The industrial mix of employment in the Fifth District, 1950-1985

An abstract for this article is not availableEmployment (Economic theory) ; Federal Reserve District, 5th

The effect of exchange rate variation on U.S. textile and apparel imports

An abstract for this article is not availableTextile industry ; Foreign exchange rates

Changes in manufacturing employment in North Carolina counties, 1980-1985

Does an inappropriate industry mix and structure condemn rural areas to a competitive disadvantage with respect to urban areas? This study of employment changes from 1980-85 in North Carolina counties suggests not.Manufactures ; Employment (Economic theory)

Changes in manufacturing employment in North Carolina counties, 1980-1985

Does an inappropriate industry mix and structure condemn rural areas to a competitive disadvantage with respect to urban areas? This study of employment changes from 1980-85 in North Carolina counties suggests not.Manufactures ; Employment (Economic theory)

The Effect of State Corporate Income Tax Rate Cuts on Job Creation

This paper compares the employment growth of states that enacted corporate income tax rate cuts in the past 23 years with those making no changes. Overall employment comparisons from 1990 to 2012 suggest that a reduction in the corporate income tax rate is associated with faster job creation. The states that cut corporate income tax rates started with slower employment growth than the states that made no changes. However, the growth gaps between the two groups of states disappeared in about five years after the tax cuts were made. Regression results confirm the observation that lower corporate tax rates have a significant and positive effect on employment growth. The enactment of a tax rate cut also has the additional but temporary benefit of promoting job creation as businesses adjust to the new tax rate. However, this benefit is temporary and only occurs during first year of the enactment of a tax cut

Fifth district indexes of manufacturing output

Monthly indexes of U.S. manufacturing output are not generally available for individual states or for specific regions of the country. In this article we present new monthly indexes of manufacturing output for the period 1979 through 1987 for the Fifth Federal Reserve District, its individual states, and three of its major industries—textiles, chemicals, and electric equipment.Federal Reserve District, 5th ; Manufactures

Are Social Networks a Double-Edged Sword? A Case Study of Defense Contractors

Utilizing a survey of defense contractors in the New England region, this study explores the effect of social networks on business performance—measured by annual employment growth and market diversification—during a time when defense spending in the United States was contracting. In contrast to prevailing literature focusing on entrepreneurial firms, this study offers insights on how social networks function in defense contractors, which tend to be mature firms. The main conclusion is that having more network connections is associated with faster short-term employment growth (from 2014 to 2015) for defense contractors, but there is a limit to that benefit. The analysis also shows that social networks do not aid market diversification for defense contractors. This poses an interesting challenge for defense contractors, as they need to balance the priorities of short-term growth and long-term success

An Investigation of Bank Lending Practices To Test Portfolio Theory and Theories of Credit Rationing and Customer Relationships

The purpose of this study is to consider the theoretical basis of commercial loan pricing. Is commercial loan pricing most representative of pricing to reflect risk in the Markowitz sense or do banks ration their loanable funds based on credit risk or expected long-term customer value? Alternatively, does each theory contribute to the explanation of loan pricing? Some of the pricing theories noted in this study have been tested at the aggregate banking level, however, few studies have been performed at the loan level. Moreover, the author is not aware of any study that tests which theory noted here best describes actual pricing practices for bank loans. In fact, DeVany (1984) and Goldfeld (1984) have noted that models of bank behavior have undergone little direct testing. Goldfeld acknowledges that the sparse empirical work in banking exists because much of the theoretical analysis is at the level of the individual bank where appropriate data are not available. This study overcomes that problem by using the loan portfolio of one of the top 50 bank holding companies in the nation as a case study. Portfolio theory, credit rationing, and customer relationships provide the basis for this investigation of how banks price commercial loans. Portfolio theory indicates that the risk of a particular loan as well as its contribution toward the riskiness of the entire loan portfolio provides the most information about loan pricing. Credit rationing, however, indicates that the contract interest rate an applicant is willing to accept acts as a signal of loan quality and predicts the bank\u27s expected return on the loan. Finally, theories about customer relationships indicate that customer traits such as variability of deposits and length of the relationship play a role in the way banks price loans. The data used in this study are at the loan level and were obtained from one of the top 50 bank holding companies in the nation. Loan pricing procedures are examined by performing a series of cross sectional generalized least square regressions where the expected return on the loan is the dependent variable in each regression. The non-nested J-test and Cox-test help determine whether any of the model specifications tested in this study provide significantly greater explanatory power in commercial loan pricing than the competing model specifications. The empirical findings of this study should be considered exploratory in nature because of its reliance on data from one bank. Moreover, these results assume that each of the models have been properly specified. With these caveats in mind, the results are consistent with credit rationing and customer relationship theories (Hodgman and Kane and Malkiel). Moreover, the non-nested Cox-test indicates that the credit rationing specification used in this study provides more explanatory power with regard to loan pricing than the customer relationship specification. The regression of the portfolio theory specification provided statistically significant results, but with coefficients of the wrong sign. Contrary to theory, the results suggest that the expected return on loans increases as the variance decreases. In addition, the regression results do not provide strong support that loans are priced relative to the risk they contribute to the total portfolio. In a matter related to loan pricing, this study also found that collateralized loans are associated with a smaller expected return than non collateralized loans. This finding is consistent with Boot, Thakor, and Udell (1991) who suggest that firms use collateral to obtain more favorable loan terms. The conclusions and implications of this study revolve around the illiquid nature of commercial loans which creates an inefficient market characterized by asymmetric information. In light of the scarcity of information related to potential commercial loans, it is not surprising that customer relationship theories provide some explanation of current pricing practices. Certain aspects of a customer relationship, such as deposits and length of the relationship can provide banks with valuable information about the riskiness of loans. Moreover, relationships that cover several bank services may enable a bank to supplement thin loan margins. Finally, the support, albeit weak, of credit rationing can also be explained with asymmetric information. Because of adverse selection and moral hazard, there is a point at which further increases in the contract interest rate on a loan will lead to declines in the expected return to the bank. Beyond this point, the profit maximizing bank should ration rather than loan its funds

Temperature Effects Explain Continental Scale Distribution of Cyanobacterial Toxins

Insight into how environmental change determines the production and distribution of cyanobacterial toxins is necessary for risk assessment. Management guidelines currently focus on hepatotoxins (microcystins). Increasing attention is given to other classes, such as neurotoxins (e.g., anatoxin-a) and cytotoxins (e.g., cylindrospermopsin) due to their potency. Most studies examine the relationship between individual toxin variants and environmental factors, such as nutrients, temperature and light. In summer 2015, we collected samples across Europe to investigate the effect of nutrient and temperature gradients on the variability of toxin production at a continental scale. Direct and indirect effects of temperature were the main drivers of the spatial distribution in the toxins produced by the cyanobacterial community, the toxin concentrations and toxin quota. Generalized linear models showed that a Toxin Diversity Index (TDI) increased with latitude, while it decreased with water stability. Increases in TDI were explained through a significant increase in toxin variants such as MC-YR, anatoxin and cylindrospermopsin, accompanied by a decreasing presence of MC-LR. While global warming continues, the direct and indirect effects of increased lake temperatures will drive changes in the distribution of cyanobacterial toxins in Europe, potentially promoting selection of a few highly toxic species or strains.Peer reviewe

Socializing One Health: an innovative strategy to investigate social and behavioral risks of emerging viral threats

In an effort to strengthen global capacity to prevent, detect, and control infectious diseases in animals and people, the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Emerging Pandemic Threats (EPT) PREDICT project funded development of regional, national, and local One Health capacities for early disease detection, rapid response, disease control, and risk reduction. From the outset, the EPT approach was inclusive of social science research methods designed to understand the contexts and behaviors of communities living and working at human-animal-environment interfaces considered high-risk for virus emergence. Using qualitative and quantitative approaches, PREDICT behavioral research aimed to identify and assess a range of socio-cultural behaviors that could be influential in zoonotic disease emergence, amplification, and transmission. This broad approach to behavioral risk characterization enabled us to identify and characterize human activities that could be linked to the transmission dynamics of new and emerging viruses. This paper provides a discussion of implementation of a social science approach within a zoonotic surveillance framework. We conducted in-depth ethnographic interviews and focus groups to better understand the individual- and community-level knowledge, attitudes, and practices that potentially put participants at risk for zoonotic disease transmission from the animals they live and work with, across 6 interface domains. When we asked highly-exposed individuals (ie. bushmeat hunters, wildlife or guano farmers) about the risk they perceived in their occupational activities, most did not perceive it to be risky, whether because it was normalized by years (or generations) of doing such an activity, or due to lack of information about potential risks. Integrating the social sciences allows investigations of the specific human activities that are hypothesized to drive disease emergence, amplification, and transmission, in order to better substantiate behavioral disease drivers, along with the social dimensions of infection and transmission dynamics. Understanding these dynamics is critical to achieving health security--the protection from threats to health-- which requires investments in both collective and individual health security. Involving behavioral sciences into zoonotic disease surveillance allowed us to push toward fuller community integration and engagement and toward dialogue and implementation of recommendations for disease prevention and improved health security