by John R. Hauser. / "January 1983." / Bibliography: leaves 10-11.

Terry A. Marsh, Robert C. Merton. / "August 1984." / Bibliography: p. 37-38.

No description available.

No description available.

M.I.T. World Oil Project. / Research supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant no. SIA75-00739.

With a dramatic decrease in oil prices over the past few years, the opportunity for increased profitability within transportation companies has become a relevant topic of discussion. Oil is a commodity that influences the price of gas and jet fuel. As commodity prices, and oil prices in particular, have collapsed, one would expect transportation companies to benefit from a decrease in operating expenses and experience an increase in profitability. Through this thesis, I seek to prove that despite a dramatic decline in the price of oil, airline companies have not benefited due to their engagement in hedging activities, and therefore have not experienced an increase in profitability. My dataset includes a collection of operating expenses and operating profit for the four major domestic airline companies over the past seven years. These companies include Southwest, Delta, United, and American Airlines. I tested my hypothesis through regression analysis, and used fuel derivative gains or losses as the independent variable and operating profit as the dependent variable. Although my results are not significant, my analysis indicates that operating profit has, in fact, decreased through this recent period of declining oil prices, due to an increase in operating expenses through airline companies’ hedging activities.

In this thesis, I analyse the impact of economic shocks on violence, and the mechanisms underlying them. I also investigate the long-term effects of violence on economic outcomes. In my first chapter, I introduce this thesis, and broadly outline its aims and contributions. In my second chapter, I examine lynchings of African Americans in the US South from 1882 to 1930, and show that cotton price shocks predict lynchings. Lynchings also predict more black out-migration from 1920 to 1930, and higher state-level wages. Using a simple model, I show that this is consistent with lynchings having labour market effects that benefitted whites: lynchings cause blacks to migrate away, lowering labour supply and increasing wages for white labourers. I then turn to the long-term effects of lynchings. I show that Mississippi counties with more violence during a 1964 Civil Rights campaign also had more lynchings during the earlier period. Finally, lynchings persist in labour market outcomes: present-day results show that lynchings predict higher black-white worker, family, and household income gaps. In my third chapter, I turn to FrenchWest Africa, a co-authored work with James Fenske. We show that rainfall, temperature, and commodity price shocks predict unrest in colonial French West Africa between 1906 and 1956. We use a simple model of taxation and anti-tax resistance to explain these results. In the colonial period, the response of unrest to economic shocks was strongest in more remote areas and those lacking a history of pre-colonial states. In modern data spanning 1997 to 2011, the effect of economic shocks on unrest is weaker. Past patterns of heterogeneity are no longer present. The response of unrest to economic shocks, then, differs across institutional contexts within a single location. In my fourth and last chapter, I find that favourable temperatures and favourable economic conditions predict more witchcraft trials in Early Modern Scotland (1563-1727), a largely agricultural economy. During this time, witchcraft was a secular crime, and it was incumbent on local elites to commit resources to trying witches. Consistent with this, I find that positive price shocks to export-heavy, taxable goods like herring and wool predict more witch trials, while price shocks to Scotland's main subsistence commodity, oats, do not.

The subject of this study is the influence of favourable exogenous shocks on the structure of prices and output composition in small open economies. The study is based, theoretically, on the Dutch Disease theory; and, empirically, on research conducted on Jordan. Under general equilibrium conditions, a boom in a traded sector is likely to produce a contraction of output and employment in non-booming traded sectors - de-industrialisation. This is the essence of the Dutch disease theory, its conclusions valid only within its particular set of assumptions about factor-market underpinnings of the model, including macro-equilibrium and full employment, fixed national stock of labour and capital, and perfect capital markets; and unchanging technical conditions of production. Furthermore, changes in the structure of demand that underlie the process of industrialisation are ignored, as the model assumes growth, other than that generated by the windfall gain, away. The present study contests this analytical approach, and offers an alternative that considers initial conditions of disequilibrium and conducts dynamic analysis to show the effects of demand expansion, with its disproportionately large stimulus to manufacturing, on these conditions. Demand-led output growth combined with supply-side changes induced by booming conditions leads to rapid productivity growth in manufacturing, by both increasing production efficiency and inducing technological advance. The outcome of these inter-linked supply-demand changes is an acceleration of industrialisation. The study thus presents an antithesis to the Dutch disease hypothesis. After an overview of the Dutch disease theory, the study discusses the necessary modifications when certain characteristics of industrialising economies are taken into consideration. The focus of the analysis is the Dutch disease theory's assumptions, its level of abstraction, and the static nature of its analysis. Various countries' experience of booms are presented to show that the outcome of sectoral shifts is crucially dependent on the pre-boom economic conditions; and thus to show also that boom experiences of industrial and industrialising economies differ considerably. The discussion of Jordan starts by outlining that country's historical experience of sectoral shifts. The counterfactual to the Dutch disease is established with the aid of trend analysis, and it is shown that at the end of the boom, the share in aggregate output of agriculture was smaller, and that of manufacturing larger, than 'expected' from historical trends. Dutch disease analysis is used to show that resource mobility and the spending effect have induced currency appreciation, as would have been predicted by the theory. Contrary to the theory's predictions, however, the examination of the commodity trade balance reveals significant growth in agricultural and manufacturing exports during the boom. The study then examines the reasons behind the discrepancy between the theory and this empirical observation. The performance of agriculture and manufacturing are examined separately. In both sectors booming conditions brought about rapid technological advance which expanded profits in these sectors. In addition, the disproportionately large demand for manufactured goods, both for consumption and investment, led to a rapid expansion of this sector's share in aggregate output; which was compensated for by a decline in that of agriculture. Seen in this light, the decline in the share of agriculture was a manifestation of successful industrialisation, rather than the Dutch disease effect.

No description available.

O objetivo deste estudo é estimar o viés de substituição de produtos no cálculo da inflação ao consumidor, ou seja, estimar a inflação levando em conta a possibilidade da troca de bens dentro de uma cesta de produtos em resposta à mudança de preços relativos. Isso ocorre porque a fórmula utilizada atualmente pelo IBGE, tanto para o INPC quanto para o IPCA, para medir a inflação ao consumidor é a de Laspeyres modificado base móvel (índice do Bureau), que considera a mesma cesta de bens e serviços ao longo do tempo. Este índice tende a superestimar o aumento do custo de vida justamente por não considerar as trocas. Seguindo trabalhos anteriores, a estimação do viés se deu comparando um índice Laspeyres para um subconjunto do IPCA com a inflação mensurada pelo índice de Theil-Tornqvist para o mesmo subconjunto de produtos. Este índice se aproxima de um índice de custo de vida, logo, que considera a substituição de bens. No entanto, ele necessita atualizações freqüentes das cestas de bens e serviços ou das estruturas de ponderação. Como não existem no Brasil pesquisas de consumo das famílias que forneça estruturas de ponderações periódicas, estas tiveram que ser estimadas. Para tanto, foram utilizadas previsões de um modelo de sistema de demanda AIDS baseado nos microdados da POF 95-96. O viés de substituição estimado foi de 3,33 p.p. de agosto de 1999 a junho de 2006, o que equivale a dizer que a inflação ao consumidor foi superestimada em 0,31 p.p. ao ano. Pela impossibilidade de trabalhar com o nível mais desagregado do IPCA (o subitem), certamente, o viés calculado é subestimado. Caso o viés estimado fosse descontado dos reajustes dados às aposentadorias, pensões e demais auxílios concedidos pelo Ministério da Previdência e Assistência Social, o governo poderia ter poupado de 2000 a junho de 2006, aproximadamente, R$ 8 bilhões. / The objective of this study is to estimate the substitution of products bias in the calculation of consumer inflation, therefore, estimate the inflation taking into account the possibility of switching goods in a basket of products, in response to a change in relative prices. This happens because the estimation formula used by IBGE, both with INPC an IPCA, to measure consumer inflation is Laspeyres (Bureau\'s index), witch considers the same basket of goods over time. This index tends to overestimate the increase in the living cost, by not taking into account the substitution of products. Following previous works, the estimation of the bias was made comparing a Lapeyres index for a subgroups of IPCA with the inflation measure by the Theil-Tornqvist index for the same subgroups. This gets closer to an index of cost of living, which considers the substitution of goods. However, it needs frequent updates of the baskets of goods and services or of the weighted structures. As there are no surveys of family consumption in Brazil that provide periodic weighted structures, these had to be estimated. To do it, were used micro data of POF 95-96. The substitution bias estimated was 3,33 p.p of August 1999 to June 2006, which is equivalent of saying that the consumer inflation was overestimated in 0,31 p.p per year. With the impossibility of working with a more highly disaggregated level of IPCA (the sub items), certainly the calculated bias was underestimated. If the bias estimated was discounted from adjustment given to retirement, pensions and other benefits granted by the Ministry of Welfare and Social Assistance, the government could have saved, from 2000 to June 2006, approximately R$ 8 billions.