Effectiveness Of Economic Sanctions: Empirical Research Revisited

This paper reexamines economic sanctions research and identifies explanatory variables used by many previous theoretical and empirical research studies on the effectiveness of voluntary and non-voluntary economic sanctions since World War I. A normative legal, political, and economic methodology is used to measure effectiveness of economic sanctions as a random walk process.  The paper concludes that choosing a target and imposing economic sanctions is a random process that occurs when a sender is faced with a real or perceived threat.  Sanctions are imposed as an alternative to inaction or going to war.  The theory and research on effectiveness of sanctions has been a mere exercise in running regressions on a series of random numbers and do not shed any light to guide policymaking

Developmental Relationship Programs: An Empirical Study Of The Impact Of Peer-Mentoring Programs

This paper provides an empirical analysis of the impact and effectiveness of developmental relationships provided through academic intervention programs at a medium-size master’s level public university in the Northeastern United States.  The programs’ curriculum follows the Model of Strategic Learning’s four pillars of learning and is administered to students with diverse interventional needs. This paper presents a brief review of the literature about effective developmental relationship programs (mentoring and coaching) in higher education.  Then, Ordinary Least Squares regressions, as well as paired samples t-tests, are used to test the impact of programs offered through developmental relationships to students with varying academic deficiencies.  The immediate, as well as longer-term, impact and sustainability of students’ enhanced performance is statistically examined.  The paper concludes that students who fully take advantage of developmental relationships benefit the most and sustain their higher level of performance beyond the immediate post one-time intervention period.  However, in the absence of additional intervention, the academic performance gains seem to subside and flatten out

A MACRO ECONOMIC APPROACH TO OIL PRODUCTION IN OPEC COUNTRIES

This paper uses a macro economic model of oil exporting developing nations (OPEC) in conjunction with a social welfare function approach (optimal control) to derive an optimum level of oil production. The macro model assumes the economy produces only three goods (oil, imported goods, and nontraded goods), and the foreign exchange rate is fixed. There are twelve endogenous and nine exogenous variables. A 2SLS technique is applied to estimate the macro model using pooled data over the period from 1973-1979. Countries included in this study are: Indonesia, Iran, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela. The estimated macro model is used as a constraint in the process of maximization of a quadratic social welfare function which includes all of some of the endogenous variables of the model as well as the only control variable, namely, oil exports. Optimal oil production for the period 1974-1981 is calculated based on three different scenarios (A, B, and C). The empirical results indicate that oil revenue is an important factor in determination of GNP, government revenues and expenditures, consumption, and money supply. The price level does not influence imports, consumption and demand for money balances. Also, the nontraded goods industry seems to be an isolated industry, and distribution of income changes to the detriment of this industry as the economy becomes more open to international trade. The paper concludes that if economic growth is the main objective of policy makers, greater utilization of oil resources is required. Finally, it suggests more reliance on market forces and less subsidy programs