VTechWorks Repository :: Browsing by Author "Tideman, Nicolaus"

Browsing by Author "Tideman, Nicolaus"

Now showing 1 - 20 of 52

2014 OA Week Panel
Rivers, Caitlin; Matheis, Christian; Lazar, Iuliana M.; Sutherland, Michelle; Tideman, Nicolaus; Wynne, Randolph H. (2014-10-31)
Ability Tracking and Class Mobility in High School Mathematics: The Case of Low Achievers
Shapiro, Bradley Thomas (Virginia Tech, 2009-05-01)
The goal of this paper is to evaluate commonly held criticisms of the practice of ability tracking in high school mathematics. To do so, I employ data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 and follow-ups to model classroom selection and education production. This paper will focus only on the causes and effects of tracking on students who were tracked as low-ability in eighth grade. From this, we can see how many students, if any, switched out of the low-ability track by tenth grade and how various switches have affected their test scores in mathematics. I find that students exercise mobility between ability-tracks as late as tenth grade and that ability-track placement is largely determined by test scores. In addition, I find evidence that there would be minimal, if any, test score improvement among low-ability students if they were all moved to a class of heterogeneous ability.
An analysis of revenue sharing's performance in achieving its formula goals
Sweetser, Wendell Edmund (Virginia Tech, 1979-08-15)
The State and Local Fiscal Assistance Act of 1972, otherwise known as the revenue sharing act, distributes $30.2 billion to nearly 39,000 state and local governments over a five year period. The purpose of this study is to determine whether or not the actual workings of the program are consistent with the goals its supporters set for it. Other formula studies of revenue sharing begin by selecting a goal, or qoals, that revenue sharing is supposed to advance (or should advance), and then proceed to develop alternative distribution formulas which are more responsive to the predeternined goal(s). This study, by examining the structure of the distribution formula, uses a revealed preference technique to ascertain four program goals inherent in the structure of the distribution formula.
The Causes and Effects of Commercial Bank Participation in the Federal Home Loan Bank System
Frizell, Julie Dolan (Virginia Tech, 2002-10-10)
The 1990s saw significant increases in commercial bank membership in the Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLB) System and extensive growths in FHLB assets and outstanding advances. Since FHLB policies may enable risk-taking behavior by the System's member institutions, this research evaluates the impact of the FHLBs on community bank members, local consumers, and local markets. Results suggest that commercial bank liquidity is enhanced by and managed with the use of System advances, and investments in loans and mortgage-related assets increase with FHLB participation, particularly by small bank members. Credit quality and bank financial conditions improve after participating in the FHLB program, and cost savings from borrowing System funds may contribute to higher rates paid on deposits in local markets. However, banks with greater exposure to interest rate risk are more likely to become FHLB members, and interest rate risk exposure further increases after membership attainment, as the amount of advances borrowed increases, and the longer members remain in the FHLB program. Long-term advances have not been used to lengthen liability duration to offset growth in long-term asset investments, which makes the FHLB System more highly susceptible to rising rates.
Choosing Among the Variety of Proposed Voting Reforms
Tideman, Nicolaus (Springer, 2023-12-05)
A wide variety of voting reforms are offered for consideration in this special issue. This paper draws connections among them and identifies the beliefs that make particular proposals more attractive than others.
Determinants of labor union members' satisfaction with their unions
Himarios, Jane Smith (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1988)
This study investigates the determinants of union members' satisfaction with their unions. Two theories of member satisfaction are formulated. In the first, satisfaction is hypothesized to be a function of specific union performances. The second theory relates satisfaction to the relationship between unions and their members. Constitutional procedures, in addition to performance, are the predicted determinants of satisfaction. A set of variables measuring union performance in various areas thought to be important to union members is constructed to test the first theory. In the second theory, labor union constitutions are viewed as explicit contracts between unions and their members, and various constitutional provisions are quantified and used as a set of satisfaction determinants. Performance variables are found to be the primary determinants of satisfaction, explaining the majority of the measured variation in satisfaction. The constitutional variables cannot be ignored, however, because when they are combined with performance variables they do contribute significantly, in a statistical sense, to the explanatory power of the union satisfaction model. It appears that constitutional "contracts" which specify officer removal and officer election procedures do help to solve union members' agency problems and thus increase their satisfaction with their unions.
An economic analysis of state criminal courts
Elder, Harold W. (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1982)
This dissertation is an analysis of state criminal courts, and employs the economics of property rights to develop a model of these courts. Previous economic analyses have not considered the effects of the property rights structure an decision making in the courts and are thus incomplete. That property rights structures affect decision making has been established in a large body of literature examining both private and public forms of organization. This study asserts that the court decision makers will make choices reflective of the property rights structures they face. The implications of the property rights model are tested across state through the estimation of a linear regression equation. The results of these tests largely confirm the predictions of the property rights model. The primary conclusion derivable from the statistical work is that the property rights structure does affect the volume and composition of the output produced by a court. Additionally, a competing hypothesis is tested over time for several of the states examined previously. This hypothesis is based upon the notion that output is determined by the caseload pressures facing a court. This hypothesis is not, however, consistently supported by the statistical results, thus adding credence to the idea that the property rights structure is a major determinant of court output.
The economics of the Grameen Bank
Ameen, Farhad (Virginia Tech, 1996-06-06)
The Grameen Bank has improved the lives of several million poor people in rural Bangladesh by providing them with credit. Using an innovative group lending program, the bank has been able to recover 97% of its loans. This dissertation is an attempt to understand the intricacies of the Grameen Bank's credit program and to throw light on those features of its innovative institutional set-up that make it so successful in recovering its loans. The dissertation is divided into six chapters and organized as follows. I first describe the institutional set-up of the Grameen Bank and its group lending program. I draw on material obtained from interviews with bank staff and borrowers during a field-trip to the Konokdia branch of the bank in Patuakhali. This is followed by an economic analysis of the bank's lending program. I analyze the multifaceted role of group lending in achieving the dramatically low default rates on loans. The emphasis is on isolating the specific ways in which the incentives created by the requirement to form groups affects group composition and the incentives for peer support, peer supervision, and loan repayment. Using a formal model, I analyze the effect of one specific feature of the Grameen Bank -- "staggered disbursement" -- on the expected loan recovery rate. In a two borrower model I show that when loan disbursement is staggered, the probability of loan recovery is higher when borrowers are linked together in a group than when there is no such group interlinkage. I analyze the implications of loan staggering on borrower welfare. The dissertation also includes an empirical analysis of the determinants of loan repayment in the Grameen Bank. Using panel data collected from a sample of Grameen Bank branches by the World Bank, I perform OLS, “fixed effects” and “random effects” regressions to examine the relationship between the variation in repayment rates across Grameen Bank branches and such variables as the average loan size, the proportion of loans to women and the distance of the branch from district headquarters. The results throw light on some of the theoretical issues raised in the earlier chapters. Chapter 6 concludes the dissertation.
The efficiency properties of institutional evolution: with particular reference to the social-philosophical works of F. A. Hayek
Arnold, Roger A. (Virginia Tech, 1979-01-07)
In an overall sense, the purpose of this study is to examine closely the evolutionary process with respect to institutional evolution. The position which holds that the evolutionary process generates efficient institutional forms is seen to be dependent upon a certain set of conditions being met. In the more general case, however, the evolutionary process oftentimes generates outcomes that are unintended, inefficient, and undesirable; consequently placdng man in what has been referred to as a “social dilemma." At base, this outcome is a result of simple utility maximization on the part of individuals. Policy prescriptions and attitudes towards policy are likely to change once this is noted and understood.
The emergence, growth, and redirection of social security: an interpretive history from a public choice perspective
Weaver, Carolyn L. (Virginia Tech, 1977-08-05)
In an overall sense, the purpose of this study is to analyze and interpret, from a public choice perspective, the emergence, redirection, and growth of Social Security. To date, there has been no attempt to explain the evolution of this program within an integrated framework of non-market institutional change which incorporates both the recent literature on the economics of bureaucracy with the more traditional literature on the demand for public sector activity. As such, this study represents an endeavor to recast and review the historical institutional evolution of Social Security, taking account explicitly of a theory of bureaucracy, so that the current and future growth as well as the proliferation of the program need not be viewed as entirely unforeseen and with results that are often unpredictable. Alternatively, this economic, political, and institutional case-study of Social Security can be viewed as a preliminary test of the relative explanation power of pure demand- and pure supply-side models of public sector growth.
Empirical Analyses of a Spatial Model of Voter Preferences
Matje, Thorsten (Virginia Tech, 2016-12-06)
To properly analyze the advantages and disadvantages of voting rules, and how well the outcomes that they yield reflect voters' preferences, one needs very large data sets, since paradoxes that occur very rarely may have large impacts. Since such amounts of election data are currently unavailable, it is important to be able to use random procedures to generate data that have the same statistical characteristics as real election data. It is the purpose of this work to identify a statistical characterization of voting data, to empower researchers to use random procedures to generate data that is statistically indistinguishable from real voting data.
An empirical investigation of economic consequences of the Tax Reform Act of 1986
Samelson, Donald (Virginia Tech, 1992)
This dissertation investigates the economic impact of the Tax Reform Act of 1986, one of the most far-reaching pieces of tax legislation in American history. The focus is on differential effects of the Act across industries. Event study methodology is used. A model is created which links tax law provisions, firms’ cash flows, and securities returns. Hypotheses are developed for seven industries, based upon analysis of the provisions of the Act and upon reading of contemporaneous expert commentary. The sample consists of firms in those industries trading over-the-counter. Evidence of an adverse impact for the Act as a whole on the steel and machine tool industries is found. It is concluded that the Tax Reform Act of 1986 caused a shift in economic resources away from those industries, and that shareholders of firms in those industries suffered losses of wealth. In addition, it is determined that the uniform capitalization rules for inventory adversely affected the retailing industry, and that the change in loan loss reserve rules adversely affected large banks. The latter set of findings emphasizes the substantive importance of tax accounting rules. With regard to event study methodology, it is found that non-synchronous trading in over-the-counter stocks poses a severe problem when attempting to use the market model. A methodological modification suggested by Dimson is shown to be ineffective in dealing with this problem. Alternatives to the market model are identified, and are used in analysis. Most significant reactions are found when abnormal returns are pooled over events, supporting an expectations-revision model of market reaction.
Essays in Public Education
Bowles, Robert (Virginia Tech, 1999-03-31)
Chapter 1 introduces some of the issues which are addressed in the other chapters of this dissertation. These topics include: (1) the general equilibrium incentives in the provision of public education, (2) human capital production functions in economic modeling, (3) how public education spending may impact income inequality -- both positively and negatively, (4) the effect on public education spending of changes in the college wage premium, and (5) the overall efficiency of government-supplied capital. Chapter 2 develops a public education system in which voters face general equilibrium incentives to pay taxes for education. Middle-aged voters can increase their returns to saving by increasing the aggregate amount of human capital in the economy. I find that if students differ by their ability to increase their human capital levels through schooling, then the public education policy will invest more education funds in more productive students; this perpetuates income inequality. Also, the greater the discount rate for consumption and the elasticity of education funds in the human capital production function, the more likely it is that a public system provides greater growth in the steady state than a private system. Chapter 3 studies the allocation of government spending between general tuition subsidies for college students and need-based aid which is directed solely towards students from low-income households. The way to maximize the number of students may be to provide some need-based aid. I find that government provides more aid directed to low-income students if need-based tuition subsidies are provided rather than student loan subsidies. I also look at the effects of changes in parameters, such as the cost of education and the college wage premium, on the policies. Chapter 4 investigates the returns to aggregate factors of production when labor is disaggregated by education level. I find that a model in which the error term is assumed to be state-wise heteroscedastic and autocorrelated does a better job of approximating the pattern of wages for the different education groups than other models (pooled OLS or random and fixed effects). In addition, this model suggests a significant positive elasticity for public capital.
Essays on Applied Game Theory and Public Economics
Yang, Tsung-Han (Virginia Tech, 2018-05-01)
The first chapter presents a theoretical model of electoral competition where two parties can increase campaign contributions by choosing policies benefiting a significant interest group. However, such decision will shrink their hardcore vote base where voters are well informed about the policy. The parties can then allocate the funds between campaigning and personal wealth. Different from the core voters, independent voters can be attracted by advertisements funded by campaign spending. Using a multi-stage extensive form game, I investigate how electoral competition interacts with diversions and policy distortions. My result shows that a higher level of electoral competition helps mitigate policy distortions but prompts the parties to divert more funds. Perfectly informed signal senders need to communicate their true type (productivity or ability) which is often private information to potential receivers. While tests are commonly used as measures of applicants' productivity, the accuracy of them has been questioned. Beginning with the framework of a two-type labor market signaling game, the second chapter investigates how tests of limited reliability affect the nature of equilibria in signaling games with asymmetric information. Our results show that, if a test is inaccurate and costly, only pooling PBE exists given certain conditions. Different forms of test inaccuracy may allow a separating PBE to exist. We also study the case of three types and find different PBEs. The central issue of siting noxious facilities is that the host community absorbs potential costs, while all others can share the benefits without paying as much. The third chapter presents a modified Clarke mechanism to facilitate the siting decision, taking into account all residents' strategies. Suppose that the social planner is able to reasonably estimate the possible costs, depending on the host location, to each resident created by the facility. Our proposed Clarke mechanism is characterized by strategy-proofness and yields an efficient siting outcome. The issue of budget imbalance is mitigated when the compensation scheme is fully funded with the tax revenue based on the benefits. We then use a simple example to show that a weighted version of the Clarke mechanism may yield a different outcome.
Essays on Applied Microeconomic Theory
Ghandi, Hojjatallah (Virginia Tech, 2009-05-01)
The first part of this dissertation investigates the possibility of an output cut by a firm as a result of an increase in demand in industries with constrained capacities. We are specially interested in the crude oil industry, although the paper has implications beyond that market. Two simple closely related models are developed. In both models a firm cuts the output at some point solely because of an increase in demand. We use this fact to explain the sharp decline of the crude oil prices in 1986. There are price and quantity hysteresis in the second model. The price hysteresis has two implications. First, the price path when the demand increases might be different from the price path when the demand decreases. This in turn implies that a temporary shock in the demand for (or supply of) crude oil can cause permanent changes in the price. We claim that the temporary changes in the supply of crude oil in 1973 resulted in the price hysteresis phenomenon described in the second model in such a way that it kept the prices high even after the return of the producers to the market. The second part investigates the relationship between the taste for public expenditure and the size and distribution of social groups in a society. Societies with ethnic heterogeneity spend less on redistribution and welfare programs and impose lower tax rates relative to homogeneous societies. We construct a theoretical model to explain these facts. There are two social groups in the model: a minority group and a majority group. When members of one group feel empathy for each other but not for members of the other group, then taxes, and redistribution depend upon the size and distribution of those groups. At first, the equilibrium tax rate and redistribution decrease as the size of the minority group increases from zero, then eventually, the relationship between them becomes positive.
Essays on Child Labor and Inequality
Oryoie, Ali Reza (Virginia Tech, 2016-09-20)
This dissertation studies a number of issues related to Development Economics. The first chapter explains how we can use multiple correspondence analysis to calculate an asset index, and then offers an inequality analysis using the asset index. The second chapter provides a theoretical explanation of an odd relationship between child labor and per capita land holding in a household, and then provides empirical evidence for the explanation. Finally, the third chapter represents the results of a study of the behavior of rural households during shocks. Across the entire dissertation, we use three cross sectional surveys, conducted in 2001, 2007-8 and 2010-11 in Zimbabwe.
Essays on east European economies
Zytek, Roman (Virginia Tech, 1991)
All economic systems are analyzed from the point of view of (a) whether or not they offer individuals opportunities to earn capital income; (b) whether the allocation of output between current consumption and investment is determined by the “invisible hand" of the market mechanism or "visible hand" of central planner. For the purpose of this study four economic systems are defined: Capitalist market, capitalist central planning, socialist market, and socialist central planning. Ample evidence is provided to show that the economies of the East European Bloc represented almost a model cases of the socialist centrally planned system. In this sense these economies had the following three characteristics: 1. The state controlled almost all returns to capital in the economy, including the returns to human capital. 2. The state controlled the allocation of resources between investment and current consumption. 3. Households supplied labor to the state sector in exchange for compensation in the form of consumption, i.e., the state maintained only an indirect relationship with the labor factor of production. Labor effort could have been increased only by offering consumption-type incentives. In part two of this dissertation the dynamic macroeconomic equilibria possible under socialist central planning, socialist market, and capitalist systems are analyzed. It is shown that under both socialist systems (where individual households are banned from earning capital income from their personal savings) the supply of labor is suboptimal compared to the first-best solution feasible under capitalist system. The socialist market system fails to invest optimally. This failure can be improved by the introduction of a central planner. In a socialist centrally planned economy, however, the issue of the time consistency of optimal plans arises when the planner avoids commitment to the level of real wages. In the rational expectations framework households can predict the planner’s behavior and respond to it by supplying even less labor than under socialist market system. In part three an alternative program of economic reform of East European socialist centrally planned economies is outlined.
Essays on intellectual property rights and product differentiation
Chou, Teyu (Virginia Tech, 1996-04-17)
This dissertation is a collection of essays on intellectual property rights and optimal product selection when innovation occurs sequentially. One of the highlights of this dissertation has been to show the possibility of full rent extraction by the patent holder when uncertainty in litigation is taken into consideration. The result of the theoretical model has practical policy implication regarding the design of an optimal patent system. The other highlight of this dissertation is to show the coexistence of maximal and minimal product differentiation in a sequentially growing market. This result sheds light on the simulation of a multi-dimensional product space. Brief Summaries of Chapters: Chapter 1 presents a survey of the historical, legal, and economic aspects of patents. The emphasis in this survey is to recognize the crucial elements in the current patent law practice and to initiate research projects thereof. Chapter 2 considers a model of sequential innovation in which patent infringement occurs and the outcome of litigation is uncertain. By recognizing the "diminishing returns to litigation" exhibited in the winning probability distribution function for the plaintiff, it is shown that a basic researcher holding a patent is able to extract all the profit facilitated by the basic innovation. More intriguingly, under rather general circumstances, broader patent breadth may diminish the patent holder's incentive to innovate. Chapter 3 extends the previous model to include a rule on the reasonable royalty to determine the damage award. In addition to the full rent extraction results, the extended model further reveals that the second innovator has incentive to "invent around" with close imitation or "invent enough" with a much improved product. Comparative statics with respect to parameters of litigation cost and granted patent breadth are performed. Among other things, it is demonstrated that an increase in patent breadth, and an increase of litigation costs may neutralize each other. Chapter 4 analyzes a model of two-dimensional product differentiation in which sequential entry occurs and the potential entrant outperforms the incumbent in innovating a new dimension. For a three-stage entry-variety-price duopoly, a unique subgame-perfect equilibrium is obtained and fully characterized. Most importantly, the entrant will completely utilize its capacity to innovate and achieve the principle of maximum differentiation with respect to the innovated variety. However, it is shown that with a sequentially growing product space, firms will not choose extreme opposite positions in all dimensions in order to soften price competition; the principle of minimum differentiation persists with respect to the traditional variety.
Essays on Intra-Household Bargaining Power of Women in India
Dasgupta, Poulomi (Virginia Tech, 2016-10-19)
This thesis investigates the factors that affect women's bargaining power within the household, in India. The first chapter introduces the literature on household bargaining mostly by describing how household outcomes like children's health indicators and expenditure pattern change with increase in resources under women's control. The second chapter describes the conceptual framework for intra-household bargaining. It discusses the two broad topics – household bargaining models and gendered institutions, that can be used to identify avenues for increasing women's bargaining power within the household. In chapters three and four, I analyze the factors that determine women's power position, using data on women's involvement in household decision making from a nationally representative longitudinal household survey (India Human Development Survey). The survey was conducted in over 40,000 Indian households, which covers over 200,000 individuals. In the third chapter, I investigate the effect of women's labor force participation on her involvement in household decision making. After addressing the issues of endogeneity using a fixed effects model, I find that her labor market participation significantly increases her involvement in decision making process, which can be seen as a direct outcome of her increased bargaining power. In my fourth chapter I analyze whether the women's bargaining power within the household increases with the presence of female politicians at both state and local level. Studying the causal impact of a variable like female political representation is generally riddled with concerns of endogeneity for existence of voter preference. Using share of seats won by women in man-woman close elections as an instrument for overall female representation in in a fixed effect model, I show that an increase in number of female state legislators can actually lead to an increase in the bargaining power of women. This chapter further shows that increase in women's involvement in decision making process in the household is also associated with the female political representation at local level. The fifth chapter concludes the dissertation by making policy recommendation for strengthening women's bargaining position within the household.
Essays on Pricing and Promotional Strategies
Chung, Hoe Sang (Virginia Tech, 2013-09-03)
This dissertation contains three essays on theoretical analysis of pricing and promotional strategies. Chapter 1 serves as a brief introduction that provides a motivation and an overview of the topics covered in the subsequent chapters. In Chapter 2, we study optimal couponing strategies in a differentiated duopoly with repeat purchase. Both firms can distribute defensive coupons alone, defensive and offensive coupons together, or mass media coupons. They can also determine how many coupons to offer. Allowing consumers to change their tastes for the firms' products over time, we find that the optimal couponing strategy for the firms is to only distribute coupons to all of the customers who buy from them. The effects of intertemporally constant preferences and consumer myopia on the profitability of the optimal couponing are investigated as well. Chapter 3 examines the profitability of behavior-based price discrimination (BBPD) by duopolists producing horizontally differentiated experience goods. We consider a three-stage game in which the firms first make price discrimination decisions followed by two-stage pricing decisions. The main findings are: (i) there are two subgame perfect Nash equilibria where both firms do not collect information about consumers' purchase histories so that neither firm price discriminates and where both firms collect consumer information to practice BBPD; and (ii) BBPD is more profitable than uniform pricing if sufficiently many consumers have a poor experience with the firms' products. The asymmetric case where one firm produces experience goods and the other search goods is also investigated. Chapter 4 provides a possible explanation of the fact that one ticket price is charged for all movies (regardless of their quality) in the motion-picture industry. Considering a model a la Hotelling in which moviegoers form their beliefs about movie quality through pricing schemes to which an exhibitor commits, we characterize the conditions under which committing to uniform pricing is more profitable than committing to variable pricing. The welfare consequences of a uniform pricing commitment and some extensions of the model are discussed as well.

Browsing by Author "Tideman, Nicolaus"

Results Per Page

Sort Options