Other Economics Commons^™

Value And Method In Desai's Geopolitical Economy, David Kristjanson-Gural

Faculty Journal Articles

This essay identifies the key conceptual contributions of Radhika Desai’s important and insightful analysis in her book, Geopolitical Economy. It then critically engages two key elements of her contribution: her characterization of Western Marxism and a methodological economism and theoretical essentialism that this essay argues have the unintended effect of reinforcing a marginalization of Marxism that her work is intended to redress.

Calcaneal Quantitative Ultrasound Indicates Reduced Bone Status Among Physically Active Adult Forager-Horticulturalists, Jonathan Stieglitz, Felicia C. Madimenos, Hillard Kaplan, Michael Gurven

ESI Publications

Six months of exclusive breastfeeding (EBF) is considered optimal for infant health, though globally most infants begin complementary feeding (CF) earlier—including among populations that practice prolonged breastfeeding. Two frameworks for understanding patterns of early CF emerge in the literature. In the first, maternal and infant needs trade-off, as “maternal-centric” factors—related to time and energy demands, reproductive investment, cultural influences, and structural barriers— favor supplanting breastfeeding with earlier and increased CF. A second framework considers that “infant-centric” factors—related to infant energetic needs—favor CF before six months to supplement breastfeeding.

We apply these two frameworks in examining early CF among the Tsimane—a …

Network Analysis Of The Sardex Community Currency, Georgios Iosifidis, Yanick Charette, Giuseppe Littera, Leandros Tassiulas, Nicholas Christakis

Yale Day of Data

We present a transaction dataset and preliminary analysis results about Sardex, a complementary currency (CC) in Sardinia, Italy. Sardex is currently considered one of the most successful CCs in Europe, as it grows continuously in terms of transactions’ volume and membership, and has been already replicated in 8 other regions in Italy. We model Sardex as a transaction network and study its basic properties.

Tug-Of-War In The Laboratory, Cary Deck, Roman M. Sheremeta

ESI Working Papers

Tug-of-war is a multi-battle contest often used to describe extended interactions in economics, management, political science, and other disciplines. While there has been some theoretical work, there is scant empirical evidence regarding behavior in a tug-of-war game. To the best of our knowledge, this paper provides the first experimental study of the tug-of-war. The results show notable deviations of behavior from theory. In the first battle of the tug-of-war, subjects exert fewer resources, while in the follow-up battles, they exert more resources than predicted. Also, contrary to the theoretical prediction, resource expenditures tend to increase in the duration of the …

Building A Better Model: Variable Selection To Predict Poverty In Pakistan And Sri Lanka, Marium Afzal, Jonathan Hersh, David Newhouse

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

Numerous studies have developed models to predict poverty, but surprisingly few have rigorously examined different approaches to developing prediction models. This paper applies out of sample validation techniques to household data from Pakistan and Sri Lanka, to compare the accuracy of regional poverty predictions from models derived using manual selection, stepwise regression, and Lasso-based procedures. It also examines how much incorporating publically available satellite data into the model improves its accuracy. The five main findings are that: 1) Lasso tends to outperform both discretionary and stepwise models in Pakistan, where the set of potential predictors is large. 2) Lasso and …

Políticas De Precios Y Comercialización Agrícola Durante La Transición: Experiencias Y Lecciones Para Cuba, Mario A. Gonzalez-Corzo

Publications and Research

Las políticas de precios y comercialización de productos agrícolas desempeñaron un importante papel durante las transiciones en los antiguos países socialistas. Estas transiciones agrícolas primordialmente se caracterizaron por el desmantelamiento, en algunos casos como China y Vietnam de forma gradual y calibrada y en otros de forma acelerada como en algunos países de Europa del Este y la Unión Soviética, del colectivismo, los subsidios estatales y los controles de precios y por mayores grados de participación de actores no-estatales en la comercialización de productos agrícolas. A pesar de notables diferencias estructurales y coyunturales, las experiencias de los antiguos países socialistas …

The Carbon Rush: The Truth Behind The Carbon Market Smokescreen Edited By Amy Miller, Michael Classens

The Goose

Michael Classens reviews The Carbon Rush: The Truth Behind the Carbon Market Smokescreen, edited by Amy Miller.

Does Market Integration Buffer Risk, Erode Traditional Sharing Practices And Increase Inequality? A Test Among Bolivian Forager-Farmers, Michael Gurven, Adrian V. Jaeggi, Christopher Von Rueden, Paul L. Hooper, Hillard Kaplan

ESI Publications

Sharing and exchange are common practices for minimizing food insecurity in rural populations. The advent of markets and monetization in egalitarian indigenous populations presents an alternative means of managing risk, with the potential impact of eroding traditional networks. We test whether market involvement buffers several types of risk and reduces traditional sharing behavior among Tsimane Amerindians of the Bolivian Amazon. Results vary based on type of market integration and scale of analysis (household vs. village), consistent with the notion that local culture and ecology shape risk management strategies. Greater wealth and income were unassociated with the reliance on others for …

Information Propagation In Financial Markets, Garrett A. Mcbrayer

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation consists of three essays which examine information flows through financial markets and across firms, and investigates the factors affecting the process of information dissemination. The first essay examines whether the announcement of a credit rating change for a given firm contains information pertinent to the valuations of intra-industry peer firms. I identify an information spillover effect on peer firms surrounding credit rating downgrades. Further, I find that the post-announcement spillover effects are indicative of an overreaction in the market’s response to the downgrade announcement. Peer firms exhibit predictability in their post-announcement returns as a function of their relative …

Depression As Sickness Behavior? A Test Of The Host Defense Hypothesis In A High Pathogen Population, Jonathan Stieglitz, Benjamin C. Trumble, Melissa Emery Thompson, Aaron D. Blackwell, Hillard Kaplan, Michael Gurven

ESI Publications

Sadness is an emotion universally recognized across cultures, suggesting it plays an important functional role in regulating human behavior. Numerous adaptive explanations of persistent sadness interfering with daily functioning (hereafter “depression”) have been proposed, but most do not explain frequent bidirectional associations between depression and greater immune activation. Here we test several predictions of the host defense hypothesis, which posits that depression is part of a broader coordinated evolved response to infection or tissue injury (i.e. “sickness behavior”) that promotes energy conservation and reallocation to facilitate immune activation. In a high pathogen population of lean and relatively egalitarian Bolivian foragerhorticulturalists, …

Public Goods With Punishment & Payment For Relative Rank, Terence C. Burnham

ESI Working Papers

A laboratory experiment designed to investigate the role of relative performance-based payoffs on cooperation in the context of punishment. Subjects play a repeated public goods game with high-powered punishment (50:1) and additional payoffs based on relative performance. Contributions to the public good are nearly maximal. Punishment levels are substantial, higher than the same game without relative rank payoffs, and sufficiently high that total payoffs are negative. The group would make much more money in the same setting without punishment. This study contributes to investigation of the role of altruism in human cooperation.

Gender Bias In Microlending: Do Opposites Attract?, Kanyinsola Adepoju

Master's Theses

This study exploits a quasi-random assignment of clients to loan officers using a unique database and survey from a large microfinance bank in Nigeria to show that opposite-sex preferences affect credit demand and supply. We find that clients matched to loan officers of the opposite gender are more likely to receive credit and are more likely to return for an additional loan with the credit lender.

The Relevance Of Economic, Institutional And Cultural Determinants For Venture Capital Investments. A Us-Europe Comparison., Nadja Benes

Master's Theses

This study analyzes the determinants of early-stage VC investments by identifying characteristics in the economic, institutional, as well as cultural framework that could explain the diverging levels of early-stage VC investments across countries. Data was assembled for 16 countries during the period from 1995 until 2013. The results indicate that countries that are more open to trade are associated with higher levels in early-stage venture capital. A higher unemployment rate negatively affects a country’s level of early-stage VC funds. Higher R&D expenditures as a proxy for the technological and innovation capacity in a country as well as a higher value …

Economic Growth And Development In Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, And Latin America: The Impact Of Human Capital, Angui D. Macham

Applied Economics Theses

My thesis is that human capital has been important to growth, but has had differential impact in three areas: Sub-Sahara Africa; Asia; and Latin America. I estimated three regional models to determine the impact of human capital on the growth of gross domestic product (GDP) per capita. Each model was estimated using the pooled OLS approach with a sample of 10 countries within each region. I make use of data from the Penn World Table- international comparisons of production data bank. I found that only the African region had statistically significant coefficients for both physical and human capital. For the …

An Analysis Of The Effects Of Financial Education On Financial Literacy And Financial Behaviors, Jamie Wagner

College of Business: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This study estimates how financial education affects a person’s financial literacy score, short-term financial behaviors, and long-term financial behaviors using data from the 2012 National Financial Capability Study (NFCS). There are seven categories of financial education—high school, college, employer, high school and college, high school and employer, college and employer, and combinations of all three courses—to estimate the effectiveness of financial education. This course detail has not been studied in previous literature about financial education.

Financial education has a positive relationship with a person’s financial literacy score. Splitting the sample into groups based on education and income results show that …

Exploring Microfinance For Social Capital Formation And The Empowerment Of South Asian Skilled Immigrant Women In Brantford, Ontario, Fatema Taskin Chowdhury

Social Justice and Community Engagement

No abstract provided.

The Effect Of Terminating Enforcement Actions On The Nation's Problem Banks, Benjamin Doehr

Undergraduate Economic Review

This paper examines whether the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation's supervisory actions promote improved performance at problem banks. I show that during the three-year period following the termination of a supervisory action, return on assets rises by 10 to 20 basis points. The reaction of capital markets to the termination results in a 1.7 basis point increase in return on assets, while management actions post-termination result in a 1.6 basis point decrease in return on assets.

Inclusive Fitness And Differential Productivity Across The Life Course Determine Intergenerational Transfers In A Small-Scale Human Society, Paul L. Hooper, Michael Gurven, Jeffrey Winking, Hillard Kaplan

ESI Publications

Transfers of resources between generations are an essential element in current models of human life-history evolution accounting for prolonged development, extended lifespan and menopause. Integrating these models with Hamilton’s theory of inclusive fitness, we predict that the interaction of biological kinship with the age-schedule of resource production should be a key driver of intergenerational transfers. In the empirical case of Tsimane’ forager–horticulturalists in Bolivian Amazonia, we provide a detailed characterization of net transfers of food according to age, sex, kinship and the net need of donors and recipients. We show that parents, grandparents and siblings provide significant net downward transfers …

Economic Impacts Of The Ethanol Industry In Nebraska, Dennis Conley, Kathleen Brooks, Cory Walters, Eric Thompson

Bureau of Business Research Publications

The U.S. Department of Energy data on Nebraska’s ethanol production started in 1985 at 9 million gallons per year. Ten years later in 1995 it was 200 million gallons as shown below. A little over ten years later starting in 2007, the big jump in production was 858 million gallons, and five years later by 2011 it was 2,062 million. The twenty year growth from 1995 to 2014 was approximately tenfold. Since 2007 the effects on Nebraska’s economy and rural areas have been both sustained and substantial.

The purpose of this economic study is to estimate for a five year …

Rebuilding The Classification System Of The Ocean Economy, Dr. Kwang Seo Park, Dr. Judith T. Kildow

Journal of Ocean and Coastal Economics

Many ocean countries have attempted to estimate the size of the ocean economy or industry. However, it is difficult to compare the ocean economy among countries because the definition, classification standard, and scope vary within each country. This study aims to provide concrete practical proposals for universal definition, classification standard, and scope of the ocean economy. With regard to the definition of the ocean economy, a combination of industrial and geographical perspectives is considered simultaneously. As a result, the ocean economy is defined as the economic activities that directly or indirectly take place in the ocean and use outputs from …