Working Paper Series 1999:

Number	Author(s)	Title
9901	Sultan Ahmed, Kenneth V. Greene	Is the Median Voter a Clear-Cut Winner?  Comparing the Median Voter Theory and Competing Theories in Explaining Local Government Spending
9902	Ronald Britto	Committee Decision-Making:  The Multi-Category Case
9903	Neha Khanna	Implications of the Kyoto Protocol for Economic Growth
9904	Stanley H. Masters	Why Has Earnings Inequality Increased:  The Role of Flexible Production
9905	Solomon W. Polachek, John Robst, Yuan-Ching Chang	Liberalism and Interdependence:  Extending the Trade-Conflict Model
9906	John Robst, Jack Keil	The Relationship between Athletic Participation and Academic Performance:  Evidence from NCAA Division III
9907	Florenz Plassmann, and T. Nicolaus Tideman	A Dynamic Regional Applied General Equilibrium Model with Five Factors of Production
9908	Neha Khanna	An Index of Environmental Quality
9909	Kenneth V. Greene and Phillip J. Nelson	Sources of Support for Charity, Government Programs, and Income Redistribution
9910	Florenz Plassmann and T. Nicolaus Tideman	Geographical and Temporal Variations in the Effects of Right-to-Carry Laws on Crime
9911	Barry E. Jones and Travis D. Nesmith	Tests for Non-Linear Dynamics in Systems of Non-Stationary Economic Time Series: The Case of Short-Term U.S. Interest Rates

Number:	9901
Authors:	Sultan Ahmed, Ph.D, and Kenneth V. Greene, Dept. of Economics
Title:	Is the Median Voter a Clear-Cut Winner?  Comparing the Median Voter Theory and Competing Theories in Explaining Local Government Spending
Abstract:	This paper attempts to test the power of the median voter model against the respective strength of other alternate models based on redistributive, political-institutional and interest group theories in explaining the demand for public spending in New York State counties during 1990, 1980 and 1970.  To execute the comparison of the performance of median voter model with that of each of the nonmedian voter ones, various nonnested tested such as J and JA test, N-tilde, W and encompassing tests have been employed.  Results of the study show that although the median voter model has a marginal edge over the rival models based on the alternative theories, it may not be relied upon solely when many other institutional, redistributive and interest group factors are also relevant for explaining public spending.  The results of this study differ from those in Congleton and Bennett (1995).  We do not find that interest group models are substantially weaker than the median voter model.
File:	Not available online

Number:	9902
Author:	Ronald Britto, Dept. of Economics
Title:	Committee Decision-Making:  The Multi-Category Case
Abstract:	If a committe of n members is asked to make a decision to accept or reject a proposal and each committee member summarizes his/her assessment of the proposal by selecting one of several options (like "highly recommend," "recommend," etc.), how are these to be aggregated so as to come up with an overall recommendation?  I show, on the assumption that the judgements of the individual committee members are statistically independent, that this is to be done by weighting the numbers of members selecting each option by some suitable weights; if the resulting number is larger than some benchmark number, the proposal is accepted, and otherwise rejected.
File:	Not available online

Number:	9903
Author:	Neha Khanna, Dept. of Economics & Environmental Studies Program
Title:	Implications of the Kyoto Protocol for Economic Growth
Abstract:	The paper explores the consequences of the Kyoto Protocol commitments for the futures economic growth of the developed Annex 1 countries.   The author estimates a translog production function in three inputs in order to determine the changes in factor use over time for the 23 samples countries.  It is found that while the energy input has played an important role in the growth of the developed Annex 1 countries between 1965 and 1990, the commitments entailed in the Kyoto Protocol are, on average, unlikely to have a major impact on real GDP in the year 2010.   However, there are important inter-country differences within the Annex 1 countries.  Countries with the relatively lower real GDP per capita and/or with relatively higher reductions in energy use compared with the baseline, experience a much greater reduction in real GDP.  These countries might take advantage of emissions trading and joint implentation to alleviate the projected reduction in economic output.
File:	Not available online

Number:	9904
Author:	Stanley H. Masters, Dept. of Economics
Title:	Why Has Earnings Inequality Increased:  The Role of Flexible Production.
Abstract:	Not available at the present time
File:	Not available online

Number:	9905
Authors:	Solomon W. Polachek, Dept. of Economics and Dept. of Political Science, John Robst, Dept. of Economics, and Yuan-Ching Chang, Dept. of Economics, Chinese Cultural University, Taiwan, R.O.C.
Title:	Liberalism and Interdependence:  Extending the Trade-Conflict Model
Abstract:	This paper presents a mathematical theory to extend the conflict-trade model to incorporate foreign aid, tariffs, contiguity, and country size.   It finds that under reasonable assumptions, foreign aid and contiguity decrease conflict, while tariffs increase conflict.  Trade with large countries decreases conflict more than trade with small countries.  In addition, rather than concentrating solely on bilateral interactions, the models are specified in enough detail to garner implications concerning how terms of trade effects third parties.
File:	Not available online

Number:	9906
Authors:	John Robst, Dept. of Economics, and Jack Keil, Office of Budget and Institutional Research
Title:	The Relationship between Athletic Participation and Academic Performance:  Evidence from NCAA Division III
Abstract:	This paper examines athletes' grades and graduation rates at an NCAA Division III institution.  Thirty-seven per cent of all college athletes compete in Division III, yet this group has received little attention in the literature.  Nontransfer student-athletes have higher GPAs than nonathletes, while transfer student-athletes have grades similar to nonathletes.  Graduation rates are higher for athletes.  Thus, athletic participation does not impair students' academic performance.
File:	Not available online

Number:	9907
Authors:	Florenz Plassmann and T. Nicolaus Tideman (Professor of Economics, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University)
Title:	A Dynamic Regional Applied General Equilibrium Model with Five Factors of Production
Abstract:	Since the mid 1980s, applied general equilibrium (AGE) models have been used to analyze the effects of regional economic policies. Unfortunately, most regional AGE models use assumptions that are too restrictive to yield reliable results. This paper presents a model for regional policy analysis that has four major improvements compared to existing regional AGE models. First, the model is dynamic, which permits a more coherent description of intertemporal optimization decisions than is possible in a static model. Second, the model incorporates both the sale value and the rental value of assets, which permits the inclusion of investment projects whose returns consist of mixtures of payments and capital gains or losses. Third, the model uses five factors of production: land, labor, buildings, machines, and infrastructure, which differ in mobility and reproducibility. Fourth, the model replaces the generally used assumption that goods from a given industry that are produced in different regions are imperfect substitutes (the Armington assumption) with the assumption that these goods are perfect substitutes, which is more realistic for regional models given the data that are commonly used for the analysis.
File:	WP9907.pdf

Number:	9908
Authors:	Neha Khanna
Title:	An Index of Environmental Quality
Abstract:	This paper develops an index of environmental quality which facilitates the comparison of pollution levels across different regions and over time. The index draws upon epidemiological dose-response functions as well as a micro-theoretic welfare function in arriving at a rule to aggregate the ambient concentrations of pollutants into an overall index. The author illustrates the concept empirically by computing an index of air quality using 1997 data from 135 counties and Metropolitan Statistical Areas in the US. Ambient concentrations of different pollutants are aggregated into an index of air quality based on the marginal welfare losses due to increased pollution in conjunction with National Ambient Air Quality Standards and the health effect descriptor developed under the EPA's Pollution Standards Index (PSI). The results are surprisingly different from those obtained using the PSI methodology. Some regions with a PSI value of 100-200 are considered less polluted under the methodology developed in this paper than those with PSI values falling between 50-100. The key reason for the difference is that PSI values are determined entirely by the gas with the highest relative ambient concentration whereas the new methodology takes account of the ambient concentrations of all pollutants in computing the index value.
File:	Not available online

Number:	9909
Authors:	Kenneth V. Greene and Phillip J. Nelson
Title:	Sources of Support for Charity, Government Programs, and Income Redistribution
Abstract:
File:	WP9909.pdf

Number:	9910
Authors:	Florenz Plassmann and T. Nicolaus Tideman
Title:	Geographical and Temporal Variations in the Effects of Right-to-Carry Laws on Crime
Abstract:	An analysis of the effects of right-to-carry laws on crime requires particular distributional and structural considerations. First, due to the count nature of crime data and the low number of expected instances per observation in the most appropriate data, least-squares methods yield unreliable estimates. Second, use of a single dummy variable as a measure of the nationwide effect of right-to-carry laws is likely to introduce geographical and intertemporal aggregation biases into the analysis. In this paper we use a generalized Poisson process to examine the geographical and dynamic effects of right-to-carry laws on reported homicides, rapes, and robberies. We find that the effects of such laws vary across crime categories, U.S. states, and time, and that such laws appear to have statistically significant deterrent effects on the numbers of reported murders, rapes, and robberies.
File:	WP9910.pdf

Number:	9911
Authors:	Barry E. Jones and Travis D. Nesmith
Title:	Tests for Non-Linear Dynamics in Systems of Non-Stationary Economic Time Series: The Case of Short-Term U.S. Interest Rates
Abstract:	Using Hall and Heyde's (1980) representation theorem, we show that the stationary co-integration relations of an integrated system are generally non-linear stochastic processes. We propose a sequential non-parametric procedure to test stationary co-integration relations for non-linear dynamics, and apply this procedure to short term U.S. interest rates as an illustration. We demonstrate that the weekly federal funds rate is co-integrated with Treasury bill and commercial paper rates and that the co-integration relations are non-linear.
File:	WP9911.pdf

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