Theses (Economics)
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Item The indirect effects of clean cookstoves: Foraging time, gender, and agricultural production in Rwanda(2025) Boyd, Cayley; Salemi, ColetteWell-designed improved cookstove interventions reduce the foraging time requirement for energy provision. What are the indirect effects of this time savings, particularly for the women and children who traditionally collect fuelwood for their households? In this paper, I study the impacts of the Tubeho Neza clean technology program in Rwanda, which to date has delivered 1.5 million improved cookstoves to rural Rwandan households. I use the Integrated Household Living Conditions Survey (EICV, 2011, 2013-14, 2016-17) and proprietary stove delivery data from DelAgua for my analysis. I examine several outcomes, including minutes spent foraging, missing school in the previous week, and the production of crops traditionally cultivated by women. Given the limited geographic information in the EICV, I measure individual treatment intensity based on the cumulative stove receipt at the district level post-treatment. Drawing on recent advances in the econometrics literature, I estimate a difference-in-differences two-way fixed effects regression specification for two separate treatment groups based on their year of initial treatment (2014 or 2016). I also use an event study with binary treatment classification to examine evidence of parallel pre-trends and as a post-treatment robustness check. Across outcome variables, I fail to reject the null hypothesis of zero treatment effect, but these null findings are likely due to the coarse treatment definition.Item Testing discrimination in the Canadian labour market : French ethnicity, theory and public policy(1993) Wilson, Donald PhillipItem Valuing forest land : an economic analysis of the 1987 changes to the British Columbia Assessment Act(1990) White, Philip AndrewOn January 1, 1988 changes to the 8.C. Assessment Act became effective. Among the changes to the Act was an alteration of the valuation method used for private forest lands. These changes altered the timing and size of tax payments by forest landowners. The nature of the property tax system for forest land was also changed by the revisions to the legislation. This thesis examines the effects of three types of property tax on the economic rotation age and evaluates the changes to the Assessment Act. Prior to the changes to the Act, forest land was valued as the sum of the assessed value of the land plus t he value of the standing timber. The revised legislation altered the method of land valuation and the way in which timber value is calculated. Land value is now computed as the capitalized income from the property as opposed to using the market comparison approach. Timber value is now determined as the value of cut timber at the point of harvest rather than the value of standing timber. The changes to the act have effectively altered the form of the tax from a straight ad valorem tax to a combination of an ad valorem tax and a yield tax. The research conducted in t his paper uses the Faustmann equation for calculating the economic rotation age and the associated land value. Four cases were examined for two sample properties: 1) the no tax case; 2) the ad valorem tax; 3) a pure yield tax; 4) the combination of yield tax and ad valorem tax. The economic rotation age and land value were computed for each case. The relative efficiency of each tax is found by comparing the l and values and rotation age for each tax to the no tax case. The two sample properties are representative of a coastal site growing Douglas Fir and an interior site growing Lodgepole Pine. The two properties were created from real data to be single species, even-aged stands. The results indicate that the pure yield tax on stumpage value has the least distorting effect. This is the expected result as a tax on stumpage value is a tax on the economic rent associated with the trees. The ad valorem tax had the greatest effect on the rotation age and land value indicating it ls the least efficient tax. The calculations were done using a real interest rate of 2%. A sensitivity analysis for the interest rate is included in the study. The result of this was the conclusion that reforestation for Lodgepole Pine is uneconomic for rates of interest over 2%. For Douglas Fir replanting will not occur for rates over 5%. Given current economic conditions these results suggest that private reforestation is not economically viable and that reforestation should be carried out by the government.Item Salary differentials of men and women in the B.C. public service : a human capital approach(1990) Wetton, Catherine ElizabethThe analysis described in this thesis measures the salary differentials between men and women in the B.C. Public Service and assesses whether or not any portion of the salary differential can be attributed to gender based discrimination against women. The method of analysis employs regression techniques to estimate an earnings function model. The estimated regression coefficients are then used to decompose the measured salary differential into that portion due to productivity differences and that portion attributable to gender based discrimination. To be comparable with other wage discrimination studies this analysis includes two wage discrimination estimates. The first estimate controls for all productivity, occupational and personality variables and seeks to measure pure wage discrimination, if any. The second estimate specifically excludes the occupational groupings and is a broader measure of gender based discrimination which includes the effects of occupational segregation. The data used in this analysis are obtained from a 1985 Ministry of Labour Career Advancement study in the B.C. Public Service in which employment and personal characteristics information has been collected from approximately 1,500 employees. The results indicate that approximately ten percent (or $21 biweekly) of the measured salary differential between men and women in the B.C. Public Service cannot be explained by differences in productivity, job category groupings, or other personal characteristics and appears to be the result of gender based pure wage discrimination against women. If the job category groupings are removed from the analysis then the gender based discrimination estimate increases to 16 percent (or $34 biweekly) of the salary differential.Item An economic assessment of a pollution externality : the case of Utah Mines(1978) Vermeer, Rebecca ArrietaIsland Copper Mine of Utah Mines Ltd. is currently discharging its mill tailings into Rupert Inlet, northern Vancouver Island, at the rate of 82,000 cubic meters per day. It is the largest permitted marine discharge of mine tailings in British Columbia. Since 1971, the mine has dumped over 80 million tons of the effluent. Contrary to the mine's predictions, the tailings have spread throughout Rupert Inlet, and much of Holberg Inlet and Quatsino Sound, and constitute a serious threat to the marine ecosystem. The extent of the present and anticipated degradation of the Inlets and the Sound has led some government biologists to recommend an alternate disposal scheme. The economic efficiency of impounding the tailings on land as an alternative to marine discharge is examined. Under certain assumptions, the economic benefits that could be precluded by continued discharge of tailings into Rupert Inlet are evaluated and compared to the costs of impoundment. The stream of benefits are generated by the commercial fisheries, sportfisheries, and the option value of the non-augmentable marine resource. Of these benefits, the salmon sportfishery has the largest monetary value. The Krutilla-Fisher mode l of valuating natural resources was modified to simulate the loss in benefits to the salmon sportfishery. Using this model, the magnitude of the potential losses from the salmon sportfishery alone exceeds the costs of impounding the tailings for the duration of the mine . It is therefore concluded that a plausible case for termination of the present discharge method and adoption of a terrestrial disposal system exists.Item An empirical test of propositions on cross-country determinants of intra-industry trade in Canada(1985) Tang, Yeng YuenA substantial proportion of international trade takes the form of a two way exchange of commodities belonging to the same industrial category. Such intra-industry trade falls outside the domain of the traditional theories of comparative advantage which are concerned with inter-industry trade based on countries specializing in different industries. Earlier informal explanations for intra-industry trade have recently been supplemented by the development of formal trade-theoretic models. The objective of this thesis is to test those predictions of the new theory which relate the overall level of intra-industry trade between countries to the countries' characteristics. In this respect, the theoretical literature suggests that the level of intra-industry trade between countries will be greater (i) the more similar are the countries' comparative advantage, (ii) the more similar their per capita incomes, and (iii) the higher their per capita incomes. The tests are carried out using data on Canada's trade in seventy (three digit SIC) manufacturing industries with forty countries. The results provide strong support for the first two propositions but only weak support for the third. Intra-industry trade has attracted interest not only because of its extent and its theoretical implications, but also because of its implications for the effects of trade liberalization. In particular, in conformity with the experience of countries entering the EEC and other trade liberalization arrangements, the results obtained here suggest that trade liberalization is more likely to lead to increased intra-industry trade, rather than inter-industry specialization, if the countries involved are at similar levels of development and have a similar comparative advantage.Item The Fisher equation and short-term interest rates(1994) Thatcher, AndreasItem Determinants of intra-industry trade : a cross-industry examination of Canadian manufacturing industries(1988) Taye, Haile KebretThe simultaneous export and import of similar commodities between two countries or group of countries (intra-industry trade) cannot be fully explained by the traditional trade theory of comparative cost. This has led to a search for alternative theoretical explanations and to further empirical investigation of the phenomenon. Various hypotheses have been suggested as determinants of intra-industry trade in recent years. The objective of this study is then to empirically examine these hypotheses using the data of Canadian manufacturing industries. The data pertains to 67 industries at the 4-digit Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) level for the year 1981. The study examines and tests the following hypotheses as determinants of intra-industry trade. (1) The more differentiated are the products of competing firms, the higher will be the share of intra-industry trade in total trade. (2) The more extensive are the scale economies in a given industry, the less should be the volume of intra-industry trade. (3) The larger is the firm-specific technical knowledge, the higher will be the share of intra-industry trade of the technological gap variety. And (4) the greater the degree of comparative advantage or disadvantage of an industry, the less will be the volume of intra-industry trade. On the whole, the empirical results support the hypotheses outlined above. More specifically, the results indicate a strong support for the economies of scale hypothesis, and a modest support for the product differentiation and comparative advantage hypotheses. The empirical support for the firm-specific technical knowledge is relatively weak.Item Stylized facts : real wage behaviour over the business cycle(1990) Sigurdson, Judith DawnThe purpose of this study is to determine some stylized facts about the real wage series over the business cycle. Specifically, the study's goals are to determine if real wages vary systematically over the business cycle and within its own series, as revealed by the series' relationship with business cycle reference variables and its past values, respectively. Any credible business cycle theory should be consistent with the results. The economic literature since the 1930s has failed to provide consistent evidence to support or refute the procyclical, countercyclical, or acyclical behaviour of the real wage series. Once such information is determined, researchers can test the consistency of their business cycle theory with this stylized fact. Any insight into wages' behaviour over the business cycle is therefore useful. A thorough examination of the causal relationship between wages and business cycle variables involved various parametrization of bivariate Granger and Sims tests for unidirectional Granger-causality, along with Haugh/Pierce cross correlation analyses. Granger and Sims analyses allow for testing for unidirectional causality between each business cycle variable and real wages. The Haugh/Pierce analysis reflects whether or not real wages and each business cycle reference variable are independent and provides some insight into the lead-lag relationship between each pair of variables. Overall, the Canadian analyses did not suggest causal relationships between wages and the business cycle variables. The exception occurred while analyzing wages' relationship with prices and, to a lesser extent, with housing starts. The overall evidence suggests Canadian wages are acyclical. In the American case there is evidence of a causal relationship between wages and the business cycle variables, particularly housing starts, real output, and employment, suggesting wages exhibit some cyclical behaviour. For both countries, there is evidence that the real wage series is consistent with the random walk hypothesis. That is to say, the best forecast for next period's wage, using only the information available within the series' past, is the current period's wage (adjusted by its drift parameter).Item Monopoly welfare loss in the Canadian economy, 1970-1981(1986) Shortill, CynthiaAccording to microeconomic theory, monopoly involves resource misallocation and therefore significant welfare losses. In this study, aggregate, inter-industry, and intertemporal welfare loss are quantified for a sample of 172 industries representative of the Canadian economy over the period 1970-1981. Particular emphasis is placed upon welfare loss in the 87-industry manufacturing sector. Four variations of the welfare loss model are estimated. Initially, the basic Harberger (1954) model is used to quantify the loss. The Harberger model is then expanded to include the impact of the foreign sector upon resource misallocation. Finally, the model is modified to include losses due to "monopoly" wages and "selling costs". The official rationale for Canadian anticombines policy lies in the promotion of economic efficiency through competition. Therefore, an important part of this study is to examine the welfare loss figures in light of Canadian competition policy. In particular, the relevance of resource misallocation in the determination of the objectives, administration, and enforcement of the Combines Investigation Act is critically analyzed.Item The economics of the National Hockey League : expansion, relocation, and survival(1991) Seredynski, Glen JosephIn 1984 the U.S. courts held that teams, not leagues could determine franchise relocation. Since this time there have been many attempts to introduce legislation in the U. S. Congress to establish the criteria under which professional sports franchises could relocate and the conditions under which leagues could expand. The current criteria regulating team relocation and league expansion are mainly location dependent; however, existing evidence suggests that economic viability is a function of both locational and game attributes. The object of this thesis is to model team demand for one league sport, the National Hockey League, and use it to estimate the relative importance of location specific and team specific attributes and to determine their effect on economic viability. Also, the object is to ascertain the economic viability of expansion locations for the National Hockey League. The short and long run team demands are modelled to determine the relative importance of location and team specific attributes for attendance revenue generated at existing and potential locations, with particular emphasis on Canadian and American differences. Teams are treated as local monopolists and demand is determined by a two equation model in which price and attendance are endogenous, and location specific and game specific attributes are exogenous. Then, profits and viability in existing and potential locations are determined by adding estimated revenue from other sources (playoffs, media) to the estimated attendance revenue and subtracting estimated costs. The model finds that both location specific and game specific attributes influence economic viability. In particular, the locational factors of population, income, age of the team, and country significantly influence economic viability, as do game specific attributes of quality and time of play, and the importance of the game. Based on these results, the profitability of potential locations reveals that only three viable expansion cities exist for the National Hockey League: Ottawa, Tampa Bay, and Houston.Item The determinants of advertising intensity in Canadian manufacturing industry, 1973(1987) Robinson, David JohnThe purpose of this thesis is to examine the inter-industry determinants of advertising intensity (the advertising / sales ratio ) in Canadian manufacturing for 1973. The sample is composed of 67 industries which can be sub-divided into convenience, non-convenience and producer good sub-sets. Analytically, we develop a single equation model on the determination of optimal advertising levels. Chapter 2 discusses the structural variables in the equation and their expected relationship to advertising intensity. In particular we consider a non-linear relationship with concentration. The empirical results are presented in Chapters 3 and 4. Chapter 3 analyses the results of the quadratic concentration-advertising relationship. In Chapter 4 we examine the results generated for the remaining explanatory variables and draw conclusions in relation to their effect on advertising intensity. Chapter 5 presents a summary of the conclusions. The most notable is perhaps the considerable evidence found in favour of the quadratic concentration-advertising relationship. The signs on the remaining explanatory variables are largely as expected. Since we estimated the model for varying levels of industrial concentration, in some cases we found evidence of different behavioural patterns related to the levels of industry concentration. Appendices A and B present the sources of data and the industry sample respectively. Appendices C and D present graphical analysis of the concentration-advertising relationship and the results on the linear specification respectively. The Ridge Regression results were used as a test for multi-collinearity and are presented in Appendix E.Item Language and public/private sector wage differentials in Canada : a sample selection approach(1992) Roberts, Stephen JohnItem The impact of outmigration on employment in the Atlantic Provinces and Quebec : an update and analysis of John Vanderkamp's 1970 study(1992) Roberts, Erin Christine NewtonItem Determinants of municipal government expenditures in Alberta using multitude regression analysis(1995) Rizzo, Rosalia DianaThis thesis analyzes the influence of selected expenditure determinants on the supply and demand for police, fire, and recreational services provided by Alberta municipalities. In addition, aggregate expenditures which are the sum of police, fire, and recreational services are analyzed. The model tested is fitted in semi-log form, where the dependent variable is in logarithmic form and the independent variables are linear, using the method of ordinary least squares regression (OLS). The results are first analyzed using pooled urban and rural data, and secondly separating urban and rural data. The pooled urban and rural results show that police expenditure tends to be influenced by population characteristics, while fire expenditure tends to be influenced by geographical characteristics. Recreational and aggregate expenditure do not show any specific tendencies. The most important finding in this exercise is the significance of the urban dummy variable in police, fire, recreational and aggregate regressions. This finding shows that urban and rural municipalities differ and should be analyzed separately. The urban results show distinct differences between cities on the one hand and towns and villages on the other. However, there is very little distinction between towns and villages. This may be due to the population size of cities when compared to towns and villages. The rural results also show a distinction between counties and municipal districts. Other than certain dummy variables, the rural results have only two significant independent variables TG (total grants) and ILI (incidence of low income) in two of the four regressions. The limited number of observations available in the rural analysis may explain the fewer significant independent variables. Commonalities of the pooled urban and rural results and separate urban and rural results include: a preference for the log-linear functional form and OLS estimation; the unsatisfactory results of the aggregate regression; the insignificance of equalized assessment (defined as the value of property) as an independent variable; and the significance of grants from the province to municipalities.