9801
Clifford D. Clark and Jung-Chao Liu
The Social Productivity of Town and Village Enterprises
9802
John Robst
Cost Efficiency in Public Higher Education
9803
Haim Ofek
The Fundamental Economic Problem of Human Evolution
9804
In-Bong Kang, Jung-Chao Liu, and Lilai Xu
China's Financial Development and Household Savings and Investment: Tests of McKinnon-Shaw Hypotheses
9805
Solomon Polachek, John Robst, and Yuan-Ching Chang
Geographic Proximity and Interdependence: The Relationship between Distance, Trade and International Interactions
9806
Kenneth V. Greene and Mario Pagliero
Are Italians Also Fiscal Conservatives?
Authors: Clifford D. Clark and Jung-Chao Liu
Title: The Social Productivity of Town and Village Enterprises
Abstract:
No abstract.
File: Not available online.
Authors: John Robst
Title: Cost Efficiency in Public Higher Education
Abstract:
This paper has two primary purposes. The first is to extend the literature examining costs in higher education to a frontier cost function framework. The second goal is to determine whether the source of funds in public higher education influences the degree of efficiency. A frontier cost function is estimated from state level data on higher education with "excess" costs measured as the difference between the minimum cost predicted by the frontier and actual costs. Results show that larger university systems are more efficient than smaller university systems. Also, the source of funds is important as states with the lowest and highest share of total expenditures provided by state appropriations are less efficient than states in the middle of the expenditure distribution.
File: Not available online.
Authors: Haim Ofek
Title: The Fundamental Economic Problem of Human Evolution
Abstract:
Exchange is a pervasive human predisposition and a distinguishing feature of human subsistence. No other species relies for its subsistence on free trade among conspecifics-at-large. No other species is engaged in strategic transactions based purely on the merits of the commodities exchanged. The root cause of this distinction and its evolutionary consequences is the key question in this paper. Was exchange an early agent of human evolution, or was it merely a late by-product of previously evolved mental and social)or even cultural structures? Insights gained throughout this paper suggest that human exchange fits more neatly into the story of human evolution when viewed as an early rather than a late development. They also suggest that intelligence can never reach levels of perfection deemed unnecessary by an agent that makes strategic exchanges with genetically unrelated members of its own species. By implication, the enlarged human brain should represent neither overdesign nor foresight on the part of natural selection, but a straightforward response to ongoing selection pressure. This implication should help to reconstruct the history of human evolution purely in terms of natural selection without the need to ignore or dismiss the difficulties associated with Darwin's principle of utility.
File: Not available online.
Authors: In-Bong Kang, Jung-Chao Liu, and Lilai Xu
Title: China's Financial Development and Household Savings and Investment: Tests of McKinnon-Shaw Hypotheses
Abstract:
We test if there are any "long-run" or co-integrating relationship between savings (and investment) and a set of variables that are regarded as relevant to household savings (and investment) according to the McKinnon and Shaw's hypotheses on the role of financial development or financial deepening. We find evidence supporting the hypotheses that two measures of household savings, bank deposits by households and urban household savings, are each co-integrated with household disposable income, the nominal rate of interest on one-year (or three-year) deposits, the rate of inflation, and the ratio of M2 to real GDP, and that fixed asset investment is co-integrated with real GDP, the nominal rate of interest on one-year (or three-year) deposits, the rate of inflation, and the ratio of M2 to real GDP. Despite this evidence for the existence of co-integrating (or "long-run") relationships, a more careful estimation of the savings and investment equations renders our findings rather inconclusive. In particular, while there is some evidence to support the positive impact of financial intermediation on the build-up of household bank deposits, the complementarity between investment and financial intermediation does not exist in the data.
File: Not available online.
Authors: Solomon Polachek, John Robst, and Yuan-Ching Chang
Title: Geographic Proximity and Interdependence: The Relationship between Distance, Trade and International Interactions
Abstract:
This paper extends the conflict-trade model to incorporate geographic distance. It expands prior research on contiguity in two ways. First, unlike other-studies, it examines how geographic distance between countries affects cooperation as well as conflict. Second, it incorporates distance's indirect effect on bilateral trade, which in turn affects conflict. The results show that distance reduces both cooperation and conflict between countries. However, cooperation is decreased more than conflict so that net conflict (conflict minus cooperation) rises as geographic distance between two countries increases. But in addition, distance simultaneously increases transportation and other trading costs, thereby leading to increased conflict and decreased cooperation working through diminished trade. Distance's direct impact on net conflict is miniscule compared to its impact through trade.
File: Not available online.
Authors: Kenneth V. Greene and Mario Pagliero
Title: Are Italians Also Fiscal Conservatives?
Abstract:
Data on Christian Democratic Party and Communist Party voters shares in nineteen Italian regions in the post war era are analyzed to see if votes punish or reward politicians for economic performance and for big growth in government spending. We find that the DC is harmed by inflation and employment but benefited from economic growth. Some evidence also is presented which implies that its potential constituency acts as fiscal conservatives.
File: Not available online.
