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  • ItemOpen Access
    The development of a multisectoral model for the Thai economy (MUTE)
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2008) Suebpongsakorn, Auttapol, author; Fan, Chuen-Mei, advisor
    The MUTE model is a multisectoral model developed for the Thai economy. The structure of the MUTE model resembles 1NFORUM type models consisting of 3 main modules, namely, (1) the real side which estimates 7 components of the final demand, (2) the price - income side which calculates the 5 value added components, and (3) the accountant which includes the identity equations and some important behavioral equation in order to link both the real side and the price - income side. The major difference of the MUTE model from the INFORUM models, especially a Thai Interindustry Dynamic Model (TIDY) is the inclusion of a dummy variable representing the event of the political disorder, which is widely believed as one of the non-economic factors affecting the performances of the economy. Moreover, the use of the time-series technique called AICc to forecast some series (when the explanatory variables are non-stationary and the cointegration test reports the nonexistence of the cointegrating vector), the use of the RAS technique instead of Across the Row method in estimating the direct input requirement matrices, and the application of the ADF and the cointegration tests for all equations are among the new contributions aimed at improving the model reliability. Finally, the model is employed to forecast the performances of the Thai economy from 2005 to 2020 under the impacts of the Baht appreciation and the political disorder. The results show that these two impacts will adversely cause the growth rate of GDP to slowdown. The Baht appreciation against U.S. dollar worsens the net export, while the political disorder causes both consumers and producers to lose their confidences in the Thai economy, which results in the reduction in the personal consumption expenditure and the gross fixed capital formation. However, both impacts do not affect the income and output structures of the Thai economy. The Thai economy still moves toward the industrialized country by reckoning on manufacturing and service sectors as the main sources for generating income and employment with or without the presence of these two impacts.
  • ItemOpen Access
    The value added tax: annual vs. lifetime perspective evidence from Tanzania household data
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2009) Mushi, Delphina Prosper, author; Fan, Chuen-Mei, advisor
    The study compares the annual vs the lifetime perspective of the Value Added Tax (VAT) using the Tanzania Household Budget Survey of 2000/2001. The impact of exemptions on both government revenue and distribution of the tax burden is examined. The "distributional characteristics approach" is used to find whether exemptions are justifiable on distributional grounds. Finally the study examines changes in vertical equity of moving from the previous sales tax to the VAT. Results show that when annual income is used to measure well being, the VAT looks very regressive, while using "lifetime income" makes the VAT proportional. With lifetime income as a measure of ability to pay, incorporating exemptions into the analysis makes the VAT slightly progressive while several alternatives to exemptions could make the VAT more progressive and improve revenue performance. The distributional characteristics of exempted items show that unprocessed food, public transport and petroleum products are mostly consumed by the relatively poor. On the other hand, the rich consumes postal supplies, books, newspapers, and others. Comparing VAT and the previous sales tax shows VAT to be less progressive, even though it is not regressive.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Export-led growth and crowding-out effect case study: a cointegration approach
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2009) Ngo, Trung Quang, author; Cutler, Harvey, advisor
    During last three decades, development policies have major shifted from what is known as import-substitution to export-led growth in which many developing countries have focused on reducing their dependence on primary commodity export and increasing their manufactured exports. The important motivation supports for export-led growth policy is the vision of growing market which lead to increase specialization and division of labor. Developing countries can move up to the development ladder by specializing in exporting low-technology products to industrialized countries. In addition, with abundance of cheap and unskilled labor, developing countries will gain from international trade. These gains would allow them to graduate to the rank of middle or higher income countries by exporting more technologically sophisticated, skill-intensive products. While, export-led growth has been increasingly applied around the world, the deterioration in economic still occurred and created a new challenge for export-led growth model. In facts, it faces a fallacy of composition where exporters rely on growth of demand in export markets. Developing countries sell most of their export manufactured to industrialized countries markets. However, export markets demand does not grow fast enough to support the growth of export expansion of all developing country exporters. As a result, trade barriers and macroeconomic policies will be applied. If consider developing countries as a group, the problem of export-led growth can be described as export displacement or crowding-out effect. This means when one country tries to increase its export; it may displace the export shares of another. This study analyzes whether export-led growth exists in Vietnam and the crowding-out effect occurs among ASEAN countries. The approach in this study is the use of cointegration in a multi-equations model which allows us to examine the long-run relationship between exports and economic growth in Vietnam and the connection within ASEAN countries for export manufactured goods. The results lead to policy recommendation for Vietnam's export in particular and ASEAN's export in general to improve their economic growth and export benefits.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Gender, race, and credit rationing of small businesses: empirical evidence from the 2003 Survey of Small Business Finances
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2009) Mijid, Naranchimeg, author; Bernasek, Alexandra, advisor
    Rapid rates of growth of small business ownership among women and minorities have motivated research on issues related to small business performance. The importance of access to credit for the success of small businesses, as well as evidence that women and minorities have less access to credit than male and white business owners has led researchers to explore the reason for this. The purpose of this study is to determine whether credit rationing in the small business credit market is different based on gender and/or race of the business owner. This study examines two types of credit rationing and uses a comprehensive measure that includes discouraged borrowers. In addition, we examine how loan amounts are determined. We utilize three different types of methodologies to analyze data from the 2003 Survey of Small Business Finances. Our results are consistent with previous studies that have found higher loan denial rates and lower loan application rates among women and minority business owners. Testing the robustness of the results, we find an asymmetry in the response of women business owners compared with minorities. The results suggest that women tend to ration themselves in the credit market, whereas minorities are rationed by banks through what appear to be prejudicial lending practices. The results for discouraged borrowers that estimate joint decisions of lenders and borrowers suggest that among those who apply for a loan, minority-owners have a higher chance of approval. This indicates that only higher quality firms apply for a loan, confirming the discouraging effect of banks' probabilistic offers. We also find that women and minority owners are more likely to be given a smaller loan than they request (type 1 rationing) than men and white owners. In addition, women-owned firms receive significantly smaller loan amounts than men-owned firms. There is no difference, however, in the approved loan amount between minority and white-owned firms.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Welfare reform, child care considerations, and migration decisions
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2009) Kepner, Valerie K., author; Mushinski, David, advisor
    The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), passed in 1996, instituted a new welfare program, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), with an emphasis on working for one's benefits and a five-year lifetime limit on benefits whereby benefits are withdrawn no matter one's financial or employment circumstances-thereby putting an end to the "enabling" aspect of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). Given the changes to the welfare system, the research conducted here is done in an attempt to determine the migration effects (both the welfare magnet effect and the effect of social capital on migration) of the new work incentives arising out of PRWORA. Regarding the welfare magnet effect, the empirical results suggest that more aggressive state TANF programs effectively deter migration. In one way, this implies that states need only toughen their stance on welfare benefits and work requirements to stop the flow of potential welfare recipients into their states. On the other hand, the results also suggest that welfare recipients already living within the more aggressive states are not moving to find employment and, therefore, may not be behaving in ways that would make available sufficient employment opportunities. Regarding the effect of social capital on migration patterns, the empirical results suggest that some welfare-receiving mothers are not responding to TANF incentives by moving. More specifically, if welfare-susceptible mothers reported using their access to social capital (i.e., relatives) to provide care for their children, they were less likely to have moved recently. It may then be proposed that many single mothers are not poor because they choose to be but because their choice sets (at least in their eyes) are such that self-sufficiency is unattainable and financial and emotional help is a necessity, whether it comes from the government or friends and family.
  • ItemOpen Access
    The battle over broadcast regulation: can the free press survive a free market approach?
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2008) Jackson, Pamela Taylor, author; Stanfield, J. Ron, advisor
    This dissertation examines the 100-year-old political economic evolution of broadcast regulation in the U.S., primarily focusing on the shift toward a free market approach to FCC policy decisions and the consequences for a free press in democratic society. Deregulation and concentration of media ownership trends have cast doubt on the independence of the press, and raised questions regarding the vitality and viability of American democracy. This research is premised on the belief that an effective democracy cannot exist without an informed public, and voters rely on the news media for the knowledge they need to make accurate social valuations in the political process. Evidence suggests the important mission of a free press to keep the citizenry informed is being derailed by institutional and market failures. Immediate institutional and regulatory reforms are recommended to insulate the press from the predatory expansion of a free market system that permeates every aspect of social life, including broadcast regulation and policy. The profit values of a market system clash and interfere with the moral agency of a free press, and the two are inherently incompatible. In addition, this study concludes that the growing Internet-based grassroots media reform movement in the U.S. is the last best hope for driving a corrective response to reverse the damage already done to the institution of news and to reinstate the news media's role as public interest advocates in a democracy. A multi-disciplinary approach is adopted to chart the evolution of broadcast regulation since the early 1900s and the fallout for a free press in democratic society. A broad spectrum survey of economics, political science, and mass communications literature allows for a synthesis of otherwise divergent theoretical perspectives in examining the free press-free market paradox. The theories addressed include institutional change, comparative economic systems as applied to changing budget constraints for network news divisions, commodification theory, regulatory capture, political ideology, democratic thought, market-driven journalism, and the propaganda model of news production. In particular, this research offers an unprecedented application of commodification theory and economic transition theory to the problem of the sustainability of a free press.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Income tax evasion: theoretical modeling and empirical evidence
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2007) Gahramanov, Emin F., author; Fan, Chueh-Mei, advisor
    Income tax evasion is a very important problem faced by most of the countries around the world. The phenomenon interferes with economic efficiency, socially desirable income distribution, long-run economic growth, and might even negatively affect the price stability. The intent of this study is to contribute to the economic theory of income tax evasion by demonstrating the ways to resolve the paradoxical relationship between the tax rate and compliance and to conduct various cross-model and cross-country comparisons, relying both on the theoretical and applied analysis. The study considers the intergenerational welfare implications of the recent dramatic decline in the income tax audit rate in the United States, which has been a source of big concern for many politicians, economists, and general public. It has been demonstrated that the wide-spread evasion can worsen the welfare of the generation working during the fall in the audit rate. Other issues, such as tax compliance costs and revenue-maximizing taxation have also been analyzed.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Impulsive consumers and optimal social security
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2007) Findley, Thomas Scott, author; Kling, Robert W., advisor
    Unfunded social security programs are primarily justified on grounds that individuals have specific behavioral tendencies that lead to inadequate saving for retirement. To date, very little has been pursued in the way of theory to analyze this justification. I design a new model of consumer behavior that is consistent with many of the salient features of evidence on impulsive consumption behavior. In my model, "impulsive consumers" optimally formulate long-term plans, but often deviate from these consumption programs upon experiencing a psychological impulse to uncontrollably consume above and beyond. In order to examine how impulsive consumers fare in an unfunded social security program, I calibrate my model to match specific empirical features of aggregate life-cycle consumption. After calibrating the model, I employ dynamic welfare measures and find: (i) a significant welfare cost to consuming impulsively; (ii) a social security program (calibrated to the current U.S. program) does not generally improve the welfare of impulsive consumers; (iii) social security almost never improves the welfare of impulsive consumers under future demographics; and, (iv) the optimal social security tax rate is drastically smaller than the current U.S. rate.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Empirical examination of the determinants of corruption: cross-sectional and panel analysis
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2008) El-Bahnasawy, Nasr Galal El-Din, author; Revier, Charles F., advisor; Bernasek, Alexandra, advisor
    This study explores the determinants of corruption, using cross-sectional, panel random-effects, and dynamic panel analysis to check the robustness of the results to alternative specifications and estimation methods. The study uses two different indexes of perceived corruption, the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) and the Control of Corruption measure (CC), to check the robustness of the results with alternative corruption measures. The study also uses a large array of explanatory variables that may influence corruption, including a large set of economic variables, a set of political variables, and a group of sociocultural variables. The first interesting result indicates that the rule of law strongly impacts corruption and that a better quality of law enforcement is correlated with lower corruption. Moreover, rich countries are perceived to have lower corruption than poor countries. This work highlights the importance of the rule of law and per capita GDP in the battle against corruption. Furthermore, this study finds the following. Lagged corruption impacts current level of corruption. Larger countries seem to have higher perceived corruption. A larger percentage of the population that is rural is associated with higher perceived corruption. Higher proportion of seats held by women in the national parliament is associated with lower corruption. Political stability, regulatory quality, ethnic fractionalization, and natural resource abundance do not impact corruption in my analysis. This study also examined the impact of some other factors on corruption such as voice and accountability, government effectiveness, the cost of business start-up procedures, the ratio of average government wage to per capita GDP, the degree of openness to international trade, membership in various religions, the level of economic development, and the legal system origin.
  • ItemOpen Access
    The impact and optimization of the urban industrial mix
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2009) Burnett, Perry A., author; Cutler, Harvey, advisor
    The industrial mix is a relevant issue facing urban economies as the modern economy transitions from an industrial to a post-industrial service-based. The first essay estimates the changes and effects of density that result from relative variations in urban industrial composition. This essay demonstrates that identical increases in aggregate metropolitan employment originating from growth in individual productive sectors result in different average urban density measures. The results suggest that certain urban characteristics are important in determining density's relationship to productivity and that city finances are strained as cities lose manufacturing and gain service sectors.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Women's labor supply: a cross-country study
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2007) Altarawneh, Yaseen Mamdouh, author; Fan, Chuen-Mei, advisor
    This study aims at analyzing the cross-country variations in women's participation rates (WPRs) and the gender-gap in economic activity. It covers 45 countries over 1970-2002, 15 countries from each group: low income countries (LICs), middle income countries (MICs), and high income countries (HICs). The study employs the Seemingly Unrelated Regression Model in conjunction with the Fixed Effects Model to guarantee the individuality of each country and to control for spatial autocorrelation. Several factors such as GDP growth, GDP/capita, education, fertility, urbanization, government's role, and cultural factors are used as explanatory variables.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Stock prices and the predictive power of macroeconomic variables: the case of the Saudi Stock Market
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2008) Alkhudairy, Khalid S., author; Fan, Liang-Shing, advisor
    A literature review of the relationship between stock market prices and fundamental economic activities showed that there is a disagreement among economists about this relationship. Some studies show that there is a relationship between stock prices and fundamental economic activities, while others do not support this relationship.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Historic registers and neighborhood change: do historic registers promote gentrification?
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2009) Alley, Robert Sean, author; Kling, Bob, advisor
    This paper examines the link between historic designation and neighborhood change using data from Denver and Fort Collins, Colorado and a Simultaneous Equation Model (SEM) framework. Contrary to previous studies in Texas, the Colorado cities display a statistically significant link between historic registers and neighborhood demographics. Therefore, historic designations may have a role in tipping models of neighborhood transition. The importance of legal context and initial economic conditions are emphasized.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Banking efficiency in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries: an empirical analysis using data envelopment analysis approach
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2009) Alsarhan, Abdulwahab, author; Phillips, Ronnie, advisor
    Measurement and analysis of banking efficiency has received increasing attention in applied economics in recent years due to the rapid globalization of the financial industry and consequently, increasing competitiveness in international financial markets. Efficiency in a general term in economics describes how well a system performs in generating the maximum output for given inputs. Efficiency in banking industry terms is measured as the difference between the bank's position and its best production frontier. There are two main techniques that are used to evaluate banking efficiency, parametric methods and non parametric methods. The debate on which approach is more convenient for analyzing the efficiency of the banking industry is still open and has been the subject of many applied works (Luciano and Regis 2007).
  • ItemOpen Access
    Three essays in cultivating regional growth: brownfields and charter schools
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Trouw, Michael Frans, author; Weiler, Stephan, advisor; Pena, Anita Alves, committee member; Zahran, Sammy, committee member; Lopes, Tobin, committee member
    This dissertation is comprised of three chapters focused on two important factors in cultivating regional growth. The first factor considered in chapter one is potential barriers to contaminated land reuse. As cities and towns grow, over time the stock of land within an area can be impacted by prior land use. A property which currently has a contamination issue from prior use which must be remedied before the land may be used in the future, whether for production or settlement, is called a brownfield. In this chapter we employ a survey of real estate professionals, and find developers require an additional risk premium on top of their normal rate of return on investment to incentivize them to invest in a brownfield. Importantly, this risk premium is found to be in excess of cleanup costs. Informed by the results of the survey analysis, a theoretical framework is used to explore the implications of this risk premium. We show this risk premium generated by information asymmetries potentially leads to inefficiency in the market for real estate and can perpetuate a cycle of underdevelopment due to a first mover problem. The redevelopment of this land is important, as these brownfield properties are typically located in the urban core of cities and towns and if not remediated can leave potentially productive swaths of land fenced off while expansion occurs in a sprawling manner on the fringes. The second factor in cultivating regional growth considered in chapters two and three of this dissertation is the role of educational alternatives. Specifically, I focus on the determinants of charter school formation and growth. Education quality and availability has been shown to be important in determining economic growth and migration patterns. Specifically, a strong education system can be viewed as an amenity to households and firms debating moving to a particular locale. Charter schools are publicly funded, privately run institutions crafted first as a pilot program for innovation, and more recently as a substitute or competitor for public schools. While the efficacy of charter schools has been heavily researched and remains controversial, little work has focused on the determinants of demand for the schools themselves. Chapter two builds on a small existing literature to provide light on what factors outside of direct measures of educational quality affect the creation rate of charter schools. Using a panel of core based statistical areas over the period 2006-2015, this analysis finds evidence that the composition of industry within a Core Based Statistical Area is related to the rate at which new charter schools are created, with more technical employment associated with a greater demand for alternative school options. The connection between industry and charter school creation is further explored by measuring the impact of intra-industry entrepreneurship on charter school proliferation, where findings suggest that higher levels of entrepreneurship within an CBSA is correlated with a higher charter school formation rate. Chapter three further explores the connection between charter schools and their interconnectivity with the broader economy. Posed as a method of returning education to the private market, charter schools are considered to be more exposed to market conditions, potentially more nimble to changing conditions and methodologies, but also potentially functioning in a more volatile market where school closings can occur more easily. This chapter uses the impact of the 2007 financial crisis to determine if charter schools were impacted differently than public schools. Using a nationally representative sample and aggregating to the Core Based Statistical Area, I find both traditional public and charter schools experienced small decreases in revenue but were largely sheltered from recessionary forces due to Federal intervention. Using a difference-in-differences approach I find that charter schools experienced both an increased rate of openings and an increase in the stock during the Great Recession. I attribute this effect to the decreased opportunity cost of charter school entrepreneurship. However, areas most affected by the Great Recession experienced a decrease in the stock of charter schools, as the challenges associated with opening a new school likely increased and lowered the viability relative to education entrepreneur's next best venture.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Environmental health risks, inequality and welfare beyond GDP
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Mensah, Angela Cindy Emefa, author; Barbier, Edward B., advisor; Weiler, Stephan, committee member; Miller, Ray, committee member; Mclvor, David W., committee member
    A seemingly overlooked impact on economic well-being and inequality is the mortality and morbidity attributed to the environment, such as air, soil and water pollution, ecosystem degradation, unsafe water and sanitation, temperature balance and other environmental quality changes. These environmental health risks are impacting welfare worldwide. The World Health Organization estimates that 24% of all global deaths are linked to environmental factors, or around 13.7 million mortalities per year (Pruss-Ustun et al. 2016). Air pollution accounts for 7 million of these deaths, and around 3 billion people face health risks from using polluting fuels such as solid fuels or kerosene for lighting, cooking and heating (WHO 2020). Particulate matter alone kills more than 4 million people each year, mainly in emerging market and developing economies (Nansai et al. 2021). Over half the world's population is exposed to unsafely managed water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene, resulting in more than 800,000 deaths annually (WHO 2020). These exposures reduce the average life expectancy and constrain human capital accumulation, thereby reducing the quantity of human capital per person and adversely impacting income distribution, especially among poor countries who already have low human capital. This dissertation examines two channels by which these environmentally health risks impact the economy. The first chapter of this dissertation examines inequality convergence over the past three decades and asks if environmental health risks (EIH) on human capital are responsible for the slow rate of inequality reduction in countries. Though higher initial incidence of EIH simultaneously worsens the rate of inequality reduction, we find that those countries that experience faster reduction in the level of EIH tend to converge to a lower level of inequality more quickly than their counterparts. Thus, estimates that exclude the incidence of EIH may bias the speed of convergence downward. We conclude that high rates of income growth, per se, do not reduce inequality within developing countries. Instead, the level of both initial inequality and EIH are just as important as growth. As such, policies targeted at reducing inequality must also address the health impacts of the environment. The second chapter of this dissertation examines the impact of environmental health risk on welfare through its impact on average life expectancy. Employing the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) dataset of environmentally related mortality and morbidity across 163 countries over 1990-2019, we modify the consumption-equivalent macroeconomic welfare measure developed by Jones and Klenow (2016) to include these risks. We use the GBD estimates of environmentally related morbidity as a lower bound estimate of these risks to adapt the expected lifetime component of the Jones-Klenow welfare measure for each country relative to the United States. Similarly, we use the GBD's estimates of environmentally related disability adjusted life years (DALYs) as an upper-bound estimate of adjusting life expectancy for environmental health risks. Our results suggest that, across all 163 countries over 1990-2019, including environmental health risks in welfare is significant when compared to income (GDP) per capita or to welfare that excludes these risks. While welfare in advanced economies is considerably high and closer to the United States, emerging market and developing economies who suffer the most from environmentally related mortality and morbidity diverge substantially from the United States. This divergence in welfare is especially prominent among low and lower middle-income countries, who are disproportionately affected by environmental health risks. The findings of the first two chapters reaffirm the need to aggressively target and successfully implement the Paris Agreement, Agenda 2030 and its linked Sustainable Development goals. For example, achieving the target on green energy transition, not only promote energy efficiency but will also significantly cut down the number of mortality and health risks associated with polluting solid fuel and kerosene usage in developing countries. Similarly, the target on improving access to clean water and sanitation, when achieved, will improve welfare and reduce, if not eliminate, the about 827,000 deaths associated with unclean water and poor sanitation each year (see WHO 2020). Thus, the strategies for improving welfare, which is the focus of my research, are very much tied to the successful implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals. The third chapter analyzes the impact of crowding and ecosystem externalities flowing from the industrial fishery sector to the artisanal fishery sector. Both externalities are the results of illegal trawling of small pelagic stock (which is the legal target stock of artisanal fishery) as bycatch by the industrial fishery sector. To explore this issue, we develop a two-sector bioeconomic model with empirical application for the case of fishery in Ghana. We demonstrate that both externalities impact the productivity and profitability of the artisanal fishery. Our empirical results show that, between 1986 and 2013, by-catch ranges from 18% - 95% of total artisanal catch except for some extreme outliers. We also found that industrial fishing effort has being increasing since 2007 but with less than a proportionate increase in legal annual catch, when compared to previous years. This seems to have coincided with significant increases in by-catch. The conjectured is that the extra increases in industrial fishing effort may have been moved toward illegal trawling of by-catch. This may explain why effort is increasing with less than a proportionate increase in industrial fishery's annual landings. We estimated the optimal tax rate to be approximately 11%. However, given the data challenges, we believe that the true optimal tax rate lies between 100% and 10%. Consequently, when the optimal tax rate is applied, the amount of by-catch chosen by the industry fishery in the decentralized equilibrium is identical to the amount chosen by the government. We conclude that if the government's priority is to increase the productivity of the artisanal fishery, then the current level of by-catch should be reduced through monitoring and effective tax structures.
  • ItemEmbargo
    From revolutions to realities: an empirical investigation of the Arab Spring's consequences
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Muktad, Abdalla, author; Miller, Ray, advisor; Tavani, Daniele, committee member; Zahran, Sammy, committee member; Çavdar, Gamze, committee member
    With the irrevocable change in the Arab world over the last decade, fully understanding the economic and political impact of the Arab Spring is paramount for policymakers. This dissertation consists of three empirical essays on the Arab Spring which attempt to capture causal relationships between Arab Spring and some political and economic factors. Exogenous shocks such as the experiences of revolution are treated as natural experiments which minimize problems of endogeneity and selection. Therefore, these essays are analyzed based on the synthetic control method and synthetic difference-in-differences. The first essay concerns the impact of the Arab Spring on economic growth, corruption and democracy. I focused on Tunisia and Libya as a case study of Arab Spring countries using the synthetic control method (SCM). I found that there was a negative impact of the Arab Spring on economic growth after 2010 for both Tunisia and Libya. On the other hand, the results suggested that although there was a substantial increase in democracy after the Arab Spring for both Tunisia and Libya, democracy sharply decreased in 2015 in Libya due to armed conflict. Surprisingly, the results showed that there was a substantial increase in corruption in both Libya and Tunisia after the Arab Spring. In the second essay, I estimated the Arab Spring's impact on foreign aid by using the synthetic difference-in-difference method. I examine whether the Arab Spring affects the distribution of foreign aid. I argue that the conflict may respond differently to different types of aid because of the objectives and aid-giving motives. The results indicate that, following the Arab Spring, there was a general increase in total foreign aid to affected countries, with exceptions for certain donors and a stronger increase for "non-traditional Western allies," with the United States being the largest contributor. Also, the findings suggest that, following the Arab Spring, various donors increased foreign aid to affected nations, particularly in government and civil society support, as well as humanitarian aid, with the United States focusing on government and civil society aid in Tunisia, Libya, and Syria, European countries emphasizing government and civil society aid in Libya and Tunisia, and Multilateral aid generally increasing, except for government and civil society aid in Yemen. In the third essay, I studied the spillover effect of the Arab Spring by investigating its influence on nearby countries concerning economic growth, bilateral trade, and foreign direct investment. I aimed to address how proximity to Arab Spring countries impacts the economic growth, bilateral trade, and foreign direct investment of neighboring economies. The results found that countries located within 2000 kilometers of Arab Spring nations experienced a significant negative impact on both real GDP and net inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI). However, the negative effects on bilateral trade were not statistically significant, suggesting that engaging in trade with Arab Spring countries did not necessarily harm the economic growth of neighboring countries.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Three essays on public policies in Indonesia
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Tampubolon, Devanand Pandapotan, author; Pena, Anita Alves, advisor; Braunstein, Elissa, committee member; Cutler, Harvey, committee member; Seidl, Andrew, committee member
    This dissertation studies tax burden, tax compliance, and cooking fuel choice and energy policy in Indonesia. The three papers observe the impact of recent public policy changes in taxation and cooking fuel. The first paper comprehensively analyzes the burden of Value-Added Tax (VAT), focusing on current exemptions. This paper uses expenditure as the proxy of income or welfare to examine the VAT burden. This paper finds that the effective VAT rate is 4.51 percent nationally and weakly progressive. The effective VAT rate is relatively similar to other developing countries, but only half of the developed countries. The VAT burden is lower and more progressive in rural areas than in urban areas. The tax burden on food consumption is lower and regressive, while higher and progressive for nonfood consumption. While households in non-Java islands spend more than households in Java, this paper finds that the effective tax rate in non-Java is less than in Java. The first paper also simulates the impact of the VAT reform implemented in April 2022. The result shows that if the exempted items are maintained (by only changing nontaxable to taxable but still excused from VAT) and the tax rate increase from 10 percent to 11 percent, the tax burden will increase proportionally to all expenditure deciles by 10 percent. However, the calculations suggest that if all exemptions are excluded, the tax burden will be double that of the previous tax regime and the poorest households will get hit more than the richest. The second paper studies the impact of the high VAT threshold introduced in 2014 on small firms' reported revenues. The threshold is set to help both the tax authorities and small businesses. However, the existence of a threshold will be counterproductive in its strength of providing transaction information. Due to a lack of trading information, the tax authority will have more difficulties assessing the tax obligation owed by the taxpayers. This paper utilizes quasi-natural experiments and Difference-in Difference regression to explore the treatment effect. The treatment group is wholesale firms, and the control group is retail firms. This paper finds that wholesale reports lower revenues by 58-70 percent for four years than those in the retail sectors. This paper also finds that the decrease in reported revenues is larger than the reported costs. This may lead us to conclude that the lower reported revenues are due to underreporting revenues. The third paper studies the determinants of cooking fuel choices and energy policy in Indonesia amid the zero kerosene program. This study finds that government policy is important for the transition to clean energy. One percent increase in the distribution of LPG Kits increases the probability of clean energy usage by 2%. The impact is almost double in urban areas compared to rural areas. All socioeconomic and demographic factors significantly influence the household choice of cooking fuel. Households with higher income and wealth, better house infrastructure, formal education, electric network, and mobile phone are more likely to be clean energy users. On the other hand, working women, household heads working in agriculture, and bigger household sizes are identic to unclean energy. The age and gender of the head have different effects on urban and rural households. In line with the findings of previous studies, household income is still the main determinant of clean energy. One percent increase in income will impact the probability of clean energy by 10 to 13 percentage points. With steady GDP growth of around 5-6% yearly, Indonesia has a good path to transition to clean energy. The three essays complement each other to strengthen Indonesia's economic development. Taxation is essential for adequate and sustainable public funding and clean energy is for better living and productivity. Chapter One provides insight into estimates of the VAT burden in society. This will help the government to improve VAT revenue with a less negative impact on society, especially for low-income people. Chapter Two provides insight for government to improve the utilization of information from the VAT system and tax compliance. Adequate and sustainable self-funding through taxation will enable the government to provide sustainable clean cooking fuel, which may help society become healthier and more productive. Chapter Three has the implication that tax policy can be used to promote clean cooking fuel. The current VAT exemption on households that use electric power up to 6600 VA should be maintained to encourage low-income families to use clean cooking fuel.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Three essays in regional economics: migration, regional portfolio theory, resilience, and agglomeration economies
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Care, Jonathan Charles, author; Weiler, Stephan, advisor; Braunstein, Elissa, committee member; Alves Pena, Anita, committee member; Thilmany, Dawn, committee member
    Cities and counties are dynamic entities that experience constant change, generated from both local and external forces. Some locations are rich in natural amenities, others are powerhouses of manufacturing or provide a rich level of services and quality of life to their citizens. Each location maintains a unique set of characteristics that makes it appealing to a given slice of the population and set of business enterprises. Understanding these characteristics and patterns of migration is a substantial focus in the field of regional economics. Researchers attempt to enhance our understanding by examining this phenomenon through a number of different lenses. Some have examined flows to the largest cities in the country and tried to uncover the underlying reasons for the unique advantages these metropolitan areas possess. Others have examined various measures of risk and reward to see which cities or counties outshine their competitors. Still others attempt to measure the appeal of regions by quantifying their natural amenities or investigating their resilience to negative economic events. Recent global events have brought understanding a number of these regional performance topics to the forefront of both academic and mainstream interest. This dissertation examines several aspects of regional economics with an aim to move the conversation forward along several tracks. The first chapter explores the contribution of regional employment portfolio risk and return measures in a case study of county level migration into Colorado. The level of employment data used in the construction of the employment portfolio measures is varied to see which level of aggregation best contributes to the understanding of migration flows. The results show that the employment portfolio composition of a county does play a role in attracting migrants and highlight interesting findings on economy-wide risk versus individual potential returns. Additionally, we find evidence of labor pooling and agglomeration effects for Colorado's largest counties. A lack of cohesion and consistency across sector-level measures of risk and return suggests that local governments should focus on creating a stable overall business environment, rather than attempting to focus on specific sectors. The second chapter discusses the concept of economic resilience and how it complements discussions relating to regional economic growth. A total of seven models are tested, split between two different formulations of measuring resilience. Testing is performed to identify a set of independent variables that robustly contribute as explanatory determinants of resilience. The results identify several determinants of resilience that are robust across different definitions of economic resilience and provide insights that can be used by local policy makers when considering the tradeoffs between balancing growth and resilience. The chapter ends with a discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of existing measures of resilience and the advantages of future work in this area. The final chapter of the dissertation examines the dual, decades-long decline in both migration rates and the level of economic dynamism within the United States. Specifically, the role of information generated by the churn of resources through the economy is explored within the context of county and metropolitan statistical area (MSA) in-migration rates. The difference in average annual in-migration rates is also examined using a three-fold Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition. This study finds that locally generated information on dynamism does contribute to the decision of whether to migrate. In particular, the findings show a unique role for information gained from regional dynamism when considering migration to smaller metropolitan areas, likely resulting from the more homogeneous identity these regions maintain, in comparison to larger, more multi-faceted, metropolitan areas. The overarching goal of this work is to contribute to the literature on why individuals choose to live where they do. The topics examined over the course of this dissertation permeate several veins of the regional economic literature. However, they all work together in the service of the question "what makes a place attractive to in-migrants?" This is accomplished by looking at the risks and returns to regional employment portfolios, the degree to and speed with which regions rebound from recessions, and how information generated by the churn of resources through the economy helps in the decision to migrate. These topics represent three of the drivers among the broad portfolio of factors regional economics utilizes to try and understand behavior within a country.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Institutions and structural transformations in the North American economy
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Walke, Adam Gregory, author; Weiler, Stephan, advisor; Vasudevan, Ramaa, advisor; Fremstad, Anders, committee member; Mumme, Stephen, committee member
    It is often asserted that secure property rights and legal frameworks conducive to the functioning of markets are essential institutional foundations of a capitalist economy. It is sometimes even claimed that they are preconditions of economic growth. Efforts to implement those institutions have, however, produced heterogeneous outcomes for different groups of people. This dissertation considers the effects of two waves of institutional change in North America: the nineteenth-century privatization and subsequent alienation of communal property in the United States and Mexico and the late-twentieth-century neoliberal reforms in Mexico. Both episodes contributed to profound structural transformations in the North American economy. In the process of shaping important aspects of the present capitalist economies of Mexico and the United States, the above-mentioned institutional changes resulted in land loss, dispossession, the destruction of traditional livelihoods and, for many people, insertion into labor markets on the lowest rungs, with reduced autonomy, and with little or no job security. The dissertation examines three cases of communal property privatization. First, it considers the effect of the 1887 Dawes General Allotment Act on American Indian migration using data from the 1930 U.S. Census. The results suggest that individuals who were likely to have lost land due to allotment had a higher propensity to migrate to cities and to other states. Second, historical literature is reviewed to understand how the privatization of communal property under Mexico's 1856 Lerdo Law exacerbated land loss and inequality. That episode inspired subsequent efforts to reverse the effects of privatization through the creation of a new form of communal property known as ejidos during and after the Mexican Revolution. Third, the consequences of 1992 constitutional reforms allowing the privatization of ejidos are considered. The main finding is that municipalities with larger relative declines in ejido and agrarian community membership (as a percentage of population) and more land sales to non-ejido-members experienced larger increases in income inequality. Mexico's 1992 ejido reforms were part of a broader set of neoliberal reforms aimed at seamlessly integrating the country into the North American and global economies. Trade and investment regulations were liberalized, which contributed to the spread of cross-border production sharing or "offshoring" arrangements in the manufacturing sector. The last section of the dissertation considers the effects of those arrangements on employment volatility. The main finding is that reliance on offshoring-related revenues generally had a large, positive impact on manufacturing-sector employment volatility in Mexico over the 2007 to 2020 period. In contrast, trade that was not related to offshoring had, at most, a weak impact on volatility. The main policy implication is that attracting jobs in the labor-intensive stages of transnational manufacturing production processes may entail the risk of increasing employment volatility.