This paper investigates the impact of Familias en Acción, a conditional cash transfer program in Colombia, on participant credit behavior. The motivation of the research is derived from previous studies which indicate that conditional cash transfer programs have effects on households aside from those directly intentioned by the programs. While the direct impacts of Familias en Acción have been measured by the research team responsible for evaluating the program, potential indirect effects remain uninvestigated. My research specifically focuses on the impacts of the program on credit behavior. I compute estimates on the percent change in loan balance outstanding and credit participation over the four-year evaluation period by comparing households that are benefiting from the program (treatment) and those that are not (control). Because Familias en Acción was not a randomly assigned program, I use quasi-experimental data collected in three rounds over four years. I control for dissimilarities between the treatment and control group by utilizing a difference-in-differences approach and by controlling across a wide-range of observable household characteristics. I find that the program does affect credit behavior in treated households. In both urban and rural areas, the outstanding loan balance and the number of households involved in the credit market increases after the first year of the program. After four years of the program, the effect is still significant and positive in rural areas though not in urban areas. This indicates that the program affects credit behavior in all treated households in the short run and rural households in the long run. These findings provide new considerations for policy makers who are implementing these programs in developing countries.

As human activities continue to generate accelerating levels of carbon dioxide emissions, the world’s oceanic resources are threatened by variability in seawater chemistry, known as ocean acidification. Recent increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide have resulted in decreased carbonate ion concentrations and ocean pH levels, leading to increasingly acidic waters. The exact consequences of these chemical changes on ecosystems and individual species are difficult to predict; however, research has shown that economically valuable calcifying species will experience reduced reproductive fitness and population declines. Ocean acidification, therefore, poses an immediate risk to both fish stocks and fishery industries. From a local perspective, individual regions will need to implement dynamic management strategies to prepare for anticipated economic consequences. In a global context, international cooperation is required for further research and collaborative efforts must be made to reduce future acidification.

Over the past decade, the European Union has been characterized by an explosion of expenditure, insufficient revenue, high deficits and a lack of budget discipline. Financial markets in Europe are currently dealing with enormous government debts, poor government balance sheets and a weakening banking system. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the origins of the current Euro-crisis and specifically identify the extent to which it will affect the nation of Italy going forward. To understand Italy's stance amid the Euro-crisis, we proceed as follows: First, a historical background section will develop the fundamental issues that have developed in Europe over time leading to the current situation. Next, a discussion about Italian economics and politics will identify Italy's central policy issues placed in the context of the Euro-crisis. Subsequently, Italy's issues with tax evasion will be covered illustrating its history and enforcement addendums going forward. The final section of this paper will present a forward-looking prediction about the fate of Italy and the Euro-zone and will include some of the necessary steps toward avoiding an international economic collapse.

An economic analysis of foreign ownership in sports. Focusing on the English Premier League, National Basketball Association, and Major League Baseball.

The current United States tax code regarding foreign sourced income is outdated for a heavily globalized and interconnected world. Multinationals have played certain games with the tax code to lower their domestic and foreign tax bill. This form of tax avoidance has real economic effects that are leading to non-optimal economic outcomes. This paper will begin by offering examples of how multinationals are avoiding taxes, especially in the pricing of intangible assets. Other countries have adopted different ways to tax foreign profits; notably most countries either have a worldwide non-deferral tax system or a territorial tax system. There are costs and benefits associated with both systems of taxation that must be considered before adoption. Ultimately, this paper will conclude that a territorial tax system combined with an overhaul of the current rules regarding transfer pricing will lead to a better economic outcome than the current U.S. system of taxation.

Recent spikes in oil prices have thrown light on how economic activity in emerging markets may be impacted by oil price shocks. This paper conducts an empirical analysis of the effect of oil price shocks on emerging markets. It tests for the existence of an asymmetrical relationship between oil prices and economic activity using a model developed by James Hamilton. It also assesses the impact of structural shocks to the real price of oil on output as proposed by Lutz Kilian. While our models find no consistent pattern within emerging markets, they do suggest that oil price shocks have a greater significance in 2000-2009 than in the full sample of 1974-2009. We also find that emerging economies are impacted by changes in oil specific demand but unaffected by changes in aggregate demand for industrial commodities.

Foreing aid, since its comparatively recent inception, continually has been the subject of polemics. Though volumes have been written concerning its rationale, implementation, burden, impact, etc., only recently, with the concept of grants economics, have asessments of economic aid on a quantitative subsify basis been possible. These pioneering efforts have led the way toward a clearer understanding of foreign aid by identifying the real transfers involved. The object of the following analysis is to ferret out the grant component of official United States economic aid to less-developed countries from 1953 to 1969. The United States is chosen due to availabiity of data and because U.S. aid historically has contirbuted over fifty percent of net global foreign aid...

The extent of influence of monetary policies on housing prices in the Greater China region is examined in this study using data from 2005-2015. Using vector autoregression, the effects of housing indices, interest rates, money supply as well as stock market index are accessed. Results suggest that monetary policies do in fact influence housing market trends in Greater China. Furthermore, the extent of influence on Mainland China on the Hong Kong and Taiwan markets is also tested. Results imply a greater co-integration between the Mainland and Hong Kong market than that between Mainland and Taiwan. The effect of exchange rate is deemed as insignificant. Housing policies set by national and local governments show to be less influential than predicted. Lastly, granger causality is not present between the different markets within this study.

This paper explores the relationship between lagged stock returns and export growth in a panel of worldwide markets. Previous studies have focused on analyzing the effect of future economic output growth on stock returns. This study finds that annualized changes in a foreign country’s exports to the United States five to seven years in the future, defined as long-term, positively predict the annual stock market returns while the nation’s total export changes are already priced-in. An additional percentage point increase in long-term exports to the United States growth results in a 0.1 to 3.5 percentage point rise in annual stock returns. However, both growth in total exports and those to the United States do not predict equity returns over the short-term, defined as average annual growth from year 0 to year 4. Thus, establishing a foothold and cracking the highly competitive and homogeneous United States market is not guaranteed and unpredictable, requiring 5 years of investments before successful foreign firms are able convert it into earnings. Alternatively, investors may be shortsighted, uninformed, and pay limited attention about a foreign country’s exports to the United States beyond their forecast horizon, for example, five years. Moreover, the analysis finds that GDP growth at both the foreign country and United States level does not affect lagged foreign stock returns and could be priced-in, unlike long-term growth in the nation’s exports to United States.

This paper uses data collected from the National Interbank Funding Center of China, the People’s Bank of China, the National Bureau of Statistics, and Bloomberg starting in October 2006 through 2013 to test the economic fundamental’s affecting the housing market in Shanghai, particularly interest rates. This study finds that the 6- month duration Shibor has a negative and significant correlation with house price growth in Shanghai when lagged 4 months. The analysis continues by examining other economic fundamentals affecting house price growth, finding growth in inflation, the money supply and Shanghai real estate investment to have significant, positive relationships with the housing market in China. GDP and the national state balance, on the other hand, have negative and significant relationships with house price growth. The Shanghai stock exchange was found to have no significant impact on the housing market over the time period. The sample period is limited to 87 observations due to the relatively recent development of Shibor for a benchmark interest rate.