Economics Commons^™

The Negro Science Of Exchange: Classical Economics And Its Chicago Revival, David M. Levy, Sandra J. Peart

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

For analytical purposes, are economic agents—humans—the same or not? In this chapter, we argue that, historically, the debate between those who trusted in markets and those who did not followed logically from different answers to this questions. Starting with Adam Smith, classical economists held that humans are the same in their capacity for language and trade. They concluded that since markets are useful for some agents, they are beneficial for all of us. But the supposition of homogeneous competence was widely questioned in the nineteenth century but those who held that significant differences exist among humans, only some of whom …

"Not An Average Human Being": How Economics Succumbed To Racial Accounts Of Economic Man, Sandra J. Peart, David M. Levy

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

In this chapter, we shall show how the attacks on the doctrine of human homogeneity succeeded—how, late in the century, economists came to embrace accounts of racial heterogeneity entailing different capacities of optimization.¹ We attribute the demise of the classical tradition largely to the ill-understood influence of anthropologists and eugenicists² and to a popular culture that served to disseminate racial theories visually and in print. Specifically, W. R. Greg, James Hunt, and Francis Galton all attacked the analytical postulate of homogeneity that characterized classical economics from Adam Smith³ through John Stuart Mill. Greg cofounded the eugenics movement …

On The "Bitter Quarrel" Between Economics And Its Enemies, Sandra J. Peart

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

Economics has long had its enemies. The question is, why? What, precisely, is it about economics that its critics oppose? William Coleman seeks to tell the story of «anti-economics», «to take its measure» (p. 3), and then finally to defend economics from these attacks. His is a broad, sweeping study that uses a wide lens, panoramically over time, to survey the opposition. The crisis in economics, edited by Edward Fullbrook, provides us instead with a detailed snapshot of a recent sort of anti-economics - the Post-Autistic Economics (PAE) movement that originated among French economics students in 2000. Both serve to …

Coastal Empire Economic Monitor, 3rd Quarter, 2004, Armstrong Atlantic State University Center For Regional Analysis

Coastal Empire Economic Monitor

The Coastal Empire Economic Indicators are designed to provide continuously updating quarterly snapshots of the Savannah Metropolitan Statistical Area economy. The coincident index measures the current economic heartbeat of the region. The leading index provides a short term forecast of the region’s economic activity in six to nine months.

Coastal Empire Economic Monitor, 2nd Quarter, 2004, Armstrong Atlantic State University Center For Regional Analysis

Coastal Empire Economic Monitor

The Coastal Empire Economic Indicators are designed to provide continuously updating quarterly snapshots of the Savannah Metropolitan Statistical Area economy. The coincident index measures the current economic heartbeat of the region. The leading index provides a short term forecast of the region’s economic activity in six to nine months.

Coastal Empire Economic Monitor, 1st Quarter, 2004, Armstrong Atlantic State University Center For Regional Analysis

Coastal Empire Economic Monitor

The Coastal Empire Economic Indicators are designed to provide continuously updating quarterly snapshots of the Savannah Metropolitan Statistical Area economy. The coincident index measures the current economic heartbeat of the region. The leading index provides a short term forecast of the region’s economic activity in six to nine months.

Coastal Empire Economic Monitor, 4th Quarter, 2004, Armstrong Atlantic State University Center For Regional Analysis

Coastal Empire Economic Monitor

The Coastal Empire Economic Indicators are designed to provide continuously updating quarterly snapshots of the Savannah Metropolitan Statistical Area economy. The coincident index measures the current economic heartbeat of the region. The leading index provides a short term forecast of the region’s economic activity in six to nine months.

Improving Economic Literacy: The Role Of Concurrent Enrollment Programs, Donald H. Dutowsky, Jerry M. Evensky, Gerald S. Edmonds

Economics - All Scholarship

This paper introduces Concurrent Enrollment Programs (CEPs), within the context of Syracuse University Project Advance (PA) Economics, as a way to improve economic literacy. We describe measures implemented to operate PA Economics as a high-quality CEP, as well as the National Alliance of Concurrent Education Partnerships to establish national standards. This study also contains results from administering to high school students taking PA Economics the nationally normed Test of Economic Literacy (TEL). PA students average nearly one percentage point higher than the AP/Honors Economics Group, and score considerably better than AP/Honors Economics in fundamentals and international economics. By cognitive level, …

Payoff Continuity In Incomplete Information Games: A Comment, Casey G. Rothschild

Economics Faculty Scholarship

Kajii and Morris (J. Econ. Theory 1998, 267-276) provide necessary and sufficient conditions for two priors to be strategically close. The restrictiveness of these con- ditions establishes that strategic behavior can be highly sensitive to the assumed prior. Their results thus recommend care in the use of priors in economic modelling. Unfortunately, their proof of a central proposition fails for zero probability types. This comment corrects their proof to account for these cases.

Valuation Averaging: A New Procedure For Resolving Valuation Disputes, Keith Sharfman

Rutgers Law School (Newark) Faculty Papers

In this Article, Professor Sharfman addresses the problem of "discretionary valuation": that courts resolve valuation disputes arbitrarily and unpredictably, thus harming litigants and society. As a solution, he proposes the enactment of "valuation averaging," a new procedure for resolving valuation disputes modeled on the algorithmic valuation processes often agreed to by sophisticated private firms in advance of any dispute. He argues that by replacing the discretion of judges and juries with a mechanical valuation process, valuation averaging would cause litigants to introduce more plausible and conciliatory valuations into evidence and thereby reduce the cost of valuation litigation and increase the …

November 2003, Syracuse Department Of Economics

Economics - All Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Montana Nonresident Traveler Expenditures And Economic Contribution: 2002, Norma Nickerson

Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research Publications

This report shows the economic contributions, expenditures, and average daily spending of nonresident visitors to Montana during 2002.

Liability Rules For Constitutional Rights: The Case Of Mass Detentions, Eugene Kontorovich

ExpressO

Constitutional law assumes that rights should always be protected by property rules – that is, the government can only take them with the individual’s consent. This Article extends to constitutional law the insights of Calabresi and Melamed’s famous article on property and liability rules. Whether rights should be protected by property rules or liability rules depends on the transaction costs of negotiating a transfer of rights. As transaction costs rise, liability rules become more attractive.

This Article shows that liability rules can have an important role in constitutional law. Using mass detentions in national security emergencies as a case study, …

Norms, Rationality, And Communication: A Reputation Theory Of Social Norms, Andreas Engert

ExpressO

Does the discovery of "law and social norms" necessitate breaking with the rational choice paradigm? In this paper, I argue for an answer in the negative. To this end, I propose a reputation theory of social norms, which differs from other proposals in two principal respects: First, it explains norms without any assumption of behavioral constraints (like habit or conscience) and normative motivations (like altruism or aspiration to esteem). Second, it does even without any assumption regarding model-exogenous, private information that most other reputation and signaling explanations use (such as the discount rate in Eric Posner's signaling model).

Instead, reputation …

Real Options In Law: (Possibly, Frivolous) Litigation And Other Applications, Peter H. Huang

ExpressO

This Article advances the thesis that real options are not only ubiquitous in law, but also provide novel insights about legal decision making, doctrines and rules. An introduction provides a brief a primer about financial options, real options, and real options in law. Part I of this Article develops implications of the fact that every lawsuit contains a sequence of real options for the plaintiff to unilaterally abandon that lawsuit. Part II of this Article appraises the limitations of game-theoretic analysis of the abandonment options embedded in litigation and some responses to such limitations. Part III of this Article illustrates …

No Free Lunch: How Settlement Can Reduce The Legal System's Ability To Induce Efficient Behavior, Abraham Lee Wickelgren

ExpressO

While there is widespread agreement that it is better for cases to settle than go to trial, the arguments in favor of settlement have typically overlooked how settlement affects one of the most important functions of the legal system: influencing the behavior that gives rise to lawsuits. This essay argues that, in some cases, settlement can impair the ability of the legal system to deter harmful behavior without chilling desirable behavior. Where it exists, this effect is a fundamental property of settlement in that there is no way to change other legal rules to eliminate it. Because settlements also have …

Teaching The Ethical Foundations Of Economics, Jonathan B. Wight

Economics Faculty Publications

Some economists consider their discipline a science, and thereby divorced from messy ethical details, the normative passions of right and wrong. They teach in a moral vacuum, perhaps even advocating economic agents' operating independently and avariciously, asserting that this magically produces the greatest good for society.

Affirmative Action: More Efficient Than Color Blindness, Abraham Lee Wickelgren

ExpressO

One of the most compelling reasons against affirmative action is the principle of color blindness, that is, the idea that race is an irrelevant characteristic that should not affect higher education admissions or hiring decisions. Despite its intuitive appeal, this paper shows that adherence to this principle impedes economic efficiency when there has been past discrimination based on color. Past discrimination creates inefficiencies in the economy that persist across generations. Because of this persistence, race is not an irrelevant characteristic for firms and universities looking to hire or admit the best candidates. Affirmative action, not color-blindness, is necessary to reduce …

The Rational Exuberance Of Structuring Venture Capital Startups, Victor Fleischer

ExpressO

This Article takes the bursting of the dot com bubble as an opportunity to reevaluate the tax structure of venture capital startups. By organizing startups as corporations rather than as partnerships, investors and entrepreneurs seem to leave money on the table by failing to fully use tax losses -- especially since the vast majority of startups fail. Conventional wisdom attributes the lack of attention paid to losses to a "gambler's mentality" or optimism bias. I argue here that the use of the corporate form is, in fact, rational, or at least that there is a method to the madness.

I …

Adverse Selection And Moral Hazard In Forum Shopping: Conflicts Of Law As Spontaneous Order, Nita Ghei, Francesco Parisi

ExpressO

In a world with multiple, overlapping jurisdictions, any given litigation could be pursued in more than one forum. Different laws can yield different outcomes. This leads to parties selecting a forum percieved as favorable to file suit. This practice, also known as forum shopping, has been much criticized, and various reforms to the law of conflicts of law have been proposed as a way to reduce this practice. The article examines the inefficiencies associated with forum selection, and the alleged shortcomings in conflicts law as it currently exists. We argue that forum selection cannot be eliminated in a world with …

Continuous Lexicographic Preferences, Vicki Knoblauch

Economics Working Papers

Under what conditions are lexicographically representable preferences continuously representable? This question is actually two questions, since there are two natural definitions of continuity for lexicographic representations. A complete answer is given for one of these questions, and the other is answered for two-dimensional lexicographic representations.

Montana Nonresident Traveler Expenditure Profiles: 2002, Norma Nickerson

Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research Publications

This report examines spending profiles of nonresident travelers to Montana. It displays the average daily expenditures by purpose of trip for different spending categories during 2002.

Monopoly Power In The Electronic Information Industry: Why, And So What?, Curt A. Hessler

ExpressO

This "law and economics" article diagnoses why monopoly power infects so many markets in the electronic media, communications, and information technology industries (collectively the "Industry"),and recommends changes to prevailing intellectual property and antitrust doctrines to remedy this problem.

The analysis focuses on a single "norm" -- the maximization of economic value, as defined by standard welfare economic theory. Identifying three distinct functions that operate throughout this otherwise diverse Industry -- authoring, publishing, and distribution -- the article notes that two economic peculiarities characterize most Industry markets: the technical feasibility of "non-rivalrous use" of digitized information products, and the frequent "creative …

Bounded Rationality, The Doctrine Of Impracticability, And The Governance Of Relational Contracts, Donald J. Smythe

ExpressO

This article uses a behavioral economics approach to analyze the effects of the doctrine of impracticability on “relational” contracts -- long-term contractual agreements that are typically adapted to changed circumstances and unforeseen contingencies as they arise. In contrast to conventional law and economics studies, the article concludes that the impracticability doctrine has the potential to improve the efficiency and productivity of a wide range of long-term contractual agreements, and offers normative guidelines as to how the doctrine should be applied. The article also examines and rejects various philosophical objections to the impracticability doctrine, such as the arguments that it interferes …

Social Security Reform: An Expository Report, Nathan J. Voss

Honors Capstones

Capstone submitted as a graduation requirement for the BSU Honors Program.

Financing Chinese Capitalism: Principal Banks, Economic Crisis, And Chinese Family Firms In Singapore, Henry W. Yeung

Cultural Approaches to Asian Financial Markets

It is a widely circulated myth that Chinese family firms rely exclusively on kinship ties and network capital to finance their domestic and international operations. In this empirical paper, I argue that large Chinese family firms are increasingly engaging with financial markets on a global scale. In order to finance their transnational business activities, these firms require financial services from banks beyond their domestic economies, resulting in a growing number and geographical spread of their principal banks. Second, I contend that as these Chinese family firms are diversifying their principal banks beyond a narrow confinement to other Chinese family-owned banks …

April 2003, Syracuse Department Of Economics

Economics - All Scholarship

No abstract provided.

A Tractable Approach To The Firm Location Decision Problem, Octávio Figueiredo, Paulo Guimaraes, Douglas P. Woodward

Faculty Publications

The conditional logit model based on random utility maximization has provided an adequate framework to model firm location decisions. However, in practice, the implementation of this methodology presents problems when one has to handle complex choice scenarios with a large number of spatial alternatives. We posit the Poisson regression as a tractable solution to these problems. We demonstrate that by taking advantage of an equivalence relation between the likelihood function of the conditional logit and the Poisson regression we can, under certain circumstances, easily estimate a conditional logit model regardless of the number of choices. This insight should be particularly …

Behavioral Economics And The Sec, Stephen Choi, Adam C. Pritchard

Law & Economics Working Papers Archive: 2003-2009

Investors face myriad investment alternatives and seemingly limitless information concerning those alternatives.Not surprisingly, many commentators contend that investors frequently fall short of the ideal investor posited by the rational actor model. Investors are plagued with a variety of behavioral biases (such as, among others, the hindsight bias, the availability bias, loss aversion, and overconfidence). Even securities market institutions and intermediaries may suffer from biases, led astray by groupthink and overconfidence. The question remains whether regulators should focus on such biases in formulating policy. An omnipotent regulatory decisionmaker would certainly improve on flawed investor decisionmaking. The alternative we face, however, is …

Words That Kill? Economic Perspectives On Hate Speech And Hate Crimes, Dhammika Dharmapala, Richard H. Mcadams

Economics Working Papers

This paper analyzes the conditions under which the level of hate speech (expressing hostility towards racial and other minorities) in society can influence whether individuals commit hate crimes against minorities. More generally, we explore the conditions under which speech can influence behavior by revealing social attitudes. We propose a model in which potential offenders care not only about the intrinsic benefits from the crime and the expected costs of punishment, but also about the esteem conferred by like-minded individuals. The number of such individuals is uncertain, but can (in certain circumstances) be inferred from the level of hate speech. We …