Economics Commons^™

Willingness To Pay For Fact-Checking About Immigration: The Effect Of Partisan Cues, Jennifer Morales

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

I analyze the results of an online experiment designed to elicit individuals’ willingness to pay for fact-checking of statements related to immigration. Using a control and treatment group, I test whether individuals’ willingness to pay is affected by partisan cues. First, I outline this research’s position related to existing literature. I then describe the experimental design and analyze the results. Partisan cues are shown to have no statistically significant effect on participants’ willingness to pay for fact-checking.

Examining The Lack Of Consensus On The Minimum Wage, Belma Ramic

University Honors Program Senior Projects

The economic impacts of minimum wage laws have been the subject of debate for over a century within the United States (US). This paper summarizes this and reviews the body of academic literature studying the effects of minimum wage laws, much of which center around their employment effects. This paper also examines how the ongoing debate can be attributed to factors that have not been as comprehensively reviewed, such as disagreements over politics, poverty, and impact on prices. The purpose of this paper is to achieve an understanding of the complexities surrounding the minimum wage and its overall implications. From …

Distillers' Grains: Past, Present, And Future Economic Analyses, Daniel E. Gertner

Department of Agricultural Economics: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis is comprised of four chapters, each of which discusses or conducts economic research related to the distillers’ grains market. The first three chapters are meant to be standalone papers. Chapter four provides potential paths forward in distillers’ grains research based on the findings of the first three chapters and concludes the thesis.

The first chapter conducts a comprehensive literature review that categorizes and summarizes economic research on distillers’ grains products. This section shows how the physical market has moved beyond the current academic understanding of market products and structure. Existing research finds that traditional distillers’ grains products positively …

Livelihood And Happiness In A Resource (Natural And Cultural)-Rich Rural Municipality In The Philippines, Rosalina Palanca-Tan, Sheila Bayog

Economics Department Faculty Publications

This paper looks at the economic and welfare conditions of residents in Lake Sebu, a largely rural but natural and cultural resource-rich municipality in Southern Mindanao in the Philippines. Two notions of welfare are used in the study: economic welfare, measured in terms of household income and vulnerability to hunger; and social welfare, measured in terms of self-reported happiness. The study uses primary data collected through a household survey and analyzed with statistical and econometric procedures (tests of difference between sub-populations; and ordinary least squares, binary probit, and ordered logistic regressions). The results suggest mixed implications of abundant natural and …

The Economic Rationality Of Consumption In The Mycenaean Political Economy And Its Role In The Reproduction Of Social Personae: Modeling Prestige Networks., Devin Alexander Stephens

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is a theoretical examination of the economic rationality of consumption as it existed within the Mycenaean political economy. Using a modified paradigm of social network analysis, a semiotic approach is used in the study of identity expression and economic stratification present at three Late Helladic cemeteries. In doing so, the claim that exchange strategies which existed outside of palatial redistribution were present in the Late Helladic was substantiated as a similar logic of mortuary stratification which existed during the palatial era was also found to have existed after the shift to the post-palatial era and the collapse of …

A Proposal For Insurance To Address Offsite Injuries Accompanying Dicamba Usage, Terence J. Centner

Cornhusker Economics

Soybean producers are familiar with the special dicamba products first sold in 2017 for use on Xtend soybeans to control glyphosate-resistant weeds. Dicamba can be applied as a post-emergent spray to kill weeds that germinate after soybeans have been planted. With the control of these weeds, producers reap increased yields. However, the use of dicamba products led to significant offsite injury to vegetation including non-dicamba-resistant soybeans. Damages to neighbors’ properties from dicamba usage strained the social relations of people living in many rural communities.

Improving Veteran Access; Status Of Operations Of The United States Department Of Veteran Affairs Work-Study Program, Kirk Allen

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The usage status of The U.S. Department Veterans Affairs Work-Study Program is examined. Beneficiary numbers from the Global, Unites States, State, and Local/County perspective are reviewed. While of essential value, the program suffers from a lack of scholarly research and government oversight, and is further hindered by restrictive administrative rules lived first-hand. Research suggests that the program is operating outside of accountability to the taxpayer, presents as unnecessarily/overly-restrictive in accessibility, and is underutilized. The program appears to not be serving all veterans to full potential.

The Work-Study Program is codified in Veterans Benefits', Title 38 United States Code, Part III, …

Movin’ On Up? A Survey Experiment On Mobility Enhancing Policies, Jared Barton, Xiaofei Pan

Economics Faculty Journal Articles

We use a nationwide survey experiment in the United States to measure whether information on intergenerational economic mobility or policy-specific arguments influence support for six pro-mobility policies advocated by political entrepreneurs. We find the information treatments do not affect support, but the argument treatments significantly increase support for three of the policies. We also include a behavioral measure by allowing respondents the opportunity to write their U.S. Senators. We find argument treatments significantly increase the likelihood that letters address economic mobility and significantly promote advocacy for that policy in the letter, but no increase in advocacy from the information treatments. …

Borderplex Business Barometer, Volume 5, Number 12, Thomas M. Fullerton Jr., Steven L. Fullerton

Border Region Modeling Project

No abstract provided.

Culture And Economics: A Literature Review, Faith Howard

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Essays On The Housing Market In China And Some Evidence On Inflation Targeting, Yanchao Li

All Dissertations

The housing market in China enjoys great prosperity after a continuously rapid development for more than a decade. However, there are growing concerns about possible bubbles as the price continues to rise while ordinary workers cannot afford a house. The government of China has implemented different kinds of regulations to slow rapid price increases and stabilize the market since 2007. The first paper looks at the characteristics and determinants of housing prices in different tiers of cities in China over the period 2002–2017, and then the second paper examines the impact of different types of regulations on the real estate …

An Alternative Class Of Ratio-Regression-Type Estimator Under Two-Phase Sampling Scheme, Muhammad Isah, Zakari Yahaya, Audu Ahmed

CBN Journal of Applied Statistics (JAS)

In this study, a new exponential ratio-regression estimator is developed using an auxiliary variable for estimating the finite population mean under a two-phase sampling system. The Bias and Mean Square Error (MSE) of the proposed estimator are derived and compared with some of the estimators in extant literature. Thus, the conditions under which the proposed estimator is better than some existing estimators are provided. Empirically, using four real datasets and simulation study, the proposed estimator performs better than the classical ratio, classical regression, exponential ratio, and exponential regression cum ratio estimator when compared using the criteria of bias, mean square …

Insurgency, Political Risk, And Foreign Direct Investment Inflows In Nigeria: A Sectorial Analysis, Danjuma Iyaji

CBN Journal of Applied Statistics (JAS)

This study examines, among others, the effect of terrorism, political violence, corruption, and religious tension on FDI inflows to the banking, construction, manufacturing, oil and gas, and telecommunication sectors in Nigeria. Thus, empirical models were estimated using the fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) technique. The study spans from 2008Q1 to 2017Q4. Findings show that terrorism adversely affects FDI inflow to telecommunication sector, while corruption positively impacts on the oil and gas sector. Thus, this study among other things, recommends the intensification of effort in the war against terrorism and strengthening of relevant anti-graft agencies to adequately fight corruption in …

Monetary Policy Transmission And Bank Interest Rates In Nigeria, Eleam Victor E., Ekwom Chinyelu G., Ariolu Chibueze C., Umebali Chukwubuzo J., Balogun Adewale T.

CBN Journal of Applied Statistics (JAS)

The paper examines the adjustment of retail and money market interest rates to changes in discount corridor of the monetary policy in Nigeria. A vector error correction model was adopted for this study, using monthly data from 2007:06 to 2019:12. We further accounted for structural breaks in the dataset to improve its policy reliability. The adjustment parameters were found to be significant but with slow speed of adjustment. This finding provides evidence of the weakness of the discount corridor in monetary policy transmission in Nigeria. Furthermore, the results showed no asymmetric adjustment of retail rates to long run equilibria. Lastly, …

Inflations And Its Uncertainty In Some Ecowas Member States: Transfer Entropy Approach, Otoakhia Eric I.

CBN Journal of Applied Statistics (JAS)

This study examines the information flow between inflation and inflation uncertainty (IU) and intrastate inflationary trend among some ECOWAS member states. IU is measured using GARCH models and stochastic volatility model (SV). Transfer entropy was adopted to quantify the extent of information flow. The result showed information flow exists from inflation to the GARCH measure of IU. On the reverse flow from inflation uncertainty to inflation, there is no information flow except for Burkina Faso and Gambia which have asymmetric bidirectional flow between inflation and IU. Adopting SV measure for IU, there are no support for causality from inflation to …

Relationship Between Real Exchange Rate And Consumption In Nigeria: A Nonlinear Approach, Babangida Jamilu S., Sanusi Aliyu R., Yusuf Isah M.

CBN Journal of Applied Statistics (JAS)

This study analyses the relationship between real exchange rate and domestic consumption in Nigeria using the Smooth Transition Autoregressive (STAR) model from 1981Q1 to 2019Q4. Findings show that domestic consumption determines the regime shift in real exchange rate, suggesting a nonlinear linkage with clearly distinct regimes. The lagged exchange rate is shown to have a significant linear effect on the current exchange rate. On the other hand, current foreign consumption is positive but has no significant impact on the exchange rate in the linear part of the model. In the nonlinear part of the model, evidence of a significant negative …

A First Peek At Firms’ Cash Flow Dynamics In The Pandemic Year: A Lesson Learned?, Ana Oblak

Economic and Business Review

Using a comprehensive database of financial data and data on public support, we aim at documenting the actual (and not predicted) effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on firms’ liquidity. A drain of the non-financial corporations’ liquidity was unprecedented and highly asymmetric across sectors. A simple descriptive analysis enables us to evaluate (partially) the effectiveness of support measures and to provide insights on how well-targeted support measures were from the sectoral perspective. Acting in concert, the governments and the European Union (EU) institutions concerned seem to succeed in preventing massive illiquidity (for now). Crisis measures were targeted mostly at firms with …

The Effects Of Cost, Level Of Safety, And Severity Of Injury On Manager Decisions To Implement A Safety Solution, Jonathan M. Hochmuth

Dissertations

Workplace injuries continue to be a source of substantial human and financial costs each year. Behavioral safety processes have been effective in reducing workplace injuries by increasing safety-related behaviors. In recent years, the focus in behavioral safety has shifted towards the role of managers in establishing and maintaining safe behaviors and conditions in the workplace. Understanding how managers make decisions to allocate resources is critical to improving safety. The field of behavioral economics has developed methods for studying decision-making. While there have been calls to apply these methods to occupational safety, there are only two empirical studies which have done …

Essays On Bitcoin And Cryptocurrencies, Jiasong Wu

Dissertations

Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, invented as potential digital international currencies, have gradually drawn more and more attention since their birth. The growing popularity of cryptocurrencies in the past decade and the recent acceptance of Bitcoin as legal tender in El Salvador suggests that there is growing acceptance of these instruments and that cryptocurrencies are here to stay. Among these cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin has a unique place being the first and most well-known cryptocurrency in terms of price, market capitalization, and trading volume.

The first two essays of this dissertation focus on Bitcoin and the third essay focuses on the cryptocurrency market in …

Economic Forecast Of Grand Rapids, Mi, Zachary Fillmore

Honors Projects

The purpose of this report is to analyze the current state of the Grand Rapids, MI economy, as well as provide a ten-year forecast of the city’s economic condition. Economic forecasting is the process of predicting the future condition of an economy using the combination of several indicators. The indicators being used for this report will include population growth, economic production, wages, industry specific production trends, unemployment rates, home values, occupancy rates, rent forecasts, education, and tourism. From intensive research and data analysis, a snapshot of the economic condition of Grand Rapids in ten years will be displayed. Additionally, several …

Determinants Of The Student Loan Decision And Financial Well-Being: The Role Of Financial Education, Financial Literacy, And Student Loan Characteristics, Emily Shaffer Hales

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The student loan crisis has been an important area of personal, political, and research discussion. Many individuals must make the decision to attend college with the help of student loans and millions are currently in repayment on their student loan. However, it can be difficult to understand what factors may play a role the decision to take out a student loan and how managing one’s student loan could affect their personal financial well-being. Thus, this study examined factors that could be related to how an individual may decide to take out a student loan, such as if they participated in …

Vat Treatment Of The Financial Services: Implications For The Real Economy, Ismail Baydur, Fatih Yilmaz

Research Collection School Of Economics

Financial institutions are exempt from the value-added tax (VAT) in most countries. We develop a general equilibrium model with endogenous firm entry and a banking sector to accommodate three key distortions related to exempt treatment: (i) self-supply bias in the banking sector, (ii) under-taxation of payment services, and (iii) input distortions in the business sector and tax cascading. We calibrate our model to the average of Germany, France, and the UK data. Our results show that repealing exempt treatment always increases tax revenues. However, welfare gains occur only at low VAT rates due to the hump-shaped VAT Laffer curve.

Pitfalls In Bootstrapping Spurious Regression, Peter C. B. Phillips

Research Collection School Of Economics

The bootstrap is shown to be inconsistent in spurious regression. The failure of the bootstrap is spectacular in that the bootstrap effectively turns a spurious regression into a cointegrating regression. In particular, the serial correlation coefficient of the residuals in the bootstrap regression does not converge to unity, so the bootstrap is not even first order consistent. The block bootstrap serial correlation coefficient does converge to unity and is therefore first order consistent, but has a slower rate of convergence and a different limit distribution from that of the sample data serial correlation coefficient. The analysis covers spurious regressions involving …

Tapping On Growth Opportunities Through Trade And Investment, Andy Feng, Gerald Foong, Geraldine Lim

Research Collection School Of Economics

As a small and open economy, external developments play a crucial role in shaping Singapore’s growth prospects. In particular, external demand is pivotal in supporting the growth of Singapore’s gross domestic product (GDP) beyond the limits afforded by a small domestic market. Furthermore, due to the resource constraints faced by Singapore, its production of goods and services to meet both external and domestic demand requires a substantial use of imported inputs. Apart from trade, Singapore’s openness and outward-orientation also extend to its embrace of inward and outward investments to grow its economy and create jobs for Singaporeans. In view of …

Economic Forecasting In An Epidemic: A Break From The Past?, Hwee Kwan Chow, Keen Meng Choy

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper aims to investigate whether the predictive ability and behaviour of professional forecasters are different during the Covid-19 epidemic as compared with the global financial crisis of 2008 and normal times. To this end, we utilise a survey of professional forecasters in Singapore collated by the central bank to analyse the forecasting record for GDP growth and CPI inflation. We first examine the point forecasts to document the extent of forecast failure in the pandemic crisis and test for behavioural explanations of the possible sources of forecast errors such as leader following and herding behaviour. Using percentile-based summary measures …

Harnessing Digitalization For Sustainable Economic Development: Insights For Asia, John Beirne, David Fernandez

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Digitalization has helped to transform economies by enhancing competitiveness and productivity across a wide range of sectors. The use of big data and the rise of online platforms have accelerated this process over the past decade. In addition, the adoption of digital solutions in the face of social distancing and lockdown measures introduced due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has been integral to the economic recovery process. The shift to a digitalized economy has also reduced barriers to market entry for firms, lowered inequality, and led to a promotion of social and economic inclusion. Advances in digital technology …

Poultry Producer's Willingness To Invest In On-Farm Carcass Disposal, V. L. Campbell, J. M. Thompson, J. L. Apriesnig, D. L. Pendell, G. T. Tonsor

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

Foreign animal diseases (FAD) can cause substantial economic losses in production, consumption, and the supply chain. These diseases are typically highly pathogenic and lead to disruptions in normal business practices and to demands for higher investment in biosecurity practices. For poultry producers this can lead to changes in bird pick-ups, chick placements, and length of out time on farms as well as changes in day-to-day operations. When an FAD is reported, poultry producers that rely on off-premises carcass disposal (e.g., renderers or landfills) may be required to develop on-farm disposal capacity (e.g., incinerators or burial) rapidly if their operation falls …

Does Precise Case Disclosure Limit Precautionary Behavior? Evidence From Covid-19 In Singapore, Aljoscha Janssen, Matthew H. Shapiro

Research Collection School Of Economics

Limiting the spread of contagious diseases can involve both government-managed and voluntary efforts. Governments have a number of policy options beyond direct intervention that can shape individuals’ responses to a pandemic and its associated costs. During its first wave of COVID-19 cases, Singapore was among a few countries that attempted to adjust behavior through the announcement of detailed case information. Singapore's Ministry of Health maintained and shared precise, daily information detailing local travel behavior and residences of COVID-19 cases. We use this policy along with device-level cellphone data to quantify how local and national COVID-19 case announcements trigger differential behavioral …

Economic Impact Of Targeted Government Responses To Covid-19: Evidence From The Large-Scale Cluster In Seoul, Kim, Kanghyock Koh, Jinwook Shin

Research Collection School Of Economics

We estimate the economic impact of South Korea's targeted responses to the first large-scale COVID-19 cluster in Seoul. We find that foot traffic and retail sales decreased only within a 300 meter radius of the cluster and recovered to its pre-outbreak level after four weeks. The reductions appear to be driven by temporary business closures rather than the risk avoidance behavior of the citizens. Our results imply that less intense, but more targeted COVID-19 interventions, such as pin-pointed, temporary closures of businesses, can be a low-cost alternative after lifting strict social distancing measures.

A Practical Guide To Harnessing The Har Volatility Model, Adam Clements, Daniel P. A. Preve

Research Collection School Of Economics

The standard heterogeneous autoregressive (HAR) model is perhaps the most popular benchmark model for forecasting return volatility. It is often estimated using raw realized variance (RV) and ordinary least squares (OLS). However, given the stylized facts of RV and well-known properties of OLS, this combination should be far from ideal. The aim of this paper is to investigate how the predictive accuracy of the HAR model depends on the choice of estimator, transformation, or combination scheme made by the market practitioner. In an out-of-sample study, covering the S&P 500 index and 26 frequently traded NYSE stocks, it is found that …