Income Distribution Commons^™

The Settlers Of Catan And A Study Of Trade In Non-Cooperative Games, Dmitriy Ioselevich

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Free trade has long been hailed as the world’s answer to increased competitiveness, greater overall wealth and a higher standard of living. Adam Smith’s ideas on the foundations of capitalism assert that open market policies lead to global economic growth, and conversely that protectionist measures stunt growth and inflate prices. Critics argue that protectionism helps protect developing markets and industries and prevents unfair competition. But in the debate over trade which economic policy is actually best?

To answer this question I conducted an experiment using the board game, The Settlers of Catan, as an economic model. I isolated trade …

Child Food Security And The Food Stamp Program: What A Difference A Month Makes, Yiran Li, Bradford Mills, George Davis, Elton Mykerezi

University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research Discussion Paper Series

Most Americans believe that children should not have either persistent concerns about the quality and quantity of food to eat or lack of actual access to food due to low household resources. However, in 2007, approximately 3.3 million households (8.3 percent of households with children) had food insecure children who did not have consistent access to adequate and safe foods (Nord and Golla, 2009). This implies less than complete coverage of children by the food-assistance safety net.

The United States’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), historically and commonly known as the Food Stamp Program (FSP), is a federal-assistance program designed …

Low Income Preschoolers' Non-Parental Care Experiences And Household Food Insecurity, Colleen Heflin, Irma Arteaga, Sara Gable

University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research Discussion Paper Series

Rates of food insecurity in households with children have significantly increased over the past decade. The majority of children, including those at risk for food insecurity, participate in some form of non-parental child care during the preschool years. To evaluate the relationship between the two phenomenon, this study investigates the effects of child care arrangements on food insecurity in households with children. To address the selection bias problem that arises from the fact that enrollment in different types of child care is not a random process, this study uses propensity scores techniques. The authors compare outcomes across five child care …

The Gettysburg Economic Review, Volume 6, Spring 2012

Gettysburg Economic Review

No abstract provided.

The Rise Of American Industrial And Financial Corporations, Elizabeth A. Laughlin

Gettysburg Economic Review

This paper identifies and analyzes the steps the United States took in its progression to an industrial nation. Launched by the merger movement in the late nineteenth century, vertical and horizontal integration lead to trusts and monopolies in a number of industries. Simultaneously, the labor market was undergoing a number of reforms with the deskilling of workers. The rise of big business was made possible through the growth of the financial sectors and companies such as J.P Morgan. The case study of The Standard Oil Co. highlights the wealth and power that robber barons such as J.D. Rockefeller held during …

Families With Hungry Children And The Transition From Preschool To Kindergarten, Colleen Heflin, Irma Arteaga, Sara Gable

University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research Discussion Paper Series

This paper exploits a source of variation in the eligibility for federal nutrition programs to identify the program effects on food insecurity. Children are eligible for the WIC program until the day before they turn 61 months old. The result is an age discontinuity in program participation at the 61-month cutoff. Using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Birth-cohort dataset, we find strong evidence of a sizeable increase in household food insecurity at the 61- month cutoff. Our findings are robust to different model specifications, datasets, and various bandwidth choices using various non-parametric estimations.

On Persistent Poverty In A Rich Country, T.M. Tonmoy Islam, Jenny Minier, James P. Ziliak

University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research Discussion Paper Series

We examine differences in income within the U.S., and the regions of persistent poverty that have arisen, using a newly assembled dataset of counties that links historical 19th century Census data with contemporaneous data. The data, along with an augmented human capital growth model, permit us to identify the roles of contemporaneous differences in aggregate production technologies and factor endowments, in conjunction with the historical roles of institutions, culture, geography, and human capital. We allow for possible cross-county factor mobility via a correlated random effects GMM estimator that identifies simultaneously the coefficients on time varying and time-invariant determinants of income. …

Contributions Of Financial Sector Reforms And Credit Supply To Nigerian Agricultural Sector (1978-2009), Anthony O. Onoja, M. E. Onu, S. Ajodo-Ohiemi

CBN Journal of Applied Statistics (JAS)

This study analyzed the trends and pattern of institutional credit supply to agriculture during pre- and post-financial reforms along with their determinants. It then compared the effects of reform policies on access to institutional credits in Nigerian agricultural sector before and after the reforms (1978 - 1985; and 1986 -2009). Relying mainly on time series data from CBN and NBS, it used ordinary least squares method (linear, semi-log and double log) to model the determinants of banking sector lending to the agricultural sector during the review period. The models were subjected to several econometric tests before accepting one. Chow test …

Determinants Of Foreign Reserves In Nigeria: An Autoregressive Distributed Lag Approach, David Irefin, Baba N. Yaaba

CBN Journal of Applied Statistics (JAS)

On global scale, central banks’ holdings of foreign reserves have escalated sharply in recent years. World international reserves holdings have risen significantly from US$1.2 trillion in 1995 to nearly US$10.0 trillion in June 2011. Dominant among these reserves are concentrated in the hands of few countries. Ten major holders of foreign reserves are mostly from Asia. Oil exporting countries in Africa and the Middle East are not left out in this trend. Nigeria’s foreign reserves rose from US$5.5 billion in 1999 to US$62.40 billion in July 2008, making Nigeria the twenty-fourth largest reserves holder in the world. This pace of …

Effects Of Exchange Rate Movements On Economic Growth In Nigeria, Eme O. Akpan, Johnson A. Atan

CBN Journal of Applied Statistics (JAS)

This study investigates the effect of exchange rate movements on real output growth in Nigeria. Based on quarterly series for the period 1986 to 2010, the paper examines the possible direct and indirect relationship between exchange rates and GDP growth. The relationship is derived in two ways using a simultaneous equations model within a fully specified (but small) macroeconomic model. A Generalised Method of Moments (GMM) technique was explored. The estimation results suggest that there is no evidence of a strong direct relationship between changes in exchange rate and output growth. Rather, Nigeria’s economic growth has been directly affected by …

Exchange Rate Volatility In Nigeria: Consistency, Persistency & Severity Analyses, Babatunde Adeoye, Akinwande A. Atanda

CBN Journal of Applied Statistics (JAS)

The adoption of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) in 1986 resulted in the transition from fixed exchange rate regime to floating exchange rate regime in Nigeria. Ever since, the exchange rate of naira vis-à-vis the U.S dollar has attained varying rates all through different time horizons. On this basis, this study examines the consistency, persistency, and severity (degree) of volatility in exchange rate of Nigerian currency (naira) vis-a-vis the United State dollar using monthly time series data from 1986 to 2008. The standard Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) model was used to analyze the long-run consistency of …

Foreign Private Investment And Economic Growth In Nigeria: A Cointegrated Var And Granger Causality Analysis, F. Z. Abdullahi, S. Ladan, Haruna R. Bakari

CBN Journal of Applied Statistics (JAS)

This research uses a cointegration VAR model to study the contemporaneous long-run dynamics of the impact of Foreign Private Investment (FPI), Interest Rate (INR) and Inflation rate (IFR) on Growth Domestic Products (GDP) in Nigeria for the period January 1970 to December 2009. The Unit Root Test suggests that all the variables are integrated of order 1. The VAR model was appropriately identified using AIC information criteria and the VECM model has exactly one cointegration relation. The study further investigates the causal relationship using the Granger causality analysis of VECM which indicates a uni-directional causality relationship between GDP and FDI …

Banking Sector Credit And Economic Growth In Nigeria: An Empirical Investigation, Aniekan O. Akpansung, Sikiru J. Babalola

CBN Journal of Applied Statistics (JAS)

The paper examines the relationship between banking sector credit and economic growth in Nigeria over the period 1970-2008. The causal links between the pairs of variables of interest were established using Granger causality test while a Two-Stage Least Squares (TSLS) estimation technique was used for the regression models. The results of Granger causality test show evidence of unidirectional causal relationship from GDP to private sector credit (PSC) and from industrial production index (IND) to GDP. Estimated regression models indicate that private sector credit impacts positively on economic growth over the period of coverage in this study. However, lending (interest) rate …

Neither The Washington Nor Beijing Consensus: Developmental Models To Fit African Realities And Cultures, Sanusi L. Sanusi

CBN Journal of Applied Statistics (JAS)

No abstract provided.

Impact Of Food Inflation On Poverty In The Philippines, Tomoki Fujii

Research Collection School Of Economics

We simulate the impact of actual food price increase between June 2006 and June 2008 on poverty across different areas and whether the household’s main income source is agricultural activities. We explicitly treat heterogeneity in food price changes and the patterns of consumption and production by merging a expenditure survey dataset and a price dataset at the provincial level or lower. While the increase of head count index is larger for non-agricultural households than agricultural households, the opposite is true for the poverty gap and poverty severity measures, because poor agricultural households are particularly vulnerable to food inflation.

When It Comes To Poverty Reduction, Less May Be More, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

It is a widely accepted belief that people should be better off as the economy expands: The greater the growth, the greater the likelihood that poverty numbers will decline. While there are many good and valid reasons to hold this to be true, exceptions exist, where the lives of the poor have improved rapidly despite slow growth, or where poverty actually increases along with strong economic growth.

Predictions For Protection: A System To Measure And Detect Asset Bubbles, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

The damage wrecked by the bursting of asset bubbles can have a devastating impact on investors' fortunes. In the Internet bubble, some US$8 trillion of shareholder wealth was destroyed. What is even more pertinent, however, is how the popping of a bubble can create a financial crisis, impacting nations and their economies. As a result, understanding how to identify bubbles is an important first step in combating these speculative bubbles, with interested parties ranging from the academic and investment community to central bankers and policy makers.

Persistent Place-Based Income Inequality In Rural Nebraska, 1979-2009, David J. Peters

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

This article addresses a current gap in the inequality literature by identifying demographic and economic factors that best explain persistent income inequality across N = 817 non metropolitan block groups in Nebraska between 1979 and 2009. Over one-half of rural places in Nebraska have average levels of income inequality, one-quarter have persistently low inequality, and one-fifth of places have persistently high levels of income inequality. Results of multinomial logistic regression suggest that persistently high-inequality places in rural Nebraska tend to be smaller, more urbanized, more ethnically diverse, more wealthy, more specialized in high-skill and low-skill industries, and have experienced fast …

How The Mindless Growth Mantra Of Modern Economics Is Failing Us, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

Just three years after the 2008 global financial crisis, the world wonders, yet again, if another global downturn might be looming.

The Importance Of Region And State Welfare Rules For Disconnected Single Mothers, Andrea Hetling

University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research Discussion Paper Series

The proportion of low-income, single mothers not receiving public assistance or participating in the formal employment sector has approximately doubled over the past decade. Many of the currently debated policy options to support these families focus on state level programs. However, little is known about the relationships between state welfare program characteristics and disconnectedness. This project assesses the effect of state welfare rules on the likelihood of being disconnected from these two income sources. Using data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation and the Urban Institute‟s Welfare Rules Database, the current research compares the circumstances of these at-risk …