In this thesis, I investigate effective predictors for corporate defaults and measurement of economic recessions. I use corporate default probabilities in US industrial firms from April 1980 to December 2014 and effective predictors extracted from 92 macroeconomic and financial variables and I propose a framework to determine whether there is a dynamic in effective predictors for US corporate defaults. I apply LASSO, an advanced variable selection technique, and I find that there are no macro factors that can consistently explain default risk over time, suggesting that default risk has been dynamic during the 35-year period. These dynamics persist even during non-recession periods. Interestingly, the strong predictive powers of macro factors over shorter periods are related to monetary policy indicators and tools, which provides empirical support for prior theoretical theories that emphasize the unique role of monetary policies in corporate defaults. Another interesting finding is that institutional market funding, as the liquidity source provided by non-bank groups, has gradually impacted on corporate defaults since the 2001 recession. In the financial crisis occuring in 2007 this money market funds (MMFs) have strongest impact on corproate defaults. This implies that MMFs paly a crucial role of destabilizing credit markets in recent years, which is consistent with current studies of whether MMFs can result in financial stability. I study US economic recessions by introducing a cutting-edged technique from the Natural Sciences in order to capture the critical transitions in the macroeconomic system, using hundreds of macroeconomic and financial variables covering the period January 1980 to December 2014. Based on this method, I construct macro indicators to measure the interactions among these variables in order to capture the critical transitions in the macroeconomic system. Then I employ a standard logit model to study whether these proposed indicators offer a prediction one-month ahead of US economic recessions from September 1980 to December 2014. I find that the interactions among macroeconomic and financial variables measured by covariance among these variables can provide one-month ahead prediction for US economic recessions. In particular, the best predictive macro indicators are constructed by employing procyclical factors and factors from six economic groups based on results from both in-sample and out-of-sample analysis. Regarding the standard ideal indicator defined by Shiskin and Moore (1967), the indicator constructed by procyclical factors is preferable over that constructed by the factors from six economic groups since the former is smoother. I also find that the threshold based on 25% for classifying the recessions can generate better estimation results than using 50%, consistent with prior studies. In forecasting economic recessions in the US, the indicator generated by using broad macro factors is able to provide predictive power. The implication of these results is to provide a new quantitative approach for central bankers and policy makers to predict economic recessions one month ahead.

abstract: Many scholars agree that heritage tourism has grown in recent years. It has become a unique way for communities to diversify their economies while preserving local culture and heritage. One unique way communities are doing this is through heritage festivals. These festivals have a significant impact on local communities and are multifaceted as they do not just provide economic impact to host communities, but also positive or potentially negative social and environmental impacts. In recent years, a more sustainable approach integrating economic, socio-cultural and environmental impacts has been suggested when analyzing short term event such as festivals. It is important for event managers and scholars alike to understand these potential impacts as heritage festivals continue to evolve and prevalent part of heritage tourism. This study aims to measure and quantify the economic, social and environmental impacts of two heritage festivals – Gold Rush Days and Bluegrass Festival, closely following Andersson and Lundberg’s 2013 study on commensurability and sustainability utilizing willingness to pay (WTP) and willingness to accept (WTA). Both are annual heritage festivals and take place in Wickenburg, Arizona. Primary data collection methods are used to gather information regarding economic and social impacts. Paper questionnaires distributed via stratified random sample to festival attendees and town residents is the survey instrument used in the study. To determine environmental impacts, secondary data in the form of stakeholder interviews are conducted. Findings suggest a positive economic impact to the town of Wickenburg. Visitor expenditures, retained local spending and direct, indirect, and induced impacts are presented. Social impacts show a generally positive attitude toward the festival from a resident perspective. Environmental impacts show that collaboration among town stakeholders is needed to better determine festival environmental impact as no formal measures of impact are currently being recorded. Further empirical research is needed to better determine these impacts. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Community Resources and Development 2015

No description available.

This research develops and evaluates queueing models that can be used to model characteristics of basic call centres, i.e. multi-server systems with time-dependent arrival rates, general service time distribution and state-dependent abandonments on arrival (balking). The discrete-time modelling approach which has previously been used for modelling the time-dependent behaviour of multi-server queues is extended to incorporate state-dependent balking. Pure birth state-dependent arrival processes are studied for different arrival rates and are extended for the case of a recurrent arrival rate. Two approximations are introduced to model time-dependent systems with state-dependent balking. These approximations are proved to bound the actual solution for M(t,n)/D/s systems. A simulation model for systems with state-dependent balking is developed. Empirical tests versus this model show that the two approximations provide bounds of controllable accuracy. The performance of systems with balking is studied. Results show insensitivity to the service time distribution. The pointwise stationary approximation (PSA) generally performs well for these systems. A simple formula to estimate the mean number in the system is derived for busy systems with balking. Insights potentially useful to call centre management are reported.

This is a thesis about the standardisation of food through ‘sustainability’ labels, like those signifying organic or Fairtrade status. It examines how the voluntary product standards that underpin such labels are enacted through the everyday practices of producing, certifying and marketing farmed produce. This qualitative study of the enactment of organic standards in the UK suggests that such standards coordinate practices, forming an infrastructure which is normally invisible but which can be mobilised by producers to differentiate organic from conventional products. I describe the ways in which organic standards are enacted by farmers, certification bodies, policy makers and market actors. I suggest that standards provide process injunctions for farmers, requiring them to configure their farms in particular ways, adopt a preventative mode of farming, and a distinctive method of calculating value. I argue that organic standards are continually rewritten in the certification process, and that the multi-sited reproduction of different versions of organic standards results in markets characterised by a fragmented common space and partially maintained boundaries. Finally, I suggest that policy interventions formalise and frame organic farming as a public benefit. I argue that a multiplicity of ‘organics’ coexists with global notions of a singular ‘organic’, implying that the diffusion of ‘organic’ as a coherent concept is perfectly possible, even if the enactment of ‘organics’ in local practices is diverse. I suggest that all site-specific enactments of organic standards are abstracted into various formal spaces where they are made commensurable, and argue that the uniformity of organic ‘stuff’ is a result of the way local enactments are conjoined. These abstractions remove specifics of production and certification, and allow organic ‘stuff’ to circulate between actors. I conclude that the way in which voluntary product standards shape agricultural systems has political, organisational and ethical consequences for how ‘sustainable’ products are constituted.

This thesis is divided into two parts, each consisting of two self-contained chapters. The first part provides new findings in the economics of personality, and well-being. Chapter 1 studies the implications of ‘personality mismatch’. Mismatch in labour economics has generally been treated as a ‘black box’. Therefore, the well-being impact on a poorly matched worker is not well understood. I find that workers whose personalities are more poorly matched to the requirements of their job have substantially lower levels of life satisfaction, and a lower wage. Chapter 2 is the first study that attempts to uncover the determinants of well-being prioritisation. There is no consistent evidence of variation in priorities over the life cycle. Life satisfaction is the most valued aspect of well-being throughout life, yet people overestimate the relative value placed by others on happiness. Well-being prioritisation is strongly influenced by well-being levels and by individual fixed effects such as personality, health level, and smoking frequency. The second part of this thesis explores two novel ideas previously unconsidered. It represents a first attempt at providing some insight to these issues. Chapter 3 develops a model describing how consumers might adjust for a potential bias in extreme online review scores. A randomised experiment finds that individuals do not seem to be making such adjustments. Hence, there are negative implications for consumer welfare from false or biased extreme reviews. Finally, Chapter 4 is an ambitious investigation into how personality characteristics of workers within an economy may influence the composition of its industrial output. Big Five personality factors are predictive of future industry change, but further work needs to be done to verify this. This work highlights the relevance of personality data in the analysis of long-standing economic issues.

Actuarial aspects of two important fields of insurance are considered: calculating personal injury damages for working age adults (liability insurance) and measuring the mortality in insurance based populations (e.g. life insurance and pensions). The contribution of the thesis is to demonstrate a wide array of modelling techniques and their practical implementation in these two key areas of actuarial science. The first part considers the modelling of the labour force dynamics from the perspective of the loss of earnings multipliers in England and Wales. It reviews the estimation methods of involuntary non{participation in the labour market in relation to future loss of earnings. In response, a robust multiple state modelling methodology is developed that allows conditioning on personal characteristics of working age individuals such as disability, educational attainment and the current employment state. Applied to UK longitudinal Labour Force Survey data, it quantifies the disadvantages that plaintiffs with post-injury earnings capacity face in the labour market. This practical modelling framework leads to a set of improved loss of earnings multipliers in subsequent editions of the Ogden Tables now used in the Courts in England and Wales. The second part focuses on the modelling and estimation of mortality rates using Poisson likelihood maximisation methods. In terms of graduation, it undertakes a comprehensive assessment of the frailty models and their implications. Then it puts forward suitable parametric modelling structures in order to measure the scale of individual heterogeneity and applies generalised linear modelling graduation techniques to a large array of insurance based mortality data. In terms of forecasting, it considers the generalised Lee-Carter type modelling structures of Renshaw and Haberman(2006) and demonstrates their suitability for practical applications. Furthermore, it develops a novel stratified Lee-Carter model for the measurement of the effects of explanatory factors (other than age and time). An efficient programming package in R is provided for this class of modelling framework. Finally, a detailed analysis of the mortality trends observed in private pension scheme data serves as a case study.

In reviewing the efforts of the :~igerian Government to control the insurance industry in Nigeria ,.,rith a view to improving the tarnished image of the industry which was a prominent feature of the late 1960 l s and the early 1970 ' s this study briefly describes the evolution of the control framework, surveys the types of direct control measures and attempts an examination of the control mechanisms. In the main, these control mechanisms are the supervision of commercial insurance to ensure financial stability and good management, legislation requiring equity shareholding in foreign owned subsidiaries, direct government participation in insurance business, the making of some types of insurance compulsory and a number of miscellaneous measures. The main contention of the study is that rather than promoting the public image of the industry, government policy in a number of areas is detrimental to competition and efficiency with serious deleterious effect on the optimality of resource allocation in the Nigerian economy. Given the importance of the insurance industry in any economy the management of pure risk, the transfer and pooling of risk, its role in the financial intermediation process, the provision of funds for investment opportunities, etc, the study focuses on the urgent need to understand its industrial dynamics and formulate appropriate competition or regulatory policies for it. The study is important, at least from the viewpoint of policy implications particularly as it relates to the efficiency of the Nigerian insurance industry, the aim being to provide a set of detailed estimates to show the relative importance of the various elements of market structure and their implications for the conduct and performance of firms operating in the industry. Given the limited nature of the data, some parts of the study utilise a multivariate statistical analysis while some other employ a probabilistic model.

This thesis consists of three independent chapters on development economics and Chinese economy. The first chapter examines how centralization affects regional development. I draw upon plausibly exogenous variations in centralization from a political hierarchy reform in China to investigate it in a novel sub-provincial setting. I show that centralization has positive and significant effects on the overall industrial output and urban population of regions. To understand the mechanism, I propose a theoretical framework, where centralization will help to reduce resource misallocation within a region and improve aggregate productivity. Consistent with it, my analysis of industrial firm-level data reveals a reduction in the dispersion of marginal products after centralization, and I quantify the productivity gains from centralization in a counterfactual analysis. In addition to the positive overall effects on regions, the reform also has distributional effects for the different counties that constitute the region. The second chapter evaluates a firm-based pollution regulation in China in 2007 to investigate the relationship between political incentives and effects of environmental regulations. I show that when a municipality Party secretary has more incentives to improve the local economy for promotion, measured by his age, adverse impacts in employment and output on regulated firms will be much larger. At the same time, loss in regulated firms will be associated with gains in other unregulated firms in polluting industries, and there is no overall effects in manufacturing activities on polluting industries. I find that emissions of pollutants in municipalities with high incentive leaders experience a significant reduction. The third chapter estimates the effects of children genders on parents’ time allocation due to the long-existing son preference in developing countries. Using household survey data in China from 1989 to 2009, I show that with more sons instead of daughters, both father’s and mother’s time on housework will rise. At the same time men will increase their working time on labour markets and women can enjoy more leisure on the contrary. For possible endogeneity in children’s gender, I exploit exogenous variations from a law to forbid the use of ultrasound-B to reveal fetus gender.

In this thesis, I study various aspects of the financial system particularly relevant to macroeconomics, focusing on securitization and financial product complexity. The first chapter is devoted to developing a model dealing with the interaction between securitization and recourse (limited liability) laws, and its effect on the housing market. The model finds that securitization of mortgage loans allows originators to pass on risk. As a consequence, investor borrowers start receiving loans, and when these loans are non-recourse, there is a put option that pushes up house prices during a demand boom. I thus have the novel prediction that the interaction between securitization and non-recourse status should lead to higher house prices. The second chapter proceeds to test this prediction, making use of heterogeneity in recourse laws in US states. I find that non-recourse status roughly doubles the size of the positive relationship between securitization and house prices in a state, and can explain 75% of the difference in prices between recourse and non-recourse states. To address potential endogeneity concerns, I propose a new instrument for securitization, the distance of a housing market to the headquarters of ‘originate and securitize’ institutions, and find further empirical support for the predictions of the model. In the last chapter (joint work with Michel Azulai), we turn our attention away from the behaviour of banks to asking why regulators have difficulties in regulating them. We develop a framework focusing on financial product complexity and how it can make it costly for regulators to screen them. Bad financial products created by banks can lead to moral hazard issues, as banks are bailed out in case of adverse shocks. Thus regulators must incentivise banks so that they do not ’abuse’ complexity by making bad products complex. We show what the optimal contract is like for when regulators can commit, and discuss how the contract would be with limited regulator commitment.