Econometrics Commons^™

Corruption And Economic Growth In The Brics: An Empirical Analysis, Iemanjá Dos Santos

Empirical Economic Bulletin, An Undergraduate Journal

This paper investigates the relationship between corruption and economic growth in Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa; collectively known as the BRICS. Given the rapid rise of the BRICS and the international spotlight placed on them, this research study aims to explore the effect corruption has on the GDP growth of the states. To do this, a time-series analysis is conducted on each of the five states in order to analyze corruption’s effect on the individual countries. It is found that corruption only holds significance in Brazil and Russia, however, whilst there appears to be an inverse relationship between …

The Shadow Rate And Its Relationship With Lender And Borrower Variables, Andrei Irimia

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Since the federal funds rate reached the zero lower bound in late 2008, economists have been struggling to adapt their models to a long-term zero rate. Wu and Xia built upon previous research by Fischer Black to create a model for how the federal funds rate behaves during the ZLB period. In their model, the rate actually dips into the negative digits, which the actual federal funds rate does not do. The logic behind the model is that a negative shadow rate is a much better indicator of true economic conditions while the current zero rate merely masks the actual …

Rhode Island Current Conditions Index -- January 2016, Leonard Lardaro

The Rhode Island Current Conditions Index

No abstract provided.

How Does Student Debt Affect Household Formation?, Robert Young

Empirical Economic Bulletin, An Undergraduate Journal

This paper investigates the impact student debt has on household formation. In order to determine what the impact is, an existing model around household formation was used and that model expanded it to include additional variables in order to add student debt into the model. Overall student debt at the individual and household levels has increased tremendously in the last 30 years. With student loan debt taking up a greater share of income for individuals and households, this research seeks to demonstrate that as student loan debt increases, the rate at which households are formed decreases. The findings of this …

A Panel Analysis Of Fdi And Trade: Growth In Developing Countries, Matthew Guerriero

Empirical Economic Bulletin, An Undergraduate Journal

This paper investigates the relationship between FDI and trade openness in 5 lower-middle income countries and 5 upper-middle income countries. This study utilizes a panel data regression analysis to determine what plays a role in growth and whether or not it varies depending on development level. The results show that lower-middle income countries should focus their attention on attracting FDI and upper-middle income countries should focus on increasing trade and decreasing government involvement in business operations.

Empirical Analysis Of Immigrant Wage Gap: Study Of Ethnicity And Language Proficiency, Dominik Kozlowski

Empirical Economic Bulletin, An Undergraduate Journal

This paper investigates the effect of being an immigrant on a person’s wage. There is also a key focus on variables such as on language proficiency and ethnicity. Comparing the people that were born in New England to the people that were born in different areas of the world for the most recent data that was collected from the American Community Survey. The model shows and the research shows that immigrants’ wages are negatively affected because they are immigrants.

European Union Membership And Levels Of Corruption, Kevin J. Morris

The Corinthian

Recent accessions to the European Union (E.U.) membership have been met with protests as critics noted the widespread corruption still rampant in both recent and established member countries. Given the global ramifications of the debt crises in Italy, Spain, and Greece, determining the efficacy of the E.U. Accession Reforms and Membership Criteria on corruption reduction is vitally important. Using European and Central Asian country-level data from the World Bank’s Global Development and Global Indicator database regional-level fixed effects, I estimate the impact of EU membership on corruption levels and find that E.U. membership has a small, but significant impact on …

Coffee In China: Market Trend And Consumer Demand, Jesse W. Mattingly

Theses and Dissertations--Agricultural Economics

Although it remains a tea consuming nation, both production and consumption of coffee in China has been increasing at double-digit rates and is not expected to slow down (International Coffee Organization (ICO), 2015). With investments and upward trends in production and rapid increases in consumption of coffee in China it is important for producers and retailers of the bean¹ in China to understand the new Chinese coffee consumer. Using survey data from Wuhan, China we help understand the Chinese coffee consumer by explaining their consumption using standard OLS regression. Results show that whether or not consumers make/brew their own …

The Impact Of Government Debt Levels On Gdp Growth: A Panel Data Analysis, Guillaume Sabourin

Empirical Economic Bulletin, An Undergraduate Journal

This paper analyzes the impact of government debt-to-GDP levels on GDP growth in 6 European Union Nations and 5 Middle Eastern countries. While government debt levels shot up in the EU as a result of massive fiscal stimulus following the Great Recession, debt levels have been steadily decreasing in certain Middle Eastern countries. Several variables are observed to determine the relationship between debt and growth, including real interest rates, unemployment, inflation, population growth, trade, and consumption. For the EU nations studied, panel least squares analysis indicates that every 10% increase in government debt-to-GDP costs 30 basis points of GDP growth. …

An Empirical Analysis Of The Effect Of Wealth On Health Indicators, Olivia Derogatis

Empirical Economic Bulletin, An Undergraduate Journal

This paper uses regression analysis with panel data in order to investigate the relationship between income and health indicators in ten high income countries. The purpose of this study is to investigate if income has a significant and positive effect on the health of a nation’s population. In theory, the health of the population in high income countries should be positively correlated to the country’s income because the wealthier a nation, the more available resources the nation has to allocate to health care spending. The dependent variables in this study are life expectancy at birth and infant mortality rate. The …

A Tale Of Two Option Markets: Pricing Kernels And Volatility Risk, Zhaogang Song, Dacheng Xiu

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Using both S&P 500 option and recently introduced VIX option prices, we study pricing kernels and their dependence on multiple volatility factors. We first propose nonparametric estimates of marginal pricing kernels, conditional on the VIX and the slope of the variance swap term structure. Our estimates highlight the state-dependence nature of the pricing kernels. In particular, conditioning on volatility factors, the pricing kernel of market returns exhibit a downward sloping shape up to the extreme end of the right tail. Moreover, the volatility pricing kernel features a striking U-shape, implying that investors have high marginal utility in both high and …

New Distribution Theory For The Estimation Of Structural Break Point In Mean, Liang Jiang, Xiaohu Wang, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

Based on the Girsanov theorem, this paper first obtains the exact distribution of the maximum likelihood estimator of structural break point in a continuous time model. The exact distribution is asymmetric and tri-modal, indicating that the estimator is seriously biased. These two properties are also found in the finite sample distribution of the least squares estimator of structural break point in the discrete time model. The paper then builds a continuous time approximation to the discrete time model and develops an in-fill asymptotic theory for the least squares estimator. The obtained in-fill asymptotic distribution is asymmetric and tri-modal and delivers …

Barriers To Prevention In Dengue Fever In Pakistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Swat District, Abdul Zahir, Assad Ullah, Mussawar Shah, Arsalan Mussawar

Journal for the Advancement of Developing Economies

The main aim of this study was to find out the barriers in dengue prevention in the Swat District of Khyber Pkhtunkhwa Province, Pakistan. A sample size of 354 respondents were proportionally allocated to each Mahallah or street (Tahir Abad, Angaro Dheri, Usman Abad and Banr) and then randomly selected. The association of the independent variable (barriers to prevention) and dependent variables (practices for control) were tested by using a Chi Square test. The perception about barriers in dengue prevention shows that a highly significant association was found between practices for control and access to medical facilities (p=0.034), government agencies …

Exploring The Budget Deficit-Economic Growth Nexus: New Evidence From Ghana, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, Emmanuel Orkoh, Augustine Mensah Owusu

Journal for the Advancement of Developing Economies

In this paper, we combine Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach with trend analysis to assess the relationship between Ghana’s budget deficit and economic growth from 2000 to 2015 using quarterly data. The trend analysis reveals that since 2000, years of high budget deficit were usually followed by years of low economic growth and vice versa. This phenomenon was pronounced in 2009, when the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate fell from 7.3 percent in 2008 to 4 percent in 2009, following an increase in the budget deficit from 8 percent in 2007 to 11.5 percent in 2008. The same phenomenon …

An Assessment Of Federal Outlay On Pivotal Growth Induced Sectors In Nigeria, Samson Adeniyi Aladejare, Eche Emmanuel, Charles Edobor Umonda

Journal for the Advancement of Developing Economies

This study analyses government capital and recurrent spending outlays on sectors (education, health, defense agriculture and transport and communication) believed to be critical to the growth of the economy, for the period 1980 to 2014. The Error Correction Method was adopted to analyze the short-run impact of each spending division on the prosperity of the economy. The disaggregation into capital and recurrent expenditure was done to gauge the impact each has economic growth. Empirical findings of the study reveal that though capital outlays on the sectors concerned have been more significant than recurrent spending towards achieving the goal of economic …

Motivations For Luxury Consumption: Insights From Tunisia’S Emerging Market, Pranjal Gupta,, Mouna Zaghdoudi

Journal for the Advancement of Developing Economies

Luxury consumption and the desire for luxury are well-accepted phenomena. Myriad studies have documented the pervasiveness of the luxury market in the West and the high growth and strong potential of Asian luxury markets. It is also evident that as resources have grown in a region, luxury consumption and the desire for luxury products have followed. Nevertheless, the need for more far-reaching studies that explore emerging markets are important to understand the differences in how luxury may penetrate these markets, given variations in resources and culture. This paper investigates a number of factors that may contribute to the emergence of …

Challenges Of Respecting Riparian Rights Around Hydroelectric Dams In Cameroon Since 1949, Séverin Nwaha

Journal for the Advancement of Developing Economies

The impact of electric energy on socio-economic development has attracted the attention of all categories of people in society. This is because of the role power plays in the economic and industrial sectors of any country. Public authorities seem to be more concerned with protecting capitalist interests at the detriment of the riparian population. Despite regulations and legal provisions, authorities are still not able to implement a rigorous policy in this sector in Cameroon due to administrative bottle necks, among other factors. Furthermore, the existence of multiple regulatory and management bodies creates confusion. Legislation related to this issue is usually …

Mobile Facial Recognition System For Patient Identification In Medical Emergencies For Developing Economies, Kingsley C. Nwosu

Journal for the Advancement of Developing Economies

Medical emergencies are part of the common daily lives of people in developing and under-developed economies. Frequently, some of these medical emergencies end up tragically for many people in these countries due to many reasons, among which is the delivery of medical treatment when the patient is uncommunicative or unresponsive. The ability of the attending medical personnel to access a patient’s medical history is critical for the quality of the treatment rendered. Unfortunately, today many lives are lost in low income economies during medical emergencies due to lack or inaccessibility of a patient’s medical information. One of the major contributing …

Detecting Stock Market Bubbles: A Price-To-Earnings Approach, Austin F. Murphy

Honors Theses

To this day, economists argue about the existence of stock market bubbles. The literature review for this paper observes the analysis of four reputable bubble tests in an attempt to provide ample qualitative proof for the existence of bubbles. The first obstacle for creating an effective bubble detection test is the difficulty of estimating true fundamental values for equities. Without adequate estimations for the fundamental values of equities, the deviation between actual price and fundamental price is impossible to observe or estimate. Additionally, these tests are reliant on strong underlying assumptions, which tend to cloud results.

This thesis applies a …

Bayesian Spatial Bivariate Panel Probit Estimation, Badi Baltagi, Peter H. Egger, Michaela Kesina

Center for Policy Research

This paper formulates and analyzes Bayesian model variants for the analysis of systems of spatial panel data with binary dependent variables. The paper focuses on cases where latent variables of cross-sectional units in an equation of the system contemporaneously depend on the values of the same and, eventually, other latent variables of other cross-sectional units. Moreover, the paper discusses cases where time-invariant effects are exogenous versus endogenous. Such models may have numerous applications in industrial economics, public economics, or international economics. The paper illustrates that the performance of Bayesian estimation methods for such models is supportive of their use with …