Economics Commons^™

Essays On The Economics Of Hurricanes, Haishan Yang

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

This dissertation explores how Hurricanes Katrina and Rita affected the economy in New Orleans and nearby areas in Louisiana. Using a variety of econometric techniques, my dissertation aims to understand the effects of these storms on employment, wages, and housing prices.

In the first essay, I focus on employment in New Orleans. I find that Katrina led to significant and lasting job losses in nearly every sector, while the construction sector stood as an exception, recovering within just three months. Interestingly, wages increased in most sectors. This suggests that with fewer workers available, those who remained became more valuable, leading …

China’S Changing Perspective On The Wto: From Aspiration, Assimilation To Alienation, Henry S. Gao

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Since its accession to the WTO twenty years ago, China’s image has shifted from a good student aspiring to assimilate itself into the multilateral trading system to one that is increasingly alienated from key WTO principles. How has China’s perspective on WTO been evolving? What are the reasons behind China’s changing perspective? This chapter addresses these questions from the Chinese perspective with a comprehensive analysis of the key moments in China’s first two decades in the WTO, followed by practical suggestions on how to engage China more constructively in the WTO and beyond.

Dynamic Factor Copula Models With Estimated Cluster Assignments, Dong Hwan Oh, Andrew John Patton

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper proposes a dynamic multi-factor copula for use in high-dimensional time series applications. A novel feature of our model is that the assignment of individual variables to groups is estimated from the data, rather than being pre-assigned using SIC industry codes, market capitalization ranks, or other ad hoc methods. We adapt the k-means clustering algorithm for use in our application and show that it has excellent finite-sample properties. Applying the new model to returns on 110 US equities, we find around 20 clusters to be optimal. In out-of-sample forecasts, we find that a model with as few as five …

Market For Patents, Monopoly, And Misallocation, Shang-Jin Wei, Jianhuan Xu, Ge Yin, Xiaobo Zhang

Research Collection School Of Economics

The paper studies a possible “dark side” of patent trade in enhancing the market power of monopolists. We explore the different effects of China’s 2008 tax reform on patent innovations and sales across industries. In particular, although easier patent trade leads to more patent creation, the new patents are disproportionately connected to existing monopolists and are more likely to be acquired by them. Using an endogenous growth model with patent trade, we show that subsidizing patent trade could skew investors’ research to appeal to the monopolists, increase the latter’s monopoly power, and reduce social welfare. An optimal subsidy policy for …

How Social Structure Shapes Female Competition Throughout Her Lifetime, Jeffrey Flory, Kenneth L. Leonard, Magda Tsaneva, Kathryn Vasilaky

Economics

Many studies find a consistent gender gap in competitiveness where men are more likely to compete than women given the same level of ability. Using data from experiments with women ages 12 through 90 in matrilocal and patrilocal communities in rural Malawi, we show that this gender gap does not exist uniformly for all women nor across their whole lifetime. We first replicate three main findings from the gender and competition literature: (i) women are less likely to compete on average; and the gender gap differs by (ii) culture and by (iii) age. In a new finding, we show that …

Are Bond Returns Predictable With Real-Time Macro Data?, Dashan Huang, Fuwei Jiang, Kunpeng Li, Guoshi Tong, Guofu Zhou

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We investigate the predictability of bond returns using real-time macro variables and consider the possibility of a nonlinear predictive relationship and the presence of weak factors. To address these issues, we propose a scaled sufficient forecasting (sSUFF) method and analyze its asymptotic properties. Using both the existing and the new method, we find empirically that real-time macro variables have significant forecasting power both in-sample and out-of-sample. Moreover, they generate sizable economic values, and their predictability is not spanned by the yield curve. We also observe that the forecasted bond returns are countercyclical, and the magnitude of predictability is stronger during …

How Commonality Persists? (Through Investors' Sentiment And Attention), Chyng Wen Tee, Raja Velu, Zhaoque Zhou

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Studies on commonality generally attribute the variation in asset returns to the variation in order flows. In this research study, we show that order flows do not predict asset returns, rather their relationship have been static over time. Thus we model both returns and the order flows as endogenous variables, and use investors' sentiment and attention as exogenous factors via a reduced-rank regression. We provide empirical evidence to demonstrate that cross-sectional commonality in attention (sentiment) is linearly (nonlinearly) associated with both returns and order flows at the intraday level, while the sentiment and attention measures themselvesexhibit a nonlinear mutual relationship, …

In Search Of Cryptocurrency Failure, Donglian Ma, Jun Tu, Zhaobo Zhu

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper explores the determinants of cryptocurrency failure and the pricing of crypto failure risk. We document different significant market- and characteristic-based predictors for coin and token failures. The introduction of Bitcoin futures and the outbreak of COVID19 affect the importance of many predictors. Investors require extra return for bearing high failure risk of crypto assets. The return difference across high and low failure risk crypto assets is not explained by the market, size and momentum factors in the cryptocurrency market. Finally, investors benefit from diversifying into high failure risk crypto assets that is little correlated with the stock market.

Gender Divergence In Premarket Skill Acquisition And Wage Inequality, Sunha Myong

Research Collection School Of Economics

I study the changes in premarket skills and the evolution of the wage distribution across two cohorts using the NLSY79 and NLSY97. To estimate the relative importance of changes in premarket skills and changes in skill prices in explaining the evolution of the wage distribution, I apply the DiNardo, Fortin, and Lemieux decomposition method (DiNardo et al. 1996). I find a substantial gender divergence in premarket skill acquisition and wage gain across the two cohorts. Women's wage gain associated with changes in premarket skills is greater than that of men's at all levels of the wage distribution. Changes in premarket …

Assessing The Feasibility Of Implementing A Dairy Industry In Mauritius, Sophia Ultes

Economics Undergraduate Honors Theses

Mauritius faces food security and economic challenges due to its lack of a domestic dairy industry. To address this, the University of Arkansas partnered with the Ministry of Agro Industry and Food Security to explore the possibility of establishing a dairy sector on the island.

Through surveys and interviews with locals, including restaurant owners and grocery store customers, we investigated the demand for fresh milk. We also studied factors like consumer preferences and production costs. Our research, conducted with IRB approval, aimed to understand if people are willing to buy locally produced milk.

During the summer, our team visited Mauritius …

An Econometric Modeling Of Price Support: The Bitcoin Case, Levent Kutlu

School of Economics and Finance Faculty Publications

In technical analysis, price support plays an important role. In line with the stochastic frontier analysis, we present a formal model to estimate the bottom price support for a stock or cryptocurrency. As an example, we examine Bitcoin's bottom price.

Do Price Controlled Basic Food Items Affect Inflation In Fiji?, Joel Abraham, Akeneta Vonoyauyau, Seema W. Narayan Prof.

Bulletin of Monetary Economics and Banking

This note examines the effects of price-controlled perishable food items on inflation in Fiji. We study year-on-year changes in headline inflation and disaggregate measures of inflation in the form of food and non-alcoholic beverages and vegetables against three perishable food items used daily by Fijian households, namely, potatoes, onion, and garlic over the period 2019:01-2022:08. We also follow Narayan et al (2023), allowing for the lags and leads framework in examining Fiji’s inflation. Our results show that the leads and lags model explain 22%, 27% and 65% of headline, food and non-alcoholic beverages and vegetables inflation rates, respectively, over the …

Predictive Analytics Supporting Labor Market Success: A Career Explorer For Job Seekers And Workforce Professionals In Michigan, Christopher J. O'Leary, Salomon Orellana, Kevin Doyle, Randall W. Eberts, Ben Damerow, Amy Meyers, Kenneth J. Kline, Anna Wilcoxson, Beth C. Truesdale, Scott Powell

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

Career Explorer provides customized career exploration tools for workforce development staff and job seekers in Michigan. There are separate Career Explorer modules for mediated staff services and self-service by job seekers. The system was developed by the Michigan Center for Data and Analytics in collaboration with the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research and Michigan Works! Southwest. It was funded by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Workforce Investment and the Schmidt Futures foundation’s Data for the American Dream (D4AD) project. In this paper, we describe specifications of the models behind the frontline-staff-mediated version of Career Explorer, which are …

Match Effects And The Gains From Alternative Job Assignments: Evidence From A Teacher Labor Market, Mariana Laverde, Elton Mykerezi, Aaron Sojourner, Aradhya Sood

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

This paper studies the relative importance of teacher-student match effects and general teacher effectiveness in producing student learning, and quantifies gains from alternative teacher assignments. We estimate a framework that separates these components, allowing match quality to vary with observable student characteristics and unobservable teacher-school factors. Using more than a decade of administrative data from a large urban district, we address endogenous sorting with quasi-random assignment variation induced by differences in driving time between teachers and schools. Match effects are similar in magnitude to general effectiveness. Teacher-acceptable reassignments can raise average test scores by about 0.13 standard deviations.

An Analysis Of Poverty Convergence: Evidence From Pennsylvania Counties, Angel Alcantara, Stephanie M. Brewer, James J. Jozefowicz

The Journal of Economics and Politics

This paper extends applications of unconditional and conditional β-convergence and σ-convergence analysis to poverty rates in a panel data sample of Pennsylvania counties during the period 1990-2019. Spatial structural breaks between rural and urban counties in Pennsylvania plus the possibility that Philadelphia County is an outlier are acknowledged to avoid spurious inferences. The findings support the existence of unconditional β-convergence in the pooled, urban, and rural samples with non-metropolitan areas exhibiting the greatest convergence. However, the largest conditional β-convergence is observed for urban counties, and this outcome is robust to the exclusion of Philadelphia County. Graphical evidence evinces a greater …

Behavioral Science Interventions Could Increase Snap Comprehension And Awareness Among Military Families, Colleen Heflin, Hannah Patnaik, Leonard M. Lopoo, Siobhan O'Keefe

Population Health Research Brief Series

Food insecurity is more common among military families than the general population, and the transition from active service to civilian life is a time of heightened risk. The Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) is designed to support food security among low-income families. Many eligible military and veteran families do not enroll in SNAP due to a lack of information, stigma, and administrative barriers. This brief highlights findings from a survey experiment conducted in 2022 and 2023 to assess how small changes to SNAP informational flyers, such as simplifying information provided about SNAP, highlighting that other veterans use SNAP, and emphasizing …

The Role Of Geopolitical Risk In Conflict Analysis: Critical Insights, Daniel Rajmil, Lucia Morales

Other resources

Conflict analysis is a key step to be considered by conflict and peace academics, practitioners and policymakers willing to assess the complexities associated with conflict scenarios. With this aim, this essay explores how Geopolitical Risk, particularly the Geopolitical Risk Index, could be used as a supportive tool for multidisciplinary studies in geoeconomics and geopolitics. The case of the war in Ukraine was taken as an example that guided the research framework. The core research findings show that conflict studies could accommodate geopolitical risk as a conflict analysis tool. However, caution is needed regarding the limitations and complexities associated with econometric …

Capital Budgeting Of Multinational Corporations In Politically Risky Environments: Evidence From The Ivory Coast, Rokya Kamagate

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

No abstract provided.

Reflections On Empowering China’S Digital Economy To Enhance International Competitiveness Through Tax System Reform, Yang Xue, Lina Hu

Bulletin of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Chinese Version)

At present, promoting the continuous improvement of the international competitiveness of the digital economy has become a new track for countries to compete. The study stands that the tax reform in the digital economy era is based on the accelerated evolution from the industrial economy to the digital economy, the wider application scenarios of digital technology, and the continuous improvement of the breadth and depth of digital infrastructure coverage. This study analyzes the problems arising from the development of the digital economy at this stage, such as the decline in the regulatory role of traditional tax functions, the loss of …

Blue Economy Coastal Resources: Economic Valuation And Governance For Achieving Sustainable Development Goals, Unmana Sarangi

Journal of Ocean and Coastal Economics

The research paper entitled "Blue Economy Coastal Resources its Economic Valuation and Governance for Achieving Sustainable Development Goals" is an attempt to define and analyze the concept of Blue Economy, Coastal Resources, its Economic Valuation and Governance and its implications for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs) slated by United Nations. The research study covers aspects such as development of coastal resources for building a blue economy to achieve SDGs, economic valuation of coastal resources to develop appropriate and suitable mechanisms for achieving healthy ocean and its importance for current and future generations, sustainability of coastal resources and coastal management …

Economics Of Conservation And The Application To The Runkle Woods, Indigenous American Cultural Student Association, Brad Kerry, Eliza Hendrix, Mateo Bush, Ryan Diza

Runkle Woods Symposia

Student Eliza Hendrix presents a brief history of local Native American culture to give context to Adjunct Professor Brad Kerry's portion of the presentation focusing on conservation through an economic lens.

Financial Integration And Exchange Market Pressure, Kate Phylaktis, Muhammad Aftab

CBER Conference

This study examines the role of financial integration on exchange market pressure (EMP) across a representative group of forty-two advanced and emerging markets over the period 2000-2019, which covers the global financial crisis, which has heightened monetary and economic policy uncertainty. We use a novel measure of financial integration, namely the uncovered equity return differential versus the US, which is based on the Uncovered Equity Parity and is available at a monthly frequency.

Economic Policy Uncertainty And Stock Portfolio Optimization: Cross Country Wavelet-Based Approach, Sara Iqbal, Waqar Ahmed Sethar, Suad Sindhiyao

CBER Conference

The purpose of this research is to assess the impact of Economic Policy Uncertainty (EPU) on the Sectoral returns of China, Pakistan, the USA, the UK, and India. The panel data consisting of EPU, and sectoral returns of Stock Market data of sample countries is from 2012 to 2022. To achieve the research objectives, the wavelet coherence method is used. By applying wavelet coherence analysis to the time series data of economic policy uncertainty and sector returns, researchers can explore how the coherence or correlation between these variables changes over different periods and frequency components which helps in assessing short-, …

Kerala’S International Tourism Demand: An Inquiry Into The Validity Of The Standard And Regular Determinants, Muhammed Salim Anappattath

CBER Conference

The present study aims to identify the role of standard factors and other regular potential determinants in influencing the tourist arrivals in Indian state of Kerala. We used month-wise data of the foreign tourist arrivals in Kerala from January 2002 to December 2019 and applied auto-regressive distributed lagged (ARDL) approach, with the seasonality-adjusted data, for the same.

Appraising Economic Development: Estimating Subnational Gdp For Pakistan Through Nightlights, Wajid Ali

CBER Conference

Pakistan, where inequalities and unbalanced development are prevalent. This study focuses on Pakistan as a case example and employs three distinct datasets, including nightime lights data from the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (NPP-VIIRS), district-level information on prices and production of selected agricultural commodities, and population data from the LandScan Global Population project.

Inflation, Monetary Policy, And The Sacrifice Ratio, Leef H. Dierks

CBER Conference

Motivated by the 2022 uptick in headline inflation and the marked shift towards globally more restrictive monetary policies, this paper examines the sacrifice ratio, i.e., the percentage cost of actual production lost to every one percentage point decrease in (trend) inflation, for selected Southeast Asian economies. Results indicate that upon adopting a contractive monetary policy, GDP growth dropped by up to 0.5 per cent, confirming that monetary authorities’ disinflationary policies typically trigger declines in both output and employment. However, as even minor adjustments to the way of determining the sacrifice ratio lead to varying results, caution ought to be applied …

Analyzing Household Income Inequality: A Subgroup Decomposition Of Generalized Entropy Measures, Jazib Mumtaz, Sayed Irshad Hussain

CBER Conference

The study proves that education level, nature of employment, asset ownership, and gender contribute significantly to income inequality. The study further indicates that changes in income distribution for the bottom of the population through paid employment, female income, and asset ownership could impact income inequality. The study's results can be used to assess policy impact on social welfare and help policymakers design targeted interventions, develop efficient taxation, and create a sustainable model for inclusive growth.

Computational Calculation Of Sovereign Default Probabilities: Pakistan's Case, Salman Zaffar

CBER Conference

This paper uses Black-Scholes-Merton model to quantitatively assess sovereign debt sustainability of Pakistan. Both the International Monetary Fund and Asian Development Bank have separately proposed applying Black Scholes-Merton model to calculate the sovereign default risk. Historically, the Black-Scholes Merton Model has been used to analyze corporate default risk. Both the sovereign and corporate default risk calculation are based on contingent claims approach which calculates risk by reading the sovereign and corporate balance sheets, respectively. Thus, in light of the proposition by these two financial bodies this paper calculates the default probability of Pakistan in 2001-2022. As the efficacy, it is …

Evaluating The Impact Of Withdrawal Of Telegraphic Transfer (Tt) Charges Reimbursement On The Remittances From The Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia (Ksa), Muhammad Omer

CBER Conference

This paper attempted to estimate the impact of withdrawal of TTC reimbursement on remittances inflowing from the KSA into Pakistan. For this purpose, we have used difference in difference (DID) technique on data from July 2018 to September 2022. Our estimates suggest that this policy led to a decline in the remittances inflows from KSA on average between US$ 31 million to US$ 76 million in each month. From policy perspective, Government of Pakistan needs to review this policy of reimbursement on remittances inflowing from KSA. Our results appears robust to various changes in estimation framework.

Ascenso Humano: Lebret, O. P. Y Los Objetivos De Desarrollo Sostenible, Olga Marina García Norato, Fray Eduardo González Gil, O. P., Laura Bermúdez Franco, Arly Adriana Rodríguez, Yesid Fernando Pabón Serrano

Ciencias Administrativas, Económicas y Contables

Este libro analiza la planeación del desarrollo en Colombia, enfocándose en la Agenda 2030 y la alineación de las metas nacionales con los objetivos globales. A pesar de estos esfuerzos, no se han logrado reducir significativamente la pobreza, la desigualdad y el conflicto social. La investigación propone nuevas estrategias de intervención, integrando los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible (ODS) con las categorías de ascenso humano de Lebret, O.P., que abarcan dimensiones ambientales, sociales y económicas. El objetivo principal es incluir estas categorías en los ODS y en la política pública colombiana para promover un desarrollo integral y armonioso. Con un enfoque …