The distance bias in natural disaster reporting – empirical evidence for the United States

Whenever governments or international organizations provide aid in the aftermath of natural disasters, they typically justify this support by humanitarian motives. Previous empirical research found that media reports on natural disasters have a systematic impact on the amount of provided disaster aid. While this is unproblematic as long as media reports are unbiased and thus deliver an undistorted picture of the occurrence and severity of worldwide occurring disasters, systematic reporting biases would lead to distorted aid flows and perhaps other distortions like an insufficient perception of a region in international organizations. Based on data on three US news shows we show that disaster reporting is subject to a distance bias, e.g., the likelihood that a disaster is covered by the media depends on the distance between the country where the media are located and the country where the disasters occur. We also find evidence that besides the distance bias the state of economic development of a country and importance as export markets have a positive effect on the probability that US news shows are reporting on a natural disaster. As a result, international aid flows might be systematically biased and not distributed in line with the needs of the victims.     

Uncertainty and the Value of Capital: Marginal Efficiency and the ‘Conventional Projection’

Keynes provided not one but two formulae for calculating the relationship between the Present and the Future. On the one hand we have the well-known Marginal Efficiency of Capital (MEC), where the value of the present stock equals the discounted sum of future earnings, but on the other we have the Conventional Projection (CP) where the expected earnings in the future reflect the productivity of present facilities. The MEC is likely to reflect the views of fund managers, the CP the views of corporate managers. These two sets of judgments of the future may coincide or diverge. Either way they determine the value of the present capital in terms of claims to it—and this determination may be stable or unstable, but in any case will be volatile in the sense that the underlying uncertainty can lead to rapid shifts. By contrast, the Classical Equations will give us the value of present capital in terms of its replacement or real cost. This is reliable, being based on the real side of the economy. The ratio of this to the uncertain and volatile MEC/CP financial calculation is analogous to Tobin's Q, and will play a role in determining investment decisions, but it chiefly gives us insight into how volatile those must be.     

Profits in the UK economy: some Kaleckian models ∗

Official statistics on profits in the UK economy during the 1980s show a substantial increase in the share of profits in GDP after 1981. However, these figures are based on companies' own returns which have been distorted by changes in accounting practices and taxation, privatization and the arbitrary allocation of profits by multinational companies. Kalecki's theory of profits provides a way of systematically determining gross profits in national income. However, the use of this method is complicated by the absence of data on the distribution of savings and consumption between wages and profits, and Kalecki's own estimates of the equation appear to be flawed in their statistical methodology.

A number of ways of overcoming the distributional problem are explored in this paper, using data from the sectoral capital accounts of the UK during the 1980s. The methodology suggested by Asimakopulos to estimate Canadian profits turns out to be the weakest on theoretical and statistical grounds. All estimates are highly correlated with the officially reported profit series. However, in real terms (defined in Keynes' wage units as a proportion of implied wage income), they all show a profits cycle in which real profits in the second half of the 1980s are lower than they were at the end of the 1970s. The conclusion that there was no upward trend in the profits cycle suggests that the UK government's supply-side policies, designed to make the economy more profitable, did not achieve this purpose during the 1980s.

This article is an investigation of what happened to profits in the UK using Kaleckian models of how profits are determined to supplement the rather unreliable data that is provided by the government's Central Statistical Office. In the course of the investigation, a number of different models derived from Kalecki's fundalmental profits equations are presented. Two of them turn out to have a high correlation with the official published data, but contrary to that information suggest that there has been no upward trend in profits.     

The United States’ higher education antitrust exemption and college enrollment

This study examines the effect of the higher education antitrust exemption on enrollment of financial aid applicants at highly selective private colleges. The antitrust exemption, used since 2002, was extended to 2022 by the U.S. Congress in 2015, allowing colleges with need-blind admission policy to use common standards without discussing or comparing individual awards. Our findings, which are contrary to earlier studies, suggest that the likelihood of enrollment at the colleges implementing the antitrust exemption increased compared to those that did not. Concerns about the adverse effect of the exemption on enrollment, therefore, seems to be unwarranted. Moreover, the common standards used by need-blind colleges do not seem to increase college access for low income students. These findings can be useful to policy makers who soon have to consider extending the exception beyond 2022.     

Research on the development and countermeasures for circular economy

Ecological economics and sustainable development economics are the basic theories to research on circulareconomy. Through the systemically research on the relationship of the three above, this paper thinks that the reuse andrecycle of circular economy is a way that the stall is mended after a sheep is lost. Although the reduction technicallycontrols the production process, it cannot solve the waste caused by blind production and excess competition. We haveexperienced variety obstacles when implementing the circular economy, whose main reason is the conflict between theindividual ration and the social ration. Therefore, only when the individual ration and social ration incline to conformity,the cooperating Nash equilibrium will be appeared. In order to realize the harmony of ecology, economy and society, wehave to explore effective evaluation theory. This paper cites the ＂five flows of wealth operation theory＂ from professorMa Chuandong to search operation mechanism of circular economy, makes clear the developing thoughts of circulareconomy based on the realities, and brings forward some countermeasures to develop circular economy based on theabove theoretical analysis.     

Subjects’ decision-making process: an empirical analysis on patients’ mobility process and the role of pharmaceutical clinical research

This paper proposes a decision-making process based on trust. Imagining the relationship between patients and physicians, based on the trust that the former put in the latter, which is the effect of experimental activities on the researcher’s (and/or medical center’s) reputation? Is it admissible to suppose a positive correlation between pharmaceutical clinical research and the return in terms of image for the medical care suppliers? This is the research question of this paper. Through empirical analysis, this work supports the proposed decision-making process and tries to answer this open issue. Considering Italy between 2002 and 2006, the analysis concerns the patients’ mobility process among regions and how pharmaceutical research can affect patients’ perception of the quality of medical treatments. Results suggest that mobility is clearly affected by a decision-making process based both on already existing good reputation (i.e., cognitive) and on confirmation of that image (i.e., behavioral). The latter is the phase in which the physician’s effort in the informed consent session of an experimental activity might make the difference in the reputation of the health care suppliers and, therefore, be a key factor in hospitalization choice.     

Inequality and growth in the United States: is there asymmetric response at the state level?

A previous study that tried to assess the impact of economic growth on income inequality in the U.S. used state-level data and an ARDL panel model to conclude that economic growth worsens income inequality in the U.S. In this article, we use the same data set but an ARDL time-series model applied to each state in the U.S. to show that the above conclusion is only valid in 20 states. Additionally, we use a nonlinear ARDL approach to show that the effects are asymmetric in the short run as well as in the long run. Significant long-run asymmetric effects reveal that in 28 states both an increase and a decrease in real output have worsened income distribution.     

Regional Income Inequality in the United States: 1969–2017

Abstract:

This article contains an analysis of the nation’s 100 lowest and 100 highest per capita income counties in the United States from 1969 to 2017. The low-income counties are very different from the high-income counties. Compared to the high-income counties, the low-income counties are generally small, mainly rural, and geographically concentrated. The people of the low-income counties are also more likely to be from minority groups than the people of either the nation or the high-income counties. Despite major institutional and technological change, both groups of counties exhibit considerable stability over the last half century. A reasonable assertion from the analysis is that the nature of regional income inequality is not likely to change substantially over the next half-century.     

Sex on the brain: some comments on ‘love, war and cultures: An institutional approach to human evolution’

Ugo Pagano provides a stimulating account of the grand sweep of human existence on this planet, relying on a few carefully-chosen analytic tools, including the role of sexual selection, brain size, public versus positional goods, and complementarities. But in his telegraphic narrative the compressed language is sometimes misleading or functionalist. Some of the details and current controversies get lost. This comment identifies some of the problems and urges that we should look more closely at the detailed mechanisms involved.     

Intraindustry Specialization and the Proposed Korea–United States Free Trade Agreement

Changes in intraindustry specialization indicators over the 2000–2007 period are used to assess factor adjustment pressures that may arise in Korea from the proposed Korea–United States Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA). There is considerable scope for intraindustry specialization between Korea and the United States. Results show few industries in Korea are candidates for adjustment problems. The 14 industries that may face adjustment pressures account for 13% of all Korean imports from the United States. Long tariff phase-out periods, tariff-rate quotas and import safeguards will be used to ease factor adjustment pressures in import-sensitive industries.     

Tax on emissions or subsidy to renewables? Evaluating the effects on the economy and on the environment

We examine the relationship between the economy and the environment in a model where production uses nonpolluting renewable and polluting nonrenewable resources. There is policy intervention through a tax on emissions and a subsidy to renewables extraction/production. Results show that both instruments are able to decrease emissions intensity of output. However, when used together, the desired effect is higher. Empirically it is shown that the subsidy achieves higher renewables intensity and although present emissions per output are similar for both instruments, the subsidy achieves lower future levels.     

Transition programs for internationally educated nurses: what can the United States learn from the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada?

It is critical to conduct competency assessments of internationally educated nurses (IENs) to ensure public safety, as well as uphold accountability to nursing as a regulated profession. Transition programs are needed because of the required proficiency of the working language, as well as differences in nursing education, national health care systems, nursing practice and culture, etc. Transition programs in the United States are grossly under-developed because of lack of recognition of their importance, lack of funding and standardization, and decentralized regulation in nursing. United States can learn from the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada regarding how to best transition IENs. Its current hit-and-miss approach is inadequate and inconsistent with the emerging global trend to systematically deal with the transitional challenges of IENs at the national level.     

A hard landing for the ‘New Economy’? Information technology and the United States national system of innovation

This paper discusses the probability of a hard landing for the US economy. It argues that information and communication technology (ICT) has not changed the fundamental nature of the business-cycle and the instability of investment behaviour. It analyses some of the strengths of ICT in the United States, but suggests a resemblance between ICT and previous waves of diffusion of new technologies, notably the boom of the 1920s.     

The 2020 US Presidential election and Trump’s wars on trade and health insurance

The trade war initiated by the Trump administration is the largest since the US imposed the Smoot-Hawley tariffs in the 1930s and was still raging when he left office. We analyze how the trade war impacted the 2020 US Presidential election. Our results highlight the political salience of the trade war: US trade war tariffs boosted Trump’s support but foreign retaliation hurt Trump. In particular, the pro-Trump effects of US trade war tariffs were crucial for Trump crossing the recount thresholds in Georgia and Wisconsin. Even more important politically, voters abandoned Trump in counties with large expansions of health insurance coverage since the Affordable Care Act, presumably fearing the roll-back of such expansion. Absent this anti-Trump effect, Trump would have been on the precipice of re-election by winning Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, and only losing Wisconsin by a few thousand votes. These effects of the trade war and health insurance coverage expansion cross political and racial lines, suggesting the mechanism operates through the impact on local economies rather than political polarization.     

Fixed versus flexible election terms: explaining innovation in the timing of Canada’s election cycle

This paper argues that there is an efficiency gain underlying the recent adoption of legislation calling for a fixed 4-year governing term by the federal and most provincial governments in Canada. The efficiency gain arises from foreclosing an externality produced by the Canadian constitutional provision that sets a maximum length for a legislative term (5 years) while allowing the governing party (through the Governor General) to dissolve the House early. Because the opportunistic use of surprise can improve the governing party’s probability of winning, strategic choice can lead to elections being held at times that most disadvantage the incumbent’s rivals. Evidence from Canada is introduced suggesting that federal elections became less predictable through successive reductions in the campaign time given to competitors, thus raising the cost of this externality. The same reasoning suggests that the party most likely to propose this legislative innovation will be the party in opposition rather than in power and/or the new leader of an established party facing loss in the upcoming election. By fulfilling the fixed term even when it could benefit by calling the election early, the party establishes a precedent that raises the political cost to others of cancelling the fixed term legislation.     

Whose policy uncertainty affects commodity trade between Australia and the United States?

Recent studies are assessing the impact of news-based policy uncertainty measure on trade flows between countries. In this paper we add to this new literature by investigating the symmetric and asymmetric effects of Australian policy uncertainty index and the U.S. index on trade flows of 63 two-digit industries that trade between the two countries. When we estimated a symmetric and linear model for each industry, we found short-run effects of both uncertainty measures on 30% of the industries' trade flows. However, this number increased to 70% when an asymmetric and nonlinear model was estimated. The long-run effects of both policy uncertainty followed similar pattern. Less than 10% of trade was affected by the estimates of the linear models. However, estimates of the nonlinear models predicted that 41.20% (26.53%) of the U.S. exports to Australia was affected by the U.S. uncertainty (Australian uncertainty). As for the Australian exports to the United States, 6.72% (5.5%) of its exports were affected by the changes in the U.S. policy uncertainty (Australian uncertainty). In almost all industries, increased uncertainty was found to hurt the trade and decreased uncertainty was found to boost it at different rate or asymmetrically. In sum, the U.S. and Australian policy uncertainty measure affects U.S. exports to Australia much more than they affect Australian exports to the United States.