This dissertation is comprised of three essays that investigate consumer behavior and health outcomes. The first essay uses experimental economic techniques to explore consumers' preferences and willingness to pay (WTP) for nutritionally differentiated grass-fed beef. Our findings suggest that consumers' nutrition knowledge about the functions of Vitamin A, Vitamin E, CLA, and Omega 3 could positively affect their WTP for grass-fed beef while the knowledge about the main food sources of these nutrients negatively affects their WTP for grass-fed beef. Furthermore, a higher sensory evaluation score of grass-fed beef compared to conventional beef will lead to a higher probability for a consumer to choose grass-fed beef and a higher monetary value she/he is willing to pay for grass-fed beef. Using the same experimental data collected in the first study, the second essay investigates the impacts of consumers' nutrition knowledge on their WTP by accommodating the potential endogeneity problem using an instrumental variable approach and a non-instrumental variable approach. Our results suggest the existence of the endogeneity of nutrition knowledge and indicate that ignoring the endogeneity problem in econometric modeling will downwardly bias the estimates of the true effects of nutrition knowledge. The estimates obtained from different estimation strategies in the study indicate the robustness of our findings about the effects of nutrition knowledge on consumers' food purchasing behavior. The third essay investigates the impacts of primary care giver (PCG)'s time allocation patterns and household food expenditure choices on childhood obesity using the national panel study of income dynamics data. Our results do not suggest significant impacts of PCG's labor force participation, involvement in children's outdoor activity, and household food expenditures on children's Body Mass Index (BMI). However, the estimates from iterated seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) and semi-parametric polynomial estimation indicate that parents' BMI significantly influence children's BMI. Interestingly, physical activity appears to have weak correlation with children's BMI. / Ph. D.

Yes / This paper examines the relationship between board structure and corporate risk taking in the UK financial sector. We show how the board size, board independence and combining the role of CEO and chairperson in boards may affect corporate risk taking in financial firms. Our sample is based on a panel dataset of all publicly listed firms in the UK financial sector, which includes banks, insurance, real estate and financial services companies over a ten year period (2003-2012). After controlling for the effects of endogeneity through the application of the dynamic panel generalized method of moments estimator, the findings of this study suggest that the presence of non-executive directors and powerful CEOs in corporate boards reduces corporate risk taking practices in financial firms. The negative relationship can be explained within the agency theory context, where managers are regarded as more risk averse because of the reputational and employment risk. An increased power concentration is therefore expected to enhance the risk aversion behaviour of directors. The findings however, do not show any significant effect of board size on corporate risk taking in financial firms. As this study covers recommendations of the UK Corporate Governance Code on the role of corporate boards in managing firms’ risk, the empirical evidence could be useful for corporate governance regulation and policy making.

Yes / This study examines the relationship between corporate governance compliance and firm performance in the UK. We develop a Governance Index and investigate its impact on corporate performance after controlling for potential endogeneity through the use of a more robust methodology, Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) Estimation. Our evidence is based on a sample of 435 non-financial publicly listed firms over the period 1999–2009. In contrast to earlier findings in the UK literature, our results suggest that compliance with corporate governance regulations is not a determinant of corporate performance in the UK. We argue that results from prior studies showing a positive impact of corporate governance on firms’ performance may be biased as they fail to control for potential endogeneity. There may be a possibility of reverse causality in the results of prior studies due to which changes in the internal characteristics of firms may be responsible for the corporate governance compliance and performance relationship. Our findings are based on GMM, which controls for the effects of unobservable heterogeneity, simultaneity and dynamic endogeneity and thus present more robust conclusions as compared to the findings of previously published studies in this area.

Many potential benefits of new product introductions (NPI) have been identified in existing literature, yet there are empirical and theoretical evidence that suggests that such benefits are not assured. Building on the concepts of time compression diseconomies, absorptive capacity, and time diversification, we argue that benefits that a firm derives from introducing new products depend on the process of NPI, which we conceptualize as how and what products are introduced by the firm. We propose that pace, rhythm, and the scope are three important characteristics of the process of NPI that affect firm value. Further, we argue that this effect is moderated by organizational marketing and technological intensities. We use an unbalanced panel dataset of the products introduced by public firms between 1991 and 2015 to investigate the proposed framework in the bio-pharmaceutical industry. We estimate the proposed model using a multilevel modeling framework, accounting for endogeneity, unobserved heterogeneity, and heteroscedasticity. The proposed framework and modeling approach provide empirical support for the role of pace, rhythm and scope of NPI on firm performance, and guide managers on choosing the right growth strategy to improve new product performance.

This study applies the cross-country growth accounting regressions derived from the augmented Solow-Swan model to ascertain the growth effects of education in CEE and Balkan countries. We firstly test whether the total stock or accumulation of education matters more for corresponding countries' growth and afterwards we decompose the total stock into educational stocks at primary, secondary and tertiary levels to test whether the disaggregated educational levels have different growth effects. We do so by applying the panel fixed effects technique on 17 CEE countries during the 1990-2010 period. In addition, we address the endogeneity of education by using the lags of different educational proxies as instruments. The results suggest that the average stock of education is significantly contributing to economic growth of CEE countries with the biggest growth effect of tertiary education. Regarding the Balkan countries only, the growth effect of education is almost a null. We conclude that one cannot have economic growth without a good educational system and efficient usage of human capital. Thus, the policy implications should be related to the proper identification of the quality of educational governance, problem of mismatch on labor market and better utilization of human capital. Keywords:...

Diploma Thesis Abstract JEL Classification Z13, O12, O13, Z91 Keywords income shock, endogeneity, ethnicity, instrumental variables Title Income Shocks and Ethnic Group Bias Author's e-mail 61618416@fsv.cuni.cz Supervisor's e-mail bauerm@fsv.cuni.cz Abstract The thesis explores how individual income shocks impact ethnic group bias using a survey dataset from Uganda and meteorological data. Previous research has shown that the majority of civil conflicts break down along ethnic lines, and that ethnic tribalism harms economic performance of countries. A better understanding of the causal mechanism behind ethnic bias could help alleviate both of those problems. The author finds that income shocks have no measurable effect on ethnic out-group bias, but they might influence ethnic in-group bias. Since the regression of ethnic bias variables on income proxies likely suffers from endogeneity, the author employs the copula endogeneity correction model, which, however, does not prove to perform well with a binary dependent variable. In addition, the author demonstrates that ethnic group bias is most likely not directly influenced by variations in rainfall and that instrumenting for income with rainfall variation leads to non- robust results with even a small violations of model assumptions.

Thesis advisor: Arthur Lewbel / This dissertation consists of three independent essays in applied microeconomics and econometrics. Essay 1 investigates the issue why individuals with health insurance use more health care. One obvious reason is that health care is cheaper for the insured. But additionally, having insurance can encourage unhealthy behavior via moral hazard. The effect of health insurance on medical utilization has been extensively studied; however, previous work has mostly ignored the effect of insurance on behavior and how that in turn affects medical utilization. This essay examines these distinct effects. The increased medical utilization due to reduced prices may help the insured maintain good health, while that due to increased unhealthy behavior does not, so distinguishing these two effects has important policy implications. A two-period dynamic forward-looking model is constructed to derive the structural causal relationships among the decision to buy insurance, health behaviors (drinking, smoking, and exercise), and medical utilization. The model shows how exogenous changes in insurance prices and past behaviors can identify the direct and indirect effects of insurance on medical utilization. An empirical analysis also distinguishes between intensive and extensive margins (e.g., changes in the number of drinkers vs. the amount of alcohol consumed) of the insurance effect, which turns out to be empirically important. Health insurance is found to encourage less healthy behavior, particularly heavy drinking, but this does not yield a short term perceptible increase in doctor or hospital visits. The effects of health insurance are primarily found at the intensive margin, e.g., health insurance may not cause a non-drinker to take up drinking, while it encourages a heavy drinker to drink even more. These results suggest that to counteract behavioral moral hazard, health insurance should be coupled with incentives that target individuals who currently engage in unhealthy behaviors, such as heavy drinkers. Essay 2 examines the effect of repeating kindergarten on the retained children's academic performance. Although most existing research concludes that grade retention generates no benefits for retainees' later academic performance, holding low achieving children back has been a popular practice for decades. Drawing on a recently collected nationally representative data set in the US, this paper estimates the causal effect of kindergarten retention on the retained children's later academic performance. Since children are observed being held back only when they enroll in schools that permit retention, this paper jointly models 1) the decision of entering a school allowing for kindergarten retention, 2) the decision of undergoing a retention treatment in kindergarten, and 3) children's academic performance in higher grades. The retention treatment is modeled as a binary choice with sample selection. The outcome equations are linear regressions including the kindergarten retention dummy as an endogenous regressor with a correlated random coefficient. A control function estimator is developed for estimating the resulting double-hurdle treatment model, which allows for unobserved heterogeneity in the retention effect. As a comparison, a nonparametric bias-corrected nearest neighbor matching estimator is also implemented. Holding children back in kindergarten is found to have positive but diminishing effects on their academic performance up to the third grade. Essay 3 proves the semiparametric identification of a binary choice model having an endogenous regressor without relying on outside instruments. A simple estimator and a test for endogeneity are provided based on this identification. These results are applied to analyze working age male's migration within the US, where labor income is potentially endogenous. Identification relies on the fact that the migration probability among workers is close to linear in age while labor income is nonlinear in age(when both are nonparametrically estimated). Using data from the PSID, this study finds that labor income is endogenous and that ignoring this endogeneity leads to downward bias in the estimated effect of labor income on the migration probability. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics.

Com o aumento das taxas de obesidade, floresce o interesse sobre seus impactos no emprego. Diversas estratégias já foram empregadas na literatura de modo a quantificar estes efeitos, no entanto, há pouca evidência sobre os efeitos heterogêneos da obesidade, do salário e do tipo de ocupação (white e blue collar). Além disso, considerar a presença de endogeneidade da obesidade é prática cada vez mais demandada nas regressões de salário. Neste trabalho examinamos estas questões estimando o efeito do excesso de peso no salário com dados brasileiros provenientes da POF. A obesidade está associada à uma penalidade de 3,9% (VI) a 9,1% (MQO) no salário entre mulheres do grupo white collar. Mulheres do quantil inferior de salário são as mais penalizadas pela obesidade. Enquanto isso, estima-se que homens obesos white collar recebem em média de 7,2% (VI) a 14,4% (MQO) a mais que os não-obesos. O efeito positivo da obesidade é maior entre homens do quantil superior. A diversidade de resultados encontrados por grupos fortalece nossa estratégia de contemplar a heterogeneidade por tipo de ocupação / With the increasing rates of obesity, there is growing concern regarding its impact on employment. Several strategies have been employed in order to quantify these effects, however, there is little evidence of heterogeneous effects of obesity, wages and occupation (white and blue collar). Also, acknowledge the presence of endogeneity in obesity is increasingly demanded in wage regressions. We examine these issues estimating the effect of overweight on earnings by using Brazilian data from POF. Obesity is associated with a penalty of 3.9 % (VI) to 9.1 % (OLS) in earnings between white collar women. Women\'s lower quantile are the hardest hit by obesity. Meanwhile, it is estimated that overweight white collar men receive an average of 7.2 % (VI) to 14.4 % (OLS) higher than non-obese individuals. The positive effect of obesity is higher among the upper quantile men. The diversity of results found by groups strengthens our strategy to consider the heterogeneity by occupation

This thesis concentrates on the topic of the endogenous supply of money. It describes the basic shapes of the endogenous money theory and analyzes the causes of usual misunderstandings about the nature and behavior of money. We outline the important difference between asset-based and liability-based understanding of money and conclude that although both principles are theoretically applicable, the liability-based approach matches the major volume of real economic transactions. The liability-approach, which we conclude to be more appropriate way of understanding money, leads back to the topic of money endogeneity. We go over to the development of the ideas of endogenous supply of money as they appear over the second half of the 20th century and depict the major contributions in this area. We reference also the Czech academic research and comment the most relevant works. In the second part, the thesis concentrates on two theoretical areas analyzing the impacts of the money endogeneity. We point out at fundamental controversies in the concept of deposit multiplication concluding it to be an unrealistic process in a credit based economy. We conclude that the stock of money is not a directly controllable aggregate, especially not by means of the money base. The other area is the theory of capital and the foundation of the return on capital. We recall the Keynesian topic of the euthanasia of the rentier, develop the microeconomical foundation of the accumulation of capital and conclude that the zeroizing of the interest rate is feasible in a long-run. In the third part we go over to economic history and schools of economic thinking confronting them with the theory of endogenous supply of money. We concentrate on the notorious Smithian criticism of the mercantile doctrine finding the criticism not fully sustainable if we consider the varying nature of money over the medieval period. We analyze the available statistical data of medieval England concluding that the stock of monetary metals had a direct influence on the economic activity of England in the pre-Smithian era thus referencing to a strongly exogenous character of money, while there is no such relation afterwards, when money was becoming more endogenous. We put a next emphasis on the Austrian theory of money, which in many aspects is at variance with the endogenous money theory. We analyze both views on the money circulation and add new comments to the discussion on the foundation of the return on capital. We draw attention to the Mises' idea of Zirkulationskredit (circulation credit) concluding that this concept comes in fact to a common understanding of the money behavior along with the endogenous money approach. We conclude with finding that the theory of endogenous supply of money is a fundamental economical concept with impacts on almost all other branches of economics. This thesis thus contributes to a larger adoption of the endogenous money theory in the economical research on the theoretical as well as on the practical level. Concerning the practical area, the primary interest in adoption of this theory in contemporary macroeconomics is indeed concentrated on the suggestion for economic policy after the 2008 subprime crisis and we extend this thesis also by concluding notes in this issue.

L'évaluation de l'endogénéité monétaire révèle les arrangements complexes qui forment une structure bancaire et sa capacité à créer de l'argent grâce au crédit. À cet égard, les principales caractéristiques de l'approche post-keynésienne structuraliste de l'endogénéité monétaire sont les suivantes : (i) l'argent est principalement créé sur le marché du crédit; et (ii) les autorités monétaires imposent certaines limites à la création de crédit, mais elles ne déterminent pas entièrement le processus. La demande de monnaie et la préférence de liquidité des agents (banques, entreprises et consommateurs) sont les forces sous-jacentes qui soutiennent ces deux attributs. La thèse étudie ce qui a déterminé l'offre de monnaie de crédit au Brésil et comment la politique monétaire a limité ce processus après l'adoption du régime de ciblage de l'inflation en 1999. Nous décrivons d'abord les caractéristiques intrinsèques de l'offre de monnaie dans une économie de production monétaire en abordant la théorie structuraliste post-keynésienne sur le sujet. Par la suite, nous nous concentrons sur la pensée académique dominante actuelle qui guide la formulation de politiques monétaires pour de nombreuses banques centrales de près de trois décennies, à savoir le Nouveau Consensus en Macroéconomie (NCM), et d'évaluer ses divergences à l'approche post-keynésienne. Nous soulignons ensuite le vaste débat que la crise financière 2007-2009 a suscité entre les théoriciens, en soulignant la vision alternative post-keynésienne de la politique monétaire et du crédit et des cycles économiques. Après l'argumentation théorique, les objectifs et instruments de la politique monétaire brésilienne sont étudiés afin de recueillir les éléments les plus importants qui contraindront la création de crédit par les banques. Enfin, nous éclairons la voie de l'offre de crédit au Brésil de 1999 à 2016, où les changements du système financier et du bilan des banques sont analysés. Nous estimons finalement un modèle dynamique des données du panel et un modèle de VECM utilisant des données des bilans des cinquante plus grandes banques dans le pays pour la période sous enquête. On constate donc des preuves que l'offre de monnaie a une relation ascendante avec le taux d'intérêt, et, par conséquent, il est ni horizontale ni verticale, mais plutôt répondre à la préférence pour la liquidité des banques. Ainsi, la thèse contribue à la construction d'une discussion plus précise de l'endogénéité de l'offre de monnaie au Brésil, en élargissant la compréhension des restrictions au système bancaire par la politique monétaire. / The evaluation of money endogeneity reveals the complex arrangements that form a banking structure and its ability to create money through credit. In this regard, the key features of the Post-Keynesian structuralist approach of money supply are : (i) money is mostly created in the credit market ; and (ii) monetary authorities impose some limits to credit creation, however, they do not entirely determine its process. Hereof, both money demand and liquidity preference of agents (banks, firms and consumers) are the underlying forces that sustain these two attributes. The thesis investigates what has determined credit money supply in Brazil and how monetary policy has bounded this process after the adoption of the inflation targeting regime in 1999. We, first, outline the intrinsic characteristics of money supply in a monetary economy of production by addressing the Post-Keynesian structuralist theory on the subject. Thereafter, we focus on the current dominant academic thinking that guides the formulation of monetary policies for numerous Central Banks by almost three decades, i.e. the New Consensus in Macroeconomics (NCM), and assess its divergences to the Post-Keynesian approach. Following, we highlight the extensive debate that the 2007-2009 financial crisis brought among theorists, pointing to the alternative Post-Keynesian view of both monetary policy and credit and business cycles. After the theoretical argumentation, Brazilian monetary policy objectives and instruments are investigated in order to gather the most important elements that shall constraint bank’s credit money creation. Finally, we enlighten the path of credit supply in Brazil from 1999 to 2016, where both the changes in the financial system and in the balance sheet of banks are analyzed. We ultimately estimate a dynamic panel data model and a VECM model using data from the balance sheets of the fifty largest banks in the country for the period under investigation. We thus find evidences that the money supply has an ascending relation with the interest rate, and, therefore, it is neither horizontal nor vertical, but rather, respond to the liquidity preference of banks. Hence, the thesis contributes to the construction of a more accurate discussion of the endogeneity of money supply in Brazil, widening the understanding of the imposed restrictions of monetary policy to the banking system.