Economics Commons^™

Human Grooming In Comparative Perspective: People In Six Small-Scale Societies Groom Less But Socialize Just As Much As Expected For A Typical Primate, Adrian V. Jaeggi, Karen Kramer, Raymond Hames, Evan J. Kiely, Cristina Gomes, Hillard Kaplan, Michael Gurven

ESI Publications

Objectives—Grooming has important utilitarian and social functions in primates but little is known about grooming and its functional analogues in traditional human societies. We compare human grooming to typical primate patterns to test its hygienic and social functions.

Materials and Methods—Bayesian phylogenetic analyses were used to derive expected human grooming time given the potential associations between grooming, group size, body size, terrestriality, and several climatic variables across 69 primate species. This was compared against observed times dedicated to grooming, other hygienic behavior and conversation among the Maya, Pumé, Sanöma, Tsimane’, Yanomamö, and Ye’kwana (mean number of behavioral scans …

Nebraska Business And Consumer Confidence Indexes: February 3, 2017, Eric Thompson

Leading Economic Indicator Reports

Both business and consumer confidence improved in Nebraska in January 2017, but the gap between the two measures remained. The Consumer Confidence Index – Nebraska (CCI-N) stood at 89.2 during January, well below the neutral value of 100. The outlook of Nebraska businesses, by contrast, was positive. The Business Confidence Index – Nebraska (CCI-N) stood at 107.8 in January, well above the neutral value. Both values were somewhat higher than in December 2016. When asked about the most important issue facing their business, customer demand was mentioned by 30 percent of business respondents, labor availability and quality by 22 percent …

Immigrants, Cultural Distance, And Trade Costs, Roger White, Bedassa Tadesse

Economics

We examine the effects of immigrants and cross-societal cultural differences on bilateral trade costs using two alternative measures of cultural differences (i.e. cultural distance and genetic distance). We find that bilateral trade costs generally increase with a rise in the cultural distance between trading partners but fall with a rise in the stock of immigrants. This implies that immigrants counter bilateral trade costs that are associated with greater cultural differences. Our observation is relevant from both migration and trade policy perspectives as it provides further evidence that immigrants serve as conduits for bridging cultural differences, facilitate international transactions, and enhance …

Decoding Chinese Foreign Policy, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

States need to understand Beijing’s practice of ‘false dilemmas’ and its revanchist narrative, and stand firm without provoking China unnecessarily

The Impact Of Grade Ceilings On Student Grades And Course Evaluations: Evidence From A Policy Change, Devon Haskell Gorry

Economics and Finance Faculty Publications

This paper analyzes the effects of a grade ceiling policy on grade distributions and course evaluations. Results show that the effects vary based upon the level of the grade ceiling. A ceiling set at 2.8 decreased overall grade point average (GPA) by reducing the number of As and Bs and increasing the number of lower grades given. This low ceiling also increased the number of withdrawals and significantly lowered course evaluations. A ceiling set at 3.2 decreased overall GPA by reducing the number of As and increasing the number of Bs given, but the effects on course evaluations were smaller …

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

The Rhode Island Current Conditions Index

No abstract provided.

The Influence Of Height On Academic Outcomes, Devon Haskell Gorry

Economics and Finance Faculty Publications

This paper examines whether the height premium for academic outcomes is driven by unequal opportunities for tall individuals. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health, this paper shows that taller individuals typically earn higher grades and attain more schooling, but the associations are not uniform across school size. Height is only associated with better outcomes for students attending large schools and these improvements are concentrated among males. Data suggest that height contributes more to sports participation and school satisfaction in large schools where resources are more scarce. Thus, differential opportunities or treatment across height in large schools …

Interwar Price Level Targeting, James S. Fackler, Randall E. Parker

Institute for the Study of Free Enterprise Working Papers

Fackler and Parker argue that the Great Depression may have been preventable with a formalized policy rule proposed by economist Irving Fisher. Policymakers have an ongoing debate about whether formalized policy rules are better than discretionary policy decisions for economic outcomes. The authors’ analysis suggests that in the case of the Great Depression, if Fisher’s policy rule had been adopted in 1930 the collapse of the economy would have been avoided.

Information Design: A Unified Perspective, Dirk Bergemann, Stephen Morris

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

Fixing a game with uncertain payoffs, information design identifies the information structure and equilibrium that maximizes the payoff of an information designer. We show how this perspective unifies existing work, including that on communication in games (Myerson (1991)), Bayesian persuasion (Kamenica and Gentzkow (2011)) and some of our own recent work. Information design has a literal interpretation, under which there is a real information designer who can commit to the choice of the best information structure (from her perspective) for a set of participants in a game. We emphasize a metaphorical interpretation, under which the information design problem is used …

Information Design: A Unified Perspective, Dirk Bergemann, Stephen Morris

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

Given a game with uncertain payoffs, information design analyzes the extent to which the provision of information alone can influence the behavior of the players. Information design has a literal interpretation, under which there is a real information designer who can commit to the choice of the best information structure (from her perspective) for a set of participants in a game. We emphasize a metaphorical interpretation, under which the information design problem is used by the analyst to characterize play in the game under many different information structures. We provide an introduction into the basic issues and insights of a …

Global Collateral: How Financial Innovation Drives Capital Flows And Increases Financial Instability, Ana Fostel, John Geanakoplos, Gregory Phelan

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We show that cross-border financial flows arise when countries differ in their abilities to use assets as collateral. Financial integration is a way of sharing scarce collateral. The ability of one country to leverage and tranche assets provides attractive financial contracts to investors in the other country, and general equilibrium effects on prices create opportunities for investors in the financially advanced country to invest abroad. Foreign demand for collateral and for collateral-backed financial promises increases the collateral value of domestic assets, and cheap foreign assets provide attractive returns to investors who do not demand collateral to issue promises. Gross global …

Inefficient Liquidity Provision, John Geanakoplos, Kieran James Walsh

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We prove that in competitive market economies with no insurance for idiosyncratic risks, agents will always overinvest in illiquid long term assets and underinvest in short term liquid assets. We take as our setting the seminal model of Diamond and Dybvig (1983), who first posed the question in a tractable model. We reach such a simple conclusion under mild conditions because we stick to the basic competitive market framework, avoiding the banks and intermediaries that Diamond and Dybvig and others introduced.

The Scope Of Sequential Screening With Ex-Post Participation Constraints, Dirk Bergemann, Francisco Castro, Gabriel Weintraub

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We study the classic sequential screening problem in the presence of ex-post participation constraints. We establish necessary and sufficient conditions that determine exhaustively when the optimal selling mechanism is either static or sequential. In the static contract, the buyers are not screened with respect to their interim type and the object is sold at a posted price. In the sequential contract, the buyers are screened with respect to their interim type and a menu of quantities is offered. We completely characterize the optimal sequential contract with binary interim types and a continuum of ex-post values. Importantly, the optimal sequential contract …

Zone Pricing In Retail Oligopoly, Brian Adams, Kevin R. Williams

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We quantify the welfare effects of zone pricing, or setting common prices across distinct markets, in retail oligopoly. Although monopolists can only increase profits by price discriminating, this need not be true when firms face competition. With novel data covering the retail home improvement industry, we find that Home Depot would benefit from finer pricing but that Lowe’s would prefer coarser pricing. The use of zone pricing softens competition in markets where firms compete, but it shields consumers from higher prices in markets where firms might otherwise exercise market power. Overall, zone pricing produces higher consumer surplus than finer pricing …

Behavioral Characterizations Of Naiveté For Time-Inconsistent Preferences, David S. Ahn, Ryota Iijima, Yves Le Yaouanq, Todd Sarver

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We propose nonparametric definitions of absolute and comparative naivete. These definitions leverage ex-ante choice of menu to identify predictions of future behavior and ex-post (random) choices from menus to identify actual behavior. The main advantage of our definitions is their independence from any assumed functional form for the utility function representing behavior. An individual is sophisticated if she is indifferent between choosing from a menu ex-post or committing to the actual distribution of choices from that menu ex-ante. She is naive if she prefers the flexibility in the menu, reflecting a mistaken belief that she will act more virtuously than …

Behavioral Characterizations Of Naiveté For Time-Inconsistent Preferences, David S. Ahn, Ryota Iijima, Yves Le Yaouanq, Todd Sarver

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We propose nonparametric definitions of absolute and comparative naivete. These definitions leverage ex-ante choice of menu to identify predictions of future behavior and ex-post (random) choices from menus to identify actual behavior. The main advantage of our definitions is their independence from any assumed functional form for the utility function representing behavior. An individual is sophisticated if she is indifferent ex-ante between retaining the option to choose from a menu ex-post or committing to her actual distribution of choices from that menu. She is naive if she prefers the flexibility in the menu, reflecting a mistaken belief that she will …

Information Design: A Unified Perspective, Dirk Bergemann, Stephen Morris

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

Fixing a game with uncertain payoffs, information design identi.es the information structure and equilibrium that maximizes the payoff of an information designer. We show how this perspective unifies existing work, including that on communication in games (Myerson (1991)), Bayesian persuasion (Kamenica and Gentzkow (2011)) and some of our own recent work. Information design has a literal interpretation, under which there is a real information designer who can commit to the choice of the best information structure (from her perspective) for a set of participants in a game. We emphasize a metaphorical interpretation, under which the information design problem is used …

Information Design: A Unified Perspective, Dirk Bergemann, Stephen Morris

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

Given a game with uncertain payoffs, information design analyzes the extent to which the provision of information alone can influence the behavior of the players. Information design has a literal interpretation, under which there is a real information designer who can commit to the choice of the best information structure (from her perspective) for a set of participants in a game. We emphasize a metaphorical interpretation, under which the information design problem is used by the analyst to characterize play in the game under many different information structures. We provide an introduction into the basic issues and insights of a …

The Scope Of Sequential Screening With Ex-Post Participation Constraints, Dirk Bergemann, Francisco Castro, Gabriel Weintraub

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We study the classic sequential screening problem under ex-post participation constraints. Thus the seller is required to satisfy buyers’ ex-post participation constraints. A leading example is the online display advertising market, in which publishers frequently cannot use up-front fees and instead use transaction-contingent fees. We establish when the optimal selling mechanism is static (buyers are not screened) or dynamic (buyers are screened), and obtain a full characterization of such contracts. We begin by analyzing our model within the leading case of exponential distributions with two types. We provide a necessary and sufficient condition for the optimality of the static contract. …

The Scope Of Sequential Screening With Ex-Post Participation Constraints, Dirk Bergemann, Francisco Castro, Gabriel Weintraub

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We study the classic sequential screening problem under ex-post participation constraints. Thus the seller is required to satisfy buyers’ ex-post participation constraints. A leading example is the online display advertising market, in which publishers frequently cannot use up-front fees and instead use transaction-contingent fees. We establish when the optimal selling mechanism is static (buyers are not screened) or dynamic (buyers are screened), and obtain a full characterization of such contracts. We begin by analyzing our model within the leading case of exponential distributions with two types. We provide a necessary and sufficient condition for the optimality of the static contract. …

The Scope Of Sequential Screening With Ex-Post Participation Constraints, Dirk Bergemann, Francisco Castro, Gabriel Weintraub

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We study the classic sequential screening problem in the presence of buyers’ ex-post participation constraints. A leading example is the online display advertising market, in which publishers frequently do not use up-front fees and instead use transaction-contingent fees. We establish conditions under which the optimal selling mechanism is static and buyers are not screened with respect to their interim type, or sequential and the buyers are screened with respect to their interim type. In particular, we provide an intuitive necessary and sufficient condition under which the static contract is optimal for general distributions of ex-post values. Further, we completely characterize …

The Scope Of Sequential Screening With Ex-Post Participation Constraints, Dirk Bergemann, Francisco Castro, Gabriel Weintraub

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We study the classic sequential screening problem in the presence of ex-post participation constraints. We establish necessary and sufficient conditions that determine when the optimal selling mechanism is either static or sequential. In the static contract, the buyers are not screened with respect to their interim type and the object is sold at a posted price. In the sequential contract, the buyers are screened with respect to their interim type and a menu of quantities is offered. We completely characterize the optimal sequential contract with binary interim types and a continuum of ex-post values. Importantly, the optimal sequential contract randomizes …

Zone Pricing In Retail Oligopoly, Brian Adams, Kevin R. Williams

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We quantify the welfare effects of zone pricing, or setting common prices across distinct markets, in retail oligopoly. Although monopolists can only increase profits by price discriminating, this need not be true when firms face competition. With novel data covering the retail home improvement industry, we find that Home Depot would benefit from finer pricing but that Lowe’s would prefer coarser pricing. Zone pricing softens competition in markets where firms compete, but it shields consumers from higher prices in rural markets, where firms might otherwise exercise market power. Overall, zone pricing produces higher consumer surplus than finer price discrimination does.

Zone Pricing In Retail Oligopoly, Brian Adams, Kevin R. Williams

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We quantify the welfare effects of zone pricing, or setting common prices across distinct markets, in retail oligopoly. Although monopolists can only increase profits by price discriminating, this need not be true when firms face competition. With novel data covering the retail home improvement industry, we find that Home Depot would benefit from finer pricing but that Lowe’s would prefer coarser pricing. Zone pricing softens competition in markets where firms compete, but it shields consumers from higher prices in markets where firms might otherwise exercise market power. Overall, zone pricing produces higher consumer surplus than finer pricing discrimination does.

Preferences Toward Leniency Under Mandatory Criminal Sentencing Guidelines: Role-In-The-Offense Adjustments For Federal Drug Trafficking Defendants, Andrew Nutting

Economics Faculty Research and Scholarship

This paper tests whether judges and/or prosecutors manipulated mandatory federal sentencing guidelines to shorten prison sentences. It finds that, among drug traffickers convicted under the federal guidelines’ former mandatory sentencing system, those who faced harsher underlying charges were found to have played significantly lower-level roles in their conspiracies. This is consistent with guideline manipulation for defendants facing longer sentences. Women received significantly larger role-in-the-offense reductions related to harsher underlying charges than men. Effects were insignificant if defendants were eligible for lower-cost alternative methods of sentence reduction, namely substantial assistance departures and safety-valve reductions from mandatory minimum sentences.

Deliberation Favours Social Efficiency By Making People Disregard Their Relative Shares: Evidence From Usa And India, Valerie Capraro, Brice Corgnet, Antonio M. Espín, Roberto Hernán-González

ESI Publications

Groups make decisions on both the production and the distribution of resources. These decisions typically involve a tension between increasing the total level of group resources (i.e. social efficiency) and distributing these resources among group members (i.e. individuals’ relative shares). This is the case because the redistribution process may destroy part of the resources, thus resulting in socially inefficient allocations. Here we apply a dual-process approach to understand the cognitive underpinnings of this fundamental tension. We conducted a set of experiments to examine the extent to which different allocation decisions respond to intuition or deliberation. In a newly developed approach, …

Research Informs Debate On Cuomo’S Excelsior Scholarship Proposal, John Yinger, Robert Bifulco, Ross Rubenstein

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.

Occupational Choices Of The Elderly, Frederic L. Pryor

Economics Faculty Works

This article compares the separate occupational distributions of U.S. male and female workers who are 45 to 65 with those over 65 (the “elderly”) to test a series of simple conjectures about the different occupational structures of the two age groups. The conjectures relate to strength and educational requirements of the work, scheduling flexibility, the availability of part-time work, and mastery of new technology.

Southern Border Recession Predictability In The United States: 1990-2015, Thomas M. Fullerton Jr., Elías D. Saenz-Rojo, Adam G. Walke

Border Region Modeling Project

Prior research establishes that the spread between long- and short-term bond yields often provides valuable information for predicting business cycle downturns. This study examines the predictive capacity of the yield spread for United States metropolitan economies situated along the border with Mexico. Because of the location of these urban economies and various economic ties linking them with twin cities across the border, the Mexico yield spread, and the real dollar/peso exchange rate are also employed as potential recession predictors. Results suggest that a flattening of the yield curve for either country tends to increase the probability of recessions in border …

Housing Market Liquidity And The Effect On Unemployment In The United States: An Application To The U.S. Housing Market, Isolating Regional Housing Market Liquidity And The Associated Effect On Unemployment, Lindsey M. Piegza

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study proposes a measure of price spread between the bid (or the offer price from the buyer) and the ask (or the list price of the seller) in order to isolate the effect of housing market liquidity on unemployment. Housing market liquidity is defined as its impact on labor market equilibrium and unemployment at the state and regional levels. This proxy for housing market liquidity offers a more thorough measure of housing liquidity or market clearing ability compared with the current literature, which has relied on price or price changes alone as the primary measure of activity in the …