Regional Economics Commons^™

Corruption, Government Effectiveness And Human Development In Sub-Saharan Africa, Sakiru O. Akinbode, Jayeola Olabisi, Remilekun R. Adegbite, Timothy A. Aderemi, Abimbola M. Alawode

Journal for the Advancement of Developing Economies

Aside economic factors causing low human development which have been extensively studied in literature, the implications of high level of corruption and weak governance prevalent in sub- Saharan African (SSA) countries have not been explored. The study assessed the effects of corruption, government effectiveness and their joint effect on human development in SSA. Data collected on thirty-seven (37) countries within the period of 2005 to 2018 were analyzed using system Generalized Method of Moment which was most suitable for the dataset. Results indicated that lagged human development index (P<0.01), government effectiveness (P<0.05), economic growth rate (P<0.1) and government health spending (P<0.1) had significant positive effect on human development while corruption and its interaction with government effectiveness did not. The results of Arrelano-Bond test of first order autocorrelation and second order autocorrelation of error term as well as the Sargan test and Hansen J test for validity of instrumental variables confirmed the validity of the model. The robustness of the estimation was established as the coefficient of the lagged dependent variable fell between the values in the fixed effect and pooled ordinary least square regression. The study recommended retraining and reorientation of government employees towards the mindset of effective service delivery and strong political will to achieve it, diversification of SSA economies alongside other growth stimulating policies such as reduced lending interest rate on loans meant for the real sector, improvement in the ease of doing business, improved funding of the health sector and proper monitoring of activities in the public service by concerned agencies to curb corruption where it is present.

The Desire For Luxury In Emerging Markets: An Interactional Perspective On Consumer Motivations In Tunisia, Pranjal Gupta,, Mouna Zaghdoudi

Journal for the Advancement of Developing Economies

The motivations underlying the desire for luxury products and services have long been the subject of academic inquiry. An understanding of these motivations is useful for the luxury market industry to help managers formulate better marketing strategies. Further, such knowledge would also be useful to public policy makers to help them mitigate societal problems that may occur as a result of such consumption. Of particular interest is the growth of the luxury market in emerging economies. This study spotlights the luxury market in Tunisia. Previous work has demonstrated that age has a significant impact both on willingness to buy luxury …

Municipal Fiscal Distress In Pennsylvania: Assessing The Municipalities Financial Recovery Act 47 Of 1987, Terry Tracy

West Chester University Doctoral Projects

In the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the Department of Community and Economic Development administers a Municipal Financial Recovery program to improve outcomes in fiscally and socio-economically distressed cities. The program operates under the auspices of the Pennsylvania Municipal Recovery Act 47 of 1987.

It is designed to provide state and municipal governments the resources necessary to combat fiscal distress and economic decline, where municipalities lack the political or financial wherewithal to do so autonomously. Those resources include access to grant funding, special latitude over tax policy and fee structures not otherwise permitted by Pennsylvania’s Constitution, and developing a five-year fiscal recovery …

Economic Activity, International Intervention, And Transitional Governance: A Comparative Case Study Of Somalia, Daniel Bonneau, Joshua C. Hall

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

This paper investigates the impact of international state-building efforts in Somalia on economic development. We use satellite data on night lights to measure economic activity to deal with nonexistent or poor-quality national income accounts. Using the synthetic control method, we find that the establishment of the Transitional Federal Government in 2004 was associated with economic stagnation relative to the years under statelessness. Using nighttime light emissions, we find economic stagnation regardless of whether we use the total lights emitted from the country or the spread of lights across the country. Our empirical findings are consistent with the idea that the …

Localization Economies And Firm Productivity: Evidence From Football Teams In Sao Paulo, Brazil, Brad Humphreys, Amir B. Neto

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

Agglomeration economies affect urban economic outcomes. We analyze variation in sports team productivity and localization of teams across divisions and cities in Campeonato Paulista an annual football competition in São Paulo state, Brazil, exploiting plausibly exogenous variation in localization generated by a promotion and relegation system in this league. Results show that both urbanization, proxied by population, and localization affects short and long run team productivity. These results provide new evidence on the importance of localization economies in the urban economy in developing countries and shed light on why sports teams in larger cities enjoy more success than those in …

Part 2: The Way We Were: 2010-2019, Center For Economic Analysis And Policy

State of the Commonwealth Reports

No abstract provided.

Part 1: Covid-19 And The Commonwealth, Center For Economic Analysis And Policy, Old Dominion University

State of the Commonwealth Reports

In January 2020, Virginia was focused on the continuing economic expansion and shortages of skilled labor in many areas of the Commonwealth. Now, as 2020 draws to a close, we face the prospects of a hard winter and a slow recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. We examine the impact of COVID-19 on Virginia and discuss how the pandemic has disproportionately impacted our Black or African American and Hispanic or Latino residents.

Regional Integration And Growth Spillovers: Is Africa An Economic Space?:, Abdoulaye Seck, Founty Alassane Fall, Khadidiatou Aidara

Journal of African Trade

No abstract provided.

Part 5: Virginia's Opioid Epidemic Continues And Covid-19 May Be Making It Worse, Dragas Center For Economic Analysis And Policy, Old Dominion University

State of the Commonwealth Reports

In 2017, we explored the rising toll of the opioid epidemic in Virginia and the United States. While COVID-19 has garnered much of the attention in 2020, the opioid epidemic continues in the Commonwealth. We revisit the evidence and consider whether the pandemic and social distancing measures have affected opioid overdoses in Virginia.

Part 3: Feeding Virginia, Dragas Center For Economic Analysis And Policy, Old Dominion University

State of the Commonwealth Reports

In 2018, 1 in 10 adult Virginians did not know with certainty how they would obtain their next meal. This food insecurity affects an even greater proportion of children in the Commonwealth. It not only lowers learning outcomes, but also reduces workplace productivity. Now, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, food insecurity in Virginia has increased. We explore how public programs and regional food banks are working to address this problem.

Part 4: Youth Mental Health In Virginia, Dragas Center For Economic Analysis And Policy, Old Dominion University

State of the Commonwealth Reports

Over the last decade, an increasing number of young people reported being anxious or depressed. And now, the COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated closing schools, curtailing extracurricular activities and limiting social contacts for many of Virginia’s youth. In this chapter, we explore the state of youth mental health in the Commonwealth and gauge how our younger residents are faring during the pandemic. We find that there is an increasing need for youth mental health services and discuss what can be done to help those who could benefit the most.

Finally, Nebraska: A Synthetic Control Analysis Of Legislative Structure, William B. Hankins

Research, Publications & Creative Work

I estimate the impact of Nebraska’s 1937 switch from a bicameral to a unicameral legislature on state-level government expenditures. Using the synthetic control method I create a counterfactual Nebraska from a weighted-average of other potential control states and compare spending in this “synthetic Nebraska” to spending in the real Nebraska. Relative to the synthetic control, Nebraska experiences a sharp decrease in expenditures per capita immediately following the switch to a unicameral legislature, however, the difference appears to diminish over time. Placebo tests show that if the change in Nebraska’s legislative structure were randomly assigned amongst the sample of states, and …

Three Essays On The Economics Of Education Expansion, Xiaozhou Ding

Theses and Dissertations--Economics

My dissertation consists of three essays that study the unintended consequences of education policies. The first two essays examine the impact of higher education expansion in China on household saving rate and individual migration rate. The third essay looks into the impact of a school redistricting plan and the construction a new school on housing prices in Fayette County, Kentucky.

In the first essay, I utilize the large national expansion on higher education in China which exogenously increase the enrollment of college students, to estimate the induced change in the expected college probability and how it affects saving rates for …

Social Agglomeration Forces And The City, Peter A. Luff

Library Map Prize

The presence of “agglomeration forces” in production markets is widely accepted and has been recently quantified in the economics literature. Social scientists have done little theoretical work, however, and even less quantitative work, on how the logic of agglomeration might also apply to social groups and the gains that people derive from their social interactions. This paper attempts to bridge this gap by modeling and measuring the benefits in terms of social prestige that arose from the spatial concentration of socialites in Manhattan in the 1920s. I formulate a model of location-based social status determination that illustrates why these benefits …

Borderplex Business Barometer, Volume 4, Number 1, Thomas M. Fullerton Jr., Steven L. Fullerton, Ana Gutierrez Zubiate, Ignacio Santana

Border Region Modeling Project

No abstract provided.

Oregon Manufacturing Extension Partnership: Economic Impact Analysis -- January 2020 Update, Emma Willingham, Hoang The Nguyen, Katelyn Kelley, Northwest Economic Research Center

Northwest Economic Research Center Publications and Reports

The Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP), founded in 1988, is a network of non-profit agencies staffed by industry professionals and consultants. Historically, MEP has sought to increase the competitiveness of small to mid-size enterprises (which as a group comprise 99% of all U.S. manufacturing firms) by providing expert guidance and access to resources. In recent years, the severe economic recession sparked increased interest in the strength of the manufacturing sector, due to its longtime status as one of the major drivers of the domestic economy. Oregon Manufacturing Extension Partnership (OMEP), the Oregon branch of MEP, works to provide data-driven analysis …

Three Essays On Health Economics And Policy Evaluation, Shishir Shakya

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This dissertation consists of three essays on the U.S. Health care policy. Each paragraph below refers to the three abstracts for the three chapters in this dissertation, respectively. I provide quantitative evidence on how much Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMPs) affects the retail opioid prescribing behaviors. Using the American Community Survey (ACS), I retrieve county-level high dimensional panel data set from 2010 to 2017. I employ three separate identification strategies: difference-in-difference, double selection post-LASSO, and spatial difference-in-difference. I compare how the retail opioid prescribing behaviors of counties, that are mandatory for prescribers to check the PDMP before prescribing controlled substances …

Three Essays In Applied Econometrics: Understanding Population Changes, Samuel P. Taylor

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This body of work consists of three research projects developed around a central theme – what might cause a person to leave the place where they live? As a native and resident of West Virginia, this question is not a purely academic one. My region has long struggled with how to retain our “best and brightest” in the face of challenging socio-economic conditions. Looking at the question differently, understanding what negative influences may exist to cause a person that might otherwise have remained in a place to leave, could provide large influences on policy and strategy for retention of residents …

Essays On The Political Economy Of Governance, Yang Zhou

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This dissertation studies the governance structure and its economic impacts in the Chinese context. Specifically, I use a public choice framework to analyze how institutions influence economic and political activities of both public officials and private sectors. Chapter 1 employs the synthetic control method to investigate the effects of institutions to regional economic development. Chongqing Municipality, a province-level region in China, had a unique leader from late 2007 to early 2012 who conducted red ideology movements and legal intervention. The empirical results reveal that although the economic policies promoted the Chongqing economy, the Maoist political policies partially undermined its economic …

Culture Of Countries And Country-Index Crash Risk, Jason Petri

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Previously crash- risk studies have focused on assessing at the firm level the likelihood of a firm’s equity to crash (a rapid decline in value), apart from the dynamics of its respective country-level market. In this study, however, I examine the determinants of an overall countrylevel equity crash apart from the dynamics of the global market. I will argue that this is a very different focus of analysis that will provide valuable information to both investors and policy makers. Expansion of credit and subsequent equity-market bubbles and crashes are of particular concern to foreign direct investors (FDI), as country-level equity …