economic Mobility Survey as a secondary data source, I ran statistical regressions and interpreted the results.

Comparing A Risky Choice In The Field And Across Lab Procedures, Zuzana Brokesova, Cary Deck, Jana Peliova

ESI Publications

Controlled laboratory experiments have become a generally accepted method for studying economic behavior, but there are two issues regarding the reliability of such work. The first pertains to the ability to generalize experimental results outside the laboratory. The second pertains to the impact the payment procedure has on observed behavior. This paper adds empirical insight into both issues. Using data from the promotional campaign of a bank and a laboratory experiment that closely mimics the same decision, we find similar levels of risk taking controlling for gender and age. We also compare behavior on this same risky choice across three …

Coronary Atherosclerosis In Indigenous South American Tsimane: A Cross-Sectional Cohort Study, Hillard Kaplan, Randall C. Thompson, Benjamin C. Trumble, L. Samuel Wann, Adel H. Allam, Bret Beheim, Bruno Frohlich, M. Linda Sutherland, James D. Sutherland, Jonathan Stieglitz, Daniel Eid Rodriguez, David E. Michalik, Chris J. Rowan, Guido P. Lombardi, Ram Bedi, Angela R. Garcia, James K. Min, Jagat Narula, Caleb E. Finch, Michael Gurven, Gregory S. Thomas

ESI Publications

Background—Conventional coronary artery disease risk factors might potentially explain at least 90% of the attributable risk of coronary artery disease. To better understand the association between the pre-industrial lifestyle and low prevalence of coronary artery disease risk factors, we examined the Tsimane, a Bolivian population living a subsistence lifestyle of hunting, gathering, fishing, and farming with few cardiovascular risk factors, but high infectious inflammatory burden.

Methods—We did a cross-sectional cohort study including all individuals who self-identified as Tsimane and who were aged 40 years or older. Coronary atherosclerosis was assessed by coronary artery calcium (CAC) scoring done with …

Women’S Work: Labor Market Outcomes And Female Entrepreneurship In Ghana, Loretta Agyemang

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

This paper is an investigation of female entrepreneurship in Ghana. It seeks to answer the following question: Why are Ghanaian women so heavily concentrated in microenterprise in the informal economy? The literature review explores labor market trends for women on three different scales including an overview of developing countries, Sub-Saharan Africa regional, and Ghana-specific analysis. After exploring issues women face in formal employment, the study delves into business operations of informal, urban-based market participants by analyzing data pertaining to Ghanaian microenterprise. Additionally, the paper details the experiences and views of female entrepreneurs through in-depth interviews and participant observations with thirty …

Financial Management Issues Of College-Aged Students: Influences And Consequences, Katharine N. Widener

Selected Honors Theses

College students have acquired a reputation of irresponsibility and impulsivity, which has contributed to the perception that they are poor managers of money. This researcher sought to establish a clearer picture of the full story behind how college students handle their finances through a comprehensive literature review. Several searches were conducted on the topics of college students, finances, money management, debt levels, and other related terms. Scholarly articles were analyzed for common themes and research patterns, and the various strings of research identified were categorized into three main headings: Financial situation, financial influences, and financial consequences. The three major headings …

Broken Glass: The Decline Of Corporate Paternalism And Welfare Capitalism, A Critical Analysis Of One Company’S Systematic Socio-Economic Metamorphosis, Doug Bruno

Conspectus Borealis

No abstract provided.

How Does Technology Affect Skill Demand? Technical Changes And Capital-Skill Complementarity In The 21st Century, Yifan Gong

Economics Honors Projects

This paper attempts to examine technology’s impact on the labor market through the lens of skilled labor. Technical changes in the late 20th century are skill-biased in nature, because they are found to complement with skilled labor who are adept at adopting new technologies. However, recent studies document a lower demand for high-skilled labor in the 21st century, compared with the late 20th century. Are technologies starting to substitute for human skills instead of complementing them? Drawing on the wage share data from 1975 to 2015 for 18 sectors in the United States, I find strong and robust evidence of …

Emotion And Decision Making: Effects Of Anxiety On The Shape Of The Decision Weight Function, Nicole Caicedo

Economics Honors Projects

Prospect Theory (Tversky & Kahneman, 1992) asserts that people make decisions not on the basis of final states, but in relation to gains and losses experienced from a reference point. Furthermore, when making decisions under uncertainty, the weights assigned to outcomes and their associated utilities are not, as in expected utility theory, equal to the probabilities of those outcomes. Rather, the weights used in expected utility calculations have an “s-shaped” relationship with the underlying probabilities so that people have a tendency to overweight low probability events and underweight high probability events. Currently, there is no clear explanation for why this …

Can The Rise Of Dual-Earning Households Explain Gentrification Of Us Central Cities?, Stefan F. Faridani

Economics Honors Projects

The last four decades have seen a return of high-earning households to central cities. The consequences are urban renewal on the one hand and soaring inner-city rents on the other. In this paper I extend a monocentric city model of income sorting and urban rents to examine whether increases in the number of two-earner households can explain recent patterns of gentrification. I then present evidence from Washington DC that, among the young and married, the rich are shortening their commutes while the poor are lengthening theirs. However, among the unmarried, no such trend is discernible. These facts support the model's …

Food Crises And Asset Liquidation: Household-Level Evidence From Tanzania, Ibrahima Dieye

Economics Honors Projects

This paper studies the effects of food crises–large and sudden increases in food prices–on asset liquidation. Substantial research exists on household food insecurity as a result of a food crisis, but studies on households’ coping strategies have so far been limited to natural shocks such as flood, drought, and financial crises. In this paper, I use an adapted version of the asset-based poverty trap model to explain households’ use of asset liquidation as a coping strategy when faced with food crises. To test my theory, I employ a household-level panel data set from Tanzania that covers the years 2008, 2010, …

Loans And Fertilizer Use: The Effect Of Timing In Pineapple Production In Southern Ghana, Jessica Timerman

Economics Honors Projects

In this study, I explore if the timing of credit in the pineapple production cycle affects fertilizer use at the first crucial application period in Southern Ghana. Using unique survey data collected at six-week intervals, results of Probit and Tobit models suggest that total credit has no effect on fertilizer use, but an additional dollar of credit specifically during the time of interest significantly increases the probability of fertilizer use by 0.138% and the amount of fertilizer by 0.797%. Findings suggest that credit should be targeted during agronomically important periods for input use in order to maximize the effect of …

The Importance Of Profitability In Determining Volatility Across Industries With Different Debt Levels, Timothy De Silva

Undergraduate Economic Review

This paper seeks to investigate the relationship between debt and volatility. No consensus currently exists on the effects of financial leverage on stock volatility. With the increased use of complex financial derivatives in recent decades, the importance of understanding the factors that influence volatility has become extremely important. By looking at a cross-section of industries, this paper demonstrates how the importance of profitability for explaining volatility changes depending on industry debt levels, which are endogenous and depend on industry characteristics.

The Retirement Strategy Of Supreme Court Justices: An Economic Approach, Kayla M. Joyce

Honors Scholar Theses

Previous research has identified strategic behavior in the nomination, confirmation, and retirement processes of the Supreme Court, each independently. This paper analyzes the interaction between the justices, the president, and the Senate in these processes. I constructed a game theoretic model to consider the nomination and approval process of Supreme Court justices and the change in dynamics that might result from an impending election. I hypothesize that sitting justices take into account the party affiliations of the president and the Senate when they are deciding whether it is the optimal time to retire to achieve their own strategic objectives. The …

Behavioral Finance And Its Impact On Investing, Jordan Fieger

Senior Honors Theses

The field of behavioral finance has seen incredible growth over the past half century as it has explored the effect that cognitive psychological biases can have on investors’ financial decisions. Behavioral finance stands in stark contrast to the efficient market hypothesis, as it attributes market inefficiencies to investors who are not perfectly rational human beings. It offers a solution to the observed 3.5% gap that active equity investors miss out on in the market compared to passive index funds, which it attributes to their emotions and psychological biases. These common human biases can be grouped into five major categories: heuristics, …

Do Payday Lending Bans Harm Consumers? Evidence From The Pawn Market, Karlyn Russell

Economics Honors Projects

Payday lending is a highly controversial form of short-term, small-dollar credit that is banned in 13 states. Proponents of payday lending claim it provides a needed service to low-income families, and that bans take away options for these consumers, while its detractors claim it exploits vulnerable borrowers. I analyze the behavior of consumers in the market of a substitute, pawn shops, and find that consumers in states where payday lending is banned use pawn shops significantly more than consumers in states where payday lending is legal. This indicates that bans on payday lending could harm consumer welfare instead of preventing …

Blade Runner And The Divine Menace, Alexander W. Pickens

MAD-RUSH Undergraduate Research Conference

Following the decline of Christianity in mainstream Western culture, a void rose in the moral and societal code. Those writers that emerged presented alternate visions that worked their way into the literature of the 20th century. Karl Marx's interpretation of the structure of labor in capitalism presented a new societal hierarchy whose finer points have been worked out in the complex film Blade Runner. This dystopian nightmare, in which a Marxist interpretation of current society bogged down by the ennui of capitalist accumulation is confronted, describes a new religious order based upon this economic theory. Central to this reimagining …

Migration And Injustice In The Neoliberal Era: A Comparative Analysis Of Migratory Laws And Sweatshop Labor Conditions In Argentina And The United States, Kelly L. Johnson

Spanish Honors Papers

In the contemporary neoliberal era, the global phenomenon of migration dominates the international political discourse and generates empirical and normative questions regarding the admission, rights, and realities of migrants who leave their home countries to live elsewhere. Argentina and the United States are countries in which migration was, and continues to be, a main factor in shaping the nation’s identity. Despite the similar migratory phenomenon in both of these countries, their migratory policies vastly differ—Argentina considers migration to be a right, but the United States constantly strengthens its efforts to deter migrants from entering the country. Even though migratory policies …

Planting The Seeds Of Security: The Influence Of Agricultural Products On Food Security Levels In U.S. Counties, Vanessa R. Scalora

Business and Economics Honors Papers

The United States produces, imports, and widely distributes incredible amounts of food every day. Despite the country’s abundance and availability of food, a prevalence of people with low food security levels exists. In 2015, 42.2 million U.S. citizens, including children, lived in food insecure households. The source of food insecurity is complexly rooted in the mechanics of America’s economic and food systems. Understanding that the fundamental causes of food insecurity are systemic, this study focuses on the impact of one of these potential elements: agriculture. Using economic analysis, this research explores the relationship between various agriculture products and food insecurity …

Chinese Superstition And Real Estate Prices: Transaction-Level Evidence From The Us Housing Market, Brad R. Humphreys, Adam D. Nowak, Yang Zhou

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

We investigate the impact of Chinese superstition on prices paid by Chinese home buyers in Seattle, Washington. Chinese consider 8 lucky and 4 unlucky. Empirical results indicate Chinese buyers pay a 1-2% premium for addresses including an 8 and a 1% discount for addresses including a 4. These results are unrelated to unobserved property quality: no premium exists when Chinese sell to non-Chinese. Absent explicit identifiers for Chinese individuals, we develop a binomial name classifier using methods from the biomedical and document classification literature, allowing for falsification tests using other ethnic groups and mitigating ambiguity attributable to transliteration of Chinese …

The Payoff Of A Healthy Lifestyle While In College, Richard D. Angeletti Iii

Undergraduate Economic Review

This study analyzes the effect that an individual’s body mass index (BMI) has on their hourly compensation in their next job directly following attainment of their bachelor degree. This study uses the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth that started in 1997. This study aligned all the survey participants’ timeline of life events to be coordinated in such a way that bachelor degree attainment, regardless of year, is the common reference point. Sufficient observation of bachelor degree receipts was found in the year 2001 through 2007 resulting in a pooled data set across seven years. This study hypothesizes that individuals with …

Smile, Dictator, You’Re On Camera, Joy A. Buchanan, Matthew K. Mcmahon, Matthew Simpson, Bart J. Wilson

ESI Publications

We investigate the degree to which people in a shopping mall express other-regarding behavior in the dictator game. Whereas many studies have attempted to increase the social distance between the dictator and experimenter and between the dictator and dictatee, we attempt to minimize that social distance between random strangers by video recording the decisions with the permission of the dictators to display their image on the Internet. Offers made by dictators are high relative to other experiments and a nontrivial number give the entire experimental windfall away, however a nontrivial number of people keep everything as well.

Essays In Financial Economics, Johnson Owusu-Amoako

Doctoral Dissertations (DBA)

In this study, we empirically investigate the impact of credit default swap rates on short-term interest rates. We find that CDS rates significantly impact short-term interest rates. The impact remains significant after controlling for inflation and unemployment. Applying co-integration test and vector error correction modeling, the study also finds a causal relationship between CDS rates and short-term interest rates. These relationships are confirmed through autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (ARCH), exponential generalized ARCH [EGARCH] and vector auto-regression (VAR) analyses. The empirical results have important implications in setting short-term interest rates. A regular revision of policy targeting to capture the continual changes in …

The Tsimane Health And Life History Project: Integrating Anthropology And Biomedicine, Michael Gurven, Jonathan Stieglitz, Benjamin C. Trumble, Aaron D. Blackwell, Bret Beheim, Helen Davis, Hillard Kaplan, Paul L. Hooper

ESI Publications

The Tsimane Health and Life History Project, an integrated bio-behavioral study of the human life course, is designed to test competing hypotheses of human life-history evolution. One aim is to understand the bidirectional connections between life history and social behavior in a highfertility, kin-based context lacking amenities of modern urban life (e.g. sanitation, banks, electricity). Another aim is to understand how a high pathogen burden influences health and well-being during development and adulthood. A third aim addresses how modernization shapes human life histories and sociality. Here we outline the project’s goals, history, and main findings since its inception in 2002. …

Nebraska Monthly Economic Indicators: April 21, 2017, Eric Thompson

Leading Economic Indicator Reports

The Leading Economic Indicator – Nebraska (LEI-N) 1 rose by 1.00% during March of 2017. This increase followed rapid increases in both January and February. Taken together, the three increases suggest that economic growth will be strong in Nebraska during the second half of 2017. Among the components of the indicator, business expectations were strong during March. The value of the U.S. dollar also fell during March, which is a positive sign for Nebraska’s export-oriented businesses, particularly in agriculture and manufacturing. In addition, manufacturing hours increased during March.