Economics Department Seminar Series

Department of Economics

Seminar Series
Copies may be downloaded by clicking on the title of the paper.
For more information you may contact Stratford Douglas, the Seminar Series Coordinator.

Spring 2004

If you do not have Acrobat Reader for your browser, you can download it freely from Adobe's Web site. Download Adobe Acrobat Reader

All seminars are 3:30 – 5:00 and in room 441 B&E Building, except as noted.

February 6, 2004 Raymond Robertson, Macalester College. "Is Mexico a Lumpy Country?"
Abstract: Prior to trade liberalization, Mexico protected less-skill abundant industries. One possible explanation for this seemingly unintuitive behavior is that Mexico's geographic concentration of skill is sufficiently lumpy to affect trading patterns. This phenomenon was suggested by Courant and Deardorff (1992), but, to our knowledge, there have been no empirical studies of lumpiness. In this paper we apply an approach described by Bernard and Schott (2003) to empirically test whether Mexico is a "lumpy" country. We find strong and consistent evidence that Mexico is sufficiently lumpy to possibly motivate protecting less skill intensive industries.

February 13, 2004 Serhiy Kotsan, West Virginia University. “Efficient Pricing of a Bundled Product of Real and Reactive Power.”
Abstract: This paper examines price mechanism with one price assigned for each level of bundled real and reactive power. This pricing approach is simulated on the simple 3-bus system power auction where generators provide their bids on the bundle of real and reactive power. System operator (SO) is able to dispatch generators efficiently when the generators bid competitively. Incentives to exercise market power with respect to reactive power are tested on the auction. In addition, 30-bus network was tested, with the purpose of identifying generators willing to raise reactive power bids.

February 20, 2004 Deby Cassill, University of South Florida. "Skew Selection: Nature Favors a Trickle-Down Distribution of Resources in Ants."
Synopsis: According to skew selection, ant queens are neither ruthlessly selfish nor blindly altruistic; they are shrewd investors. The goal of shrewd investors is not to win the game, but to continue play over evolutionary time. Skew selection describes a set of investment strategies employed by players such as ant queens to keep the game going. First, ant queens acquire excess resources—more than they need for immediate survival and reproduction. Second, queens maintain a portion of their excess resources as personal capital to maintain dominant status. Third, queens invest a portion of excess resources into low-quality offspring to gain group capital. Fourth, when investing into group capital, resources are allocated in a trickle-down fashion to maintain the largest number of diminishing-quality offspring possible. The trickle-down allocation allows the shrewd queen to increase group size (safety in numbers) and, at the same time, maintain dominant status (safety in position). According to skew selection, queens invest in low-quality offspring (sterile workers) to buffer themselves and their high-quality offspring from agents of death such as war, predation or disease.
AND
"THE NATUROLOGICAL VIEW OF THE CORPORATION AND ITS SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY: AN EXTENSION OF THE FREDERICK MODEL OF CORPORATION-COMMUNITY RELATIONSHIPS."
Abstract: This paper advances a naturological model of corporate social behavior as an extension of Frederick’s work on corporation-community relationships subject to biological and physical principles. The naturological model describes the firm as an energy-transforming entity that seeks harmony between economizing and ecologizing values. The extension is a bioeconomic model called skew selection that integrates greed, competition, cooperation, and philanthropy into a single paradigm of social behavior. The paper opens with a presentation of Frederick’s theoretical position, followed by a discussion of skew selection and its implications for corporate social responsibility practice and research. In the final analysis, skew selection provides a revised naturological approach that scholars may use to understand the firm as a social entity nested among a diverse set of corporations nested among a diverse set of communities.

February 27, 2004 Jac Heckelman, Wake Forest University.“Senate Elections with Independent Candidates.”

March 5, 2004 Professor Sajal Lahiri, Southern Illinois University. “Temporary Tariffs and Capital Market Restrictions: Strategic Interactions and Endogenous Commitment.”
Abstract:We develop a two-period model with endogenous investment and credit flows. Credit is subject to quantitative restrictions. With an exogenous restriction, we analyze the welfare effects of temporary tariffs. We then consider three scenarios under which a monopoly lender optimally decides the level of credit and a borrower country chooses an import tariff: one in which the two parties act simultaneously and two scenarios where one of them has a first-mover advantage. The equilibrium under the leadership by the borrower country can be Pareto superior to both the Nash equilibrium and to that under the leadership by the lender.

March 12, 2004
Last day before Spring John J. Hisnanick, Bureau of the Census. "Dynamic Aspects of Family Income and the Persistence of Poverty."
Abstract: Are those in poverty destined to remain impoverished or can they move out of poverty without help from outside resources? An objective of the 1996 welfare reform legislation was to break the cycle of poverty by reducing, or even eliminating, dependency upon welfare (AFDC). Our understanding of those in or near poverty and their utilization of government assistance programs are based primarily upon an analysis of cross-sectional data and income distributions. As is well-known (Lillard and Willis, 1978), cross-sectional analysis can be misleading when faced with dynamic questions such as those pertaining to transitions in and out of poverty. However, with longitudinal data, we can model and estimate earnings mobility of those in and near poverty and investigate if poverty is a transitory phenomenon. Using the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) 1996 panel we investigate the impact of heterogeneity on the likelihood of being poor and remaining in poverty of the 4 years of the panel, 1996-1999.

March 26, 2004 Richard Arnott, Boston College. "Some Downtown Parking Arithmetic."

April 2, 2004 Shankha Chakraborty, Intenational Monetary Fund.

April 16, 2004 Janet Kohlhase, University of Houston.

April 23, 2004 Jack Triplett, Brookings Institution.

April 30, 2004 Dick Startz, University of Washington.

	Seminar Series Copies may be downloaded by clicking on the title of the paper. For more information you may contact Stratford Douglas, the Seminar Series Coordinator. Spring 2004 If you do not have Acrobat Reader for your browser, you can download it freely from Adobe's Web site. Download Adobe Acrobat Reader
	All seminars are 3:30 – 5:00 and in room 441 B&E Building, except as noted.
February 6, 2004	Raymond Robertson, Macalester College. "Is Mexico a Lumpy Country?" Abstract: Prior to trade liberalization, Mexico protected less-skill abundant industries. One possible explanation for this seemingly unintuitive behavior is that Mexico's geographic concentration of skill is sufficiently lumpy to affect trading patterns. This phenomenon was suggested by Courant and Deardorff (1992), but, to our knowledge, there have been no empirical studies of lumpiness. In this paper we apply an approach described by Bernard and Schott (2003) to empirically test whether Mexico is a "lumpy" country. We find strong and consistent evidence that Mexico is sufficiently lumpy to possibly motivate protecting less skill intensive industries.
February 13, 2004	Serhiy Kotsan, West Virginia University. “Efficient Pricing of a Bundled Product of Real and Reactive Power.” Abstract: This paper examines price mechanism with one price assigned for each level of bundled real and reactive power. This pricing approach is simulated on the simple 3-bus system power auction where generators provide their bids on the bundle of real and reactive power. System operator (SO) is able to dispatch generators efficiently when the generators bid competitively. Incentives to exercise market power with respect to reactive power are tested on the auction. In addition, 30-bus network was tested, with the purpose of identifying generators willing to raise reactive power bids.
February 20, 2004	Deby Cassill, University of South Florida. "Skew Selection: Nature Favors a Trickle-Down Distribution of Resources in Ants." Synopsis: According to skew selection, ant queens are neither ruthlessly selfish nor blindly altruistic; they are shrewd investors. The goal of shrewd investors is not to win the game, but to continue play over evolutionary time. Skew selection describes a set of investment strategies employed by players such as ant queens to keep the game going. First, ant queens acquire excess resources—more than they need for immediate survival and reproduction. Second, queens maintain a portion of their excess resources as personal capital to maintain dominant status. Third, queens invest a portion of excess resources into low-quality offspring to gain group capital. Fourth, when investing into group capital, resources are allocated in a trickle-down fashion to maintain the largest number of diminishing-quality offspring possible. The trickle-down allocation allows the shrewd queen to increase group size (safety in numbers) and, at the same time, maintain dominant status (safety in position). According to skew selection, queens invest in low-quality offspring (sterile workers) to buffer themselves and their high-quality offspring from agents of death such as war, predation or disease. AND "THE NATUROLOGICAL VIEW OF THE CORPORATION AND ITS SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY: AN EXTENSION OF THE FREDERICK MODEL OF CORPORATION-COMMUNITY RELATIONSHIPS." Abstract: This paper advances a naturological model of corporate social behavior as an extension of Frederick’s work on corporation-community relationships subject to biological and physical principles. The naturological model describes the firm as an energy-transforming entity that seeks harmony between economizing and ecologizing values. The extension is a bioeconomic model called skew selection that integrates greed, competition, cooperation, and philanthropy into a single paradigm of social behavior. The paper opens with a presentation of Frederick’s theoretical position, followed by a discussion of skew selection and its implications for corporate social responsibility practice and research. In the final analysis, skew selection provides a revised naturological approach that scholars may use to understand the firm as a social entity nested among a diverse set of corporations nested among a diverse set of communities.
February 27, 2004	Jac Heckelman, Wake Forest University.“Senate Elections with Independent Candidates.”
March 5, 2004	Professor Sajal Lahiri, Southern Illinois University. “Temporary Tariffs and Capital Market Restrictions: Strategic Interactions and Endogenous Commitment.” Abstract:We develop a two-period model with endogenous investment and credit flows. Credit is subject to quantitative restrictions. With an exogenous restriction, we analyze the welfare effects of temporary tariffs. We then consider three scenarios under which a monopoly lender optimally decides the level of credit and a borrower country chooses an import tariff: one in which the two parties act simultaneously and two scenarios where one of them has a first-mover advantage. The equilibrium under the leadership by the borrower country can be Pareto superior to both the Nash equilibrium and to that under the leadership by the lender.
March 12, 2004 Last day before Spring	John J. Hisnanick, Bureau of the Census. "Dynamic Aspects of Family Income and the Persistence of Poverty." Abstract: Are those in poverty destined to remain impoverished or can they move out of poverty without help from outside resources? An objective of the 1996 welfare reform legislation was to break the cycle of poverty by reducing, or even eliminating, dependency upon welfare (AFDC). Our understanding of those in or near poverty and their utilization of government assistance programs are based primarily upon an analysis of cross-sectional data and income distributions. As is well-known (Lillard and Willis, 1978), cross-sectional analysis can be misleading when faced with dynamic questions such as those pertaining to transitions in and out of poverty. However, with longitudinal data, we can model and estimate earnings mobility of those in and near poverty and investigate if poverty is a transitory phenomenon. Using the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) 1996 panel we investigate the impact of heterogeneity on the likelihood of being poor and remaining in poverty of the 4 years of the panel, 1996-1999.
March 26, 2004	Richard Arnott, Boston College. "Some Downtown Parking Arithmetic."
April 2, 2004	Shankha Chakraborty, Intenational Monetary Fund.
April 16, 2004	Janet Kohlhase, University of Houston.
April 23, 2004	Jack Triplett, Brookings Institution.
April 30, 2004	Dick Startz, University of Washington.