An analysis of institutions, economic freedom, and the quality of life

The impact of economic freedom on the quality of life is the subject of interest for this dissertation. Three separate studies are conducted. The first of these studies in Chapter 2 analyzes the impact of economic freedom on the quality of life in an international panel data study between 1985 and 2000. It is found that economic freedom and in particular well-defined property rights and limited regulation lead to improvement in the quality of life using the Index of Human Progress, an index made up income, health and education indicators, and access to modern technology for individuals in a given country. Chapter 3 contains the second study, a cross-sectional analysis of migration of individuals between the ages of 20 and 59 in the United States between the lower 48 states between 1995 and 2000. The impact of economic freedom on migration as well as other control variables is measured and it is found that economic freedom has a positive impact on the decision to migrate in aggregate. After decomposing the index into the raw data, it is found that individuals move towards states with less restrictive minimum wages, less restrictive tax rates for the top income group, less unionization, and less dependence on public employment. It also found that individuals migrate towards states with relatively higher expenditures by government. Chapter 4 contains the last of three studies. This essay is an analysis of positive changes in economic freedom on income and income growth for the lowest, middle, and highest quintiles of income in the lower 48 states between 1980 and 2003. It is found that economic freedom has significant impacts on income levels and growth rates for all three groups. However, the results are the strongest for the lowest and middle quintiles. The share of income held by the lowest quintile increases as a result of improvements in economic freedom whereas the same change will lower the share of income held by the highest quintile. It is found that inequality between the highest income quintile and the lowest quintile in the United States is lowered by improvements in economic freedom

Measurement of gravitational time delay using drag-free spacecraft and an optical clock

AbstractImproved accuracy in measurement of the gravitational time delay of electromagnetic waves passing by the sun may be achieved with two drag-free spacecraft, one with a stable clock and laser transmitter and one with a high-stability transponder. We consider one spacecraft near the Earth-Sun L1 point with an advanced optical clock, and the transponder on a second satellite, which has a 2 year period orbit and eccentricity e = 0.37. Superior conjunctions will occur at aphelion 1, 3, and 5 years after launch of the second spacecraft. The measurements can be made using carrier phase comparisons on the laser beam that would be sent to the distant spacecraft and then transponded back. Recent development of clocks based on optical transitions in cooled and trapped ions or atoms indicate that a noise spectral amplitude of about 5 × 10−15/ at frequencies down to at least 1 microhertz can be achieved in space-borne clocks. An attractive candidate is a clock based on a single laser-cooled Yb+ trapped ion. Both spacecraft can be drag-free at a level of 1×10−13m/s2/ at frequencies down to at least 1 microhertz. The corresponding requirement for the LISA gravitational wave mission is 3 × 10−15m/s2/ at frequencies down to 10−4 Hz, and Gravitational Reference Sensors have been developed to meet this goal. They will be tested in the LISA Pathfinder mission, planned by ESA for flight in 2011. The requirements to extend the performance to longer times are mainly thermal. The achievable accuracy for determining the PPN parameter γ is about 1 × 10−8

Crime, Institutions and Sector-Specific FDI in Latin America

In this article, we explore how crime and institutions affect the flow of capital in the form of foreign direct investment (FDI) to Latin American and Caribbean countries in the primary, secondary and tertiary sectors during the 1996-2010 period. We use three different variables related to violent crime: homicides, crime victimization, and an index of organized crime. We find that there is a correlation between the institutional and crime variables, where the significance of institutional variables tends to disappear when the crime variables are added to the model. We find that higher crime victimization and organized crime are associated with lower FDI in the tertiary sector. We do not find that crime affects FDI inflows to Latin America in the primary and secondary sector

The ABC130 barrel module prototyping programme for the ATLAS strip tracker

For the Phase-II Upgrade of the ATLAS Detector, its Inner Detector, consisting of silicon pixel, silicon strip and transition radiation sub-detectors, will be replaced with an all new 100 % silicon tracker, composed of a pixel tracker at inner radii and a strip tracker at outer radii. The future ATLAS strip tracker will include 11,000 silicon sensor modules in the central region (barrel) and 7,000 modules in the forward region (end-caps), which are foreseen to be constructed over a period of 3.5 years. The construction of each module consists of a series of assembly and quality control steps, which were engineered to be identical for all production sites. In order to develop the tooling and procedures for assembly and testing of these modules, two series of major prototyping programs were conducted: an early program using readout chips designed using a 250 nm fabrication process (ABCN-25) and a subsequent program using a follow-up chip set made using 130 nm processing (ABC130 and HCC130 chips). This second generation of readout chips was used for an extensive prototyping program that produced around 100 barrel-type modules and contributed significantly to the development of the final module layout. This paper gives an overview of the components used in ABC130 barrel modules, their assembly procedure and findings resulting from their tests.Comment: 82 pages, 66 figure

Modelling human choices: MADeM and decision‑making

Research supported by FAPESP 2015/50122-0 and DFG-GRTK 1740/2. RP and AR are also part of the Research, Innovation and Dissemination Center for Neuromathematics FAPESP grant (2013/07699-0). RP is supported by a FAPESP scholarship (2013/25667-8). ACR is partially supported by a CNPq fellowship (grant 306251/2014-0)

Economic freedom and migration flows between U.S. States

A modified gravity model is estimated using a cross section of data drawn from the U.S. Census Bureau survey of 2000 in order to analyze the impact of economic freedom on gross migration flows among the lower 48 states. Spatial econometric methods are utilized in order to capture spatial effects not detected by distance. In addition, the Economic Freedom of North America Index is decomposed to determine the individual impact of various policies. Results show that states with higher relative economic freedom experience greater migration inflow through its direct impact on income and employment growth. In aggregate, the findings indicate that individuals migrate toward states with relatively higher government consumption expenditures, relatively lower tax burdens, and states with more freedom with respect to labor decisions in the form of less restrictive minimum wages, less concentration of unions, and less dependence on public employment

Productivity within Groups: An Analysis of Shirking in High School Cross Country Competitions

Using enrollment based classification realignments for high school cross country running competitions in the state of Texas, we analyze the impact of changes in the intensity of competition on individual and team performance. The analysis demonstrates significant improvement in the performance of teams promoted to more competitive classifications in the boys’ division but does not yield similar results in the girls’ division. We also analyze the impact on runners according to their rankings within teams and find improvements to be greater for runners ranking lower relative to team leaders driven by heterogeneity in motivation based on ability or the sequential stage. If the objective is to maximize runner potential, our findings suggest that the time summation method provides stronger incentive alignment than the rank-summation method in team competition. The general implications are significant for determining optimal incentive structures in team-based production processes with significant spillovers from individual performance

Freedom and international migration

Economic and political freedoms are regressed on a bilateral cross section of international migrant stocks using ordinary least squares and Tobit techniques. A positive relationship between these variables is found. Economic freedom is statistically significant even when controlling for income per capita and political freedom. In addition, the impact of these freedoms on migration flows into OECD countries between 2001 and 2006 using fixed effects estimations is analyzed. The panel data analysis mostly corroborates the cross-sectional analysis. The notable exception is that political freedom appears to have had a negative impact on migration flows during this period

Destructive and productive entrepreneurship: An analysis of international panel data

© Richard J. Cebula, Joshua C. Hall, Franklin G. Mixon, Jr. and James E. Payne 2015. All rights reserved. This study looks at the effect of institutional quality on new business activity and organized crime. Building on the work of Baumol on productive versus unproductive entrepreneurship, I consider criminal activity as a form of unproductive entrepreneurship. The empirical analysis utilizes unbalanced international panel data of up to 75 countries between 2002 and 2012. The empirical results suggest a positive relationship between institutional quality and new business formation and a negative relationship between institutional quality and criminal activity and rent seeking. I conclude the chapter by discussing the complexity of the relationship between different forms of entrepreneurship that must be considered in future studies investigating this issue

THE EFFECT OF ECONOMIC FREEDOM ON MIGRATION FLOWS BETWEEN U.S. STATES: IS ECONOMIC FREEDOM A DETERMINANT OF FLOW DIFFERENTIALS?

Utilizing data from the U.S. Census survey (2000) and the North American Economic Freedom Index (Karebegovic, McMahon, and Samida, 2004), this study evaluates the outcome of economic freedom on gross migration flows within the United States. The estimation process is to use a gravity model. Since longitudinal data is not available, regressions are run on a cross section of data drawn from the survey of 2000. In addition to ordinary least squares estimates, various models of spatial dependency are employed to improve estimation of coefficients and hypothesis results. It is determined that greater economic freedom positively impacts migration between states. Further, it is discovered that a general autoregressive spatial model (GSAR) performs the best out of the selected models and augments the impact of economic freedom on migration.Economic Freedom, Migration