Economic Policy Commons^™

A Comparison Of Maine’S Per Capita Spending, 1996-2006 To The Us And Other States, Ryan Boyd

Muskie School Capstones and Dissertations

The Great Recession of 2008-2010 is showing that the states and national government have spent too much. We need the vision of Thomas Friedman to move beyond our spending and planning habits of the past.1

In 2016, expenditures compared to 2006 will look very different, unlike the previous similarities of 1996 to 2006. This retraction, due to the recession and our government’s embracement of concerns about debt from policy wonks such as former US Comptroller David Walker, debt will have a significant affect on many populations of our society. Maine has been noted as being a state that looks after …

Reforming China's State-Owned Farms: State Farms In Agrarian Transition, Qian Forrest Zhang

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

China’s 2000 strong state-owned farms are experiencing a dual transition in the country’s economic reforms: the market transition (from state-owned enterprises embedded in the redistributive system to independent enterprises in the new market economy) and agrarian transition (from small-scale, household-based agriculture to large-scale, capitalist forms of agriculture that rely on market exchanges of land, labor and products). This paper highlights the results of a comparative analysis of the state farms and rural farming households in the agrarian transition to address the theoretical debate about agrarian transition. Using field research data from state farms in HeilongJIANG Province and drawing extensively from …

Aiding And Abetting: Human Rights Ingos And Domestic Protest, Amanda Murdie, Tavishi Bhasin

Faculty Articles

This article studies the effects of human rights international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) on domestic antigovernment protest. Unlike mainstream scholarship, the authors argue that human rights INGOs are not simply the magic bullet in orchestrating nonviolent protests; different types of human rights INGO activity have varying effects on protest. Moreover, some human rights INGO activities may lead to higher levels of violent protest. The empirical tests use new data on the activities of over 400 human rights INGOs and domestic nonviolent and violent protest globally from 1991 to 2004. The authors find that increases in human rights INGO activities reflecting a …

Africa's Debt Crisis: Perspectives On Nigeria's Escape From External Debt Trap, Solomon O. Akinboye

Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective

In sharp contrast with the image of an "oil-rich" country, Nigeria is paradoxically a heavily indebted poor country. While the country's oil production reached 2.5 million barrels per day in 2004, its total external debt stock at the end of 2004 was estimated at $35.9 billion. The debt crisis has been aggravated by the burden of debt servicing, which has absorbed the nation's budgetary and foreign exchange resources with deleterious impact on the critical sectors of the economy. The paper critically examines Nigeria's external debt profile and efforts toward its alleviation. It argues that the debt burden constitutes a major …

Reclaiming Prosperity In Boise: Designing A Sustainable Future In The New West, Mark Muro

Brookings Scholar Lecture Series

No abstract provided.

Estimation Of Bidder Valuations In An Fcc Spectrum Auction, Jungwon Yeo

Research Collection School Of Economics

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) uses auctions to allocate radio spectrum frequencies to wireless service providers. The innovation of the auction design is that it offers many heterogeneous licenses simultaneously in one ascending auction. This paper develops an empirical model and procedure to estimate bidder valuations. Given that the complex nature of the auction does not admit formal modeling in a general setting, I do not explore a particular model of equilibrium bidding. Instead, I propose two revealed preference inequalities which should hold in any reasonable model of these auctions. The first inequality requires that a bidder never bids on …

Optimal Monetary Policy In A Model With Recursive Preferences, Sungbae An

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper provides a simple and elegance approach for an empirical investigation of a model with Epstein-Zin (1989) preferences. The perturbation method implemented in Dynare is readily applicable for computation of equilibrium and welfare. A stylized new Keynesian economy with sticky prices is analyzed and optimal simple rules are accessed across various types of monetary policy rules.

Classifying Communities In Maine: A Comparative Analysis Of Fiscal Determinants, Amanda K. Rector

Muskie School Capstones and Dissertations

Every day, municipalities around Maine are faced with decisions about the types of services to provide their residents and how to pay for those services. Some communities have an easier time of this than others. Hub communities that draw commuters and visitors must provide a broad array of services with an often limited property tax base. In many cases, communities are faced with difficult tradeoffs between cutting services or increasing property tax rates.

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.

Innovation And Entrepreneurship: The New Drift In Federal Policy, Mark Muro

Brookings Scholar Lecture Series

Several defining characteristics will shape the post‐Great Recession economy:The “next” economy will be export‐oriented, lower‐carbon, and innovation‐fueled The next economy will also be metropolitan‐led:Which means regions belong at the center of national innovation and entrepreneurship policy. There is no single American economy, but a network of 366 metropolitan economies that compete with other economic regions around the world

Reclaiming Prosperity: Repositioning Southern Nevada For The Next Economy, Bruce Katz

Brookings Scholar Lecture Series

The outlines of the next American economy are coming into focus, yet the future remains uncertain in Southern Nevada as America's newest metropolis labors through a major recession. It is time therefore to get back on track and begin laying the foundation for a new and more durable kind of growth in metropolitan Las Vegas and across the Intermountain West. To help with that, urban visionary Bruce Katz advanced a powerful depiction of the next American economy in a major UNLV lecture and articulated a bold agenda for helping Las Vegas reclaim prosperity in the new era.

Las Jefas De Hogar Empobrecidas: Servicios Y Recursos Públicos Para Estas Mujeres En Chile, Florence Williams

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Background: There is a high number of female head of households in Chile, a phenomenon that adds to the poverty of the country and causes a difficult livelihood for many families. Objectives: Analyze the case of Chile in regards to this phenomenon and the services and resources available for these women, paying attention to social, economic, and political factors. Suggest changes to existing programs and provide ideas for future public policy that could help in the future. Methods: Interview female head of households and single mothers and contact social and economic organizations related to the theme. Use information from publications, …

Distributive Politics And Electoral Cycles In The American Political System, 2004-2006, Travis Roline

Political Science Theses and Capstones

Each year, billions of dollars are distributed from the federal government to benefit state and local governments, individuals, and private and nonprofit corporations. These benefits are available in a variety of forms including: project, block, and formula grants. Are the amounts of federal funding manipulative based on the political party in charge of or in contest for the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives? Data for this project was obtained via multiple venues. The Federal Assistance Award Data System online was used for the collection of project, block, and formula grant data. House and Senate party control and representation …

Welfare Benefits After The 1996 Reform Act: A New Look At The Idea Of States As Welfare Magnets, Erin Sollund

Political Science Theses and Capstones

The focus of this research is to find the differences of how each state’s welfare policies have changed since the welfare reform act of 1996, and also how recipients have responded to this change. In my analysis I combined data from the U.S Department of Health and Human Services, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and the U.S. Department of Commerce. Preliminary results suggest that states with a higher percentage of recipients on welfare before the reform showed a greater change in number of recipients than states starting with a lower percentage as did states with stronger Democratic leanings, a more …

Creating A Comprehensive Profile Of The Academic Competitiveness Grant, Kelsea Klein

Political Science Theses and Capstones

The recent push for more Americans to attend postsecondary institutions has led to the development of numerous and far-reaching government student financial aid programs. These programs have aimed at supplying the whole of the population with financial assistance regardless of color, gender, or age. However, the distribution of the aid has encountered many problems as critics argue that the recipients of the aid are primarily limited to a narrow subgroup of the population. A new program created under the Higher Education Reconciliation Act of 2005 called the Academic Competitiveness Grant is no exception. Preliminary logit analysis of the reception rates …

Las Vegas As The American Milan: Economic Growth In The World Economy, Robert E. Lang

Brookings Scholar Lecture Series

Milan as a Metaphor:
- Milan Makes Stuff and is a Tech City
- Milan’s Specialty as a World City is Design and Trade
- Milan is Not a Museum—Unlike Some Other Italian Cities that have Inspired Las Vegas such as Venice and Florence
- Design Needs Flair—We Got Plenty of That and it Plays to a Key Strength

The Broadcasters’ Transition Date Roulette: Strategic Aspects Of The Dtv Transition, James Prieger, James Miller

School of Public Policy Working Papers

The analog to digital "DTV transition" completed in June 2009 was a technological event unprecedented in scale in the broadcast television industry. The final analog cutoff for TV stations culminated more than ten years of complex regulatory decisions. Facing concerns that costs and revenue could change dramatically, stations chose when to transition in response to both market and regulatory forces. The history of broadcasting reveals a continual interplay between consumer demand, technological change, and regulation. This article describes the various forces that influenced the DTV transition, and empirically examines the stations’ decisions regarding when to switch. The economic and strategic …

Monopoly, Regulation, And Innovation, Matt Bogard

Economics Faculty Publications

Recently the Justice department has started investigations into alleged anti-trust violations by Monsanto. This has helped fuel a lot of already hyped discontent with one of the world’s leaders in innovative solutions for sustainable agriculture. This article discusses how the regulatory environment could possibly have contributed to more concentration and power in the biotech industry. Increasing regulation would likely have the opposite effect of creating a level playing field in the agriculture industry. From AgWeb, March 27,2010 http://www.agweb.com/blog/Economic_Sense_190/Monopoly_Regulation__and_Innovation_10771/

Mountain Monitor-4th Quarter 2009, Mark Muro, Jonathan Rothwell

Mountain Monitor Quarterly

The Mountain West’s recovery from the Great Recession is spreading. Output is growing in every metropolitan area. Still, hiring remains elusive—a fact frustrating the entire nation, but perhaps more so in a region used to snapping, even roaring, back from recessions faster than the rest of the nation. Drawing on data covering the fourth quarter of 2009 (ending in December), this new Mountain Monitor—a companion product to Brookings’ national MetroMonitor and a quarterly resource produced by Brookings Mountain West, a partnership between Brookings and the University of Nevada at Las Vegas—surveys a region that is at once recovering and still …

Women In The Down Economy: Impacts Of The Recession And The Stimulus In Massachusetts, Randy Albelda, Christa Kelleher

Publications from the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy

The “Great Recession” is affecting everyone in one way or another, but not everyone is affected in the same way. Women’s and men’s work (both in and out of the labor force) still differs, so we can expect that the economic crisis has had a distinct impact on women as well as their families. This policy brief discusses how the down economy has differentially impacted women and men in Massachusetts and the gendered implications of federal stimulus spending. It also identifies potential opportunities to promote gender equality as the United States, and Massachusetts in particular, attempt to move beyond the …