Economics Commons^™

A Theory Of Cultural Revivals, Murat Iyigun, Jared Rubin, Avner Seror

ESI Working Papers

Why do some societies have political institutions that support productively inefficient outcomes? And why does the political power of elites vested in these outcomes often grow over time, even when they are unable to block more efficient modes of production? We propose an explanation centered on the interplay between political and cultural change. We build a model in which cultural values are transmitted inter-generationally. The cultural composition of society, in turn, determines public good provision as well as the future political power of elites from different cultural groups. We characterize the equilibrium of the model and provide sufficient conditions for …

Aggregate Implications Of Firm Heterogeneity: A Nonparametric Analysis Of Monopolistic Competition Trade Models, Rodrigo Adão, Costas Arkolakis, Sharat Ganapati

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We measure the role of firm heterogeneity in counterfactual predictions of monopolistic competition trade models without parametric restrictions on the distribution of firm fundamentals. We show that two bilateral elasticity functions are sufficient to nonparametrically compute the counterfactual aggregate impact of trade shocks, and recover changes in economic fundamentals from observed data. These functions are identified from two semiparametric gravity equations governing the impact of bilateral trade costs on the extensive and intensive margins of firm-level exports. Applying our methodology, we estimate elasticity functions that imply an impact of trade costs on trade flows that falls when more firms serve …

Mothers’ Social Networks And Socioeconomic Gradients Of Isolation, Alison Andrew, Orazio P. Attanasio, Britta Augsburg, Jere Behrman, Monimalika Day, Pamela Jervis, Costas Meghir, Angus Phimister

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

Social connections are fundamental to human wellbeing. This paper examines the social networks of young married women in rural Odisha, India.. This is a group, for whom highly-gendered norms around marriage, mobility, and work are likely to shape opportunities to form and maintain meaningful ties with other women. We track the social networks of 2,170 mothers over four years, and find a high degree of isolation. Wealthier women and women more-advantaged castes have smaller social networks than their less-advantaged peers. These gradients are primarily driven by the fact that more-advantaged women are less likely to know other women within their …

Factors Influencing The Dry Bulk Sales And Purchase Market : Capesize Vessels, Alexandros N. Atzas

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Relationship Between Port Performance And Economic Development : A Case Study On The Freeport Of Monrovia, Deanna Dolobah-Togba

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Tax Credits For Child Care Increase Take-Up And May Help More Mothers Work, Gabrielle Pepin

Employment Research Newsletter

No abstract provided.

An Impact Of Maritime Trade On The Nigerian Economy, Femi Emmanuel Ogunleye

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Managerial Incentives To Repeatedly Collude: Frequency, Partners And Governance Rules, Catarina Marvao Dr., Chloé Le Coq

Articles

Cartel recidivism has been discovered among many convicted firms and is often perceived as a result of the limited efficiency of competition policy. The incentives for managers to collude have been linked to the firm’s organizational structure, the corporate culture, and the type of executive compensation packages in place.

To the extent that undetected cartels differ from detected ones in relevant dimensions, the current empirical results on illegal cartels are biased. To tackle this issue, we use a novel dataset of a population of cartels, which were legal in Sweden up until 1993. We contribute to the current debate on …

Data Driven Value-At-Risk Forecasting Using A Svr-Garch-Kde Hybrid, Marius Lux, Wolfgang Karl Hardle, Stefan Lessmann

Sim Kee Boon Institute for Financial Economics

Appropriate risk management is crucial to ensure the competitiveness of financial institutions and the stability of the economy. One widely used financial risk measure is value-at-risk (VaR). VaR estimates based on linear and parametric models can lead to biased results or even underestimation of risk due to time varying volatility, skewness and leptokurtosis of financial return series. The paper proposes a nonlinear and nonparametric framework to forecast VaR that is motivated by overcoming the disadvantages of parametric models with a purely data driven approach. Mean and volatility are modeled via support vector regression (SVR) where the volatility model is motivated …

Rhode Island Current Conditions Index -- November 2020, Leonard Lardaro

The Rhode Island Current Conditions Index

No abstract provided.

Fashion Design Piracy: An Issue Of Intellectual Property Or Economic Impact?, Vendela Dente

Fordham Undergraduate Law Review

Currently, United States law offers no fashion design protection against design piracy. The fashion industry profits from pioneering creative content; yet, this content lies outside the domain of intellectual property law. Fashion designs are inevitably undervalued by consumers and the industry due to the lack of protection of original designs for the benefit of the industry's monetary value. Fashion design can be protected under copyright, trademark and patent law but these laws provide ambiguity and strict requirements for fashion labels. This Note will discuss the effects of fashion piracy both on innovation and the fashion industry’s bottom line.

Taxing Gambling Machines To Enhance Public And Private Revenue, Thomas A. Garrett, David Paton, Leighton Vaughan Williams

Faculty and Student Publications

© 2020 The Authors. Kyklos published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd Electronic gambling (‘slot’) machines are a key component of the global gambling industry. We introduce a theoretical framework which shows that under reasonable assumptions, shifting from a per-machine licence fee to a gross profits tax (GPT) on machine revenue can help to resolve policy tensions between industry profitability, economic growth and government revenue. We test the theory using data on recent changes to gambling taxation in the UK, in particular the move to a gross profits-based Machine Games Duty (MGD). Our results reveal that the shift from licence …

Labor Market, Urban Poverty And Propoor Employment Policies, Heba Nassar, Heba El-Laithy

Faculty Journal Articles

A complicated relationship exists between labor market mechanisms and poverty. Poverty might arise from labor market mechanisms, as much as from other more obvious factors such as overall living standards, low levels of production and productivity as well as socioeconomic conditions that lead to inequalities in the labor market. This paper tries to study the relationship between urban poverty and the labor market by constructing a poverty index using the data of the Survey" Socioeconomic conditions of Work in Greater Cairo". Factor analysis was used to combine seventeen socio-economic variables in one poverty index. The index was used to study …

Are Community Banks A Driver Of New Business Formation? Empirical Evidence From The United States From 2005 To 2015, Christopher Dodd

Honors Projects in Economics

The number of small banks in the U.S. has dropped drastically since the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation [FDIC], 2018). Small businesses, which are essential to a well-functioning economy, often rely on banks as a source of financial capital. This study helps explain if the number of community banks in a state impacts new business formation and whether financial regulation passed following the GFC, specifically the DoddFrank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, moderates the significance of the relationship. This thesis contributes to the literature in a few major ways. First, it provides a …

America At A Glance: Unemployment Among People With Disabilities During The Covid-19 Recession, University Of Montana Rural Institute

Employment

People with disabilities are often the first to experience economic disruptions, and among the last to recover. Unemployment among people with disabilities spiked to 18.9% in April 2020 and declined to 12.5% in September. Both the initial increase and recent decrease in unemployment was primarily driven by changes in temporary unemployment (unemployed workers who expect to go back to their same job within six months). While temporary unemployment has gone down, permanent unemployment has risen since the recession began, and may indicate that for some, temporary unemployment is becoming permanent. As the recession wears on and unemployment benefits begin to …

Producer Services: An Engine For High-Wage Job Growth, Spencer Cook, Eric Thompson

Business in Nebraska

Producer services providers are firms that sell services primarily to the business community rather than to individuals and households. Many producer services businesses are classified in the professional, scientific, and technical service (PSTS) industry. Accounting firms, consultants, and computer design services are prominent examples of PSTS businesses that are worth studying for three reasons:

1. SUPPORT OF OTHER INDUSTRIES: PSTS industries supply the broader business community, making them a critical segment of the economy.

2. RAPID HIGH WAGE JOB GROWTH: Many PSTS industries are rapidly growing and pay high wages. The producer services sector, in fact, is the principal source …

Macroeconomic Aspects Of Maintenance Optimization Of Critical Infrastructures, S. A. Timashev, A. V. Bushinskaya

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

The main goal of maintenance is prevention, timely detection and elimination of failures and damage. From the point of view of critical infrastructures (CIs), the main purpose of their maintenance is to increase the safety of CIs and / or to ensure life safety. CIs should be optimal in terms of their purpose, cost, as a source of income and profit at all stages of their life cycle, and also acceptable in terms of possible loss of human lives or injuries. The paper considers the assessment of necessary optimal investments in the maintenance (time interval between subsequent maintenance), to increase …

Some Regional Economic Perspectives On Covid-19 Impacts, Paul A. Coomes

Institute for the Study of Free Enterprise Working Papers

It has been about eight months since the Covid-19 pandemic began sweeping across America, causing the well-known health care emergency, and major economic and fiscal distortions. Presumably, we are in the last stages of the damage, as activity has picked up in most realms of daily life. However, recovery problems linger in many areas, including air travel, cruises, hotels, conventions, concerts, and schools. While not over, enough information has emerged to start documenting the regional economic impacts around Kentucky. This note examines the latest public data to study the apparent economic and fiscal damage related to Covid responses, public and …

Did Covid-19 Change Life Insurance Offerings?, Timothy F. Harris, Aaron Yelowitz, Charles J. Courtemanche

Institute for the Study of Free Enterprise Working Papers

The profitability of life insurance offerings is contingent on accurate projections and pricing of mortality risk. The COVID-19 pandemic created significant uncertainty, with dire mortality predictions from early forecasts resulting in widespread government intervention and greater individual precaution that reduced the projected death toll. We analyze how life insurance companies changed pricing and offerings in response to COVID-19 using monthly data on term life insurance policies from Compulife. We estimate event-study models that exploit well-established variation in the COVID-19 mortality rate based on age and underlying health status. Despite the increase in mortality risk and significant uncertainty, we find limited …

Improved Information In Search Markets, Jidong Zhou

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

How will an improved information environment affects competition and market performance when consumers face search frictions? This paper provides a unified way to model information improvement that makes the search pool more ``selective" (e.g., due to personalized recommendations), or more ``informative" (e.g., due to the availability of more detailed product information). Information improvement tends to induce consumers to search less, intensify price competition and benefit consumers, if the search friction is small, or if information improvement truncates the match utility distribution from below. More generally, however, it is also possible for information improvement to raise the market price and harm …

Open Banking: Credit Market Competition When Borrowers Own The Data, Zhiguo He, Jing Huang, Jidong Zhou

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

Open banking facilitates data sharing consented to by customers who generate the data, with the regulatory goal of promoting competition between traditional banks and challenger fintech entrants. We study lending market competition when sharing banks’ customer transaction data enables better borrower screening. Open banking can make the entire financial industry better off yet leave all borrowers worse off, even if borrowers have the control of whether to share their banking data. We highlight the importance of the equilibrium credit quality inference from borrowers’ endogenous sign-up decisions. We also study extensions with fintech affinities and data sharing on borrower preferences.

The Influence Of Economic Factors And Policies On Deforestation In Tanzania, Thadei D. Sagamiko, Nyimvua Shaban Mbare

Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

In this paper we analysed the influence of economic factors and policy on the rate of deforestation in Tanzania. A multiple linear regression model was formulated and the effects of each factor on deforestation were tested. The ordinary least squares method was used to estimate the model parameters. Correlation analysis revealed that per capita income, per capita purchasing power, and electricity consumption have positive relationship with deforestation rate; while inflation rate and poverty rate have a negative relationship with deforestation rate. All factors were found to be significant and were used for regression analysis. By considering the p-value at 5% …

The Effects Of Time In Prison And Time On Parole On Recidivism, Mariyana Zapryanova

Economics: Faculty Publications

In the United States, every year roughly 600,000 people are released from prison, two-thirds of them without having served their full sentence behind bars. Yet little is known about how release before full completion of sentence affects recidivism. I exploit the distinction between sentence and time served in prison to better understand how custodial and noncustodial sanctions affect recidivism. In particular, I study the effects of time in prison and time on parole on recidivism. Relying on two instrumental variables that provide independent variation in sentence and time served in prison, I do not find evidence that parole time affects …

Investor Behavior In The Midst Of A Global Pandemic, Abigail N. Bates

Honors Projects

Investors partaking in portfolio and asset management through the stock market and other avenues do so with certain reasoning and methods in hand. Each investor may have different interests and risk tolerances that guide their choices for investment. Behavioral finance allows for an in-depth look at an investor’s actions and the influencing psychology behind it. Before this approach was popularized, early studies of finance assumed that investors were always rational in their decision making and put resources only into opportunities that would increase their utility or happiness. The behavioral finance approach takes a more comprehensive look at these behaviors and …

Paso Del Norte Economic Indicator Review, November, Hunt Institute For Global Competitiveness

Technical Reports

No abstract provided.

Veterans As Emerging Entrepreneurs – November 2020, Marilyn Young

Hibbs Newsletter

On this Veterans Day, while we thank those who have served our country, I am happy to present the results of the 2020 Veteran Entrepreneurship Survey. Veterans and veteran-owned businesses are important factors in the economic development in our 23-county East Texas region. This region has a veteran population of 96,232,1 which is 11.1% of this region’s population (age 18 and over). The number of veteran owned businesses in this region is 9,060, which represents 10.5% of the region's total firms (86,673).

Health Have, Health Have Nots In A Time Of Covid-19, Sandro Galea

Center for Policy Research

In this brief, my goal is to talk about something which has animated a lot of my thinking and writing in the past decade. It is how our health is fundamentally socially patterned and reflects the world around us. This has been true for decades in this country, and one could also argue, globally, however this brief will focus on this topic at the national level. As you will see, I will talk mostly of health haves and health have nots in general, but as we progress, show how COVID-19 has made this evermore apparent.

The Effects Of Vietnam-Era Military Service On The Long-Term Health Of Veterans: A Bounds Analysis, Xintong Wang, Carloa A. Flores, Alfonso Flores-Lagunes

Center for Policy Research

We analyze the short- and long-term effects of the U.S. Vietnam-era military service on veterans’ health outcomes using a restricted version of the National Health Interview Survey 1974-2013 and employing the draft lotteries as an instrumental variable (IV). We start by assessing whether the draft lotteries, which have been used as an IV in prior literature, satisfy the exclusion restriction by placing bounds on its net or direct effect on the health outcomes of draft avoiders. Since we do not find evidence against the validity of the IV, we assume its validity in conducting inference on the health effects of …

The Impact Of Foreign Direct Investment On The Ecological Footprints Of Nations, Nadia Doytch

Ateneo School of Government Publications

We study the effects of foreign direct investment (FDI) on the rate of exhaustion of bioproductive physical land. We test for differential ecological performance of FDI in developed vs. developing countries, as well as in “clean” vs. “dirty” sectors. We examine the impact of six sector-level FDI flows on four ecological footprints (EF): Consumption EF, Production EF, Imports EF, and Exports EF, compiled by the Global Footprint Network. We estimate a dynamic panel model incorporating an Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) and differentiating across country development levels. The findings are intriguing. First, High Income countries tend to …

Table Of Contents, Mssj Staff

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

No abstract provided.