Economics Commons^™

The Elements Necessary For A Successful Startup, Ciaran Mcgurran

Faculty Curated Undergraduate Works

This paper seeks to uncover what really goes into a startup company to get it off the ground, keep it afloat and growing, and mitigate competition through a case study focus on a software-aided investment-strategy building company. Through an interview of the founder and CEO of the case company as well as first-hand experience working in the company, this paper will seek to gain an understanding of the necessary elements and planning that must go into a startup company for it to have success. Additional online texts also provide supplementary general information on startups and how the planning process is …

On The Determination Of Interest Rates In General And Partial Equilibrium Analysis

Journal of Economics and Finance Education

No abstract provided.

Duration And Bond Price Volatility: Some Further Results

Journal of Economics and Finance Education

This paper evaluates the relative performances of three alternative bond price volatility approximations: Macaulay duration, convexityaugmented Macaulay duration, and an alternative proposed by the authors. Unlike the first two methods, the third is exact rather than approximate in predicting changes in zero-coupon bond prices. In addition, the alternative improves on the accuracy of the Macaulay formula and, for large interest rate changes, of the convexityaugmented formula. For small changes, the accuracy of our proposed and of convexity are similar. Finally, calculation of price changes is considerably more computationally efficient using our proposed formulation, providing it certain pedagogical advantages over convexity.(JEL: …

Additional Thoughts On The Determination Of Interest Rates In General And Partial Equilibrium

Journal of Economics and Finance Education

Bill Yang and Mark Yanochik, hereafter Y&Y, raise two main concerns in their comment [Yang and Yanochik, 2005] on our paper [Fields & Hart, 2003 (a)]. The first is that our use of the long-run Classical model to analyze the liquidity preference (LP) and loanable funds (LF) approaches to interest rate determination is questionable because we “inconsistently” take the price level as given. The second is that we have failed to answer the primary question that Y&Y allege we raise in our paper. Specifically, the allegation is that we did not answer the question of which approach, LP or LF, …

A Profile Of Students Majoring In Economics

Journal of Economics and Finance Education

In addition to creating a profile of (our) students who choose to major in economics, we address the issue of whether students who transfer in to a four-year institution from two-year community colleges are as well prepared to complete the relatively rigorous coursework of the economics major. Perhaps surprisingly, we find that students transferring in from two-year institutions appear to be as well prepared, and complete their students in a superior academic manner compared to those students who conducted their entire academic program in a four-year institution.

Mapping The Components Of Finance Cases Using The Cognitive Flexibility Model

Journal of Economics and Finance Education

The theory of cognitive flexibility provides a strong conceptual framework for integrating the multifarious events and situations that combine to form the core of cases used in upper-level finance courses. Transference is the basic tenet of case-based learning. Students must be able to transfer their knowledge and critical thinking skills from one case to another. The issue addressed in this paper is one of practicality. How does one use the cognitive flexibility approach as a pedagogical scaffolding to construct case-based courses in finance? The purpose of this paper is to suggest a means for constructing the learning objects interface for …

Learning From A Simple Options Trading Gam

Journal of Economics and Finance Education

We present a structured real-time classroom options trading game for students who are being exposed to options for the first time and for students who are acquainted with textbook discussions of options markets, but lack any tangible experience related to options markets. The game can be played in one 50-minute class period using blackboard space or a computer display and photocopied handouts. Sample handouts are included, the trading rounds of a call-option game are described in detail, and other versions of the game suggested. We conclude by commenting on benefits of employing active-learning techniques in finance courses.

Illustrating Trade In The Classroom: How Free Trade Can Create Wealth And Decrease Hunger, Literally

Journal of Economics and Finance Education

This paper illustrates an active learning exercise for use in introductory economics courses to teach the benefits of trade. The easily implemented classroom game allows students to experience the power of trade on a first hand basis. This game stimulates a number of discussion topics including comparative advantage, voluntary exchange, exploitation, externalities of trade, and inequality.

Estimating Security Returns Variance: A Review Of Techniques For Classroom Discussion

Journal of Economics and Finance Education

The typical financial management or investments textbook offers variance as a security risk measure, though usually omitting significant discussion concerning drawbacks to standard historical variance estimators and failing to discuss various alternatives to them. This paper reviews alternative variance estimation procedures, the most commonly used of non-relative risk measures. This review paper is intended to draw together variance estimation procedures from a number of sources for undergraduate or M.B.A. finance instructors intending to provide a more complete applications-oriented classroom discussion of risk measurement. Methodologies discussed here include traditional sample variance estimates, extreme value estimators, Black-Scholes implied volatility and AutoRegressive techniques.

Economics And Business Education: A Comparative Study Of The Ukraine And The United States

Journal of Economics and Finance Education

I examined seven different groups of secondary students from the USA and Ukraine, ranging from those with 9 hours of economics instruction to those who had no formal training. The TEL means were tested using a Chi Square test of independence. This study clearly demonstrates two important findings. First, the Ukraine with all of its problems has done a miraculous job of improving both interest in economics and producing more informed students. A second finding is that both countries need to improve education in business in their curriculum if they are to reach the majority of students.

A Framework For Teaching The Rational Voter Model In Public Choice Courses

Journal of Economics and Finance Education

This study provides a simple interpretation and extension of the Rational Voter Model (RVM), which enables students in Public Choice classes to easily understand its application in a real-world context. In doing so, the presentation identifies key aggregate-level economic and non-economic determinants of the expected benefits from voting and further provides empirical findings for the period 1960-2000, data indicate that the voter participation rate has been directly/positively related to strong public approval or strong public disapproval of the incumbent President. This study also finds that the voter participation rate has been positively impacted by the opportunity to vote in Presidential …

From Cafes To Competitiveness: The Influence Of Amenities On Office Values And Suburban Economic Development In Portland, Or, Jihye Kang

Dissertations and Theses

This dissertation examines the spatial and economic implications of urban amenities in the formation of suburban office markets in the post-pandemic period. The research applies principles from agglomeration theory, spatial econometrics, and urban planning to analyze the statistical relationships between amenity distribution, rent formation, and location behavior across central and non-central submarkets.

The research consists of three integrated papers focused on the Portland–Vancouver–Hillsboro, OR–WA Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA). The first paper employs spatial econometric modeling, specifically a Spatial Autoregressive Model with Autoregressive Disturbances (SARAR), to examine the relationship between proximity to cafés and office rent levels in Portland’s central business …

Procurement Without Priors: A Simple Mechanism And Its Notable Performance, Dirk Bergemann, Tibor Heumann, Stephen Morris

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

How should a buyer design procurement mechanisms when suppliers’ costs are unknown, and the buyer does not have a prior belief? We demonstrate that notably simple mechanisms—those that share a constant fraction of the buyer utility with the seller—allow the buyer to realize a guaranteed positive fraction of the efficient social surplus across all possible costs. Moreover, a judicious choice of the share based on the known demand maximizes the surplus ratio guarantee that can be attained across all possible (arbitrarily complex and nonlinear) mechanisms and cost functions. Results apply to related nonlinear pricing and optimal regulation problems.

Explaining Pension Trends And Recent Pension Performance, Nathan Jeppson, John A. Ruddy, David F. Salerno

Pennsylvania Economic Review

Due to significant unfunded liabilities, many employer-sponsored retirement plans both domestically and internationally are shifting away from defined benefit (DB) pension plans to defined contribution (DC) plans. This is especially the case in private industry. Many expected that the COVID-19 pandemic would cause the funding status of DB plans to worsen. However, the opposite occurred. This is primarily due to decreased life expectancies and improved financial market performance. We utilize a 2004-2021 dataset that contains state level GDP, revenue, pension, and life expectancy data to study U.S. state DB pension plans. We are able to explain over 80% of the …

Housing Burden And Insurance Expenditures, Melanie M. Lytell

Honors Capstones

Housing costs shape the way families spend on protection and security. This study looks at how the share of income devoted to housing, the housing burden, influences household spending on four types of insurance: vehicle, life, personal, and health. Using data from nearly 92,000 households and regression models that account for state differences, I find that even small increases in housing burden shift insurance choices in meaningful ways. A one‑percentage‑point rise in housing burden is linked to a 2.1% increase in vehicle insurance spending and a 0.5% increase in life insurance, but a 0.7% decrease in personal insurance and a …

Hkc02 - Stabilizing Credit When Nonperforming Loans Surge: The Role Of Asset Management Companies, Reiner Martin, Edward O'Brien, M. Udara Peiris, Dimitrios P. Tsomocos

Oberlin College Kasper Economics and Business Working Paper Series

When default losses elevate borrowing costs, expanding credit cannot stabilize the economy because default rates feed back to lending rates through bank balance sheets. Asset management companies (AMCs) break this loop by purchasing nonperforming loans at their long-run recovery values, thereby fixing the effective default rate that banks face. Government purchases of performing loans expand credit but leave this feedback intact. In a model calibrated to the eurozone, the AMC reduces quarterly default rates by 0.8 percentage points, lowers lending rates by 1.6 percentage points, and raises welfare by 0.2%. Government purchases crowd out bank deposits, contracting credit; default rates …

Economics Of The Olympics: Impact Of Bidding For And Hosting The Olympic Games On International Openness, Adalynn Cherry

Pennsylvania Economic Review

This study investigates how hosting and unsuccessfully bidding to host the Olympic Games impacts total international trade and influences a country’s openness. This relationship is analyzed using the gravity model of trade to perform a regression analysis of total trade levels from 2000 to 2018. The results of this study did not support the idea that hosting the Olympic Games impacts total trade; although, they did show a strong and permanent positive relationship between unsuccessfully bidding to host the Olympic Games and total international trade. These findings highlight the benefits of the Olympic bidding and candidature process as a policy …

Energetic And Economic Aspects Of Rebound: Part 1 & 2, Matthew Kuperus Heun, Gregor Semieniuk, Paul E. Brockway

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

Presentation to Exergy Economics Network Fri, 5 December 2025

Evaluating How New York City’S Recycling And Organic Waste Systems Reduce Resource Waste And Methane Emissions, Zihan Cao

Publications and Research

This study analyzes New York City’s waste management systems, with a focus on food waste diversion, composting, and renewable energy initiatives, to assess their role in methane emission reduction and resource efficiency. The analysis highlights the relative effectiveness of different waste management pathways and suggests that community-scale composting and decentralized anaerobic digestion are associated with substantial methane reductions relative to cost.

National Expenditure On R&D And International Comparison Of Productivity, Aegus Kim

Pennsylvania Economic Review

A higher national expenditure on research and development (R&D) may lead to a higher level of productivity in the national economy because innovations can improve overall efficiency in production by increasing output per worker. Unlike other empirical studies which suggest the positive impact of R&D expenditure on productivity but are often the result from the firm level or the industry level, this paper investigates a positive correlation between R&D spending and productivity using the 2019 national data for the top 25 countries ranked by R&D expenditure. The paper focuses on the relationship between international values of total factor productivity (TFP) …

The Artificial Intelligence (Ai) Economy In The Mountain West, 2025, Dre Boyd-Weatherly, Sean Curry, Krish Sharma, Kristian Thymianos, William E. Brown Jr.

Economic Development & Workforce

This fact sheet reports on the artificial intelligence (AI) readiness of five Mountain West metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs): Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, AZ; Salt Lake City-Murray, UT; Denver-Aurora-Centennial, CO; Las Vegas-Henderson-North Las Vegas, NV; and Albuquerque, NM. Using data from the Brookings Institution's “Mapping the AI Economy” report, the MSAs are benchmarked based on their overall population, employment, talent, adoption, and innovation.

Exploring The Socioeconomic Determinants Of Abortion: Evidence From Pennsylvania, Guido Giuntini, Allyssa A. Wadsworth, Michael A. Malcolm

Pennsylvania Economic Review

Economic factors play a key role in determining fertility and the number of abortions performed. Using detailed county-level data from Pennsylvania, we used fixed-effects analysis to examine how changes in these economic factors are related to the number of abortions. Our most robust estimate suggests that each percentage point increase in the poverty rate is associated with approximately 5 additional abortions per 1000 live births, but that increases in college education rates are associated with a decline in abortions. We also offer some preliminary evidence on the effects of partisanship, religiosity and proximity to an abortion clinic.

Contests With Ambiguous Prizes, Cary Deck, Aidan Hathaway, Emma Kate Henry, Tigran Melkonyan, Samuel Redinger

ESI Working Papers

This paper examines behavior in contests where the prize value is ambiguous. We develop a theoretical model of bidding in a Tullock contest with an ambiguous prize where contestants account for the ambiguity attitude of their rival. Ambiguity affects optimal behavior via two countervailing channels - a direct effect arising from contestants’ ambiguity about the value of the prize and an indirect effect corresponding to the effect of ambiguity on the opponent’s behavior. Using a controlled laboratory experiment, we elicit individual risk and ambiguity attitudes and compare predicted and observed behavior in contests with an ambiguous prize, a risky prize …

Shock Transmission In Granular Economies: Impact Of Pass-Through Effects Of Idiosyncratic Microshocks To The Aggregate, Anamarija Cijan, Jože P. Damijan, Črt Kostevc

Economic and Business Review

This paper studies the importance of shocks to the largest firms on the aggregate output. Using firm-level data on eight European countries (2006--2019), we find that shocks to the largest firms explain an important part of aggregate fluctuations. Our paper brings several novelties. Firstly, in addition to the aggregate level, we extend the analysis of the transmission of firm-level shocks to study the shocks at the sectoral level. Secondly, we provide a novel measurement for demand-side shocks within granularity. We show that idiosyncratic shocks affecting the largest 20 firms can explain almost half of the output volatility, which is consistent …

Resolving The Energy Efficiency Paradox: Leveraging Benefits For Saudi Arabia’S Building Sector, Fateh Belaïd, Mahelet G. Fikru

Economics Faculty Research & Creative Works

This article examines the economics of energy efficiency in Saudi Arabia's building sector, centering on the "energy efficiency paradox," the observed under adoption of cost-effective technologies despite their clear benefits—such as reducing energy use and associated emissions. We show that a mix of market barriers and behavioral biases—including split incentives, informational gaps, and the value-action gap—constrains adoption of energy-efficient solutions. Recent modeling suggests that improved air-conditioning labels could save up to 80 TWh of electricity annually, though rebound effects may erode some of these gains. Our analysis shows that tackling market failures is necessary but not enough. Strong building codes …

Performance And Policy Review: Does Connecticut’S Open Choice Program Provide Equitable Opportunities To Underserved Students?, Jacob S. Carson, Gazi M. Duman

Pennsylvania Economic Review

The intent of Connecticut’s Open Choice Program is to offer underserved urban students the opportunity to achieve equitable educational outcomes by attending higher-quality public schools. As students transfer to schools that theoretically have more resources, increased educational achievement growth is expected. Additionally, with the implementation of the state exam, Smarter Balanced Assessment, student growth metrics have been introduced in state reporting. Examining student growth is a better measure for school quality than achievement levels. To understand the impact of Open Choice Program, a multiple regression analysis is applied to multiple imputed aggregate data to determine the relationship between school choice …

Hkc03 - Leading A Horse To Water: Understanding The Potential Consequences Of Ordeals In Subsidized Tariff Pricing, Evan Plous Kresch, Carlota Loran Lopez

Oberlin College Kasper Economics and Business Working Paper Series

Water utilities attempting to balance widespread network access with financial stability in providing services often employ Increasing Block Tariffs (IBTs), where volumetric rates increase nonlinearly with water consumed. The widespread adoption of IBTs by utilities across the world is partly attributed to their ability to cross-subsidize smaller monthly users; however, this often leads to the undesirable outcome that large poor households are shifted into higher tariff blocks. To address this, water utilities often adopt a“social tariff”, with significantly lower rates specifically targeted at poor households. However, most of these social tariff policies require households to opt-in or apply to the …

Firms Heterogeneity In Indonesia’S Manufacturing And Services Sectors, Rizki Nauli Siregar

Economics and Finance in Indonesia

Firm heterogeneity is the building block of modern trade theories. One of its important implications is that comparative advantage is driven by firm productivity, rather than sector differences across countries. Despite the prevalence of this framework, there has not been any systematic documentation on firm heterogeneity in Indonesia’s man ufacturing and services firms. Using the World Bank Enterprise Survey (WBES) data for Indonesia in 2015 and 2023, we confirm that there is firm heterogeneity in the form of size and productivity dispersion in both of the economy’s manufacturing and services sectors. We also find no strong association between size and …

Beyond The Aid Paradigm: Neocolonialism, Recolonisation And The Future For Africa’S Development, John Ringson, Manamela Johannes David Matshabaphala

Southern African Journal of Policy and Development

The persistence of poverty, inequality, and underdevelopment in Africa, despite decades of foreign aid and assistance, has raised fundamental questions about the efficacy and sustainability of the aid paradigm. This qualitative desktop research study, employing discourse analysis, critically examines the complex relationships between aid, neocolonialism, and recolonisation in Africa, exploring the implications for the continent's future development. Drawing on a critical discourse analysis of existing literature, policy documents, and online archives, this study reveals how the aid paradigm has perpetuated neocolonialism and recolonisation in Africa, undermining the continent's sovereignty, agency, and self-determination. The study illuminates the power dynamics and relationships …

How Is South Africa's Black Economic Empowerment Policy (Bee) Addressing Historical Inequalities And Promoting Inclusive Development As Of 2024?, Nasim Uz Zaman

Southern African Journal of Policy and Development

South Africa’s Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) policy was introduced to dismantle apartheid-era economic disparities; however, its corporate-driven model has fostered symbolic compliance rather than substantive transformation. This study critically examines BEE’s structural limitations, specifically its failure to generate mass employment, its susceptibility to elite capture, and the prevalence of "fronting" practices. By juxtaposing BEE with affirmative action frameworks in Malaysia, India, and the United States, this research elucidates why ownership redistribution alone has failed to translate into inclusive economic mobility. Employing a qualitative policy analysis, this study synthesizes unemployment trajectories, implementation distortions, and systemic governance inefficiencies to highlight the constraints …