Economic History Commons^™

Persistence In Industrial Policy Impacts: Evidence From Depression-Era Mississippi, Matthew Freedman

Matthew Freedman

The Integrity Of Financial Analysts: Evidence From Asymmetric Responses To Earnings Surprises, Rui Lu, Wenxuan Hou, Henry Oppenheimer, Ting Zhang

Ting Zhang

This paper investigates the integrity of financial analysts by examining their recommendation responses to large quarterly earnings surprises. Although there is no significant difference in recommendation changes between affiliated and unaffiliated analysts in response to positive earnings surprises, affiliated analysts are more reluctant than unaffiliated analysts to downgrade stock recommendations in response to negative earnings surprises. The evidence implies that conflicts of interest undermine the integrity of financial analysts. We further examine the effects of reputation concern and the Global Research Analyst Settlement as informal and formal mechanisms, on restoring analysts’ integrity. The results show that the positive bias in …

An Analysis Of Risk-Taking Behavior For Public Defined Benefit Pension Plans, Nancy Mohan, Ting Zhang

Ting Zhang

This paper presents the first comprehensive study on the determinants of public pension fund investment risk and reports several new important findings. Unlike private pension plans, public funds undertake more risk if they are underfunded and have lower investment returns in the previous years, consistent with the risk transfer hypothesis. Furthermore, pension funds in states facing fiscal constraints allocate more assets to equity and have higher betas. There also appears to be a herding effect in that CalPERS equity allocation or beta is mimicked by other pension funds. Finally, our results suggest that government accounting standards strongly affect pension fund …

An Analysis Of Risk-Taking Behavior For Public Defined Benefit Pension Plans, Nancy Mohan, Ting Zhang

Nancy Mohan

This paper presents the first comprehensive study on the determinants of public pension fund investment risk and reports several new important findings. Unlike private pension plans, public funds undertake more risk if they are underfunded and have lower investment returns in the previous years, consistent with the risk transfer hypothesis. Furthermore, pension funds in states facing fiscal constraints allocate more assets to equity and have higher betas. There also appears to be a herding effect in that CalPERS equity allocation or beta is mimicked by other pension funds. Finally, our results suggest that government accounting standards strongly affect pension fund …

Aggression In Mixed Martial Arts: An Analysis Of The Likelihood Of Winning A Decision, Trevor Collier, Andrew Johnson, John Ruggiero

Trevor Collier

Within the last decade, mixed martial arts has become one of the most popular sports worldwide. The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is the largest and most successful organization within the industry. In the USA, however, the sport is not sanctioned in all states because some politicians view the sport as too violent. The sport consists of many fighting forms and, unlike boxing, winning a decision requires judging in multiple facets including wrestling, boxing, kickboxing, and jiu-jitsu. In this study, we estimate the likelihood of winning a decision in the UFC. Using data on individual fights, we estimate the probability of …

Measuring Technical Efficiency In Sports, Trevor Collier, Andrew Johnson, John Ruggiero

Trevor Collier

Standard economic production theory is the basis for measuring technical efficiency in sports. Using programming or regression models, efficiency is defined as the distance of a given team observation from the technology. In this article, the authors show that the standard measures of efficiency using deterministic models are biased downward due to serial correlation with respect to the efficiency measure. In particular, if the number of observed wins for a given team is affected by the team’s inefficiency, it is necessarily true that another team is able to produce outside of the technology. As a result, the observed frontier is …

The Impact Of Institutional Arrangements On Educational Efficiency, Trevor Collier

Trevor Collier

Per-pupil expenditures on education in the United States have grown immensely in recent decades, yet student achievement has been stagnant. An abundance of research has sought to solve this enigma, much of it centered on the incentive structure facing administrators. Some recent papers use TIMSS data to analyze the relationship between institutional arrangements—that typically do not vary within a single country—and student achievement. Similarly, we utilize TIMSS 1999 to determine if there is an indirect relationship between institutional arrangements and student achievement, via a relationship with school efficiency. Our results show that the specified link between institutional arrangements and student …

Teacher Qualifications And Student Achievement: A Panel Data Of Analysis, Trevor Collier

Trevor Collier

Recent academic research suggests that teacher quality plays an important role in student achievement: however, empirical research on the efficacy of policies requiring teachers to obtain certain degrees is inconclusive, particularly in elementary education. This paper models a panel data production function with fixed effects using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS-K) to asses the relationship between different undergraduate and graduate majors and elementary student test scores. Specifcally, we aim to discern if there is a difference in teacher efficacy within the different education related majors (e.g. early childhood education and elementary education) and between education and non-education related majors.

Estimation Of Multi-Output Production Functions In Commercial Fisheries, Trevor Collier, Andrew Mamula, John Ruggiero

Trevor Collier

Measuring the productivity of vessels in a multi-species fishery can be problematic. Typical regression techniques are not capable of handling multiple outputs while Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) tends to ignore the stochastic nature of production. Applied economists have devoted considerable time to this problem and have developed several methods of dealing with the issue of multiple output technologies in commercial fisheries. Our paper contributes to this literature by providing another method for estimating production functions of vessels operating in multi-species fisheries. We utilize a two-stage model – with data from the West Coast Limited Entry Groundfish Trawl Fishery – using …

Tobin, James, Tony Caporale

Tony Caporale

James Tobin was born in Champaign, Illinois, in 1918. He received his bachelor's degree in 1939 and his master's degree in 1940, both from Harvard. Following naval service during the years 1942-6, he returned to his graduate studies and received his PhD from Harvard in 1947. In 1950, he joined the economics department at Yale University, and he has largely remained at Yale and has been identified with this institution throughout his career. He twice directed the Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, first from 1955 to 1961, and then from 1964 to 1965. He also served for two years, …

The Relationship Between Output Variability And Growth: Evidence From Post War U.K. Data, Tony Caporale, Barbara Mckiernan

Tony Caporale

The paper investigates the relationship between output variability and economic growth using a GARCH-M model with industrial production in post-war Great Britain. The data reveals a positive relationship between variability and growth rates.

Uniform Service, Uniform Productivity? Regional Efficiency Of The Imperial German Postal, Telegraph, And Telephone Service., Florian Ploeckl

Florian Ploeckl

Using the regional productivity of the Reichspost, the postal service of the German Empire, I investigate whether a public monopolist operates with uniform regional productivity. Using data envelopment analysis efficiency scores, we derive the relative productivity of the post,telegraph,andtelephonesectorsfrom1891to1908.Resultsshow a fairly stable system with substantial raw productivity differences between postal districts, and that the expansion of the service offset technological productivity increases for the mail service.

Religious Origins Of Democracy & Dictatorship, Theocharis Grigoriadis

Theocharis Grigoriadis

Weber considered the Protestant work ethic the foundation of modern capitalism. I extend Weber’s theory by arguing that states with predominantly Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Muslim populations have had a stronger inclination toward underdevelopment and dictatorship than states with Protestant or Jewish majorities. This is the case because their respective religious collectives (monastery, tariqa) promote the hierarchical provision of common goods at the expense of market incentives. I define the aforementioned three religions as collectivist, in contrast to Protestantism and Judaism, which I define as individualist. I provide a historical overview that designates the Jewish kibbutz as the collective …