Organizational Unit:

School of Economics

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https://hdl.handle.net/1853/70712

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Organizational Unit

Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts

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https://finding-aids.library.gatech.edu/agents/corporate_entities/1157

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Publication Search Results

Now showing 1 - 10 of 30

Effect of oil prices on returns to alternative energy investments

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2009-12-02) Schmitz, Anthony

This paper presents the role of alternative energy technologies in displacing fossil fuels as the world's primary energy source. To that end, a CAPM-GARCH multi-factor market model is used to investigate the relationship between returns on oil and alternative energy stocks. Results show that an increase in oil prices and the broad market have a statistically significant and positive impact on alternative energy stock returns. Furthermore, the alternative energy sector is substantially more risky than the broad market but has the potential for higher returns. This highlights the infancy and inherently risky nature of the alternative energy sector today, but demonstrates the potential for substantial future investment gain as alternative energy technologies become more mature and widely available. Interestingly, estimation of the alternative energy index model indicated the presence of abnormal returns which was not the case for the solar index model, implying that the abnormal returns were generated from a different sectoral component of the alternative energy index.
The environmental Kuznets curve case for the USA and the BRIC countries

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2009-11-20) Rashid, Shehryar

Previous literature on the Environmental Kuznets Curve has focused extensively on why or why not such a relationship is observed given specific scenarios. More recent literature has shifted attention towards factors that may explain differences in the distribution or threshold of the curve. The purpose of this paper is to determine why we witness different cutoff points for environmental improvement given the same dependent variable. For this analysis, the relationship between CO2 emissions and GDP growth is observed in the United States and the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) from 1981-2006. The results suggest that the standard for environmental improvement is lower for the BRIC countries compared with the United States. Factors that explain this are FDI inflow, share of production from different industries, share of energy from different sources, and overall incentives.
Exchange rate exposure of U.S. industries

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2009-08-25) Luangnarumitchai, Jakkapan

This thesis examines exchange rate exposure of 30 U.S. industries between 1974 and 2008 using traditional and orthogonalized linear models. Similar to the literature, when using traditional linear model we find that exposure is very time dependent and often insignificant. However, we discover that orthogonalization helps uncover more evidence of industry exposure. Within the orthogonalized linear model framework, we find that exposure is statistically and economically important, and the effect of orthogonalization is more pronounced for exposure to currency indices. We also test symmetry in exchange rate exposure by subdividing the sample period into the periods of appreciations and depreciations. Interestingly, we find little evidence that exchange rate is asymmetric even if we use orthogonalized linear model. Lastly, we discover that exchange rate exposure cannot be explained by our international trade data.
The Credit Crisis and You : A Public Forum

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008-10-20) Belton, Willie J. ; Taylor, Mark ; Doyle, Carter ; Melnik, Mikhail Ion

A guest panel of economists and policy experts provided perspectives and insights into the current credit crisis affecting the United States and the global economy from Wall Street to Main Street. Speakers also covered the current U.S. government bailout initiative of Wall Street and the banking system, including potential direct and indirect impacts of the initiative.
The impact of the subprime mortgage crisis on community health

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008-04-02) Mothorpe, Christopher A.

Loans originated to borrowers with lower incomes and/or lower credit scores are classified as subprime. The spatial distribution of subprime loans is alarmingly concentrated in minority-dominated and low-income areas. Beginning in mid 2006 the subprime mortgage market began to see elevated levels of delinquent and defaulted loans. The causes are many but generally traced to the beginning of the reset periods for adjustable rate mortgages and the evaporation of demand for securitized subprime mortgages. As delinquent and default rates in subprime mortgages rise, areas with a concentration of high-risk borrowers are at risk to decline. The decline can be measured across four different groups of factors that indicate the health of a community. The four groups are: physical, institutional, socioeconomic and the residential body. The residential body factor group refers to the citizens of a community and their civic involvement. The analysis uses binary logistic regression to identify communities that are commonly associated with subprime mortgage defaults. Subprime loans in the ten-county Atlanta Metropolitan Area are the focus of the study. The analysis treats each census tract in the ten counties as an individual community. The sample loans are geocoded to the census tract level allowing defaulted loans to be tied to communities and their characteristics. The data is collected from a variety of sources including the U.S. Census Bureau, the Atlanta Regional Commission and RR Donnelley s Credit Risk Management database. The results indicate that the probability of subprime mortgage defaults are associated with higher vacancy rates, population loss, declining property tax revenues, depreciating property values, and declining owner reinvestment in their properties. Potential spill over impacts to the community include higher crime rates, decreased school funding and degradation of public infrastructure.
Technology adoption and inequality

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008-04-01) Faissol, Daniel Mello

The prices of technological equipment have seen significant declines in recent decades. In Chapter 2 of this thesis, we examine the evidence and causes of these price declines. Among several factors, we focus on the learning curve effect where the cost of producing technological equipment declines as the cumulative number of produced units increases. In Chapter 3 we review the literature on technology adoption and the timing decisions of such adoptions. We aim to contribute to the literature by examining the timing of technology adoption under price declines. Furthermore, we consider the effect of human capital on such adoption decisions. We begin in Chapter 4 by developing a model of the timing of technology adoption under an exogenous price decline. Section 1 considers a single price drop in followed by multiple price drops in section 2. From the analytical results developed in these sections, we examine the effect of human capital on the adoption decision. Chapter 5 considers the price of the technological equipment to be endogenous to the model. We run computational experiments to demonstrate the declining price as a function of time. We examine the effect of the distribution of human capital on the price decline and adoption decision of the individuals of the population. We conclude with insights on the relationship between human capital inequality and technology adoption decisions.
The Brazilian tax collection and the ratchet effect

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008-03-31) Guedes, Kelly Pereira

This thesis analyses the ratchet effect in the context of the performance scheme implemented by Brazilian tax collection in 1988 to reward tax officials for their effort in collecting taxes and uncovering tax violations, using panel data for 110 tax agencies from August 1989 to April 1993 and employing the GMM-system estimator. The estimates suggest the presence of ratchet effect, i.e., the more the tax officials do today, the more the tax officials are asked to do in the future. This result endangers the credibility of the Brazilian tax authority's incentive program as an incentive system.
Tournaments in the public sector

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008-03-31) Souza Junior, Celso Vila Nova de

Tournament theory shows that a firm may motivate employees by running competitors for rewards either for a group or individualistic schemes. The empirical literature on Tournaments has been grown. However, many studies use no appropriate data. This paper provides the first empirical evidence on three key assumptions in these models using a special case surrounding the incentives for workers in public sector. The dataset contains information from the Coordenacao de Fiscalizacao (i.e., the Inspections Division) of the Secretaria da Receita Federal (SRF) on the bonus program created by the Brazilian government to compensate tax officials for their efforts in collecting taxes and uncovering tax violations. We constructed a larger unbalanced panel data Tax collection containing information upon 110 tax agencies distributed between 10 regions and 45 time period by month, which allowed us to support the predictions raised above. In order to examine the tournaments predictions we emphasize the dynamic of the process taking into account the unobserved heterogeneity and endogeneity problems using appropriate GMM techniques. This enable us to pondered the possible inertia for time adjustments within tax agency, possibly in determining strategies to improve the tax agency performance on the sources most valuable for collection, which supports the hypothesis of learning by doing. The results also demonstrated evidence to support the following tournaments hypothesis: (1) prizes motivate agents to exert effort; (2) number of participants increased as the size of the prize increase; (3) differential in wages and bonus directly affect workers incentives.
The U.S. passenger car industry in the 1980's

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008-02-15) Yang, Ling

American automobile manufacturers experienced a bitter-sweet time during the 1980s. On one hand, they gained support from the government to prevent mass imports of small cars from Japan; while on the other hand, they still lost market share to their Japanese counterparts and ever since then, they have been facing fierce competition from the Japanese auto-makers. To better understand today s competition in the automobile market, it is crucial to study the industry in the 1980s when the scope of the market began to change. This paper focuses mainly on studying the compact car market in the 1980s, which was the primary competition field then. It first briefly introduces the rise of Japanese automobile industry, and the economic background of the decade. Then it examines the U.S. compact car segment in detail, and finally constructs a model to explain consumer decisions on purchasing compact cars. In the end, it gives suggestion to the Big Three companies according to the findings presented in this paper.
On the Explanation of the Wealthy Slave in Classical Athens

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2007-11-15) Cooper, Carrie Elizabeth

This paper seeks to explain the existence of wealthy and socially influential slaves in the fourth century BCE at Athens, Greece. I describe what went on at Athens from the late seventh century until the early third century and show that transformation in the land to labor ratio combined with cultural, legal and political changes led to a period of time where slaves acquired wealth and power. First, changes in the land to labor ratio at a time when Athens was going through vast political change led to a culture where it was socially unacceptable for a free Athenian to work for another free Athenian. Slaves could then work in sectors unavailable to free Athenians, which led them to gain wealth and eventually societal power.