International Economics Commons^™

May Roundtable: The Downfall Of Human Rights? Introduction

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

“The Downfall of Human Rights” by Joshua Kurlantzick. Newsweek. February 19, 2010.

The Eternal Flame: Politics Of The Olympic Games, Alyssa Gunstrom

Honors Capstones

Capstone submitted as a graduation requirement for the BSU Honors Program.

Does Cultural Distance Hinder Trade In Goods? A Comparative Study Of Nine Oecd Member Nations, Roger White, Bedassa Tadesse

Economics

We examine the effect of cultural distance, a proxy for the lack of a minimum reservoir of trust necessary to initiate and complete trade deals, on bilateral trade flows. Employing data for 67 countries that span the years 1996– 2001, we estimate a series of modified gravity specifications and find that cultural dissimilarity between nations has an economically significant and consistently negative effect on aggregate and disaggregated trade flows; however, estimated effects vary in magnitude and economic significance across measures of trade and our cohort of OECD reference countries. The consistently negative influence of cultural distance indicates that policymakers may …

The Effects Of Returns To Education On The Decision To Stay Or To Leave Secondary School?: An Empirical Study Of Brazil, Rudy Herrera Mármol

Economics Honors Projects

I use the Mincerian wage equation to estimate the returns to education in Brazil from 2002 to 2008. I then use these estimates as variables that affect the decision made by potential students of whether to stay in school for one additional year. I use annually collected household survey data (PNAD) from the Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics (IBGE). Results indicate that returns to education have an effect on every student's decision. Although the relationship is positive, my analysis suggests that students make their decision to stay or leave school based on schooling degrees rather than on individual grades.

What Is The Impact Of Income On The Demand For Bushmeat?: A Study Of The Relationship Between Income And Bushmeat Near The Serengeti National Park In Tanzania, Iryna Postolovska

Economics Honors Projects

In Sub-Saharan Africa, increasing levels of bushmeat consumption and unsustainable bushmeat hunting have become one of the central concerns of conservationists. Many conservationists have recently begun to see income growth as a possible strategy to decrease wildlife consumption. This study tests whether or not this strategy would be effective near the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania. Results from both the aggregated and disaggregated demand functions indicate that bushmeat is a necessity in the region, implying that increases in income would lead to less than proportional increases in consumption and suggesting that income growth alone is not a viable conservation strategy. …

Workers' Migration And Remittances In Bangladesh, Khawaja Mamun, Hiranya K. Nath

WCBT Faculty Publications

Bangladesh has sent more than 6.7 million workers to over 140 countries during a period of more than three decades since the mid-1970s. Most of these workers temporarily migrated to work in Middle East and Southeast Asia. This mass movement of temporary migrant workers has, to some extent, eased unemployment pressures on the over-burdened labor market in this highly populated country. More importantly, the remittance transfers received from these migrant workers have reached a phenomenal level of over 10 billion US dollars in 2009, approximately 12 percent of GDP in Bangladesh. This paper analyzes the trends and various other aspects …

Austerity, Abundance, And The Investor States: The Political Economy Of Sovereign Wealth Funds, Manda Shemirani

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) are not new, but their foreign investment created concerns among many states in 2005 and 2006. Many policy makers argued that the ownership of foreign governments in specific areas may expose their countries to various risks. The concerns in the United States were from a national security perspective, while Europe was more worried about the lack of reciprocity and established standards. The political economy literature lacks a suitable framework for the study of investor states. The mainstream economic view contends that SWFs are a result of balance of payments surpluses and are used for economic smoothing …

The Financial Crisis, Rethinking Of The Global Financial Architecture, And The Trilemma, Joshua Aizenman, Menzie David Chinn, Hiro Ito

Economics Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper extends our previous paper (Aizenman, Chinn, and Ito 2008) and explores some of the unexplored questions. First, we examine the channels through which the trilemma policy configurations affect output volatility. Secondly, we investigate how trilemma policy configurations affect the output performance of the economies under severe crisis situations. Thirdly, we look into how trilemma configurations have evolved in the aftermath of economic crises in the past. We find that trilemma policy configurations and external finances affect output volatility mainly through the investment channel. While a higher degree of exchange rate stability could stabilize the real exchange rate movement, …

Borderplex Long-Term Economic Trends To 2029, Thomas M. Fullerton Jr., Angel L. Molina Jr.

Border Region Modeling Project

No abstract provided.

Financial Development And The Patterns Of International Capital Flows, Jurgen Von Hagen, Haiping Zhang

Research Collection School Of Economics

We develop a tractable, two-country, overlapping-generations model and show that cross-country differences in financial development can explain three recent empirical patterns of international capital flows: Financial capital flows from relatively poor to relatively rich countries while foreign direct investment flows in the opposite direction; net capital flows go from poor to rich countries; despite its negative net international investment position, the US receives a positive net international investment income. We also explore the welfare and distributional effects of international capital flows and show that the direction of capital flows may change along the convergence process of a developing country. Matsuyama …

A Time Series Analysis Of The Role Of Imports In India's Phenomenal Economic Growth, Peter J. Saunders

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of Business

This paper investigates the role of imports in India's impressive economic growth. Annual data ranging from 1970 to 2005 are used to investigate the impact of imports on economic growth that is measured by the real GDP. Johansen's ( 1988) cointegration tests indicate that these two variables are cointegrated. Therefore, a long run relationship between imports and the real GDP exists. A vector error correction (VEC) testing framework is used in a further data analysis. VEC tests indicate that imports have impacted positively India's economic growth in the short run. Therefore, imports may have played an important role in India's …

Financial Exchange Rates And International Currency Exposures, Philip R. Lane, Jay C. Shambaugh

Dartmouth Scholarship

In order to gain a better empirical understanding of the international financial implications of currency movements, we construct a database of international currency exposures for a large panel of countries over 1990-2004. We show that trade-weighted exchange rate indices are insufficient to understand the financial impact of currency movements and that our currency measures have high explanatory power for the valuation term in net foreign asset dynamics. Exchange rate valuation shocks are sizable, not quickly reversed, and may entail substantial wealth redistributions. Further, we show that many developing countries have substantially reduced their negative foreign currency positions over the last …

International Capital Flows And World Output Gains, Jurgen Von Hagen, Haiping Zhang

Research Collection School Of Economics

We develop a two-country overlapping-generations model with domestic financial frictions and show that cross-country differences in financial development explain three recent patterns of international capital flows. In our model, domestic financial frictions distort the interest rates and production efficiency in the less financially developed country. Capital flows not only lead to cross-country resource reallocation, but also trigger within-country resource reallocation among firms. From the efficiency perspective, full capital mobility raises the world output higher than under international financial autarky. If the mobility of either financial capital or foreign direct investment is restricted, the world output may be lower.

Cultural Distance As A Determinant Of Bilateral Trade Flows: Do Immigrants Counter The Effect Of Cultural Distance?, Roger White, Bedassa Tadesse

Economics

We introduce ‘cultural distance’ as a measure of the degree to which shared norms and values in one country differ from those in another country, and employ a modified gravity specification to examine whether such cultural differences affect the volume of trade flows. Employing data for US statelevel exports to the 75 trading partners for which measures of cultural distance can be constructed, we find that greater cultural differences between the United States and a trading partner reduces state-level exports to that country. This result holds for aggregate exports, cultural and noncultural products exports as well, but with significantly different …

The Effects Of Consumer Animosity, Consumer Ethnocentrism And Patriotism On The U.S. Made Products : A Study Of Muslim Consumers In Malaysia., Khairul Anuar Mohammad Shah

Student Works (2010-2019)

The primary objective of this study is to examine the negative attitudes of Malaysian Muslim consumers towards US made products. The conceptual model for this study was adapted from the model developed by Klein, Ettenson and Morris (1998). In their model, two sources of negative attitudes towards foreign made products were included, i.e., consumer animosity and consumer ethnocentrism. However, this study integrated another source of negative attitude, i.e., patriotism. The framework of this study suggests that consumer animosity, consumer ethnocentrism and patriotism will negatively influence the judgment of US made products and, subsequently, their purchase willingness and purchase action. Also, …

Risk, Learning, And The Technology Content Of Fdi: A Dynamic Model, Pao Li Chang, Chia-Hui Lu

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper builds a dynamic model of catching up to examine the policy stance of developing countries in attracting inward FDI. We show that the observably evident risk of FDI failure sets a minimum threshold on the South's technology capacity and furthermore creates a limit on the technology content of inward FDI. We provide economic foundations for the determinants of the FDI risk and formalize how the risk factor evolves over time as the South moves up its technology ladder. The model offers an insightful and tractable framework for empirical studies with a dynamic content, and reconciles many relevant empirical …

The Gettysburg Economic Review, Volume 4, Spring 2010

Gettysburg Economic Review

No abstract provided.

Cultural Diversity, Immigration And Trade: A Study Of Nine Oecd Host Countries, Roger White, Bedassa Tadesse

Economics

Employing data from nine OECD countries and 67 trading partners for the years 1996-2001, we examine the inter-relationships between immigration, cultural diversity and trade. We find greater cultural differences between immigrants’ host and home countries inhibit trade flows. However, immigrants exert pro-trade influences that partially offset the effect of cultural distance. We also find that greater cultural diversity within the immigrants’ host countries is associated with the creation of trade between immigrants’ host and home countries. The findings suggest that the ability of immigrants to influence their host’s trade with their home countries depends, in part, on the characteristics of …

Determinants Of Rental Rates In Major Cities In The United States, Roy Ruivo

Empirical Economic Bulletin, An Undergraduate Journal

The focus of this paper is to determine variables that contribute to rental rate pricing. Using U.S. Census data pertaining to all cities in the United States with populations over 100,000 in 2005, this paper furthers a study of inter-city rent determinants within New York City provided by Marco (2008) using additional variables provided by Gilderbloom and Pan (2002) in their inter-city study. This report studies the impact of variables, including vacancy rates, median family income, population growth rate, and average housing costs. The population variable will be manipulated so that it represents density, which provides an accurate representation of …

Determinants Of Hyperinflation: An Analysis Of Argentina, Eric Fudge

Empirical Economic Bulletin, An Undergraduate Journal

This paper examines the history of inflation rates in Argentina compared to other economic factors, including: GDP, national budget, money supply, exchange rate, and unemployment levels. Using data from the World Bank and Centre of International Economics this paper will give insight into some of the causes of high inflation levels that were evident in Argentina throughout the 1980s, peaking with hyperinflation in 1989 and 1990. Results from analyzing statistics pertaining to Argentina’s economy from 1980 to present suggest that perpetual budget deficits led the government to print money more rapidly, causing a significant decrease in currency valuation and thus …