Econometrics Commons^™

Food Imports Under Foreign Exchange Constraints In The Cfa’S Franc Zone Of Sub-Saharan Africa (Ssa), Seydina Ousmane Sene

Theses and Dissertations--Agricultural Economics

To respond to the high imported food prices in their domestic markets, net food importing countries in the Communauté Financière Africaine (CFA) zone^[1] are adjusting their import tariffs and homologate domestic prices of imported commodities such as rice, wheat, maize, and sugar. This research uses a multivariate specification of error correction model (VECM) of estimation to investigate the link between food imports, world price index of rice, wheat, maize and sugar, real effective exchange rates, domestic food production, GDP, and trade openness in the short and long run. The data are on each homogenous commodity from 1969 to 2012. …

The Windy City: Property Value Impacts Of Wind Turbines In An Urban Setting, Corey Lang, James J. Opaluch

Environmental and Natural Resource Economics Faculty Publications

This paper examines the impact of wind turbines on house values in Rhode Island. In contrast to wind farms surrounded by sparse development, in Rhode Island single turbines have been built in relatively high population dense areas. As a result, we observe 48,554 single-family, owner-occupied transactions within five miles of a turbine site, including 3,254 within one mile, which is far more than most related studies. We estimate hedonic difference-in-differences models that allow for impacts of wind turbines by proximity, viewshed, and contrast with surrounding development. Across a wide variety of specifications, the results suggest that wind turbines have no …

Coexistence Of Gm, Conventional And Organic Food Not Always Possible, Konstantinos Giannakas

CAFIO: Policy Research Group Policy Pagers

The coexistence of genetically modified (GM) products with their conventional and organic counterparts has been one of the most scrutinized issues surrounding the introduction of products of agricultural biotechnology into the agri-food system. Fears that the widespread adoption of GM products will drive their conventional (and, perhaps, organic) counterparts out of the market have been countered by arguments that their presence enhances the equilibrium product variety in the market. Central to the argument is, of course, the possibility of coexistence of GM, conventional and organic products with the main focus having been on farm production systems and the prospect of …

Gmos And Iprs Are Key Weapons In Fight Against Hunger, Konstantinos Giannakas

CAFIO: Policy Research Group Policy Pagers

The introduction of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) into the food system and the assignment of intellectual property rights (IPRs) for plant genetic resources are among the most notable features of the increasingly industrialized agri-food marketing system of numerous developed and developing countries around the world. IPRs have provided innovating firms with incentives to aggressively pursue improvements of crop characteristics (such as herbicide tolerance, insect and virus resistance, drought tolerance and increased nutritional value) through gene splicing techniques, and the agronomic benefits associated with the genetically modified (GM) products have resulted in their embrace by a significant number of agricultural producers …

Ad Hoc Disaster And Crop Insurance Programs May Reduce The Use Of Risk-Reducing Conservation Tillage Practices, Karina Schoengold, Ya Ying, Russell Headlee

CAFIO: Policy Research Group Policy Pagers

There is growing concern that the risks facing agricultural producers are increasing due to several factors that include the predicted effects of climate change leading to more frequent floods, droughts, and higher temperatures as well greater use of agricultural outputs for nonfood energy products.

These risks are partially managed through federal agricultural programs. Ad hoc disaster payments have frequently been used to provide financial support.

The Liberalization Of Shibor And The Economic Fundamentals Of House Price Growth In China, Michael J. Mavredakis

CMC Senior Theses

This paper uses data collected from the National Interbank Funding Center of China, the People’s Bank of China, the National Bureau of Statistics, and Bloomberg starting in October 2006 through 2013 to test the economic fundamental’s affecting the housing market in Shanghai, particularly interest rates. This study finds that the 6- month duration Shibor has a negative and significant correlation with house price growth in Shanghai when lagged 4 months. The analysis continues by examining other economic fundamentals affecting house price growth, finding growth in inflation, the money supply and Shanghai real estate investment to have significant, positive relationships with …

Quantifying The Impact Of Temperature And Wind On Nfl Passing And Rushing Performance, Max A. Zipperman

CMC Senior Theses

This paper utilizes NFL game data from the 2002-2013 seasons in an investigation into the effects of temperature and wind on NFL passing and rushing performance. There are three separate analyses: (1) the general effects of weather on performance and the advantages/ disadvantages of playing at home with respect to weather, (2) a comparison of how teams respond to weather when at home vs. on the road, and (3) an examination of the effect of transitioning weather conditions on visitor performance. Teams tended to have inferior passing success in low temperatures and consequently supplant passing attempts with rushing attempts in …

Mergers & Abenomics: The Determinants Of M&A In Japan's New Economy, Ethan S. Hallberg

CMC Senior Theses

This paper investigates the influence of various macroeconomic variables on Japan’s merger and acquisition (M&A) activity, both in terms of total deal value and total number of deals. Looking at monthly data from June 1997 to December 2013, I use econometric time-series analysis to find that: First, total deal value per month is not well explained by our macroeconomic variables, but about half of the variation in number of deals per month can be explained by our dataset. Second, the most important determinant in the total number of deals per month during our period is the level of national debt, …

Specification Testing For Transformation Models, Arthur Lewbel, Xun Lu, Liangjun Su

Research Collection School Of Economics

Consider a nonseparable model Y=R(X,U) where Y and X are observed, while U is unobserved and conditionally independent of X. This paper provides the first nonparametric test of whether R takes the form of a transformation model, meaning that Y is monotonic in the sum of a function of X plus a function of U. Transformation models of this form are commonly assumed in economics, including, e.g., standard specifications of duration models and hedonic pricing models. Our test statistic is asymptotically normal under local alternatives and consistent against nonparametric alternatives. Monte Carlo experiments show that our test performs well in …

A New Approach To Bayesian Hypothesis Testing, Yong Li, Tao Zeng, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

In this paper a new Bayesian approach is proposed to test a point null hypothesis based on the deviance in a decision-theoretical framework. The proposed test statistic may be regarded as the Bayesian version of the likelihood ratio test and appeals in practical applications with three desirable properties. First, it is immune to Jeffreys’ concern about the use of improper priors. Second, it avoids Jeffreys–Lindley’s paradox, Third, it is easy to compute and its threshold value is easily derived, facilitating the implementation in practice. The method is illustrated using some real examples in economics and finance. It is found that …

Nonparametric Testing For Anomaly Effects In Empirical Asset Pricing Models, Sainan Jin, Liangjun Su, Yonghui Zhang

Research Collection School Of Economics

In this paper we propose a class of nonparametric tests for anomaly effects in empirical asset pricing models in the framework of nonparametric panel data models with interactive fixed effects. Our approach has two prominent features: one is the adoption of nonparametric component to capture the anomaly effects of some asset-specific characteristics, and the other is the flexible treatment of both observed/constructed and unobserved common factors. By estimating the unknown factors, betas, and nonparametric function simultaneously, our setup is robust to misspecification of functional form and common factors and avoids the well-known “error-in-variable” (EIV) problem associated with the commonly used …

Optimal Estimation Of Cointegrated Systems With Irrelevant Instruments, Peter C. B. Phillips

Research Collection School Of Economics

It has been known since Phillips and Hansen (1990) that cointegrated systems can be consistently estimated using stochastic trend instruments that are independent of the system variables. A similar phenomenon occurs with deterministically trending instruments. The present work shows that such "irrelevant" deterministic trend instruments may be systematically used to produce asymptotically efficient estimates of a cointegrated system. The approach is convenient in practice, involves only linear instrumental variables estimation, and is a straightforward one step procedure with no loss of degrees of freedom in estimation. Simulations reveal that the procedure works well in practice both in terms of point …

Rust-Belt Recovery: The Cleveland Model As Economic Development In An Age Of Economic Stagnation And Climate Change, Ross Lenihan

Pepperdine Policy Review

The economic outlook of the United States is dire. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, poverty has not lessened even as U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has rebounded following the Great Recession. This paper explores the development potential of joint worker-community cooperative structures during the current economic downturn by analyzing the “Cleveland model,” a network of worker-owned cooperatives supported by local education/healthcare "anchor" institutions and financed and organized by a non-profit community development corporation. I find that while worker and community-owned enterprises hold significant promise for both workers and communities in times of economic stagnation and ecological danger, existing market …

The Minimum Wage And Teen Unemployment: A Study Of The Effect Of The Fair Minimum Wage Act Of 2007, Alexander Pino

Pepperdine Policy Review

The Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007 increased the national minimum wage from $5.15 per hour to $7.25 per hour. We attempt to evaluate the impact of this statute on low-skill labor. We do so by analyzing the effect of the law on the teen unemployment rate in the five states with no state minimum wages (Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Tennessee). Using the adult unemployment rate as a control in a difference-in-differences analysis we find that the 2007 minimum wage increase had a negative effect on teen employment in these states.

Money Is More Than Memory, Maria Bigoni, Gabriele Camera, Marco Casari

ESI Working Papers

Impersonal exchange is the hallmark of an advanced society. One key institution for impersonal exchange is money, which economic theory considers just a primitive arrangement for monitoring past conduct in society. If so, then a public record of past actions—or memory—supersedes the function performed by money. This intriguing theoretical postulate remains untested. In an experiment, we show that the suggested functional equality between money and memory does not translate into an empirical equivalence. Monetary systems perform a richer set of functions than just revealing past behaviors, which proves to be crucial in promoting large-scale cooperation.

Skill Ontogeny Among Tsimane Forager-Horticulturalists, Eric Schniter, Michael Gurven, Hillard Kaplan, Nathaniel Wilcox, Paul Hooper

ESI Working Papers

No abstract provided.

Experimenting With Behavior Based Pricing, Zuzana Brokesova, Cary Deck, Jana Peliova

ESI Working Papers

Many purchases of differentiated goods are repeated, giving sellers the opportunity to engage in price discrimination based upon the shopper’s previous behavior by either offering loyalty discounts to repeat buyers or introductory rates to new customers. Recent theoretical work suggests that loyalty discounts are likely to be implemented when customer preferences are not stationary and sellers can pre-commit to prices for repeat buyers, but otherwise repeat buyers can be expected to pay the same or more than new buyers. This paper reports the results of a series of controlled laboratory experiments designed to empirically test the impact of these factors …

People Do Not Discount Heavily In Strategic Settings, But They Believe Others Do, Cary Deck, Salar Jahedi

ESI Working Papers

Several studies have shown that people greatly discount future bene ts and costs. However, most of the direct laboratory evidence of this phenomenon has focused on individual choice experiments. This paper investigates the degree to which the timing of payments a ects behavior in four commonly studies strategic settings: a Prisoner's Dilemma game, a Stag-Hunt game, a First Price Auction and a Second Price Auction. In all four settings, a two week delay in payo s has a comparable e ect to a 20% reduc- tion in current payo s. A follow-up study suggests that it is an individual's strategic …

Single- And Double-Elimination All-Pay Tournaments, Cary Deck, Erik O. Kimbrough

ESI Working Papers

Tournaments consisting of iterative matches are a common mechanism for determining how to allocate a prize. While participants are focused on their own outcomes, tournament organizers often have objectives such as maximizing the total investment or effort by the participants over the course of the tournament. For this reason it is important for organizers to understand the behavioral as well as the theoretical properties of different tournament structures. Given that laboratory experiments have consistently found high levels of overbidding in contests, one might suspect that double-elimination tournaments would generate substantially more total investment than single-elimination tournaments despite the two types …

Accounting Standards And Financial Market Stability: An Experimental Examination, Shengle Lin, Glenn Pfeiffer, David Porter

ESI Working Papers

We examine the effect on asset mispricing of different accounting methods in an experimental asset market characterized by bubbles and crashes. In particular, we study three alternative asset value reporting treatments: (1) Fair Value (also known as Mark-to-Market – M2M), (2) Historical Cost (HC) and (3) Marked to Fundamental Value (M2F). In addition, each of these treatments is replicated in two different financial leverage conditions. In the first condition (No Loan) traders must purchase assets from their available cash balances without the option of borrowing. In the second condition, (Loan), traders are given the option of taking out loans based …