Economics Commons^™

Working Paper No. 55, An Inquiry Into The Assumptions And Tenets Of Neoclassical Economics That Lead Towards Income Inequality, Katharine Nester

Working Papers in Economics

This inquiry seeks to establish that key assumptions foundational to Neoclassical Economics contribute towards income inequality. A consideration of the Neoclassical interpretation and assumptions of the laissez-faire approach to market economies opens the inquiry. I examine the economic outcomes that result when the assumptions underpinning the Neoclassical application of laissez-faire are false, as they often are in the real world. The inquiry then turns to the theories and natural “laws” as advanced by Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) and John Bates (J. B.) Clark (1847-1938), which were built upon the Neoclassical adaptation of laissez-faire and became canon in the Neoclassical school. Finally, …

Working Paper No. 59, Cultural Imperialism And Hegemony, Maria Zavala

Working Papers in Economics

While the traditional colonial imperialism of France and Great Britain ended after World War Two, it can be argued that a new form of imperialism replaced it. What is known as “cultural imperialism” includes the art of inserting a covert idea into person's mind by use of popular culture. Herein, Antonio Gramsci’s ideas of cultural imperialism are contemplated. This paper explores the topic by focusing upon some of the effects that popular American music has had on Latin music and the changes in culturally acceptable trends that have followed. Then, American beauty standards and the Eurocentric beauty standards of Latin …

Working Paper No. 64, Ecological Economics Versus Environmental Economics, Audrey Demeaux

Working Papers in Economics

This inquiry seeks to establish that the field within the Discipline of Economic Science known as Ecological Economics is based upon assumptions and methodological foundations that differ from the field of Environmental Economics. It shall be argued that Environmental Economics did not emerge as the result of a new shift in economic thinking, but rather formed around a reorientation of standard neoclassical assumptions. This was undertaken in an effort to address environmental issues emerging several decades back. In contrast, it shall be argued that the field of Ecological Economics has brought to the Economics Discipline an appreciation for novel assumptions …

Working Paper No. 66, Sir John Bowring, Trade Policies And Economic Development In Siam, Jackrit Kamudhamas

Working Papers in Economics

This inquiry seeks to establish that during the mid-19th century Sir John Bowring emerged as a proponent who formulated distinct trade policies that served to promote the economic development of Siam (Thailand). This thesis is supported with three parts. The first part investigates the trade policies of the Burney Treaty as the first step towards the initiation of a new form of foreign trade policies between Siam and the British Empire and other western countries. The second part explores further Sir Bowing’s thoughts and his mission in achieving the adjusting agreements of the Bowring Treaty. And lastly, the third part …

Working Paper No. 65, On Debt, Enclosure And Witchcraft, Anonymous

Working Papers in Economics

This inquiry seeks to establish that the process of commons-enclosure taking place in 14th-16th century Europe also required an “enclosure” of the female body, which was carried out by introducing radically novel conceptions of debt. The dual processes of bodily dispossession and debt imposition acted as a single force which is paradoxically the origin and effect of capitalist accumulation. This process began in Europe during the period of “transition” between feudalism and capitalism but has remained an essential component of capitalist accumulation through to globalization in contemporary times. To support this thesis, this inquiry considers the evolution of debt; the …

Labor Transitions Between Formal And Informal Employment In Egypt, Alaa Mahmoud Al-Barrawi

Theses and Dissertations

Informal employment is the hallmark of developing economies. Egypt is no exception to this trend. Those who are informally employed are exceptionally vulnerable as they lack social protection. Moreover, large informal sectors are symptomatic of underdevelopment and have negative repercussions on the economy. Few studies examine the determinants of labor market transitions in Egypt with a focus on transitions between formal and informal labor market states. This study focuses on determinants of labor market transitions in Egypt, relying on the Egyptian Labor Market Panel Surveys of 2012 and 2018. It develops four multinomial logistic regression models to achieve this goal. …

Did K-12 School Closure And Reopening Policies In Response To Covid-19 Enlarge The Gender Employment Gap?, Xinyi Wang

Economics Honors Projects

The COVID-19 pandemic hits female workers the most. This impact on the United States’s labor market can be attributed to the limited availability of childcare and schooling options (Stefania and Jiyeon, 2021). With limited resources for childcare and schooling, parents, especially mothers, had to exit the labor force or reduce working hours to stay at home and take care of their children. My study will contribute to understanding the effect of the child penalty, especially under the COVID-19 pandemic and study the impact of school closure and reopening policies. Using data from the Current Population Survey (CPS) combined with school …

Housing Affordability For Top Occupations In Nevada Metros, 2022, Kristian Thymianos, Elia Del Carmen Solano-Patricio, Ally M. Beckwith, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Housing & Real Estate

This fact sheet combines housing and employment data from the National Housing Conference (NHC) and the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to examine housing affordability for the 10 most common occupations in the Las Vegas-Henderson-Paradise, NV and the Reno-Sparks, NV metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) in Quarter 1 of 2022.

Arts Vibrancy In The Mountain West, 2020, Joshua Padilla, Ally M. Beckwith, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Cities & Metros

This fact sheet highlights data on various arts vibrant communities in the United States from the 2020 Arts Vibrancy Index Report. The growth of arts communities across the country contributes to the increased intensity of the United States’ cultural sector. Using the original data prepared by Southern Methodist University (SMU) Data Arts, this fact sheet focuses on the arts vibrancy of communities in the Mountain West.

The Demise Of The Beef Industry, Natalie Powers

Undergraduate Research Symposium

Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) is a neurological disorder commonly found in cows. The hypothesis for the causation of BSE surrounds a protein known as the prion protein. For the most part, prion proteins are not harmful to cattle. Yet, when it mutates, the protein begins attacking the central nervous system. The protein causes the infected cattle to lose coordination and become violent. This is where it gets its nickname, mad cow disease. The research in this project explores the economic impact of mad cow disease. The reactions from consumers surrounding BSE started the downfall of the economy. It also almost …

How To Break A Vicious Cycle : Part – Ii, Ishrat Husain Dr.

Faculty Research - Newspaper and Magazine Articles

It goes without saying that political stability is the sine qua non for any sustained effort to achieve rapid and inclusive growth. The main drivers of such growth would be small farm agriculture, SMEs and microenterprises, construction and low-cost housing, tourism, IT and IT enabled services, diversification and value addition in exports. Thus, the agenda proposed for the short, medium and long term should have a continuous chain, linking and consolidating the gains from these sectors and stimulating inter-sectoral synergetic impulses over time. Continuity of these policies beyond the electoral cycle is an absolute must. There are multiple pathways to …

The Unemployment-Crime Relationship In California: A Reexamination At The County-Level, Taylor M. Friedman

Pennsylvania Economic Review

This study investigates the unemployment-crime relationship using a panel of the 58 counties in California from 2015-2019. A regression is estimated using a one-way random effects model to control for unobserved heterogeneity. The dependent variables are categorized into two groups: violent and property crimes. Independent variables are also placed into categories: state expenditures, socioeconomic, demographic, law enforcement, and county. The results indicate that for violent crimes, poverty, Black racial composition, young males aged 14-17, and college educational attainment for people aged 18-24 are positively significant contributors to the crime rate. Population density and college educational attainment for people aged 25+ …

Women In Tech In The Mountain West Cities, 2021, Saha Salahi, Joshua Padilla, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Economic Development & Workforce

This fact sheet examines data exploring the SmartAsset, “Best Cities for Women in Tech – 2021 Edition” and presents information on the best cities for women in tech in the Mountain West. This fact sheet focuses on the eight cities in the Mountain West region that appear within the 63 U.S. cities included in the original report.

Bringing 'Edutainment' To Your University – Putting The Fun Into Financial Literacy, Morgan O'Sullivan

Faculty and Staff Publications & Presentations

Learning should always be educational, but it can also be fun! Come to this interactive session to learn how to bring financial literacy to life for your students. Through learning about different activities and thinking with a different lens, you will be prepared to teach and facilitate a group of students on the vitally important topic of financial literacy.

By the end of this session, you will be ready to bring financial “edutainment” to your college/university campus. While we can all be entertainers, only the chosen few can be “Edutainers”. This is the session for you! Attendees will be brought …

Torn Between Two Pandemics: Poverty Pandemic And Coronavirus Pandemic In Nigeria, Tope Shola Akinyetun

Southern African Journal of Policy and Development

The wave of coronavirus pandemic that hit the world coincides with Nigeria’s struggles with her newly attained position as the poverty capital of the world. This paper argues that prevalent poverty is a pandemic that the world has learnt to live with, and that Nigeria is struggling to overcome. The agony of poverty in the country coupled with the coronavirus pandemic subjects the country to a quandary of a dual-pandemic scourge. The paper relies on secondary data and adopts a descriptive and analytic approach. It concludes that multidimensional poverty in Nigeria is pervasive and has become deepened by the pandemic …

Study On The High-Quality Development Of Chinese Patents: From The Perspectives Of Law And Economy, Jie Zhang

Fordham Dissertations and Theses

With the change of China's economic development stage and industrial structure, as well as the evolution of global macroeconomic situation, China's patent system has been continuously improving, going through the course of introduction from abroad, legislation, and four times of amendment. China's scientific and technological innovation capacity has also been constantly advancing. At the new development stage, the model of "increasing quantity through incentives and improving quality through introduction" no longer suits the current Chinese economic level and social development. Patents have entered the stage of high-quality development. This dissertation attempts to analyze the development process …

Us - China Trade Conflict - How Bad, Exactly - For China?, Rubina Vohra, Ning Liao

Pennsylvania Economic Review

This paper examines the ongoing trade war between China and the US and attempts to identify the causes of the trade conflict and impact on output, employment, and current account balance of China’s economy. The research conclude that the causes of the trade conflict are threefold, namely, trade imbalances, the midterm/presidential elections in the US, and the competition for global economic control. The worst-case scenario suggests that China will lose about 1% of its job positions and 1.13% of GDP, suggesting that the trade conflict will have some impact on China, but it may not be devastating. The large size …

The Impact Of Rising Incomes On Green House Gas Emissions Versus Green House Gas Abatement, John Mccollough

Pennsylvania Economic Review

One of the most significant environmental threats today is climate change. This paper examines the role that increasing gdp has on both greenhouse gas emissions as well as greenhouse gas abatement to determine which of the two will be impacted more by rising incomes. If higher gdp per capita has a more significant impact on greenhouse gas emissions than on greenhouse gas abatement, then as time goes on and as gdp per capita continues to rise in countries around the world, it will become more and more difficult to control greenhouse gas emissions.

Spatial Effects Of Broadband Infrastructure On China’S Regional Innovation, Guomin Li, Liang Ding, Sheng Chen, Tufan Tiglioglu

Pennsylvania Economic Review

This paper empirically studies the impact of broadband infrastructure on regional innovation and the related spatial effects, using China's provincial data from 2006 to 2016. The findings show that China’s broadband infrastructure positively impacts regional innovation, indicating a significant spatial spillover effect among adjacent regions. The results of the panel SARAR model indicate that broadband infrastructure has a national wide space aggregation effect and further suggests that regionally, broadband infrastructure will significantly absorb innovation from the adjacent region and promote the spatial aggregation of innovation in economically developed areas.

Spatial Panel Data Models: Unbalanced Panel, Threshold Effect And Network Structure, Xiaoyu Meng

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

This thesis studies the estimation and inference problems for spatial panel data models when the panels are unbalanced, when the panels contain threshold effects, or when the panels contain time-varying network structures. These three scenarios divide the thesis naturally into three chapters.

The first chapter considers estimation and inferences for fixed effects spatial panel data models based on unbalanced panels that result from randomly missing spatial units. The unbalanced nature of the panel data renders the standard method of estimation inapplicable. In this chapter, we proposed an M-estimation method where the estimating functions are obtained by adjusting the concentrated quasi …

Reskilling And Upskilling : To Stay Relevant In Today’S Industry, Rhea Sawant, Bryan Thomas, Swati Kadlag

International Review of Business and Economics

The rapid modernization and influx of various new technologies and methodologies currently being employed today greatly and continuously changes the definition of professional competence expected of employees that work for companies that are directly or indirectly impacted because of these advancements or changes, this creates a demand for new jobs requiring new skill sets and so, one finds that in order to keep relevant to the workforce, refreshing and adding to one’s skill set has become a necessity. Candidates thinking about entering the job market need to possess the right kind of skills for the right kind of job and …

Can Blended Learning Address Indian Academic Issues?, Vijay Joshi, Sukanta K. Baral

International Review of Business and Economics

Over the years, India has implemented social reforms aimed at providing education to all. This is observed from the growth in GER (Gross Enrollment Ratio) over the years that has resulted in a decrease in the number of students absent in schools. Coronavirus, nonetheless, has disturbed this scenario and is testing the functions, efficiencies, and practices of India's schooling framework. This research paper, written for stakeholders in government, and the education sector, anticipate the extent to which there is a need of continuing the imparting of education. The main objective of this paper is to provide an overview of the …

Gaining A Better Understanding Of Higher Education: During And Post-Pandemic Scenario, Krati Sethi, Manas Roy

International Review of Business and Economics

Because of the coronavirus epidemic, faculty as well as the students have had to respond to “out of the ordinary” difficulty by quickly switching from traditional class - room education to online learning forms via “virtual classrooms”. Students facing challenges and continuing facing difficulties for various reasons required to adapt this modification in this delivery of curriculum becoming un attentive. Few solutions have been developed for students to assist them in freely transferring to virtual classrooms and maintaining proper online learning etiquette. A series of recommendations is offered in the present study to help students so that they can explore …

Prevalence Of Duesenberry’S Relative Income Hypothesis In Nepalese Economy, Rajendra Adhikari

International Review of Business and Economics

Present paper examines the prevalence of Duesenberry’s relative income hypothesis in Nepalese economy during 1974/75-2019/20 through ARDL bound tests under DEF and Davis-SK specifications. The ARDL under DEF specification is found to be not valid. However, the ARDL bound test under Davis-SK specification is found valid. There exists cointegration among average propensity to consume, demonstration effect and ratchet effect. The coefficient of demonstration effect is found to be negative and that of ratchet effect to be positive as reported by ARDL models. The error correction model also implies that short run shocks significantly affect long run relations among the variables. …

Effects Of Real Effective Exchange Rate And Trade Openness On Remittances: Evidence For Bangladesh, Anisul Islam, Matiur Rahman Dr

Pennsylvania Economic Review

This paper studies the effects of real effective exchange rate and trade openness on expatriates’ remittances inflows to Bangladesh. Annual data from 1975 through 2014 are employed. Efficient unit root tests, linear ARDL bounds testing and VECM are implemented. All variables are nonstationary in log-levels with I(1) behavior. The evidence on cointegration among the variables is inconclusive. The estimates of VECM reveal moderate pace of convergence toward long-run equilibrium with mixed evidence on short-run interactive feedback effects. Remittances are much more responsive to changes in real effective exchange rate and trade openness in the long run than in the short …

Evaluating The Convergence Of Incomes In Pennsylvania, 1980-2018: Did The Incomes In Pennsylvania Converge?, Yaya Sissoko, Brian Sloboda, Rubens Da Silva

Pennsylvania Economic Review

This paper analyzed the recent change in both per capita earnings from employment and per capita income (including that from transfers and non-earnings sources) by Pennsylvania’s counties between 1980 and 2018, inclusive. Then, we also divided the period into the following five time periods for additional analysis: 1980-1990, 1990-2000, 2000-2010, and 2010-2018. Absolute convergence seems to have occurred among the counties in Pennsylvania that may be attributed to the gradual heterogenization of the regional economies. This result may modify some of the conclusions drawn in the recent literature regarding the mechanisms that have generated convergence in their regions. We also …

Weak Identification Of Long Memory With Implications For Inference, Peter C. B. Phillips

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

This paper explores weak identification issues arising in commonly used models of
economic and financial time series. Two highly popular configurations are shown to
be asymptotically observationally equivalent: one with long memory and weak autoregressive dynamics, the other with antipersistent shocks and a near-unit autoregressive
root. We develop a data-driven semiparametric and identification-robust approach to
inference that reveals such ambiguities and documents the prevalence of weak identification in many realized volatility and trading volume series. The identification-robust empirical evidence generally favors long memory dynamics in volatility and volume, a conclusion that is corroborated using social-media news flow data.

Prudential Policy With Distorted Beliefs, Eduardo Dávila, Ansgar Walther

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

This paper studies leverage regulation when equity investors and/or creditors have distorted beliefs relative to a planner. We characterize how the optimal regulation responds to arbitrary changes in investors’/creditors’ beliefs, relating our results to practical scenarios. We show that the optimal regulation depends on the type and magnitude of such changes. Optimism by investors calls for looser leverage regulation, while optimism by creditors, or jointly by both investors/creditors, calls for tighter leverage regulation. Our results apply to environments with i) planners with imperfect knowledge of investors’/creditors’ beliefs, ii) monetary policy, iii) bailouts and pecuniary externalities, and iv) endogenous beliefs.

Lookalike Targeting On Others' Journeys: Brand Versus Performance Marketing, K. Sudhir, Seung Yoon Lee, Subroto Roy

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

Lookalike targeting is a widely used model-based ad targeting approach that uses a seed database of individuals to identify matching “lookalikes” for targeted customer acquisition. An advertiser has to make two key choices: (1) who to seed on and (2) seed-match rank range. First, we find that seeding on others’ journey stage can be effective in new customer acquisition; despite the cold start nature of customer acquisition using Lookalike audiences, third parties can indeed identify factors unobserved to the advertiser that move individuals along the journey and can be correlated with the lookalikes. Further, while journey-based seeding adds no incremental …

Econometric Analysis Of Asset Price Bubbles, Shuping Shi, Peter C. B. Phillips

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

In the presence of bubbles, asset prices consist of a fundamental and a bubble component, with the bubble component following an explosive dynamic. The general idea for bubble identification is to apply explosive root tests to a proxy of the unobservable bubble. Three notable proxies are the real asset prices, log price-payoff ratios, and estimated non-fundamental components. The rationale for all three proxy choices rests on the definition of bubbles, which has been presented in various forms in the literature. This chapter provides a theoretical framework that incorporates several definitions of bubbles (and fundamentals) and offers guidance for selecting proxies. …