Public Economics Commons^™

Short-Run Health Consequences Of Retirement And Pension Benefits: Evidence From China, Plamen Nikolov, Alan Adelman

Justice & Well-Being Studies Faculty Scholarship

This paper examines the impact of the New Rural Pension Scheme (NRPS) in China. Exploiting the staggered implementation of an NRPS policy expansion that began in 2009, we used a difference-in-difference approach to study the effects of the introduction of pension benefits on the health status, health behaviors, and healthcare utilization of rural Chinese adults age 60 and above. The results point to three main conclusions. First, in addition to improvements in self-reported health, older adults with access to the pension program experienced significant improvements in several important measures of health, including mobility, self-care, usual activities, and vision. Second, regarding …

A Study Of The Effects Of Certificate Of Need Law On Inpatient Occupancy Rates, Jomon Aliyas Paul, Huan Ni, Aniruddha Bagchi

Faculty Articles

Increasing healthcare costs and the deterioration of healthcare quality have always been major concerns to policy makers in the United States, and Certificate of Need (CON) Law has been implemented as one way to curb wasteful healthcare resource use. Theoretically, CON can lead to a reduction in the number of beds as well as in the number of inpatient days (possibly by shortening the length of patient stay). However, these two effects impact inpatient occupancy rate in opposite directions. We test empirically to find out which of these two effects dominate. In this study, we investigate the impact of CON …

State Of The Northwest Arkansas Region 2019 Report, Mervin Jebaraj, David Sorto

State of the Northwest Arkansas Region Report

The State of the Northwest Arkansas Region Report is an annual publication, commissioned by the Northwest Arkansas Council, that serves as a tool for evaluating economic performance. In July 2018, the Northwest Arkansas Council created a new blueprint for development that outlines the peer regions and a strategic action agenda for 2018-2021. In this plan, the performance of Northwest Arkansas is benchmarked with other contemporary, high-performing regions, namely Austin, Des Moines, Madison, Durham-Chapel Hill, Raleigh and Provo-Orem. The 2019 State of the Region Report compares Northwest Arkansas with these geographies in the areas of gross domestic product, employment, unemployment, establishment …

Mass Atrocities And Their Prevention, Charles H. Anderton, Jurgen Brauer

Economics Department Working Papers

Counting conservatively, and ignoring physical injuries and mental trauma, data show about 100 million mass atrocity-related deaths since 1900. Occurring in war and in peacetime, and of enormous scale, severity, and brutality, they are geographically widespread, occur with surprising frequency, and can be long-lasting in their adverse effects on economic and human development, wellbeing, and wealth. As such, they are a major economic concern. This article synthesizes very diverse and widely dispersed theoretical and empirical literatures, addressing two gaps: a “mass atrocities gap” in the economics literature and an “economics gap” in mass atrocities scholarship. Our goals are, first, for …

A Mobile Solution To Drug Prescription And Dispensation With Privacy Protection For Developing Economies, Kingsley C. Nwosu

Journal for the Advancement of Developing Economies

It is unarguable that many countries within the developing economies have not been able to reap many of the benefits from the innovations in Computer and Information Technologies (CIT) as they pertain to the advances in healthcare delivery systems. The contributing factors to the problems in these countries are multifaceted, such as, ethnic, cultural, environmental, governance, and infrastructural. To address these problems, current efforts have focused mostly on the issues of disease control and management. However, insufficient attention has been given to the concomitant problems of medication (drug / prescription) management especially as they relate to information management between patients, …

Determinants Of Cost Of Treating Water-Borne Diseases Among Rural Households In South West Nigeria, Alaba M. Dare, Idris A. Ayinde, Adebayo M. Shittu, Sammy O. Sam-Wobo, Sakiru O. Akinbode

Journal for the Advancement of Developing Economies

This study determined the factors that influence the economic burden of water-borne diseases and the associated financial cost for rural households in southwestern Nigeria. A multi-stage random sampling method was used to select four hundred and thirty-seven rural households from whom data were collected for the study. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and cost of illness approach. The results revealed that an average household had six members with an average quarterly income of N80,717.52 (N160.00 = 1US dollar, at time of study). The sum of N28,571.36 was incurred as economic cost of water-borne diseases per household per quarter in …

All For One Or Each For Her Own: Do Polygamous Families Share And Share Alike?, Kristin Mammen

Journal for the Advancement of Developing Economies

This paper examines whether the mother’s rank (whether she is a senior or junior wife) in polygamous households in Côte d’Ivoire injects favoritism that could lead to differential investment in children (based on mother’s rank), a concern that could cause an inefficient allocation of household resources. The hypothesis is that the younger is a junior wife relative to the senior wife, the greater favoritism she will receive from the husband, and the better her children will fare. This question is analyzed employing Ordinary Least Squares on a Living Standards Measurement Survey microdataset collected by the World Bank. An interesting pattern …

Credit Constraints And Agricultural Productivity Of Rural Households In Nigeria, Olugbenga K. Omolade, Abimbola O. Adepoju

Journal for the Advancement of Developing Economies

This study, employing descriptive statistics and the Endogenous Switching Model, examined the link between credit constrained condition and agricultural productivity of rural households in Nigeria. Findings show that under credit constrained condition, education, labour, technology and other production inputs were not optimally utilized by the households. Credit constrained households had lower productivity than a random household from the sample would have had. However, in credit constrained households, being a male-headed household implied higher productivity. On the other hand, high value of assets and cost of hired labour had negative effects on productivity, while level of education and access to information …

Federal Regulations And U.S. Energy Sector Output, Joshua Hall, Shishir Shakya

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

A large body of literature finds that the energy sector is important to economic growth and development. The production of energy has negative environmental impacts, however, which has resulted in the sector being highly regulated. While several studies examine the effect of particular regulations on the energy sector, in this study we use the recently developed measure of regulation called RegData to estimate the impact of federal regulations on the energy sector. We employ a panel ARDL model to find an inverted U-shaped relationship between federal regulations and U.S. energy sector output. Federal regulations appear to increase energy sector outputs …

Ambulance Service Ownership And Management: How It Affects Quality Of Service Delivery For Medicare Patients, Sookti Chaudhary, Kenneth R. Troske, Suzanne Troske, Alison Davis

Institute for the Study of Free Enterprise Working Papers

This study investigates how ownership and/or management affects ambulance services across the United States. We investigate whether ambulance quality, measured by patient transportation time, varies by organization type. We estimate the effect of ownership structure on response time variables using data from the National EMS Information System (NEMSIS) for the years 2010–2015, the most comprehensive data set on emergency medical services. Focusing on ground transportation (as opposed to air and water transportation) and on Medicare-eligible (age 65 years and older) patients, we find that, on average, ambulance services owned by fire departments respond faster than those managed by other types …

Accounting For Agent Heterogeneity In Market And Policy Analysis, Konstantinos Giannakas

Zea E-Books Collection

doi:10.13014/K2416V8V

This book presents a multi-market framework of market and policy analysis that explicitly accounts for the empirically relevant heterogeneity in consumer preferences and producer characteristics. The explicit consideration of consumer and producer heterogeneity represents a significant departure from the representative consumer and producer that have been at the center of most of the literature on market and policy analysis, and enables the distributional impacts of changes in market conditions and policies to be fully identified. The framework is used to analyze the system-wide market and welfare impacts of a number of changes in market conditions (like changes in consumer …

Food Assistance Programs In The Us And Their Impact On Childhood Obesity, Jannatul Kawsar

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Numerous food assistance programs (FAP) aim to ensure food security among low income American households. However, the literature suggests that participation in food assistance programs may be associated with the US childhood obesity epidemic. The goal of this study is to analyze the association between the number of major food assistance programs children participate in and childhood obesity. The major food assistance programs considered are the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), the National School Lunch Program (NSLP), and the School Breakfast Programs (SBP). This is the first study to …

Investment Ramifications Of Distortionary Tax Subsidies, James R. Hines Jr., Jongsang Park

Articles

This paper examines the investment effects of tax subsidies for which some assets and not others are eligible. Distortionary tax subsidies concentrate investments in tax-favored assets, thereby reducing the expected pre-tax profitability of investment and reducing payoffs to bondholders in the event of default. Anticipation of asset substitution encourages lenders to require covenants in debt contracts, which only imperfectly address asset substitution and distort investment. The result is that borrowing is made more expensive, which in turn discourages investment. Borrowing rates can react so strongly that aggregate investment may rise very little, or even fall, in response to higher tax …

What Drives Differences In Management Practices?, Nicholas Bloom, Erik Brynjolfsson, Lucia Foster, Ron Jarmin, Megha Patnaik, Itay Saporta-Eksten, John Van Reenen

Journal Articles

Partnering with the US Census Bureau, we implement a new survey of "structured" management practices in two waves of 35,000 manufacturing plants in 2010 and 2015. We fnd an enormous dispersion of management practices across plants, with 40 percent of this variation across plants within the same frm. Management practices account for more than 20 percent of the variation in productivity, a similar, or greater, percentage as that accounted for by R&D, ICT, or human capital. We fnd evidence of two key drivers to improve management. The business environment, as measured by right-to-work laws, boosts incentive management practices. Learning spillovers, …

Can Uber And Lyft Save Public Transit?, Emily Zheng

Pomona Senior Theses

I examine whether Uber and Lyft are currently complements or substitutes of public transit, and how partnerships between cities and ride sharing companies can increase their complementary relationship and solve parking and mobility issues. The results suggest that transportation network companies (TNCs) like Uber and Lyft do not have a statistically significant effect on public transit ridership overall, but are complements of public transit for certain populations. Policies that give discounts for TNC rides taken to and from transit stops help solve the first mile / last mile problem, which consequently help increase transit ridership.

Essays On Child Well-Being And The Social Safety Net, Cody N. Vaughn

Theses and Dissertations--Economics

This dissertation consists of three essays examining the role of two particular social safety net programs, the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), on the well-being of children from disadvantaged households. While the impact of these programs on the adults and parents of the household have been studied extensively, less is known about their effect on children. This is true for both their immediate impact on child well-being and any long-run impacts on children who grow up under these programs. Given the demonstrated importance of child well-being on later life adult outcomes, …

Policy, Aggregate Productivity And Misallocation, Guowen Chen

Theses and Dissertations--Economics

This dissertation explores the effects of factors such as industrial policy and listing on the stock market on manufacturing firms’ profitability and productivity.

The second chapter investigates the effect of industrial policies on misallocation using a rich data-set of Chinese firms. Using a difference-in-difference approach, I provide evidence that government policies (i.e. the 10^th Five Year Plan) favoring particular industries lead to increased misallocation (i.e., an increase in the dispersion of revenue productivity across firms in four-digit industries). Moreover, the differential changes between industries supported and not supported by the 10^th Five Year Plan are quantitatively large and …

The Impact Of Medicare Part D On Mortality And Financial Stability, Katherine Toran

Theses and Dissertations--Economics

Using the Health and Retirement Study Panel core files from 1996 to 2014, I analyze how Medicare Part D impacted access to prescription drug coverage by various demographic factors such as race, gender, and income. In Chapter 1, I find the highest take-up rates for those who were white, female, and with higher incomes. However, increases in coverage were high across the board, such that Medicare Part D also improved drug insurance coverage for those who were black, male, and with lower income. Thus, although Medicare Part D did increase prescription drug insurance coverage for seniors across the board, I …

The Distributional And Countercyclical Effects Of Public Capital Investment In Transportation Infrastructure, Matthijs B. Schendstok

Theses and Dissertations--Economics

While the long run productivity of federal highway infrastructure spending has been well researched, their short run effects and effects on income inequality. This dissertation explores those under-researched unconventional effects.

In the first chapter, I investigate the effects of federal infrastructure grants on income inequality. I find that grants reduce inequality in both recipient and neighboring states. The reduction is driven by greater income among the bottom three income quintiles. I explore two mechanisms using person level data and find that the reduction in inequality is attributable to higher income for low-skilled workers and workers working in low-skilled industries.

In …

Alleviating Poverty In Sub-Saharan Africa, Owen Dubeck

CMC Senior Theses

While most of the world has been able to dramatically reduce extreme poverty rates, Sub-Saharan Africa has failed to do so and is the only region in the world with more people living in extreme poverty than thirty years ago. This thesis will develop a policy framework for alleviating poverty by drawing from countries that are performing surprisingly well and poorly in the region. The thesis concludes with an analysis of whether education, health, or agricultural sectors should be receiving more or less funding based on expected rates of return and the feasibility of policy successes.