Economics Commons^™

2013 Conference Report: The Social Practice Of Human Rights, Mark Ensalaco

Human Rights Program Documents

Universities have new importance in the global human rights movement.

This was the resounding message the University of Dayton heard at its global conference on human rights advocacy in October 2013. The human rights movement is experiencing dramatic changes. Dynamic new NGOs in the global South are resetting the human rights agenda. Popular movements inspired by human rights ideals are arising around the world to demand justice. New information technologies are creating the possibility of real global solidarity. The movement must adapt. Human rights organizations must imagine new strategies to address poverty and other root causes of human rights violations. …

2013 Conference Brochure: Be A Part Of The Human Rights Movement's New Frontier, University Of Dayton Human Rights Center

Human Rights Program Documents

Why must we explore the social practice of human rights?

In the 65 years since the U.N.’s Universal Declaration on Human Rights, the human rights community has become a standard-bearer of normative behavior, influencing development and humanitarian organizations, multinational corporations and philanthropists. Though the movement is viewed as honorable and admirable, the certainty of its mission can inhibit introspection; a natural tendency is to prioritize rather than challenge prevailing assumptions.

Are the good intentions of human rights advocates enough? No. Research and dialogue can help propel the human rights community forward by facilitating introspection to improve both advocacy and action: …

Medicaid And Education: The Impact Of Medicaid Coverage On Children's Educational Trajectory, Melissa Atlas

Honors Papers

This paper examines the impact of Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) on children's educational progress, namely whether they are on track with their expected educational trajectory. It also examines cross-state variation in Medicaid policies and whether these different policies lead to different effects on the educational variable. With individual-level data from the Current Population Survey from years 1995 through 2006, along with information regarding each state's Medicaid policies, I seek to test the hypotheses that Medicaid/CHIP coverage will improve the likelihood of an individual being on track with his/her education and that states with qualitatively "better" …

An Evaluation Of Mergers In The U.S. Petroleum Industry, Matthew D. Capozzi

Honors Papers

This paper analyzes the effects of mergers and acquisitions on the profitability of both participating firms and competitor firms in the U.S. petroleum industry. It also identifies distinct economic conditions and firm specific characteristics that are correlated with the performance of the firm and the merger. The span of the study reaches from 1995-2011. It incorporates four unique, yet characteristic mergers of the domestic petroleum industry. The paper finds evidence that mergers and acquisitions affect the profitability of participating firms positively and competitor firms negatively. This study also provides insight into how uniform mergers and acquisitions in this industry may …

Tarp: Indication Of A Potential Target? Evaluating Market To Book Ratios And Their Relationship To Tarp, Oscar Garcia

Honors Papers

This paper examines to what extent banks with outstanding Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) debt are perceived as potential takeover targets. Each bank's price-to-tangible-book value is related to a series of fundamental bank ratios and market index as well as a series of TARP variables that capture if a bank took TARP and for how long. The results show that middle tiered banks (with assets between 500 million and 5 billion) are positively associated with retaining TARP, which may suggest they are perceived as takeover targets. In addition, banks with higher valuations have lower non-performing assets, net charge offs, loan …

The Effects Of Federal Reserve Liquidity Facilities On Inter-Bank Borrowing Rates, Isaac Green

Honors Papers

In the summer of 2007, stress in money markets created concern among economic policymakers. Fears of counter-party risk and concerns regarding the quality of bank collateral caused tremendous funding pressures for commercial and investment banks, which relied heavily on short-term borrowing. Initial attempts by the Federal Reserve to provide liquidity to banks and to alleviate strains in money markets through conventional monetary policy channels proved ineffective. After a sustained period of financial stress, the Federal Reserve introduced several programs in late 2007 and in early 2008 to address the liquidity needs of market participants. These programs were geared toward addressing …

Private Corrections, Public Implications: The Local Economic Effects Of Private Prisons, Charlotte Landes

Honors Papers

The coercive power of the state is unique among its responsibilities. And yet, like many government services, incarceration is becoming more widely privatized. These for-profit prisons market themselves as a solution to state-wide and local economic woes alike. Using standard regression analysis, I test the truth of these claims by exploring the relationship between privatized prisons and local economic health measured by county employment rate and income per capita. I find no significant relationship between the public/private nature of a prison and the employment rate, but there may be evidence of private prisons depressing county income. As we move forward …

An Investigation Into Crowd Out Phenomenon In Local Churches: Combining Experimental And Survey Methodology, Matthew Moench

Honors Papers

This paper presents the findings of an experimental investigation into crowd out phenomenon in an as yet unexplored sector of public goods provision: the local church. I develop an entirely new instrument for experimental investigation into crowd out, using a combination of both survey and experimental methodology. While the survey finds limited evidence for an aggregate crowd out effect due to taxation, the experimental treatments uncover no evidence of crowd out in local churches due to fiscal illusion.

Eco104 Historical Foundations Lecture I Introd + Patterns, Anwar Shaikh Phd

Archives of Anwar Shaikh

This collection contains:

• Historical foundations of political economy I [Course schedule and syllabus for GECO 5104]. (2013, Fall).

• Shaikh, A. (2001, September 5; 2005, updated). Lecture I: Introduction to economic theories of capitalism (Why study the classics?) [Lecture notes].

• Historical foundations of political economy I [Course syllabus and reading list for GECO 5104]. (2011, Fall).

• Figure 1.20a: GDP per capita, richest 4 and poorest 4 countries; Figure 1.21: Ratio of the GDP per capita of the richest 4 countries to the poorest 4 [Charts]. (2005, August 3; 2008, September 2, updated).

• Shaikh, A., PhD. (1999, …

Presidential Pay, Kevin F. Hallock

Economics Faculty Publications

Last month, the author wrote about athletes' pay relative to CEOs' pay and he invoked Babe Ruth's famous line justifying being paid more than Pres Herbert Hoover because Ruth had had "a better year." This month, Pres Barack Obama will be sworn in for a second term. His annual salary will be $400,000. Of course, compensation is about a lot more than wages and salaries in most jobs, and it is no different for the president of the US. Consider that the president enjoys a $50,000 "expense allowance" that is not taxed. There are also rewards after leaving office. Again, …

Data Improvement And Labor Economics, Kevin F. Hallock

Economics Faculty Publications

The expansion of available data for research has transformed empirical labor economics over the past generation. This paper briefly highlights some of the changes and describes a few examples of papers that illustrate the advances. It also documents the changing ways data have been used in the Journal of Labor Economics over the past 30 years, including a trend toward a higher fraction of papers using any data and, among those papers using any data, a higher fraction using nonpublic data, a higher fraction using international data, and more frequent use of multiple data sources. Finally, this paper describes work …

Stakeholder Theory, Value, And Firm Performance, Jeffrey S. Harrison, Andrew C. Wicks

Management Faculty Publications

This paper argues that the notion of value has been overly simplified and narrowed to focus on economic returns. Stakeholder theory provides an appropriate lens for considering a more complex perspective of the value that stakeholders seek as well as new ways to measure it. We develop a four-factor perspective for defining value that includes, but extends beyond, the economic value stakeholders seek. To highlight its distinctiveness, we compare this perspective to three other popular performance perspectives. Recommendations are made regarding performance measurement for both academic researchers and practitioners. The stakeholder perspective on value offered in this paper draws attention …

The Viability Of Water Privatization In Sub-Saharan Africa, Kelsey Burke

Economics Honors Papers

Lack of accessible clean water impacts millions of people around the world. Throughout the 1990s, the privatization of developing countries’ water sectors was seen as a way to improve inefficient and ineffective water service. While many of the privatization projects failed, it is important to assess the possibility of learning from these mistakes, and better utilizing private sector support as a tool to address global water deficiencies. I set out to show that water privatization can be an effective tool to address urban water needs if the process is conducted correctly. Through the completion of three case studies, I am …

Eminent Economist Galleys, Anwar Shaikh Phd

Archives of Anwar Shaikh

This collection includes:

• Shaikh, A. (2013). Order in and through disorder: the invisible hand as a turbulent regulator (Unpublished manuscript) (p. 2).
• Shaikh, A. (2013). No question market (Handwritten note) (p. 2).
• Shaikh, A. (2013). Up (Handwritten note) (p. 4).
• Shaikh, A. (2013). S(?) (Handwritten note) (p. 5).
• Shaikh, A. (2013). And more recently of rob johnson and the institute for new economic thinking (inet) (Handwritten note) (p. 7).
• Shaikh, A. (2013). Le (Handwritten note) (p. 9).
• Shaikh, A. (2013). E (Handwritten note) (p. 9).
• Becker, G. S. (1962). Irrational behavior and economic theory. Journal of Political Economy, …

More Studies In Rio Grande Valley History, Milo Kearney, Anthony K. Knopp, Antonio Zavaleta

Studies in Rio Grande Valley Regional History Series

Matamoros' love song to Brownsville : a poem / Milo Kearney -- Con un pie en cada lado : origins of El Rancho San Lorenzo de las Minas / Mary Jo Galindo -- The rise of banking in Matamoros and Brownsville / Louis Benavides -- The daily Brownsville ranchero / Norman C. Delaney -- Maximilian's bed in Brownsville / Don Clifford -- The U.S. consulate in Matamoros and instability in Matamoros and Brownsville in 1870 / César García -- The Lightbournes of the Point Isabel lighthouse / Antonio N. Zavaleta -- Movie theaters for Hispanics in the Rio Grande Valley, …

Economics And The Bible, Roger S. Nam

Faculty Publications - Portland Seminary

At its essence, economics is the study of how societies make decisions on the allocation of limited resources. Whether subsistence, capitalist, socialist, or totalitarian, each society faces complex choices regarding the distribution of goods and utilities. In making such choices, economics involves the study of the various allocation processes such as production, consumption, exchange, forecasting, scarcity, and risk. But in all of these activities, economics is observable only through human behavior. Consequently, efforts to isolate economic behavior from social spheres are heuristic at best, misleading at worst. Economic decisions reflect deeper ideological values, hierarchies, and positions of power, often revealed …

Essays In Happiness Economics, Boris Nikolaev

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this dissertation is to contribute to the new field of happiness economics which over the past several decades has substantially enhanced our understanding of cognitive judgment, human behavior, and the nature of happiness. Chapter 1 starts with a discussion of the subjective approach to measuring well-being and lays the foundation for the empirical work that follows in chapters 2 and 3. This approach has a strong appeal because ancient and modern cultures, and a long tradition in philosophy, view achieving happiness as the ultimate goal of human existence. It also recognizes that humans are the best judges …

Guanxi, Networks And Economic Development: The Impact Of Cultural Connections, Patricia Anne Weeks

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to explore the mechanics of guanxi in an organizational setting, focusing on the use of interpersonal relationships within Chinese firms to discover how firms initiate, build and use guanxi networks. Two richly detailed case studies document changes that take place over time in two distinct networks with respect to key actors and their contacts. This research also investigates patterns of social structure that emerge over time in these two distinct cases looking at brokerage relationships, network density, and dyadic redundancy in three waves at six month intervals. The cases are dissimilar in all aspects …

The Dynamics Of Alcohol Consumption In The Russian Federation: Implications Of Using Price Related Policies To Control Alcohol Use, Arseniy Pavlovich Yashkin

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation models the dynamics of alcohol use in the Russian Federation with an emphasis on identifying policy implications most likely to be effective at controlling alcohol use. Utilizing data from The Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey, models of alcohol consumption are estimated using both myopic and rational specifications via ordinary least squares, fixed effects two stage least squares and, the focus of this study, two-step system generalized method of moments. Alcohol consumption is studied both as a composite good and as a distinct beverage category (wine, beer, and hard liquor). Furthermore, equations stratified by gender and rural status are included …

The Effectiveness Of Public Development Banks: Designing Good Impact Evaluations, Alessandro Maffioli, Cesar M. Rodriguez

Economics Faculty Publications and Presentations

PDB programs have become a fundamental ingredient of productive development policy strategies in most emerging economies. Although the overall need for these interventions is rarely questioned, academics and policymakers often debate their effectiveness, as well as the optimal approaches and instruments necessary to implement them. Therefore, the need to produce rigorous evaluations of PDBs has become increasingly relevant for both government and civil society (see Chapter 2).

This chapter presents the main concepts and operational arguments regarding the execution of indepth impact evaluations of PDB initiatives and instruments. For a more practical approach, these arguments are presented with examples of …