Economics Commons^™

The Knights Templar: Blood And Banking, Morgan Thatcher

Fall Student Research Symposium 2021

The Knights Templar were a martial religious order founded in the 12th century AD. Though they were known for their prowess on the battlefield, more importantly, they became an important and integral part of the Medieval financial and economic world. This was only possible due their unique position as a sanctioned part of the Catholic Church, their reputation, political connections, and a changing idea of what money was. The Templar utilized every facet of their position in order to gain wealth and power, but were ultimately brought low at the hands of Philip IV of France.

Mistakes In Difficult Conversations, Allan Vyhnalek

Cornhusker Economics

Farm families that work together across the family tree and across generations seem to encounter difficulty from time to time when separating “family” from “business.” Having clear, consistent, and honest communications will go a long way towards reducing the troubles that can arise in difficult conversations. This article addresses those troubles.

Machine Learning For Stock Prediction Based On Fundamental Analysis, Yuxuan Huang, Luiz Fernando Capretz, Danny Ho

Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications

Application of machine learning for stock prediction is attracting a lot of attention in recent years. A large amount of research has been conducted in this area and multiple existing results have shown that machine learning methods could be successfully used toward stock predicting using stocks’ historical data. Most of these existing approaches have focused on short term prediction using stocks’ historical price and technical indicators. In this paper, we prepared 22 years’ worth of stock quarterly financial data and investigated three machine learning algorithms: Feed-forward Neural Network (FNN), Random Forest (RF) and Adaptive Neural Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) for …

When An Economist Is A Mentor: For Yang Fan, Colby’S Teaching Philosophy Was The Right Fit, Kardelen Koldas

Colby Magazine

They say follow your passion to wherever it takes you. Yang Fan, the new Todger Anderson Assistant Professor of Investing and Behavioral Economics, did just that. He followed his passion for teaching and changed coasts, from West to the East. Now, he’s helping his students find and pursue their passions as well.

Ready, Willing, And Able, Gerry Boyle

Colby Magazine

So what gives? How, after four years on Mayflower Hill, do these Colby alumni have an outsized impact in a fintech company that is focused on, for example, changing the way municipal bonds are traded? What makes them able to dive in and figure it out? “That’s part of the liberal arts education,” said Associate Professor of History John Turner, who taught Tagg Martin ’13, history major turned MarketAxess go-to analyst. “You’re always learning. … You are always going to be mastering something, as opposed to having mastered.”

Isolated States Of America: State Borders, Mobility, And Labor Markets, Riley Wilson

Upjohn Institute Policy and Research Briefs

No abstract provided.

Equity In Unemployment Insurance Benefit Access, Christopher J. O'Leary, William E. Spriggs, Stephen A. Wandner

Upjohn Institute Policy Papers

This paper examines the uneven pattern of access to unemployment insurance (UI) by age, gender, and race across the United States. We present results from a descriptive analysis using publicly available longitudinal data reported by states on rates of UI recipiency and characteristics of UI beneficiaries. Recipiency measures the proportion of all unemployed who are receiving UI benefits. UI is intended to provide temporary, partial income replacement to involuntarily unemployed UI applicants with strong labor force attachments while they are able, available, and actively seeking return to work. Each of these UI eligibility conditions contributes to the UI recipiency rate …

Isolated States Of America: The Impact Of State Borders On Mobility And Regional Labor Market Adjustments, Riley Wilson

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

I document a new empirical pattern of internal mobility in the United States. Namely, county-to-county migration and commuting drop off discretely at state borders. People are three times as likely to move to a county 15 miles away, but in the same state, than to move to an equally distant county in a different state. These gaps remain even among neighboring counties or counties in the same commuting zone. This pattern is not explained by differences in county characteristics, is not driven by any particular demographic group, and is not explained by pecuniary costs such as differences in state occupational …

The Effect Of Epidemiological Investor Sentiment On Financial Market Movements, Ruben A. Silverstone

Undergraduate Economic Review

This paper investigates the effect of public sentiment related to epidemiological crises on financial market movements. The outbreak of COVID-19 provided evidence of the havoc a pandemic can wreak on financial markets. The Ebola outbreak between December 2013 and January 2016 provides the ideal case study to isolate sentiment. Sentiment was quantified with established text processing methods, using news on viral events uncorrelated with other potential causes of market movements and incorporating publisher circulation. I find that epidemiological investor sentiment has a highly statistically significant, current, and non-linear relationship with individual company stock returns when controlling for company-specific fixed effects.

How Does Industrialization Affect (Equitable) Income Growth? Evidence From U.S. Manufacturing During The Early 20th Century, Leonardo Cavedagne

Undergraduate Economic Review

This paper assesses how changes in labor productivity from the rise of industrialization impacted total, personal, and corporate income per capita at the state level from 1899-1940. Using hand-collected data from the Statistics of Income Report and the Statistical Abstract of the United States, we conduct OLS regressions and find a significant and positive relationship between labor productivity and our dependent variables. Personal income recorded the highest coefficient, demonstrating workers benefiting the most from increasing labor productivity. This finding allows for exploration into equitable income growth, as the growth in income benefits the workers more than large capital owners.

Cbe Waves Newsletter: December 2021, Various

Newsletters

• The Economic Value of America's Estuaries
• How Little We Know: Humans and Recreation on the California Coast
• Checking in On Ocean-Based Solutions
• Build Back Better and the Ocean Climate Action Plan
• Student Alice McGown attended COP26 with one focused message: Leave It In The Ground
• Transatlantic Blue Economy Initiative
• Student Mary Patenburg contributes to two WWF articles
• Visualizing the Three- Dimensional Footprint of Ocean Uses
• DIVE-An Inspiring Journey through California's Marine Protected Areas with Virtual Reality
• Celebrating Ten Years at the Center for the Blue Economy

The Us-China Trade War And Global Reallocations, Pablo Fajgelbaum, Pinelopi Goldberg, Patrick Kennedy, Amit Khandelwal, Daria Taglioni

Discussion Papers

We study global trade responses to the US-China trade war. We estimate the tariff impacts on product-level exports to the US, China, and rest of world. On average, countries decreased exports to China and increased exports to the US and rest of world. Most countries export products that complement the US and substitute China, and a subset operate along downward-sloping supplies. Heterogeneity in responses, rather than specialization, drives export variation across countries. Surprisingly, global trade increased in the products targeted by tariffs. Thus, despite ending the trend towards tariff reductions, the trade war did not halt global trade growth.

Aggregate Implications Of Barriers To Female Entrepreneurship, Gaurav Chiplunkar, Pinelopi K. Goldberg

Discussion Papers

We develop a framework for quantifying barriers to labor force participation (LFP) and entrepreneurship faced by women in developing countries, and apply it to the Indian economy. We find that women face substantial barriers to LFP. The costs for expanding businesses through the hiring of workers are also substantially higher for women entrepreneurs. However, there is one area in which female entrepreneurs have an advantage: the hiring of female workers. We show that this is not driven by the sectoral composition of female employment. Consistent with this pattern, we find even without promoting female LFP, policies that boost female entrepreneurship …

Making Green Mortgages Mainstream & Accessible, Megan Greene, Adam Tooze, Jennifer M. Silva, Rohan Kocharekar, Hannah H. Braun

Regenerative Crisis Response Committee

No abstract provided.

(R1505) A Note On Large Deviations In Insurance Risk, Stefan Gerhold

Applications and Applied Mathematics: An International Journal (AAM)

We study large and moderate deviations for an insurance portfolio, with the number of claims tending to infinity, without assuming identically distributed claims. The crucial assumption is that the centered claims are bounded, and that variances are bounded below. From a general large deviations upper bound, we obtain an exponential bound for the probability of the average loss exceeding a threshold. A counterexample shows that a full large deviation principle, including also a lower bound, does not follow from our assumptions. We argue that our assumptions make sense, in particular, for life insurance portfolios and discuss how to apply our …

College Street Journal (December 2021), College Of The Holy Cross

College Street Journal

College Street Journal serves as a student platform for business-related news, opportunities and resources at Holy Cross. Readers will discover a broad range of important topics from relevant news and economic issues, career development opportunities and advice, as well as Ciocca center and campus-wide opportunities to grow outside of the classroom.

Highlights of this issue include the Facebook rebrand, travel, supply chain issues, the auto industry, an alumni interview with Ted Lynch and a faculty editorial.

South Dakota Farmers’ Usage Of Conservation Tillage, Tong Wang, Jim Ristau

South Dakota Farm Survey

Researchers at South Dakota State University (SDSU) conducted producer surveys in the eastern part of South Dakota in both 2018 and 2021. Producers could take the survey online or via mail and were asked questions about their farm, farming practices including usage of soil and water conservation practices, and their values. Using publicly available addresses from the Farm Service Agency, a random sample of 3,000 producers were sent the survey in 2018. 650 were ineligible, and 708 responded to the survey for a response rate of 30%. In 2021, the same producers who took the survey in 2018 were asked …

South Dakota Farmers’ Perceived Extreme Weather Frequency And Adaptation Measures, Tong Wang, Jim Ristau

South Dakota Farm Survey

Researchers at South Dakota State University (SDSU) conducted surveys of eastern South Dakota (SD) commodity crop producers with the support of the South Dakota Corn Utilization Council. Using publicly available addresses of government program participants, a random sample of 3,000 producers were sent the survey in 2018. 650 were ineligible and 708 responded to the survey for a response rate of 30%. In 2021, the same producers who took the survey in 2018 were asked to take a follow up survey. 94 were ineligible, and 350 responded for a 59% response rate. Producers could take the survey online or via …

South Dakota Farmer Survey Chemical Use On Cropland, Tong Wang, Jim Ristau

South Dakota Farm Survey

Researchers at South Dakota State University (SDSU) conducted surveys with South Dakota (SD) commodity crop producers in the eastern part of the state in both 2018 and 2021. Producers could take the survey online or via mail and were asked questions about their farm, farming practices including usage of soil and water conservation practices, challenges, and benefits to using conservation practices, and their attitudes about the environment. Using publicly available addresses from the Farm Service Agency of government program participants, a random sample of 3,000 producers were sent the survey in 2018. 650 were ineligible, and 708 responded to the …

South Dakota Farmers’ Usage Of Integrated Crop & Livestock Management, Tong Wang, Jim Ristau

South Dakota Farm Survey

Researchers at South Dakota State University (SDSU) conducted producer surveys in the eastern part of South Dakota in both 2018 and 2021. Producers could take the survey online or via mail and were asked questions about their farm, farming practices including usage of soil and water conservation practices, and their values. Using publicly available addresses from the Farm Service Agency, a random sample of 3,000 producers were sent the survey in 2018. 650 were ineligible, and 708 responded to the survey for a response rate of 30%. In 2021, the same producers who took the survey in 2018 were asked …

South Dakota Farmers’ Perceived Value Of Carbon Credits, Tong Wang, Jim Ristau

South Dakota Farm Survey

Researchers at South Dakota State University (SDSU) conducted surveys with South Dakota commodity crop producers in the eastern part of the state in both 2018 and 2021. Producers could take the survey online or via mail and were asked questions about their farm, farming practices including usage of soil and water conservation practices, challenges and benefits to using conservation practices, and their attitudes about the environment. Using publicly available addresses from the Farm Service Agency of government program participants, a random sample of 3,000 producers were sent the survey in 2018. 650 were ineligible, and 708 responded to the survey …

South Dakota Farmers’ Usage Of Cover Crops, Tong Wang, Jim Ristau

South Dakota Farm Survey

Researchers at South Dakota State University (SDSU) conducted producer surveys in the eastern part of South Dakota in both 2018 and 2021. Producers could take the survey online or via mail and were asked questions about their farm, farming practices including usage of soil and water conservation practices, and their values. Using publicly available addresses from the Farm Service Agency, a random sample of 3,000 producers were sent the survey in 2018. 650 were ineligible, and 708 responded to the survey for a response rate of 30%. In 2021, the same producers who took the survey in 2018 were asked …

South Dakota Farmers’ Usage Of Diversified Crop Rotations, Tong Wang, Jim Ristau

South Dakota Farm Survey

Researchers at South Dakota State University (SDSU) conducted producer surveys in the eastern part of South Dakota in both 2018 and 2021. Producers could take the survey online or via mail and were asked questions about their farm, soil and water conservation practices, and their values. Using publicly available addresses from the Farm Service Agency, a random sample of 3,000 producers were sent the survey in 2018. 650 were ineligible, and 708 responded to the survey for a response rate of 30%. In 2021, the same producers who took the survey in 2018 were asked to take a follow up …

Well-Being In Metropolitan Nebraska: 2021 Nebraska Metro Poll Results, Rebecca J. Vogt, Heather Akin, Cheryl A. Burkhart-Kriesel, Bradley Lubben, L. J. Mcelravy, Timothy Meyer, Steven A. Schulz

Nebraska Rural Poll

Most metropolitan Nebraskans believe they are better off than they were five years ago, are better off compared to their parents when they were their age and will be better off ten years from now. However, certain groups are more likely to be optimistic about their current situation and their expected future. Persons with higher household incomes are more likely than persons with lower incomes to think they are better off compared to five years ago, are better off compared to their parents when they were their age and will be better off ten years from now. And, persons with …

Growth Likely In A Time Of Uncertainty, Eric Thompson

Business in Nebraska

The United States economy continues to recover from the recession which occurred during March and April of 2020. Demand has been strong for both goods and services. At the same time, supply constraints are a concern in the economy, contributing to both higher prices and in some cases lost production within industries. Supply constraints are evident in both inputs (supplies) and labor. Labor force growth has been anemic in the last two years given slow population growth and a roughly 2 percent decline in the labor force participation rate. Looking forward, the baseline outlook is for the U.S. economic recovery …

(R1523) Abundant Natural Resources, Ethnic Diversity And Inclusive Growth In Sub-Saharan Africa: A Mathematical Approach, Juliet I. Adenuga, Kazeem B. Ajide, Anthonia T. Odeleye, Abayomi A. Ayoade

Applications and Applied Mathematics: An International Journal (AAM)

The sub-Saharan African region is blessed with abundant natural resources and diverse ethnic groups, yet the region is dominated by the largest number of poor people worldwide due to inequitable distribution of national income. Existing statistics forecast decay in the quality of lives over the years compared to the continent of Asia that shares similar history with the region. In this paper, a-five dimensional first-order nonlinear ordinary differential equations was formulated to give insight into various factors that shaped dynamics of inclusive growth in sub-Saharan Africa. The validity test was performed based on ample mathematical theorems and the model was …

Paso Del Norte Economic Indicator Review, December, Hunt Institute For Global Competitiveness

Technical Reports

No abstract provided.

Examining The Current Role Of Out-Of-State Buyers In The Tri-Cities Within The Confines Of Residential Real Estate, Paul Arrowood

Undergraduate Honors Theses

We are seeing an influx of out-of-state buyers into Tennessee, and the Tri-Cities area specifically. As a major emerging housing market in the US, the Tri-Cities is being inundated by people from all states and walks of life seeking a better life in Appalachia. Although the reasons vary by person, many agree that political alignment, taxation levels, and the quietness of this area lends itself to population growth. While most members of the housing industry have noticed this uptick in out-of-state buyers, few have taken the time to analyze their own records or review the empirical evidence that is present …

Checkerboard Of Interests: Native American Tribes And The Politics Of Land Tenure Reform, Anika Manuel

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

People have long disputed over the financial system constructed for indigenous communities and their resulting economic rights within U.S. native reservations. Indigenous tribes themselves remain split concerning the state of their tribal economies. Although scholars have extensively researched the historical component regarding the construction of the financial system we see in place today, very few have focused on the politics and rationale behind certain policy positions of relevant actors in modern-day society. In an attempt to fill this gap, this research paper will focus on answering two key questions: How has public policy shaped the economic and property rights of …

Arbitrage Among Stablecoins, Peiyun Jin

All Dissertations

We examine the trades data and order book from 13 exchanges to study the arbitrage opportunities in stablecoins. Using snapshots of the order book data, we find that occasional prices far from the arbitrage-free prices (flash crashes) are real. Flash crashes invariably are associated with unusually large aggregate trading volume. We also examine arbitrage profitability and fee structure for stablecoin-USD and stablecoin- stablecoin. Our results show that after subtracting fees, there are still positive arbitrage profits. We also compare the efficiency of Decentralized Exchanges (DEXs) and Centralized Exchanges (CEXs). Our results are consistent with DEXs and CEXs being equally efficient.