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Begin New Search Topic Markets Content Type Working Paper Publishing Institution Department of Economics and Business, Colorado College

1. The NWIMBY Effect (No Walmart in My Backyard): Big Box Stores and Residential Property Values

Author:
Kristina M. Lybecker, Daniel K.N. Johnson, Nicole Gurley, Alex Stiller-Shulman, and Stephen Fischer
Publication Date:
10-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Department of Economics and Business, Colorado College
Abstract:
Recent Wal-Mart openings have been accompanied by public demonstrations against the company's presence in the community, asserting (among other things) that their presence is deleterious to residential property values. Consider the following review of the film “Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price”: At the start of intrepid muckraker Robert Greenwald's awareness-building documentary, Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott addresses an ecstatic crowd of employees to announce yet another year of unparalleled growth for the world's largest store. And though this success also makes Wal-Mart a bigger target of envy and bad feelings, he exhorts the crowd to stay the course: Wal-Mart is vital to families struggling to get by on a budget; to the suppliers who depend on Wal-Mart to sell their goods; and to the “associates” who depend on Wal-Mart for a paycheck. But is it possible that rather than serve these dependents, Wal-Mart is actually destroying them? How can a store that drives down property values and kills off mom-and-pop businesses that can't afford to compete with Wal-Mart's high-volume, low-price strategy be good for a community?
Topic:
Economics and Markets
Political Geography:
United States

2. Financing Environmental Improvements: A Literature Review of the Constraints on Financing Environmental Innovation

Author:
Kristina M. Lybecker and Daniel K.N. Johnson
Publication Date:
08-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Department of Economics and Business, Colorado College
Abstract:
In an effort to explore the potential for financing environmental innovation, this paper examines different forms of financing and attempts to evaluate their effectiveness. The study considers both public and private forms of funding as well as providing policy suggestions for the support of appropriate financing for eco-innovation.
Topic:
Economics, Environment, and Markets

3. Challenges to Technology Transfer: A Literature Review of the Constraints on Environmental Technology Dissemination

Author:
Daniel K. N. Johnson and Kristina M. Lybecker
Publication Date:
07-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Department of Economics and Business, Colorado College
Abstract:
This paper considers the challenges to the dissemination of environmental innovation. Following a brief exploration of the legal and regulatory regimes surrounding environmental technologies, the paper examines diffusion mechanisms, market factors, social characteristics and political elements that facilitate and complicate dissemination. Given the importance of innovation to economic development and growth, the diffusion of innovation is of great interest to economists and policymakers alike.
Topic:
Development, Environment, Markets, and Science and Technology

4. The Effect of Wage-Payment Reform on Workers' Labor Supply and Welfare

Author:
Esther Redmount, Arthur Snow, and Ronald S. Warren Jr.
Publication Date:
08-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Department of Economics and Business, Colorado College
Abstract:
We analyze the effects of a largely ignored 1885 legislative reform in Massachusetts requiring that firms provide workers the option of receiving weekly wage payments. Using an inter-temporal model of deferred compensation, we derive conditions on elasticities of labor supply that determine the effects of the reform on workers' effective wage and utility. We then examine empirically the effects of the reform, using weekly data on mill workers in Lowell. Given the implications of our theoretical analysis, the empirical findings of positive wage and reform elasticities imply that the switch to weekly payment increased workers' effective wage and well-being.
Topic:
Economics, Markets, and Labor Issues
Political Geography:
United States

5. Determinants of Recent Online Purchasing and the Percentage of Income Spent Online

Author:
Kristina M. Lybecker and Brendan Hannah
Publication Date:
05-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Department of Economics and Business, Colorado College
Abstract:
The recent stagnation of electronic commerce highlights the need to understand contemporary online consumer behavior. This study incorporates current user demographics and emerging Internet activities to dynamically model the determinants of two key measurements of recent online shopping, a purchase within the last year and the novel dependent variable, percentage of income spent online in the last three months. Logistic regression is applied to a nationally representative 2007 survey of the U.S. online population. Determinants of a recent online purchase include, ownership of a credit card, an online payment account (PayPalTM), listening to podcasts, participating in online auctions, and for the first time, female gender. In a second regression, positive determinants for the percentage of income spent online include male gender, educational attainment, online auctions, instant messenging and online dating. Online spending increases with time online and appears to compete with other forms of online entertainment and social networking.
Topic:
Economics, Gender Issues, Markets, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States

6. An Ounce of Prevention or a Pound of Cure? Short- and Long-Run Effects of Pharmaceutical Patents on U.S. Health Care

Author:
Daniel K. N. Johnson and Hilary S. Johnson
Publication Date:
04-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Department of Economics and Business, Colorado College
Abstract:
This study examines the relationship between pharmaceutical R and health care expenditures, distinguishing between the short- and long-run impacts. To measure these relationships quantitatively, we focus on patents as a key factor driving the costs of pharmaceuticals, and develop a structured vector autoregressive (SVAR) model to measure the social rate of return to pharmaceutical research as protected by patents. We conclude with unambiguous results that pharmaceutical patents are not correlated with higher short-run prices in any measure of medical costs. They are associated with higher long-run prices in pharmaceuticals themselves, but with lower long-run prices in the aggregate medical sector which includes pharmaceuticals as a component part. Further, the TRIPS Agreement and Hatch-Waxman Act to enable generic competition have both been demonstrably effective at lowering prices across the spectrum of medical sector prices. We conclude that pharmaceutical patents may be economically medicinal themselves, acting as the 'ounce of prevention' that saves a 'pound of cure', the cure which would come in the form of even higher costs elsewhere in the medical sector.
Topic:
Economics, Health, and Markets

7. Macroeconomic Determinants of Exchange Rate Pass-Through in India

Author:
Ramkishen S. Rajan and Amit Ghosh
Publication Date:
04-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Department of Economics and Business, Colorado College
Abstract:
This paper examines the evolution of exchange rate pass-through (ERPT) into India's consumer price index (CPI) at the aggregate level over the period 1980Q1-2006Q4. It also investigates whether the extent of exchange rate pass-through is impacted by common macro fundamentals such as inflation and exchange rate volatility. Finally, the paper also tests for possible asymmetries of ERPT during periods of depreciation versus appreciation.
Topic:
Economics, Markets, and Monetary Policy
Political Geography:
South Asia and India