Economics Commons^™

Does China’S Trade Defy Cultural Barriers?, Roger White, Bedassa Tadesse, Huang Zhongwen

Economics

Using annual data for China and 88 trading partners that span the period 1995–2011, we estimate whether cross-societal cultural differences influence China’s external trade flows. Our results, obtained from the estimation of a series of multi-level mixed effect random intercepts and coefficients models, indicate that China’s aggregate exports and imports are largely unaffected by the cultural distance between China and its trading partners. Examination of disaggregate trade measures and consideration of the underlying dimensions of our composite cultural distance variable produces a largely similar result. Taken collectively, our results suggest that China’s trade is less affected by cultural distance than …

A Tale Of Two Cities: Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2016, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

In recent years, Hong Kong and Shenzhen have experienced an explosive growth in the start-up support ecosystem.

Rhode Island Current Conditions Index -- March 2017, Leonard Lardaro

The Rhode Island Current Conditions Index

No abstract provided.

The Economic Impact Of The Huron River, Grand Valley State University, Paul Isely, Christian Glupker, Erik E. Nordman, Julie M. Cowie, Hailey Lamay

Other Faculty Publications

The Huron River and Huron River Water Trail are estimated to have the following economic impact on the five-county region in which they are located:

• $53.5M in annual economic output, which is the sum of $29.9M in direct spending and $23.6M in indirect and induced spending
• 641 local jobs added to the region
• $628M in added property value
• $150M in annual environmental value
• 2.6M visitor days

A Contemporary Investigation Into The Economic Impacts Of Rtas: Case Study Of The Aftz And The Tpp, Assande Adom

Faculty Research and Creative Activity

No abstract provided.

Does Regulation Of Physicians Reduce Health Care Spending?, Scott Barkowski

Publications

The medical community argues that physician fear of legal liability increases health care spending. Theoretically, though, the effect could be positive or negative, and empirical evidence has supported both cases. Previous studies, however, have ignored the fact that physicians face risk from industry oversight groups like state-level medical licensing boards in addition to civil litigation risk. This article addresses this omission by incorporating previously unused data on punishments by oversight groups against physicians, known as adverse actions, along with malpractice payments data to study state-level health care spending. My analysis suggests that, contrary to conventional wisdom, spending does not rise …

Metropolitan Business Cycle Analysis For Lubbock, Thomas M. Fullerton Jr., Macie Z. Subia

Departmental Papers (E & F)

This study develops a business cycle index (BCI) for Lubbock Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA). The Stock & Watson (1989; 1991; 1993) methodology is used to develop the BCI and assumes that the co-movements of key economic indicators have a single underlying, unobservable factor. This factor is extracted from the indicators and used to calculate an index that represents economic conditions through an econometric approach. The model uses the Kalman filter smoothing approach which smooths across variables and over time. This results in an index that is smoother with less pronounced expansions and recessions. Indicator series used for the study are: …

Green Electricity Markets As Mechanisms Of Public-Goods Provision: Theory And Experimental Evidence, Arnab Mitra, Michael R. Moore

Economics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Utility-based green electricity programs provide market opportunities for consumers to reduce the carbon footprint of their electricity use. These programs deploy three types of public-goods contribution mechanisms: voluntary contribution, green tariff, and all-or-nothing green tariff (Kotchen and Moore, 2007). We extend the theoretical understanding of the all-or-nothing green tariff mechanism by showing that an assumption of warm-glow preferences is needed to explain widespread participation in programs deploying this mechanism. We conduct the first experimental test to compare the revenue generating capacity of a pure public good (based on the voluntary contribution mechanism) and an impure public good (based on the …

Rulers, Religion, And Riches: Why The West Got Rich And The Middle East Did Not, Jared Rubin

Economics Faculty Books and Book Chapters

For centuries following the spread of Islam, the Middle East was far ahead of Europe. Yet, the modern economy was born in Europe. Why was it not born in the Middle East? In this book Jared Rubin examines the role that Islam played in this reversal of fortunes. It argues that the religion itself is not to blame; the importance of religious legitimacy in Middle Eastern politics was the primary culprit. Muslim religious authorities were given an important seat at the political bargaining table, which they used to block important advancements such as the printing press and lending at interest. …

The Returns To Lobbying: Evidence From Local Governments In The "Age Of Earmarks", Steven Gordon

Institute for the Study of Free Enterprise Working Papers

The federal government transfers considerable sums to local governments in the form of intergovernmental grants. With the exception of health and welfare programs, most intergovernmental grants to local governments are classified as discretionary spending. In its annual appropriations process, Congress decides how funding for discretionary spending will be broken up among the various agencies, but more detailed decisions about specific uses of funds are left to the executive branch.

Effect Of Price Reduction And Increased Service Frequency On Public Transport Travel, Inge Brechan

Journal of Public Transportation

A random effects meta-analysis of the results from 15 projects involving price reduction and 9 projects involving increased service frequency showed that both price reduction and increased service frequency generated public transport travels. On average, the increased service frequency projects generated more travels by public transport than the price reduction projects. In the increased service frequency projects the proportion of travels generated by the increased frequency was strongly influenced by the size of the frequency increase. In the price reduction projects, we did not find a significant effect of the size of the price reduction on the proportion of travels …

The Efficient Corruption Hypothesis And The Dynamics Between Economic Freedom, Corruption, And National Income, Joshua C. Hall, John Levendis

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

Income, economic freedom, and corruption interact in complex ways as all three variables are arguably endogenous. We explicitly model this endogeneity using a panel VAR framework. The pVAR models we estimate are able to explicitly model this endogeneity better than the single-equation panel data models previously used in the literature. Using data on corruption and income from the World Bank and economic freedom from the Fraser Institute, we provide evidence that corruption and the absence of economic freedom have a negative effect on national income.

Exchange Rate Management In Period Of Economic Uncertainty, Emmanuel U. Ukeje

Bullion

The paper examines current developments in the management of foreign exchange by the Central Bank of Nigeria in the period of economic uncertainty. It explains how the Bank has implemented different regimes of foreign exchange in order to maintain the external value of its currency as well as ensure them.

Research Design Meets Market Design: Using Centralized Assignment For Impact Evaluation, Atila Abdulkadiroğlu, Joshua D. Angrist, Yusuke Narita, Parag A. Pathak

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

A growing number of school districts use centralized assignment mechanisms to allocate school seats in a manner that reflects student preferences and school priorities. Many of these assignment schemes use lotteries to ration seats when schools are oversubscribed. The resulting random assignment opens the door to credible quasi-experimental research designs for the evaluation of school effectiveness. Yet the question of how best to separate the lottery-generated variation integral to such designs from non-random preferences and priorities remains open. This paper develops easily-implemented empirical strategies that fully exploit the random assignment embedded in a wide class of mechanisms, while also revealing …

John Denis Sargan At The London School Of Economics, David F. Hendry, Peter C.B. Phillips

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

During his period at the LSE from the early 1960s to the mid 1980s, John Denis Sargan rose to international prominence and the LSE emerged as the world’s leading centre for econometrics. Within this context, we examine the life of Denis Sargan, describe his major research accomplishments, recount the work of his many doctoral students, and track this remarkable period that constitutes the Sargan era of econometrics at the LSE.

Tribute To T. W. Anderson, Peter C.B. Phillips

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

Professor T.W. Anderson passed away on September 17, 2016 at the age of 98 years after an astonishing career that spanned more than seven decades. Standing at the nexus of the statistics and economics professions, Ted Anderson made enormous contributions to both disciplines, playing a significant role in the birth of modern econometrics with his work on structural estimation and testing in the Cowles Commission during the 1940s, and educating successive generations through his brilliant textbook expositions of time series and multivariate analysis. This article is a tribute to his many accomplishments.

Misspecified Moment Inequality Models: Inference And Diagnostics, Donald W.K. Andrews, Soonwoo Kwon

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

This paper is concerned with possible model misspecification in moment inequality models. Two issues are addressed. First, standard tests and confidence sets for the true parameter in the moment inequality literature are not robust to model misspecification in the sense that they exhibit spurious precision when the identified set is empty. This paper introduces tests and confidence sets that provide correct asymptotic inference for a pseudo-true parameter in such scenarios, and hence, do not suffer from spurious precision. Second, specification tests have relatively low power against a range of misspecified models. Thus, failure to reject the null of correct specification …

Evolution Of Modeling Of The Economics Of Global Warming: Changes In The Dice Model, 1992-2017, William D. Nordhaus

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

Many areas of the natural and social sciences involve complex systems that link together multiple sectors. Integrated assessment models (IAMs) are approaches that integrate knowledge from two or more domains into a single framework, and these are particularly important for climate change. One of the earliest IAMs for climate change was the DICE/RICE family of models, first published in Nordhaus (1992), with the latest version in Nordhaus (2017, 2017a). A difficulty in assessing IAMs is the inability to use standard statistical tests because of the lack of a probabilistic structure. In the absence of statistical tests, the present study examines …

Econometric Measurement Of Earth's Transient Climate Sensitivity, Peter C.B. Phillips, Thomas Leirvik, Trude Storelvmo

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

How sensitive is Earth’s climate to a given increase in atmospheric greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations? This long-standing and fundamental question in climate science was recently analyzed by dynamic panel data methods using extensive spatiotemporal data of global surface temperatures, solar radiation, and GHG concentrations over the last half century to 2010 (Storelvmo et al, 2016). These methods revealed that atmospheric aerosol effects masked approximately one-third of the continental warming due to increasing GHG concentrations over this period, thereby implying greater climate sensitivity to GHGs than previously thought. The present study provides asymptotic theory justifying the use of these methods when …

Reforming College Sports: The Case For A Limited And Conditional Antitrust Exemption, Jayma Meyer, Andrew Zimbalist

Economics: Faculty Publications

College sports has been undergoing rapid commercialization and reorganization. This transformation has led to sharpening inequality among schools within and between divisions, unstable and unsustainable economics, and burgeoning legal challenges. It is not an exaggeration to state that intercollegiate athletics is at an economic and legal tipping point. This article first discusses the economic issues confronting college sports. It then turns to consider the plethora of litigation facing the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and argues that antitrust and labor laws are inadequate means to respond effectively to the economic and legal challenges surrounding college sports. Finally, the article makes …

Short Vs. Long: Cognitive Load, Retention And Changing Class Structures, Brandon Sheridan, Ben O. Smith, Erin G. Pleggenkuhle-Miles

Economics Faculty Publications

University class structure is changing. To accommodate working students, programmes are increasing their offerings of long night classes – some lasting as long as six hours. While these long classes may be more convenient for students, they have unintended consequences as a result of cognitive load. Using a panel of 124 students (372 observations) and a differencing approach that controls for student characteristics, we show that student exam performance decreases by approximately one-half letter grade on content taught in the second half of a long class (significant at the 5% level).

Contemporary Issues In The Nigerian Monetary Policy Landscape: Current Challenges And Strategic Options, Shamsideen Okunola Abiodun, Jamiu Aina Babatunde, Kingsley Imandojemu

Bullion

Contemporary central bonking in Nigeria is becoming laced with intricacies, and monetary actions impacting every segment of the society. Paradoxically, monetary policy landscape is characterized by complexities and frequent changes in the monetary environment amidst relatively constant monetary instruments. The economic recession witnessed by Nigeria from Q1 to Q4 of 2016 had reinforced the renaissance of primordial and 'nativist' models of unregulated banking arrangement cum investment options via Ponzi schemes and pyramid schemes, flexible exchange rote regime, selected import forex restrictions, calls for unconventional monetary policy with special reference to negative interest rote, central bonk communication and financial stability concern. …

Savings, Net Foreign Assets And Current Accounts Dynamics In Subsaharan Africa, A. I. Adeleke, W. Ohemeng, K. Ofori-Boateng

Economic and Financial Review

A profile of the current account balance in sub-Sahara Africa (SSA) shows that many countries in the region have consistently experienced current account deficits, dwindling savings and diminishing net foreign assets. These macroeconomic variables convey important information to economic agents about the health of a nation. The relationships among these three important variables in terms of short-run and long-run dynamics are cloudy in the literature. Therefore, this study examined the long-run and short-run dynamics of savings, net foreign assets and current account balance in subSaharan Africa. Utilising panel econometric techniques with annual data from 38 countries in SSA for the …

Determination Of Optimal Foreign Exchange Reserves For Nigeria, M. Tule, E. Egbuna,, S. Abdusalam, A. Oduyemi

Economic and Financial Review

The study examined the optimal level of international reserves for Nigeria that is capable of absorbing a shock similar to that experienced during the 2007/2009 Global economic crisis. Using, generalised autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (GARCH), vector autoregressive (VAR) estimation techniques and normalised Johansen cointegrated equation, and setting the maximum and minimum output losses for the entire period, the study found a positive relationship between the odds of default on sovereign debt and fiscal deficit to GDP ratio, short-term debt to reserves ratio and volatility in portfolio investments. In minimising the Bank's cost of holding reserves, the study found that the Nigerian …

Interest Rate Dynamics And Real Output Behaviour In Nigeria: A Simulation Analysis, S. Rapu, G. Sanni, D. Penzin, N. Nkang, P. Golit, H. Okafor, E. Ibi

Economic and Financial Review

The declining output growth observed from the second quarter of 2014, which led to calls for a more expansionary monetary policy despite rising inflationary pressure, necessitated a reassessment of the impact of interest rate on real output growth in Nigeria. Using a Bayesian Vector Autoregressive (BVAR) model and quarterly data from 2000:Q4 to 2015:Q3, the effect of monetary policy transmission (interest rate dynamics) on real output performance was estimated. Although results of the simulation analysis were somewhat mixed, those of the impulse response functions indicated that positive shocks to monetary policy rate (MPR) produced a negative and small impact on …

Cost Of Governance And Fiscal Deficit In Nigeria: Evidence From State Government Data, P. Ekeocha, A. Ikenna-Ononugbo

Economic and Financial Review

Fiscal deficit has remained a predominant occurrence at both the Federal and state government levels, and this has become a source of concern for economic managers. At the individual state level, a quarter of the state governments consistently ran deficit for more than six consecutive years, from the period 2007 to 2014. More importantly, the combined overall fiscal balance of the state governments has resulted frequently in deficit in the past two decades. Fiscal deficit is not bad in itself, but most of the state governments are running fiscal deficit to sustain recurrent expenses, rather than infrastructure development. Available studies …

Transitioning College Media From Print Focused Business Models To Digitally Focused Business Models, Celina Oseguera

Journalism

The noticeable downturn in print advertising indicates a need for change in the news industry business model. College media is not immune to this decline and need for change. A change in business model calls for transitioning to an alternative system that does not primarily rely on print products and advertising — a digitally focused business model. Many college media organizations around the United States have started to pursue this type of model, changing the way they produce and present news in the process. Taking into account the state of print focused business models in the general and collegiate news …

Assisted Self-Persuasion: Advertising With Consumer Adjustment To Choice, Matthew G. Nagler

Publications and Research

I develop a new theory of persuasive advertising in which consumers rationally adjust to (i.e., improve their attitude toward) the products they choose and advertising facilitates adjustment. Advertising's price effects depend on whether marginal or inframarginal consumers are most heavily targeted, consistent with the literature. But they also depend on advertising's role as an overall adjustment intensifier, whence variation in the cost of adjustment with the strength of the consumers initial product preference determines the equilibrium price level. Whether too much or too little advertising is provided in equilibrium depends on the sign and size of advertising's price effect, the …

Boys Do Cry: Adam Smith On Wealth And Expressing Emotions, Maria Pia Paganelli

Economics Faculty Research

Recent studies on crying show that crying is more common in happier, freer, and richer countries than in poorer and less free countries. These results can sound counterintuitive and contradict the hypothesis that crying is more observable in countries where people experience more distress. Adam Smith may offer an explanation: In the severe hardship of poverty, showing emotion and distress can be read as a sign of weakness, attracting no sympathy and compromising survival. As a result, emotional displays are avoided. Instead, wealthier commercial societies offer ease and tranquility which allows individuals to express their emotions with fewer negative consequences.

Growing Pains: An Honors Thesis Of Creative Writing, Angelica L. Santiago Gonzalez

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

Most of the creative writing included in this thesis are nonfiction pieces; there are only a few that can be classified as fiction. They all connect to my own growth and development as a writer, and also as an individual struggling to find and establish my own identity. In the last four years I tried to make sense of my life and my struggles, especially my personal history of trauma. I can confidently say that I am in a much better place than I was when I first started my adventure at LC. Writing has been an important part of …