Applied Microeconomics

This study was conducted with the purpose of evaluating the impact of microcredit on the living standards of households. The study utilizes data from the Vietnam Rural Household Access to Resources Survey datasets of 2020 and 2022, and employs the Propensity score matching-Difference in differences (PSM-DID) method to assess impact. The results show that microcredit improves total revenue, expenditures on industrial food, and the accumulation of assets for production. Consequently, the author suggests several policies to enhance the effectiveness of the microcredit program.

This study examines the relationship between capital budgeting and economic growth in Pakistan (1980-2022), focusing on capital expenditure, interest rates, inflation, FDI, and exchange rate regimes using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model. It explores investment strategies, economic challenges, and policy implications.

The paper extends a theoratical framework to analyze the impact of R&D spillovers on entry and the resulting equilibrium market structure. It is shown that the degree of spillovers plays a fundamental role on the number of firms entering the market, their R&D activities, and social welfare. The analysis suggests that social welfare is maximized at some intermediate degree of

Yoğunlaşma, ekonomiyi ya da belirli bir sanayi dalını oluşturan firmalar arasında çeşitli şekillerde ortaya çıkan ve haksız rekabeti ölçmede başvurulan önemli bir pazar yapısı analiz aracıdır. Pazar yoğunlaşması kavramı, ürün pazarında alıcı ve satıcıların sayı ve büyüklük bakımından dağılımı olarak ifade edilmektedir. Piyasadaki firma sayısı ile yoğunlaşma derecesi arasında ters yönlü bir ilişki vardır. Yoğunlaşma arttıkça pazardaki rekabet şansı da o ölçüde azalmaktadır. Bu çalışmada, Türkiye'de telekomünikasyon sektöründe mobil telekomünikasyon ve genişbant internet hizmetleri pazarlarının yapıları, yoğunlaşma oranları 2000 sonrası yıllar verileri incelenerek Herfindahl-Hirschman Endeksi analiz yöntemi kullanılarak karşılaştırmalı belirlenmeye çalışılmıştır.

We study a class of common-value second-price auctions with differential information. This class of common-value auctions is characterized by the property that each player's information set is connected with respect to the common value. We show that the entire class is dominance solvable, and that there is a natural single-valued selection from the resulting set of sophisticated equilibria. Additionally, it is shown that bidder's information advantage over others is rewarded in sophisticated equilibria.

This paper analyzes the life-cycle career costs associated with child rearing and decomposes their effects into unearned wages (as women drop out of the labor market), loss of human capital, and selection into more child-friendly occupations. We estimate a dynamic life-cycle model of fertility, occupational choice, and labor supply using detailed survey and administrative data for Germany for numerous birth cohorts across different regions. We use this model to analyze both the male-female wage gap as it evolves from labor market entry onward and the effect of pro-fertility policies. We show that a substantial portion of the gender wage gap is explainable by realized and expected fertility and that the long-run effect of policies encouraging fertility are considerably lower than the short-run effects typically estimated in the literature.

It has been argued that increases in land values do not generally result from the owner’s efforts, but rather from public investments and government decisions and are, therefore, “unearned.” This paper analyzes how Inclusionary Housing has been utilized as a land value recapture mechanism in different countries. We distinguish four distinct models: 1) Countries with explicit recapture (Spain and the UK); 2) A country, Ireland, with explicit but limited recapture; 3) Countries where recapture is implicit or ambiguous (Italy, France and Canada) and 4) A country, the Unites States, where value recapture has not been part of the planning culture.

We introduce string diagrams as a formal mathematical, graphical language to represent, compose, program and reason about games. The language is well established in quantum physics, quantum computing and quantum linguistic with the semantics given by category theory. We apply this language to the game theoretical setting and show examples how to use it for some economic games where we highlight the compositional nature of our higher-order game theory.

We introduce string diagrams as a formal mathematical, graphical language to represent, compose, program and reason about games. The language is well established in quantum physics, quantum computing and quantum linguistic with the semantics given by category theory. We apply this language to the game theoretical setting and show examples how to use it for some economic games where we highlight the compositional nature of our higher-order game theory.

We introduce string diagrams as a formal mathematical, graphical language to represent, compose, program and reason about games. The language is well established in quantum physics, quantum computing and quantum linguistic with the semantics given by category theory. We apply this language to the game theoretical setting and show examples how to use it for some economic games where we highlight the compositional nature of our higher-order game theory.

We introduce string diagrams as a formal mathematical, graphical language to represent, compose, program and reason about games. The language is well established in quantum physics, quantum computing and quantum linguistic with the semantics given by category theory. We apply this language to the game theoretical setting and show examples how to use it for some economic games where we highlight the compositional nature of our higher-order game theory.

En esta ponencia, se examina la concentración del poder de mercado en el sector de transporte público en Costa Rica, específicamente en el ámbito de autobuses. Se revela una significativa concentración, impulsada por violaciones legales, desorden administrativo y vínculos familiares estratégicos. Se emplea un índice de concentración basado en la red de accionistas, destacando la importancia de considerar relaciones familiares. Los resultados indican un mercado altamente concentrado, evidenciando la necesidad de reformas legales y regulatorias, así como medidas para fomentar la competencia y mejorar la calidad del servicio. Se proponen soluciones como la reforma legislativa, reducción de barreras de entrada, desarrollo de un sistema integrado y la transición hacia la movilidad sostenible. Estas acciones buscan abordar la concentración del mercado y promover un transporte público más eficiente y equitativo en Costa Rica.

Real estate investments are typically characterized by high degrees of leverage and long loan tenures. In perfect capital markets, leverage has no impact on the investment decision apart from tax considerations. However, the mortgage financing market is imperfect in many countries. In the presence of market imperfections, an optimal holding period exists for real property investments. We provide a simple rule to calculate the optimal holding period is to compare the required rate of return with the leveraged rate of return on equity.

This dissertation is composed of two essays, each covering an important topic related to consumer choice dynamics and their implications on the design of firm strategies: (1) consumer learning and their implications on the use and design of introductory coupons that apply to the first-time purchases of a new product to enhance its profits; (2) distinguishing between different sources of consumer choice dynamics in a non-tiered loyalty program and its implications on the design of a more profitable program. In Chapter 1, I propose that in the retailing business, when consumer behavior exhibits individually heterogeneous choice dynamics, coupons are a useful tool to implement intertemporal price discrimination and targeted pricing. I document a one-time own-product passive learning process in consumers' purchasing behavior in the Boston Greek Yogurt market, where four new products entered the market in the Summer of 2012. Using a sample of 428 consumers who purchased at least one Greek Yogurt product during 2012 and 2013, I develop and estimate a structural model of consumer demand for Greek Yogurt products that captures three primary features that are specific to consumers' purchasing behavior in this market: (1) a one-time own-product passive learning process, (2) the purchase of varieties, and (3) the purchase of quantities. By estimating the model, I quantify the individual heterogeneity in (1) the price sensitivity, (2) the demand changes driven by consumer learning, and (3) the timeline of learning about different products. The documented learning process and the individual heterogeneity in the above dimensions in this multi-new-product marketing environment motivate (1) the use of a one-time coupon that is applicable for the first-time purchase of a new product to enhance its profits by leveraging the learning-driven changes in consumer demand, (2) the use of a coupon expiration date to filter out any "late", unprofitable coupon redemption, and (3) coupon customization to target different consumer with different designs. First and foremost, I hope to express my sincerest gratitude and appreciation to Professor Aviv Nevo, my supervisor, for his constant care, guidance, mentorship, and time during all stages of my Ph.D. study. I want to thank him for helping me stay on track during the processes from writing my thirdyear paper to my job market paper, my job search, and this complete thesis. I also hope to thank him for teaching me about research, writing, and presentation, which are among the most valuable lessons for a Ph.D. student. I hope to express my sincerest appreciation to Professor Eric T. Bradlow, for his comprehensive feedback on my research, and his constant inspiration for my pursuit of Marketing. I have been learning many valuable things from Professor Bradlow, research-wise, work-wise, and in many other aspects, from the very first day we met. I hope to express my sincerest appreciation to Professor Katja Seim for her constant support and enormous encouragement. I benefited a great deal from her advice on my papers and job interviews. Also, I want to thank Professor Nevo, Professor Bradlow, and Professor Seim for always being there for me, and for believing in me. I am incredibly fortunate to have them as my advisors during my Ph.D. I want to thank all my teachers at Penn, and every staff member who has helped me during my Ph.D. I also want to thank the participating faculty members and fellow graduate students in Empirical Micro Lunch Seminars, IO seminars, and my job-search mock interviews from the Economics Department and the Marketing Department at Penn. Their feedback helped me improve my research and presentation. I would also like to thank my friends for their emotional support during this journey. ii I would like to acknowledge the following data sources and express my appreciation to my data providers for their generosity: In Chapter 1, the Nielsen Homescan Data from the Kilts Center at the University of Chicago's Booth Business School is provided by Wharton Research Computing and sponsored by Professor Aviv Nevo. In Chapter 2, the data on loyalty programs is provided by the Wharton Customer Analytics (WCA). The datasets have been an essential part of my research, and my dissertation would not have been made possible without their support. Finally, I want to extend my deep, sincere gratitude to my parents, for their endless and unparalleled love, ever since I was born.

in the data preparation phases. We have benefited enormously from discussions with Michael Baye and John Morgan, and from the contributions they have made to the broader research programme of which this is part. Financial assistance from the ESRC (Grant No, RG35586) is gratefully acknowledged.

We consider the class of two-player symmetric n × n games with the total bandwagon property (TBP) introduced by Kandori and Rob (1998). We show that a game has TBP if and only if the game has 2n−1 symmetric Nash equilibria. We extend this result to bimatrix games by introducing the generalized TBP. This sheds light on the (wrong) conjecture of Quint and Shubik (1997) that any n × n bimatrix game has at most 2n − 1 Nash equilibria. As for an equilibrium selection criterion, I show the existence of a 1/2–dominant equilibrium for two subclasses of games with TBP: (i) supermodular games; (ii) potential games. As an application, we consider the minimum-effort game, which does not satisfy TBP, but is a limit case of TBP. JEL Classification: C62; C72; C73

This study aimed to analyse the importance-performance matrix of the audit committee, internal audit, and board of directors' attributes and financial sustainability in the local government in Ghana. The study used census balanced panel data design and survey approach to administer 621 structured questionnaires to the chief audit executives, audit committee and board of directors' chairpersons in the 207 MMDAs. Data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics and the partial least square-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). The findings indicated that all the attributes (board size, board independence, board gender diversity, internal auditor independence, internal audit size, internal auditor competence, audit committee meetings, audit committee independence, and audit committee competence) have a direct significant relationship with financial sustainability. The findings indicated board size as the highest importance to influence financial sustainability of MMDAs. Additionally, among the internal auditors' attributes, internal audit size (IAS) is considered as the highest importance to influence financial sustainability of MMDAs. With regard to the audit committee attributes, audit committee competence (ACC) is considered as the highest importance of the audit committee attributes to influence financial sustainability of MMDAs. Overall, the findings from the IPMA highlight the need of creating unity among board of directors, internal auditors and audit committees in all the municipalities. This implies when the board of directors, internal auditors and audit committees in MMDAs work together, financial sustainability will improve.

This paper examines how sales at medical marijuana centers in Colorado were affected by the opening of recreational marijuana stores in 2014, where any adult can purchase without the necessity of a doctor's recommendation. We exploit differences across counties in the availability of medical and recreational marijuana to examine whether the sales growth of recreational marijuana was at the expense of sales of medical marijuana or acted by expanding the overall legal market. Our findings suggest a statistically significant but economically modest amount of displacement (less than 10 percent), demonstrating that the legalization of recreational marijuana primarily expanded the legal market.

This chapter includes a theoretical exercise with the goal of analysing the potential role of Cannabis Social Clubs (CSCs) in a hypothetical post-prohibition regime which would include both commercial outlets for adult users and pharmacies for patients with a physician's prescription. It will discuss whether and how the presence of CSCs could improve market segmentation by appealing to daily users, de facto reducing market distortions in a regulatory context allowing other supply options. The proposed scheme would exploit the heterogeneity of cannabis users in three dimensions: price per unit, transaction costs, and quantity consumed. Under specific regulatory conditions, CSCs can minimize the harms deriving from chronic consumption by nudging this riskier group of consumers through a rationing system which would reduce the risks of use escalating to problematic levels. In parallel, this supply architecture is shown to increase market efficiency by reducing the waste of public resources occurring when non-medical users resort to the medical market to buy cannabis.

It is very important to understand how promotions offered by sellers to consumers influence consumer and seller behaviors because it helps us study how consumers make their purchase decisions and how sellers determine their sale strategies. Unlike past studies which utilized the classical price discrimination dilemma and focused on sellers' aspect to divide consumers into two types (higher/lower reservation prices), we focused on the consumers' perspective and applied neoclassical consumer choice theory to develop a two-period mathematical utility-maximization model to study how different promotions influence consumer and seller behaviors. This mathematical study uncovered several key findings: (1) coupons offer consumers a greater discount compared to rebates with identical discount rates; (2) impatient consumers exhibit a preference for coupons over rebates; (3) coupons generate higher sales than rebates; and (4) sellers may adopt the coupon policy for low-ticket products and the rebate policy for high-ticket products.

Consistent surge in the population of young people in prior years made it imperative for attention to issues related to youth unemployment to transcend national borders to include regional and global levels. Thus, issues related to youth, specifically youth unemployment, gained global recognition several decades ago. However, the decades-long initiatives of the United Nations to address youth unemployment challenges have yielded little or no socio-economic results. The purpose of this research was to examine the implications of youth unemployment rates for national and global unemployment rates during the research period. The quantitative approach to scientific inquiry was adapted and used in the study. Specifically, a cross-sectional design formed the basis of the research. Data required for the conduct of the research were obtained mainly from secondary sources. These included text books, peer-reviewed articles published in journals and gray literature from youth advocates. Other sources were Google Search Engine including Ghana Statistical Service, Ghana’s Ministry of Youth and Sports, UN, UNESCO, UNICEF, UNCTAD, UNFPA, UNDP, OECD and EU; and electronic databases of the World Bank, ILO and Commonwealth, among other significant sources. Respective data on Ghana’s annual youth unemployment rates and national unemployment rates from 2000 through 2019; and respective 2019 national youth unemployment rates and national unemployment rates for one hundred and eighty-seven (187) economies were used in the research. Descriptive statistics and regression models were used to describe the research variables; and to evaluate their behaviour over the stated time frame on national and global unemployment rates. The study revealed widespread joblessness is taking an adverse toll on this generation’s ability to contribute its meaningful quota towards prosperous, happy and healthy future. The level of progress made in business development by most advanced, emerging and developing economies was not found to have strong relationship with youth-centred policies and programmes. As of 2016, the United States and Canada had no national youth policy.  Findings from the research revealed positive and significant relationship between youth unemployment rate and national unemployment rate (coefficient value = 0.489206843; p = 0.000, p < 0.05); and positive, but non-significant relationship between global youth unemployment rate and global unemployment rate (coefficient value = 0.447986211; p = 4.60249, p > 0.05). Youth unemployment rate accounted for about 52.97% of the variation in national unemployment rate; while global youth unemployment rate accounted for about 86.05% of the variation in global unemployment rate during the period. The statistical analysis confirmed and validated to a large extent, severity of the youth unemployment phenomenon at the national level; clarion call for active participation of the youth in policy formulation and implementation process; and the need for expeditious implementation of youth intervention programmes such as youth entrepreneurship to assure effective participation of the youth in the national development agenda. There is the urgent need for global economies to thoroughly examine their existing financing models and emerge with financial products tailored to address specific financial needs of participating young people to assure the success of intended youth development programmes. Encouraging performance-based lending to the neglect of collateral-based lending would draw each economy closer to realisation of this objective. Embedding youth entrepreneurial initiatives in well-rehearsed and thought-out national youth policy; and walking the talk through practical implementation would facilitate transformation of current and projected increase in regional and world youth populations from socio-economic liabilities to competitive, productive and invaluable assets at the national, sub-regional, regional and global levels.

Key words: entrepreneurship, youth development, youth entrepreneurship, youth policy; youth unemployment and youth unemployment theory

Time series models are applied with time series data of variables measured over time. The study focuses on examining the forecasting performance of the autoregressive Moving Average (ARMA). The study investigates the statistical properties of the series, the residuals of the ARIMA model. The model attempts to identify the trend and statistical properties. The question studied was whether information from the proposed model gave a better trade forecast. The "forecasting" situation examined really involved added useful information. The analysis of the data demonstrates that the model applied here may be useful to understand the properties of the time series model of Saudi-US foreign trade statistics.

The study empirically assesses the impact of monetary policy on economic growth in Nigeria.
The study employed time series data ranging from 1982 to 2023. Economic growth is
expressed by Real Gross Domestic Product (RGDP) with interest rate, exchange rate, money
supply and foreign direct investment serving as monetary policy variables or instruments.
The study adopted the ex post facto research design due to its unique quality of being able to
examine the cause –and- effect relationship between dependent variables and regressors. The
method of data analysis was Auto regressive distributed lag (ARDL) model. The empirical
result shown, while foreign direct investment and exchange rate have positive and significant
effect on real GDP, money supply (M2) has negative significant impact on real GDP and
interest rate was found to be positive and insignificant to real GDP. The study concludes that
monetary policy has positive impact on economic growth in Nigerian during the reviewed
period. Owing to the findings, the study recommends that monetary authority should
implement policy that will enhance foreign direct investment and optimize exchange rate
management in the country.

The research is aimed at exploring Foreign Direct Investment and its impact on economic growth of Nigeria. The study covers 31-year period between 1985-2016. Simple ordinary least-square regression model is used to measure the effects and relationships between the independent variable and the dependent variable using E-views 9.0. Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) serve as the independent variable while economic growth as the dependent variable. GDP, exchange rate, inflation rate, unemployment rate, total savings and interest rate were used as proxies for economic growth. Data on FDI, GDP, exchange rate, unemployment rate, savings and interest rate were retrieved from the CBN Annual Statistical Bulletin, World bank Report and National Bureau of Statistics. The stationarity property of a time series data can be examined by conducting unit root test in order to ascertain the stationarity or otherwise of the series variables (Akinola,2016). Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) test due to Dickey and Fuller (1979, 1981), and the Phillip-Perron (PP) due to Phillips (1987) and Phillips and Perron (1988) were used to ensure the stationarity of the time series data i.e dependent and independent variable. The finding showed that there is a strong and positive relationship between FDI and economic growth in Nigeria. The government of Nigeria must put all hands-on desk, formulating policies and necessary reforms to ensure that foreign direct investments are attracted to benefit the populace at large. It also recommended that Institutionalized corruption both in private and public sectors must be fought, if the nation must attract FDI, we must change our ways of doing things.

O estado de Mato Grosso está entre os maiores produtores de grãos do Brasil sendo responsável por parte das mercadorias que o país exporta, sendo estas dependentes das precipitações pluviométricas. Em virtude destes fatos no presente trabalho objetivou-se a utilização da Distribuição Gama (2 parâmetros) para a descrição probabilística dos totais decendiais de precipitação média em 43 estações, de modo a fornecer informações que permitam estimar a precipitação mínima esperada com uma determinada probabilidade. Observou-se que os valores de chuva apresentam elevada variabilidade espaço-temporal ao longo do estado. As estimativas do parâmetro de forma (γ) e de escala (β) variaram de 0,01 a 120,7 e de 0,01 a 336, respectivamente. Os parâmetros γ e β da Distribuição Gama podem ser utilizados para determinação de precipitação decendial esperada e os decêndios com maiores precipitações estão entre os meses de novembro a março, sendo o maior valor 186,2 mm no município de Aripuanã. As estaç...

This paper analyzes the repayment performance in microfinance programs in Malaysia that apply individual lending approach.The research framework of this study is built by four factors namely individual/borrower factors, firm/business factors, loan factors and institutional/lender factors as independent variables and repayment performance either paid on time, delinquent and default as dependent variables.The study used a mixed-method combining between quantitative and qualitative data through questionnaire survey, in-depth interviews, published and unpublished reports.The data of this study is gathered from 401 respondents in Peninsular Malaysia through multistage random sampling.The data is analysed by descriptive analysis and multinomial logit model. Meanwhile, for qualitative data, a total of 21 respondents (7 respondents who paid on time, 7 respondents who delinquent and 7 respondents who default) were selected randomly and structured interviews with 6 MFI’s State Managers.The re...

I would like to thank Stephen Kasperski for his excellent research assistance. All errors are my own. Are farms credit constrained? Recent research answers 'yes' . However, criticism of the methods used (Kaplan and Zingales, 1997; Gao, 2002) cast doubt on this answer. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reports, "U.S. farms are likely to be financially stable and therefore an inability to take on more debt does not seem to be a concern." (USDA, 2003) This paper answers this important question by examining the responsiveness of farm investment to shocks in exogenous cash flow. Several empirical papers demonstrate a relationship between farm investment and the availability of internal funds Bierlen et al., 1998). A long-standing criticism of this line of empirical work is the endogeneity of internal funds, e.g., increased cash flow might simply signal "improvements in future profitability" (Poterba, 1988). More recently, researchers have presented alternative explanations of the "investment-cash flow" relationship, e.g., introduce monopoly power and Erikson and Whited (2000) highlight the role of measurement error. This paper overcomes such criticism by using exogenous agricultural subsidy changes to identify the causal connection between a farm's cash flow and its investment decisions. Using nationally representative, farm-level data, I reveal the strength of cash flow in determining investment behavior. The nature of the data allows me to account for farm-level observable heterogeneity, further bolstering the finding that, similar to publicly traded corporations, the source of financing matters to farm investment. Specifically, this paper exploits the sudden, exogenous cash flow received by farmers due to emergency legislation in 1998. This cash flow, uncorrelated with investment opportunity, provides a natural experiment with which to evaluate the "source-of-financing" hypothesis. Using data from the 1997 Census of Agriculture, the 1999 Agricultural Economics and Land Ownership

The study examines the nexus between diaspora remittances and economic growth in Zimbabwe.  Yearly time series data from 1990 up to 2022 was used to ascertain whether there is any association between emigrants expatriated funds and economic growth. Over the years, diaspora remittances to Zimbabwe have been on an upward trend surpassing a billion mark.  Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was used as the dependent variable whilst diaspora remittances were used as an explanatory variable together with other control variables. Using the Autoregressive Distributed Lags (ARDL) technique, the results indicate that emigrant funds from the diaspora have a positive bearing on the growth of the economy both in the short run and in the long run. Stated differently, an increase in diaspora remittances to Zimbabwe increases the rate of economic growth. Therefore, remittances are a potential source of economic expansion in Zimbabwe and the government should harness on this. The study acclaims that the government should improve the inflows of remittances to Zimbabwe by reducing the associated transactional costs. The government should also provide financial literacy training to the migrant workers and their families so that they appreciate the role played by remittances. In addition, the government should provide sustained monetary incentives in local currency for all the diaspora remittance inflows that are received through formal channels to encourage more remittances.

Keywords: Diaspora Remittances, Economic Growth, Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

This paper investigates the relationship between education and long-term unemployment when considering regional economic differences and other relevant variables at the individual and at the local level, using data from the 2004-2006 EU-SILC (11 countries). The analysis has been run using both a binary logit model and a binary scobit model. Our results suggest that the probability of an individual to be in long-term unemployment decreases with her educational level. There is a decrease in returns to education after the age of 40, which confirms the assumption of an obsolescence of skills defended in the human capital literature. With regard to the regional settings, younger workers (20-30) and older workers (50-65) tend to benefit more from the dynamics offered by highly competitive regions.

This article introduces an innovative economic framework: a points-based global economic system. Under this model, the value of a nation's currency is determined by points assigned for its contributions to global production, resources, and economic outputs. The system aims to replace speculative currency valuation mechanisms with a transparent, fair, and merit-based approach. Each country's currency gains points proportional to its contribution to the global economy, including GDP, natural resources, and production of key economic drivers. This paper explores

Official statistics reveals that large swings have remained a consistent
trend in official development Assistance in Nigeria but its influence on economic
development is yet to be fully investigated. The study adopted an ex post facto
research design, with the data covering all the sectors of the economy and
spanning 2000-2020; a period of 21 years. A dynamic Panel ARDL estimation
technique is preferred for the analysis given by Pesaran and Shin (2003). The
Hausman test indicated preference to Pool Mean Group (PMG) estimator to
determine possible homogenous effect. The findings revealed that development
assistance improves the overall economic growth by 0.014 percent and 0.076
percent in the long-run and short-run respectively. However, in the health
sector, there is an indication of 0.276 percent increase in economic growth as
result of official development assistance while the educational sector experienced
0.71percent all things being equal. It is therefore recommended that the health
and educational ministries should be transparent enough to boost confidence of
donors.

We investigate how changes in the supply of fast food restaurants affect weight outcomes of 3 million children and 3 million pregnant women. Among ninth graders, a fast food restaurant within 0.1 miles of a school results in a 5.2 percent increase in obesity rates. Among pregnant women, a fast-food restaurant within 0.5 miles of residence results in a 1.6 percent increase in the probability of gaining over 20 kilos. The implied effects on caloric intake are one order of magnitude larger for children than for mothers, consistent with smaller travel cost for adults. Non-fast food restaurants and future fast-food restaurants are uncorrelated with weight outcomes. (JEL I12, J13, J16, L83)

Reservoirs serve multiple purposes, including recreation, flood control, and hydroelectricity production. In the United States, these reservoirs are typically managed by federal or state agencies. This thesis assesses the effectiveness of federal versus state management in enhancing the recreational use of these reservoirs. The study utilized panel data from 85 reservoirs across the United States, spanning from 2014 to 2021 and including 680 observations. The analysis focused on comparing visitation rates under different management regimes. The central finding of this study is that the type of management agency, whether federal or state, does not significantly affect visitation rates. However, factors related to water, such as adequate rainfall and water levels in the reservoirs, significantly influence visitor attraction. This indicates that while management type may not be a determining factor in recreational use, environmental and hydrological conditions are important considerations for visitor attraction.

Enterprise in Nigeria has not been growing very rapidly given that Nigeria has a population of about 185million. There are a number of institutional factors which may contribute to the slow enterprise growth in Nigerian economy. This study therefore utilized Nigeria Enterprise Survey data ( ) and apply the multinomial logistic regression model to examine the effects of institution on enterprise growth in Nigeria. It was therefore found by the study that with respect to the growth of partnership enterprises compared to sole proprietorship, enterprise growth is encouraged by corruption, improvement in rule of law, favourable customs trade regulation, and favourable labour regulation. It is however, negatively affected by political instability, crime, theft and disorder, bottlenecks in business license permit, and tax administration in Nigeria. The study however recommended among others that, there is need for sustained political stability, reduction in the crime, theft and disorder rates in the country.

We study a general model of common-value second-price auctions with differential information. We show that one of the bidders has an information advantage over the other bidders if and only if he possesses a dominant strategy. A dominant strategy is, in fact, unique, and is given by the conditional expectation of the common value with respect to his information field. Furthermore, when a bidder has information advantage, other bidders cannot make a profit.

How much do stereotypes affect person-to-person economic exchange? We present evidence from a debt-crowdfunding website that individual borrowers from high social capital regions enjoy higher funding success, larger loan size and bid size, lower interest rates, and more concentrated loan ownership. The effect is more pronounced among borrowers of no credit history or lower quality. Dyadic data show lenders from regions higher in social capital offer smaller loans at higher interest rates to borrowers from lower social capital regions. We consider a range of explanations and find our results most easily explained by investors using region-based stereotype as a heuristic in making credit decisions.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a simple model of an economy in which growth is driven by a combination of exogenous technical change in agriculture as well as by a rising world demand for labor-intensive manufactured exports. We explore the relative roles of agricultural innovation and rising export demand in a model with two traded industrial goods and a non-traded agricultural good, food. When the non-traded sector uses a specific factor, we show that technical change in agriculture may be the key to sustained factor accumulation in industry, in particular driving intersectoral labor migration. A key assumption is a less than unitary price elasticity of demand for food. Our results could form a crucial link in capturing the story of labor-abundant economies which experienced structural transformation and growth through labor-intensive manufactured exports, without prior technology breakthroughs in industry. They contribute to explaining the massive growth in factor accumulation which shows up in some growth accounting studies : they may also imply that some of the contribution of "technical progress" is mistakenly attributed solely to factor accumulation.

We develop a tractable model of competition among motivated MFIs. We find that equilibria may or may not involve double-dipping (and consequently default), with there being double-dipping whenever the MFIs are very profit-oriented. Moreover, in an equilibrium with double-dipping, borrowers who double-dip are actually worse off compared to those who do not. Further, for intermediate levels of motivation, there can be multiple equilibria, with a doubledipping equilibrium co-existing with a no default equilibrium. Interestingly, an increase in MFI competition can lower efficiency, as well as increase the extent of double-dipping and default. Further, the interest rates may go either way, with the interest rate likely to increase if the MFIs are very motivated.

The study looks at the relationship between public spending and Nigeria's economic expansion. The particular goals are to examine the trend of public spending on health, defense, and education as well as the relative efficacy of public spending in advancing welfare in Nigeria. Research design enriched with tables, charts, and internet materials form the study methodology. The variables were Gross domestic product, government expenditure on health, government expenditure on education, government expenditure on defense, and government expenditure on administration The research employs the secondary method of data collection, the estimation techniques used were the augmented dickey fuller unit root test, ordinary last square, and Granger causality test. The findings reveal that investment in education has a positive impact and significant effect in determining the value of economic growth. Based on the findings of this research, the research therefore recommended that the government should allocate more funds to the education sector to improve infrastructure, quality of teaching, and access to education at all levels. And also, establish scholarship and grant programs to support students from disadvantaged backgrounds, ensuring inclusive education for all.

This paper looks at sequences of two-player gaaea where each player 'naively' assumes that his opponent follovs a certain míxed atrategy whích can be learned by observing his behaviour. In each stage of the game players update their beliefs and choose an optimal response to the expected behaviour of the opponent. Provided that thís learning process converges, the equílíbríum beliefs form a Nash equilibrium. Hence, St is possible to derlve a probability dístrlbutíon on the set of Nash equ111bría condltional on the players' pzior belíefs. For prlor distributions of the betadístrlbutíon type, ít can be shown that the learning process converges. Some examples Sllustate how this fact can be used i n games wíth multlple equilibría to obtain a probabílity distribution on the equilibrium aet.

The present study attempts to develop a co-integrating relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI) net inflows into India and its economic growth for the calendar period 1986-2016 by taking logtransformed yearly data. The variables included in the study were per capita gross domestic product (GDP; as a measure of economic growth) and FDI net flows. Additional regressors as control variables include exports as a percentage of GDP (a proxy for trade openness) and call money rate (a proxy for financial variable). The methodology employed is autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds partial F-test. The results of the study show a positive co-integrating relation between FDI and GDP as given by computed F-value after controlling for other factors impacting growth. The long-run model also satisfied the necessary prerequisites of the model, such as variable stationarity, no serial correlation, and model stability. The lagged error correcting mechanism (ECM) was negative, stable, and significant; however, pace of adjustment was found to be at a slow rate of 7.6 percent per period (per annum).

The present study attempts to develop a co-integrating relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI) net inflows into India and its economic growth for the calendar period 1986–2016 by taking log-transformed yearly data. The variables included in the study were per capita gross domestic product (GDP; as a measure of economic growth) and FDI net flows. Additional regressors as control variables include exports as a percentage of GDP (a proxy for trade openness) and call money rate (a proxy for financial variable). The methodology employed is autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds partial F-test. The results of the study show a positive co-integrating relation between FDI and GDP as given by computed F-value after controlling for other factors impacting growth. The long-run model also satisfied the necessary prerequisites of the model, such as variable stationarity, no serial correlation, and model stability. The lagged error correcting mechanism (ECM) was negative, stabl...

Pour permettre le pilotage et l'évaluation des politiques publiques de l'autonomie, la mesure de l'accessibilité géographique et financière des prises en charge en établissement d'hébergement médicalisé (type Ehpad) constitue une dimension importante. Une telle mesure doit être conceptuellement pertinente et cohérente, mais aussi calculable en routine à partir des données produites par le système statistique public. Cette note décrit les modalités de calcul de l'indicateur d'accessibilité géographique et financière aux Ehpad (AGFE) dans le contexte institutionnel français actuel, ainsi que les premiers résultats obtenus, à l'échelle nationale et départementale. Trois sources de données sont utilisées : les données fiscales (FIDELI), l'enquête EHPA et les données sur les prix des Ehpad récoltées par la Caisse nationale de solidarité pour l'autonomie (CNSA).

A recent trend in Korea and Japan sees college-graduate women marrying later and at lower rates than less-educated women. In China, &quot;leftover women&quot; have also become a top policy concern. This paper finds however that China&#39;s higher-educated urban women attain marital outcomes more like those in the US than in the other Asian Tiger countries, marrying later, but ultimately at comparable rates to less-educated women. For 1990-2009, we quantify marriage quality using the classic Choo-Siow (2006) estimator and find large returns to marrying later but minimal direct higher education effects. Using the Choo (2015) dynamic estimator, we project future marriage rates to remain stable among the higher educated and to decline for lower-educated women.