Economics Commons^™

Consumer Guilt And Sustainable Choice: Environmental Impact Of Durable Goods Innovation, K. Sudhir, Ramesh Shankar, Yuan Jin

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

The paper develops a modeling framework to study how sustainability interventions impact consumer adoption of durable goods innovation, firm profit and environmental outcomes in equilibrium. Our two period model with forward looking consumers and a monopoly firm introducing an innovation in the second period accommodates three key features: (1) it builds on the psychology literature linking reactive and anticipatory guilt to consumers’ environmental sensitivity on initial purchase and upgrade decisions; (2) it disentangles environmental harm over the product life into that arising from product use and dumping at replacement; and (3) it clarifies how a taxonomy of innovations (function, fashion …

Market-Minded Informational Intermediary And Unintended Welfare Loss, Wenji Xu, Kai Hao Yang

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

This paper examines the welfare effects of informational intermediation. A (short-lived) seller sets the price of a product that is sold through a (long-lived) informational intermediary. The intermediary can disclose information about the product to consumers, earns a fixed percentage of the sales revenue in each period, and has concerns about its prominence---the market size it faces in the future, which in turn is increasing in past consumer surplus. We characterize the Markov perfect equilibria and the set of subgame perfect equilibrium payoffs of this game and show that when the market feedback (i.e., how much past consumer surplus affects …

“Strive For Gains!”: Perceived Fairness Of College Tuition Price Increases, Rachel Powell

Economics Honors Papers

No abstract provided.

Poverty And Elderly Labor Supply In Thailand, Ruoshan Zhao

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

The aim of this study was to estimate the impact of poverty on elderly labor force participation and investigate the relationship between poverty and the intensity of work (i.e., working days). Labor supply by the elderly is increasingly one of the most concerning issues in developing countries. Based on studies on the elderly, researchers have made significant findings regarding the labor participation rates of older adults. However, there is a lack of research on the relationship between the labor force participation rate and poverty among the elderly in Thailand. This study used the probit regression model and Tobit regression model …

Scoping The Potential For A Digital Led Recovery From Covid-19 In Africa, Rashmi Banga, Karishma Banga

Journal of African Trade

Abstract In this paper, we analyse the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for Africa's trade in digitizable products, digitally deliverable services (DDSs), and e-commerce, and we outline the challenges of a digitally led recovery from the pandemic for African countries. The analysis is based on macro- and micro-level data and a review of extant literature. We find that almost 60% of the global exports of digital products in 2020 originated from the EU, with another 16% from North America. Africa's share in global exports of digital products, by contrast, was less than 1%. In the case of intra-Africa trade, exports …

Eigenvalues + Shaikh Nassif Coronado Paper, Anwar Shaikh Phd

Archives of Anwar Shaikh

This collection includes:

• Eigenvalue distribution, matrix size and the shape of the rank-size eigenvalue moduli curve by Anwar Shaikh, Nassif, and Coronado (unpublished work).
• Shaikh, A. (2010, September 27). Bienenfeld approximation. (Unpublished manuscript note).
• Shaikh, A. (2020, August 8). Sraffa prices & normalization. (Unpublished manuscript note).
• Shaikh, A. (2021, June 15). Marx / Adrian. (Unpublished manuscript note).
• Shaikh, A. (2021, September 13). Economic Systems Research final review correspondence. (Unpublished manuscript note).
• Shaikh, A. (2021, December 27). Do subdominant normalized eigenvalues all approach 1? (Unpublished manuscript note).
• Shaikh, A. (2022, January 9). Greenberger. (Unpublished manuscript note). …

Extreme Temperatures During Pregnancy And Adverse Birth Outcomes: Evidence From 2009 To 2018 U.S. National Birth Data, Gulcan Cil, Jiyoon Kim

Economics Faculty Research and Scholarship

We provide the first estimates of the impacts of prenatal exposure to extreme temperatures on infant health at birth using the latest national birth data from 2009 to 2018 from all U.S. states. We consistently find that an additional day with mean temperature greater than 80°F or less than 10°F increases preterm births and low birthweight. Strikingly, the adverse effects are borne disproportionately by Black and Hispanic mothers, suggesting that the projected increase in extreme temperatures may further exacerbate the existing birth health disparities across different race/ethnicity groups. We also contribute by investigating the impact of deviations from the normal …

Sustainability In The New England Ski Industry, Sydney E. Gendreau

Honors Theses and Capstones

The goal of this study is to explore the extent to which sustainable investments are worthwhile for the New England ski industry. Research has shown that the New England ski industry will be greatly impacted by the effects of climate change within the near future. Anthropogenic climate change over the next several decades will cause frequent low snow winters, increases in night time winter temperatures, and overall shorter winters. Detailed economic analysis has shown that low snow and warm winters result in roughly $54 million in lost revenue for the New Hampshire ski industry in the past (Burakowski, Magnusson, 2012). …

“The Real Cost Of Mining: How Digging For Rare Earth Metals Could Pose A Greater Cost Than Evs Can Save”, Brahim Khalil Yatim

Honors Theses and Capstones

The Paris Climate Agreement proposes to have 20% of all road transport vehicles be electric by the year 2030. Implementation of this policy is critical to help obtain a 2 degrees Celsius reduction in the increase of global temperatures by 2030. This paper dives into the true costs of taking on a project that large scale. This study finds that though the benefits of this project would result in a 351,785,600 tons of GHG saved by the electric conversion there are significant environmental and human costs associated with the mining necessary to complete the agreement's goal. With current technologies and …

Data From: Short-Term Household Economic Stress Effects On Retail Activity In El Paso, Texas, Thomas M. Fullerton Jr., Patricia Arellano-Olague

Datasets

No abstract provided.

(Wp 2022-02) Keynes's Treatise On Probability 100 Years Later: Small Vs. Large Worlds And Closed Vs. Open Systems, John B. Davis

Economics Working Papers

The meaning and significance of Keynes’s Treatise on Probability has changed over the 100 years since its publication. Initially it stood on its own as an original contribution to probability theory. After The General Theory some saw the Treatise strengthening Keynes’s later arguments. Yet by the time New Classical Economics became dominant it became largely ignored. This paper attributes that later rejection to the mainstream economics’ reliance on Savage’s subjective expected utility restriction of probability thinking to what he called small worlds. It argues that his small worlds-large worlds distinction produces a small worlds-closed worlds conception of economics the mainstream …

District Attorney Compensation And Performance, Bryan Mccannon, Morgan Stockham, Gregory Deangelo

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Does prosecutor pay impact performance? We attempt to identify the causal effect of wages on a prosecutor’s effort by studying a large (41%), exogenous salary increase for district attorneys in New York state. We measure the performance of prosecutors by the likelihood that a conviction is upheld when appealed. If the efficiency wage theory accurately explains non-market actor behavior, then the exogenous wage shock should entice better performance. Alternatively, if individuals who hold public office are motivated primarily by an intrinsic desire to carry out their office duties to the best of their ability rather than strictly financial compensation, then …

Part 1: Inflation, Uncertainty, And Volatility Undermine Virginia's Recovery, Dragas Center For Economic Analysis And Policy, Old Dominion University

State of the Commonwealth Reports

If the story of 2020 was the pandemic and the tale of 2021 was the recovery, then rising inflation and interest rates dominated the narrative of 2022. The economic recovery remained incomplete, with jobs returning to pre-pandemic levels but some Virginians remaining outside the labor force. Now, with the possibility of a recession in 2023 looming, we ask how Virginia fared over the last 12 months and what are the prospects for future growth?

The Economic Obstacles To Electric Vehicle Adoption In Montana, Lily B. Duray

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

Beginning in 2008, electric vehicles, otherwise referred to as EVs have increased in popularity. However, most rural areas like Montana still have not adopted these types of vehicles because of three major obstacles. By addressing EV driving range, availability of public EV charging stations, and the charging times of EVs, EVs can become a credible substitute for traditional vehicles in Montana.

Nssr Racist Poster, Anwar Shaikh Phd

Archives of Anwar Shaikh

This collection includes:

• The New Jew, 2022. Paleolithic or Palestinian? [Poster]. The New School.
• Shaikh, A., 2022. Cambridge MA trip [Handwritten notes]. Anwar Shaikh, PhD.

Economic Policy And Equality : Neoliberalism And Gender Equity In Latin America Since The 1970s, Donnett Annmarie Lee

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Neoliberalism has been a persistent concern for policymakers, scholars, and the general public in Latin America due to its negative effects on women. This paper examines the relationship between neoliberal economic policies and gender equality from the 1970s to 2003 in the region. I use a mixed-methods approach to test the two major competing theories from the literature that discuss women’s status under neoliberal reform. I find that neoliberal economic policies did not improve the status of women but reduced gender disparity. Neoliberalism led to the worsening of men’s status, which caused the status of women to seem better. Overall, …

The Community Reinvestment Act: Reimagined, Jonathan Raefski

Theses - Graduate Programs in Economic Theory and Policy

America has long been considered the land of opportunity. However, the American Dream’s attainability has not been widespread. Instead, wealth continues to be funneled into the hands of the select few. In an effort to combat income inequality and to provide capital reinvestment for historically left behind groups, Congress enacted the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) in 1977. The idea behind the legislation was to stimulate lending and extend credit to areas that were affected by redlining, classism, or other prejudicial practices that enabled income inequality. This thesis aims to analyze the legislation to understand both the strengths and weaknesses of …

Dead Money: Measuring The Influence Of Representatives On Government Spending, Adhitya Venkatraman

CMC Senior Theses

In line with popular criticisms of Congressional pork barrel spending, I find that that individual representatives do wield significant influence in securing government contracts for their districts. Using federal contract data organized at the congressional district level from FY 2001 – FY 2021, I estimate how individual members of the House of Representatives affect funding outcomes. My identification strategy leverages changes in contract funding that occur during exogenous vacancies occurring in the middle of a term. By comparing contract funding outcomes during vacant quarters to non-vacant quarters, I estimate the amount of individual influence exercised by representatives.

During vacant quarters, …

Private Equity – The Rescue Or Destruction Of Financially Distressed Investments, Alex Wilson

CMC Senior Theses

This paper investigates the effect PE-backing has on portfolio companies in financial distress. Inspired by the more recent questioning of the morality of the Private Equity industry, this paper analyzes the change in financial health after a PE buyout transaction and directly compares that of financially distressed firms during the same time period that were not PE-backed. This study utilizes a dataset made up of financially distressed, public US firms as of 2009, and assesses the change in Z-score ~10 years after PE investment to determine whether PE-backing has an effect on the change in financial health. The negative coefficient …

Do School Suspension Reforms Work? Evidence From Rhode Island, Terry Ann Craigie

Economics: Faculty Publications

In Rhode Island, out-of-school suspensions were excessively and disproportionately used to penalize low-level infractions. To address this problem, the Rhode Island General Assembly passed legislation, effective May 2012, prohibiting out-of-school suspensions for attendance-specific infractions. Four years later, the Assembly passed additional legislation to curb out-of-school suspensions for disruption-specific infractions. This study examines the impact of these suspension reforms on out-of-school suspension outcomes for treatment infractions and corresponding racial-ethnic disparities. To execute the analyses, the study uses student-level administrative data (AY 2009–2010 to AY 2017–2018) from the Rhode Island Department of Education, along with quasi-experimental estimation. The study finds that only …

Well Excuse Me! Replicating And Connecting Excuse-Seeking Behaviors, Beatriz Ahumada, Yufei Chen, Neeraja Gupta, Kelly Hyde, Marissa Lepper, Will Mathews, Neil Silveus, Lise Vesterlund, Taylor Weidman, Alistair Wilson, K. Pun Winichakul, Liyang Zhou

Economics: Faculty Publications

Excuse-seeking behavior that facilitates replacing altruistic choices with self-interested ones has been documented in several domains. In a laboratory study, we replicate three leading papers on this topic: Dana et al. (2007), and the use of information avoidance; Exley (2015), and the use of differential risk preferences; and Di Tella et al. (2015), and the use of motivated beliefs. The replications were conducted as part of a graduate course, attempting to embed one answer to the growing call for experimental replications within the pedagogic process. We fully replicate the simpler Dana et al. paper, and broadly replicate the core findings …

The Effect Of Medicaid On Recidivism: Evidence From Medicaid Suspension And Termination Policies, Gultekin Gollu, Mariyana Zapryanova

Economics: Faculty Publications

Although people who go through the prison and jail system in the United States have significant health care needs, many leave it with no health insurance and, as a result, they experience gaps in access to care. Exploiting variation in Medicaid eligibility policies for incarcerated individuals across states and using administrative prison release data, we find that suspending rather than terminating Medicaid upon incarceration decreases the probability of returning to prison within 1 and 3 years of release by 2.91 and 4.58 percentage points, respectively. These effects are observed among different types of prisoners, but are greater for Black and …

Mathematics Of Generalized Versions Of The Melitz, Krugman, And Armington Models With Detailed Derivations, Edward J. Balistreri, David G. Tarr

Department of Economics: Faculty Publications

We provide detailed textbook style mathematical derivations of an extended version of the heterogenous firms model of Melitz (2003), as well as the Armington (1969) and Krugman (1980) models. Our model of heterogeneous firms extends the model of Melitz (2003) by allowing multiple sectors, intermediates, heterogeneous regions based on data, labor-leisure choice, initial heterogeneous tariffs, multiple factors of production, the possibility of sector-specific inputs and trade imbalances based on data, and we incorporate global and unilateral tariff policy shocks. Although the models in this paper are extensions in numerous directions of the Melitz trade model of heterogeneous firms, the pedagogical …

Nonmetropolitan Nebraskans’ Opinions About Water, Climate, And Energy: 2022 Nebraska Rural Poll Results, Rebecca J. Vogt, Heather Akin, Cheryl A. Burkhart-Kriesel, Bradley Lubben, L. J. Mcelravy, Timothy Meyer, Steven A. Schulz, Amanda Tupper

Nebraska Rural Poll

Most rural Nebraskans receive their home tap water from city water or municipal water systems. Just over two-thirds of rural Nebraskans receive their drinking water from a municipal system. One-quarter have private well water and seven percent are on a rural water system.

Many rural Nebraskans have tested their home tap water for nitrates. However, a similar proportion indicated they have not tested their water or are unsure. Persons with higher household incomes are more likely than persons with lower incomes to have tested their home water for each of the items listed. Many persons with the lowest household incomes …

Are Hispanics Less Likely To Receive Vocational Rehabilitation Services?, Alberto Migliore, John Shepard

All Institute for Community Inclusion Publications

In the US, 16% of people with cognitive disabilities self-report to be of Hispanic ethnicity (US Census Bureau, FY 2020). However, among people with intellectual disabilities who received vocational rehabilitation services, only 11% (-5%) are Hispanic (N = 32,823, RSA911, FY2020).

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

Technical Reports

No abstract provided.

Impact Of Islamic Financial Principles On Mitigating The Covid-19 Financial Crisis In Pakistan, Mohammed Monzur Murshid

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The COVID-19 pandemic caused a global financial crisis. Governments and central banks around the world took unprecedented measures to mitigate the effect of the pandemic-triggered financial crisis and maintain the stability of the financial system. The purpose of this cross-sectional quantitative study was to examine the capability of the Islamic financial system to mitigate the effect of the pandemic-induced financial crisis on the economy of Pakistan in 2020. The International Monetary Fund enhanced dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (IMF-DSGE) model provided the framework for this study. Data collection included conventional financial sector parameters, Islamic financial sector parameters, and country-level macroeconomic data …

Promoting Regulatory Prediction, Jonathan S. Masur, Jonathan R. Nash

Faculty Articles

It is essential for environmental protection that private actors be able to anticipate government regulation. If, for instance, the Biden Administration is planning to tighten regulations of greenhouse gas emissions, it is imperative that private companies anticipate this regulatory change now, not a few years from now after they have constructed even more coal- and gas-fired power plants. Those additional power plants will mean more irreversible greenhouse gases, and these plants can be politically challenging to shutter once built. The point is general to private actors making decisions in the shadow of potential government regulation. Better information about future government …

The Sec’S Climate Disclosure Rule: Critiquing The Critics, George S. Georgiev

Faculty Articles

Climate change is an existential phenomenon, which entails a wide variety of physical risks as well as sizeable but underappreciated economic risks. In March 2022, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) moved to address some of the information gaps related to the effects of climate change on firms by proposing a rule that requires public companies to report detailed and standardized information about important climate-related matters for the benefit of investors and markets. Though the rule proposal was welcomed by many market participants, it was also met with a level of opposition that was unusual in both its intensity …

Equality Offshore, Martin W. Sybblis

Faculty Articles

Global governance architecture, crafted by wealthy nations, has perpetuated the subordination of developing jurisdictions. The Article offers a novel and surprising analysis of governance tools used by wealthy countries and inter-governmental organizations to constrain offshore financial centers (OFCs) by focusing on the tools’ disparate impacts on tax havens whose populations comprise predominantly Black and Brown people. With tax haven issues garnering increasing attention, this Article provides a pathbreaking conceptual framework for examining the international tax, crime, and business discourse on OFCs. It also illuminates how the actions of powerful international actors, such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development …