Economics Commons^™

Immigration Policy Today, Susan Pozo

Employment Research Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Dissecting The Impact Of Import Competition On U.S. Earnings Inequality, Felipe Benguria

Institute for the Study of Free Enterprise Working Papers

This paper studies the impact of globalization on U.S. earnings inequality in the context of rapidly growing import competition from China. The increase in U.S. inequality during 2000-2007 has been driven entirely by changes within regions}. While the existing literature has established differences in wage growth across regions as a consequence of import competition, understanding the impact of globalization on rising U.S. inequality requires then focusing on its impact on inequality within regions. Exploiting variation in exposure to this unprecedented trade shock across local labor markets I find that import competition causes an increase in earnings inequality. This impact occurs …

Divergence, Convergence Or Crossvergence Of Chinese And Us Approaches To Regional Integration: Evolving Trajectories And Their Implications, Heng Wang

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Trends in Chinese and U.S. approaches to regional integration are likely to profoundly affect other states and even the future of global economic governance. Showing a possible paradigm shift, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) renegotiation reflect the latest major developments in China and the U.S. regarding regional integration. In particular, the U.S. pursues managed trade, shifts to bilateralism, and adopts an aggressive approach. This article analyses a core question: will Chinese and U.S. trade approaches converge, diverge or both, and why? For the analysis of the convergence or divergence, four aspects will …

Migration From Mexico To The Us: The Impacts Of Nafta On Mexico And The United States And What To Do Going Forward, Ashley A. Elsasser

International Review of Business and Economics

Research indicates four main causes for migration from Mexico to the United States: Incredibly high crime rates, unemployment, poverty rates, and natural disasters. The first two are especially important in regards to trade between the two border sharing countries. Since agreeing to virtually total free trade, the United States has been able to take advantage of Mexico in such a way that has created further deterioration of the state. If the government of Mexico cannot resurrect the thousands of personal business that were effected do to NAFTA, the U.S. cannot expect for migration from Mexico to deteriorate or halt. By …

Educational Test Scores, Education Spending, And Productivity In Public Education: National Trends And Evidence Across States And Over Time, 1990-2015, John Garen, Rex Bray

Institute for the Study of Free Enterprise Working Papers

We examine national trends in educational funding, test score outcomes, and productivity as well as variations in funding and test scores over time and across states to assess how changes in educational spending are (or are not) related to changes in educational test score outcomes for states. National trends show small increases in test scores, large increases in educational funding (until the last recession), and a continued fall in educational productivity. The cross-state, over time analysis indicates a statistically significant but very small association of state funding to test scores; so small that large changes in funding have little effect …

Collective Narcissism, Anti-Globalism, Brexit, Trump, And The Chinese Juggernaut, Russell Belk

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

Brexit and the election of Trump both relied on a particular type of nationalistic appeal to collective narcissism — an exaggerated emotional belief that the nation’s greatness is being undermined by other nations and other people. This tendency is catered to by appeals to make the nation great again by shutting borders and embracing isolationism while scapegoating refugees and immigrants. The rise of jingoistic leaders like Trump, Putin, and Erdogan can be explained by such appeals. But China, which has long suffered feelings of national humiliation is reacting in quite different ways that embrace globalism, even while rejecting multiculturalism. This …

Medicaid Managed Care And The Health Care Utilization Of Foster Children, Makayla Palmer, James Marton, Aaron Yelowitz, Jeffery Talbert

Economics Faculty Publications

A recent trend in state Medicaid programs is the transition of vulnerable populations into Medicaid managed care (MMC) who were initially carved out of such coverage, such as foster children or those with disabilities. The purpose of this article is to evaluate the impact of the transition of foster children from fee-for-service Medicaid coverage to MMC coverage on outpatient health care utilization. There is very little empirical evidence on the impact of managed care on the health care utilization of foster children because of the recent timing of these transitions as well as challenges associated with finding data sets large …

The Current State Of Workers' Compensation: Benefit Adequacy, Return To Work, And Prevention, Marcus Dillender, H. Allan Hunt

Employment Research Newsletter

No abstract provided.

It's No Accident: Evaluating The Effectiveness Of Vehicle Safety Inspections, Alex Hoagland, Trevor Woolley

FHSS Mentored Research Conference

Traffic fatalities have fallen steadily over the past two decades, particularly those due to car failure. Many have attributed this fall to safer vehicle technology. This trend has led many states to reevaluate mandatory vehicle safety inspection programs. This study sought to answer the question, does the elimination of vehicle safety inspections have an effect on traffic fatalities?

Migration And Injustice In The Neoliberal Era: A Comparative Analysis Of Migratory Laws And Sweatshop Labor Conditions In Argentina And The United States, Kelly L. Johnson

Spanish Honors Papers

In the contemporary neoliberal era, the global phenomenon of migration dominates the international political discourse and generates empirical and normative questions regarding the admission, rights, and realities of migrants who leave their home countries to live elsewhere. Argentina and the United States are countries in which migration was, and continues to be, a main factor in shaping the nation’s identity. Despite the similar migratory phenomenon in both of these countries, their migratory policies vastly differ—Argentina considers migration to be a right, but the United States constantly strengthens its efforts to deter migrants from entering the country. Even though migratory policies …

Modelling Public-Education Spending Vs. Allocation As Independent Factors Of Educational Outcomes, Kevin Tasley

Undergraduate Economic Review

This paper explores and expands upon the work of Hanushek and Wößmann (2007) whose accumulated findings propose increased educational spending provides only marginal returns in terms of student’s cognitive outcomes. This study constructs an OLS regression model to explore the significance of U.S. state education spending and financial allocations as independent factors of state-level average ACT scores over a 10-year time series. The model additionally accounts for self-selection and socio-economic status. The results of this study support Hanushek and Wößmann’s conclusions while also demonstrating evidence that shifts in allocations towards instructional spending, as opposed to increasing total expenditures, could have …

Multidimensional Poverty Among The Native- And Foreign-Born In The United States: Evidence From The 2010-2014 American Community Surveys, Roger White, Stacy Yamasaki

Economics

We examine data from the 2010-2014 American Community Survey 5-year Public Use Microdata Sample files (U.S. Census, 2016) and employ the methodology of Alkire and Foster (2009) to measure multidimensional poverty in the United States. While our findings confirm the results of earlier studies, we also report considerable variation across native- and foreign-born residents of the U.S. and across immigrant home countries in terms of the incidence and intensity of deprivation and, thus, in Multidimensional Poverty Index values. Our econometric analysis identifies several factors that contribute to multidimensional poverty and, again, we examine variation in the determinants across both native- …

Technological Fetishism And Us Foreign Policy: The Mediating Role Of Digital Icts, Edward Comor

FIMS Publications

This article looks back at an Obama administration foreign policy initiative called Internet freedom and discusses US responses to anti-American extremism involving digital communications technologies. It does this by using Marx’s concept of the fetish to argue that technological fetishism played a constitutive and mediating role in policymaking. Through this analysis – relating international relations with political economy and Marxist theory – the empowering implications of these technologies for American state interests are shown to be also disempowering. Most US officials were likely to be aware that digital communications technologies did not have the inherent powers that their policies implied …

Budgeting By Priorities: Balancing Stability With Economic Responsiveness, Meagan M. Jordan, Juita-Elena (Wie) Yusuf, Somayeh Hooshmand

School of Public Service Faculty Publications

This article investigates how the budget priorities of Arkansas state government departments vary with changes in economic conditions. The Arkansas Revenue Stabilization Act (ARSA) of 1945 established a formalized method of state budgeting by priorities. State funds are allocated, meaning the funds are legally made available, according to priority levels established each year by the Governor and the General Assembly. Those allocated funds are later distributed, meaning released for spending, according to priority levels as funds become available. In this study, we ask the research question: Are departmental budget priorities driven by stability or are they responsive to economic condition? …

Workers' Compensation: Analysis For Its Second Century, H. Allan Hunt, Marcus Dillender

Upjohn Press

Hunt and Dillender review the status of workers' compensation programs on three critical performance areas: 1) the adequacy of compensation for those disabled in the workplace, 2) return-to-work performance for injured workers, and 3) prevention of disabling injury and disease.

Mexican Migration Flows To The United States: A State-To-State Panel Data Analysis Of The Consular Identification Card From 2011 To 2014, Jesus Elias Mendoza Hernandez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This analysis explores migration flows from Mexico to the United States at the state level. This study finds empirical evidence to support the idea that social and economic factors can help predict state-to-state migration flows. Using an alternative measure of migration flows, the Matricula Consular de Alta Seguridad (Consular Identification Card) data from 2011 to 2014, a panel data model is constructed from yearly data to analyze the effects of different determinants of migration flows. The migration flows' determinants analyzed are distance, established immigrant networks in the United States, the US and Mexican states' business cycles, populations, and crime rates, …

The Hall Memorial Lectures, Lewis Karstensson

Molasky Family Department of Economics and Real Estate Faculty Research

This publication is a record of the Hall Memorial Lectures in Economics delivered at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, in the 1980s.

Contents include:

Wallace C. Peterson, "Contemporary Macroeconomics: A House Divided" (Dec. 1, 1983)

Wallace C. Peterson, "Economic Stabilization and Inflation" (May 8, 1984)

Murray N. Rothbard, "The Five Faces of Reaganomics" (Nov. 27, 1984)

Murray N. Rothbard, "The Terrible Simplifiers: The Case Against the Flat Tax" (May 7, 1985)

Larry D. Singell, "Youth Unemployment: An American Crisis" (May 14, 1986)

Murray N. Rothbard, "Is There Life After Reaganomics?" (Oct. 22, 1987)

Murray N. Rothbard, "Deficits and Taxes: …

The Impact Of Urban Sprawl On Journey To Work Times For Mass Transit And All Other Commuters In The United States: A Research Note, Thomas E. Lambert, Hokey Min, Kyle Dorriere

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

As government budgets get tighter, there has been considerable public outcry about the continued investment in public mass transit systems and their financial viability. Amid this outcry, a number of studies have been conducted to determine which factors influence the use and efficiency of publicly-funded mass transit systems. These factors include population density and less sprawl (or greater urban compactness). However, their impact on mass transit usage is somewhat contradictory in that the heavy concentration of populations in the urban area and greater compactness is believed to increase mass transit usage due to a bigger number of potential passengers. In …

Inequality And Financialization, Oscar C. Soons

Senior Honors Projects

This paper analyzes economic inequality in the United States and makes a connection between rising inequality and “Financialization” since the 1970’s. I provide an overview of how and why income and wealth inequality have changed over time. The increase in inequality since the 1970’s is correlated with an increase in Financialization, measured by a Financialization index that I created. Financialization, defined as the increasing size, power and influence of the financial sector in the economy and politics, has changed the economic and political landscape in the United States in a way that increases economic inequality.

A Look At The Controversies Of The United States Export-Import Bank, Bo A. Johnson

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

The Ex-Im Bank is the official export credit agency of the United States. The Bank was established in 1934 to aid a depressed economy and foster global trade. Ex-Im was mandated to improve economic conditions and international trade by providing financial assistance where the private sector fell through, while not competing against private firms. The bank has four main tools to perform its responsibilities - direct loans, loan guarantees, working capital financing, and credit-export insurance.

The Ex-Im Bank has enjoyed a long history of strong bipartisan support. Opposition surfaced in the late 2000's leading to an Ex-Im temporary shutdown. The …

Economic Freedom And Quality Of Life Impacts: A Comparison, Rachel S. Bauer

Senior Honors Theses

The “invisible hand” is a concept foundational to the argument for free market economics, and so is hotly debated. One measure of whether or not the free market is a successful economic model is the quality of life of a country’s residents. Quality of life can be assessed through the areas of housing, labor, health, and education. Economic indicators and quality of life statistics for Hong Kong, the United States, China, and Venezuela appear to prove that there is a correlation between quality of life and economic freedom, as defined by the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom. Even …

Supermarket Proximity And Price: Food Insecurity And Obesity In The United States, Janelle Downing, Barbara Laraia

University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research Discussion Paper Series

Where we live matters for our health. The social, economic, and physical features of neighborhoods can play a powerful role in health and longevity. Neighborhood concentration of poverty and poor health have been shown to be linked. Residing in low-income neighborhoods has been associated with diet related chronic diseases such as obesity and diabetes.

War Tax Free: Institutional Resiliency For War In The United States, Sarah Nelson Bakhtiari

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The obsolescence of war taxes in the United States after 1968 is a product of the state's increased institutional resiliency for war. Historically, war taxes were raised for purposes of revenue generation for contemporaneous war spending or wartime inflation control. The state's development of a robust tax system that provides high and automatically increasing revenues over time, along with monetary mechanisms for price stability, obviate the need for war taxes. In particular, the development of the income tax system and the use of inflation-targeting monetary policy expanded the state's warfighting capacity without reliance on war taxes. These developments suggest a …

Age Of Immigration And Adult Labor Market Outcomes: Childhood Environment In The Country Of Origin Matters, Aaron Watson Mccartney

Honors Papers

This paper builds on previous studies that have examined the effect of age of immigration on adult labor market outcomes by considering the potential impact of the childhood environment in the country of origin. 2000 United States Census data and historical child mortality data is used to quantify the impact of the childhood environment in the country of origin on the effect of age of immigration on adult labor market outcomes. Results from children who immigrated to the United States between ages zero and ten indicate that the impact of age of immigration on adult labor market outcomes is more …

"I Voted": Examining The Impact Of Compulsory Voting On Voter Turnout, Nina A. Kamath

CMC Senior Theses

Over the past few decades, falling voter turnout rates have induced governments to adopt compulsory voting laws, in order to mitigate issues such as the socioeconomic voter gap and to bring a broader spectrum of voters into the fold. This paper presents evidence that the introduction of mandatory voting laws increases voter turnout rates by 13 points within a particular country through an entity- and time-fixed effect panel model. Moreover, it includes a discussion of the implications of adopting mandatory voting policies within the United States, finding that compelling citizens to vote would have increased participation rates to over 90 …

The Economic Impact Of Lifting Sanctions On Iran: How The Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action Will Affect The Economy Of Iran, Ryan Foley

Washington Semester Program

During the second term of the Obama Administration, the United States and the European Union negotiated a deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran regarding their nuclear program. These negotiations encompassed the relaxing of sanctions on the Iranian economy in exchange for concessions on the part of their nuclear program. This thesis investigates how the deal will affect the economy of Iran and the international oil market, two entities which are deeply intertwined. The findings suggest that the opening of Iran’s economy will almost certainly lead to a strengthening of their domestic economy in the short-term, but that the government …

The Pros And Cons Of Sick Pay Schemes: Testing For Contagious Presenteeism And Shirking Behavior, Stefan Pichler, Nicolas R. Ziebarth

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

This paper proposes a test for the existence and degree of contagious presenteeism and negative externalities in sickness insurance schemes. First, we theoretically decompose moral hazard into shirking and contagious presenteeism behavior and derive testable conditions. Then, we implement the test exploiting German sick pay reforms and administrative industry-level data on certified sick leave by diagnoses. The labor supply adjustment for contagious diseases is significantly smaller than for noncontagious diseases. Lastly, using Google Flu data and the staggered implementation of U.S. sick leave reforms, we show that flu rates decrease after employees gain access to paid sick leave.

Border Battles: The Influence Of Occupational Licensing On Interstate Migration, Morris M. Kleiner

Employment Research Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Fishing For A Sustainable Future: Aquaponics As A Method Of Food Production, Richard Ramsundar

Student Theses 2015-Present

This thesis compares and explains the advantages aquaponics farming has over modern industrial intensive farming. Through a comparison natural capital usage, conservation, recycling and cost, the thesis advocates for the expansion of aquaponics usage in urban settings. The thesis also explains the history of intensive farming and aquaponics in America, the science of how aquaponics operates, the economic and environmental costs of modern intensive farming versus aquaponics farming, and the social implications of aquaponics. Lastly, I propose a policy that reallocates farm subsidies by modifying the Farm Bill. Then I propose policies that support creating a new standard of farm …

The Affordable Care Act: Five Years Later, Andrew Dana Izatt

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

The challenges facing the American health care system are well known and manifold. The United States pays substantially more for its health care than any other developed, industrialized nation. Per capita health care spending in 2012 was $8,745, up from $356 in 1970 without marked improvements in life expectancy, quality of life, or outcomes. But despite all of our health spending, large portions of our population go without health insurance. Being uninsured carries real consequences. A report published in the American Journal of Public Health, by researchers at Harvard Medical School, using statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and …