New Releases by Ryan Murphy

Rentfrow et al. (2013) constructs a cross-section of the “Big Five” personality traits and demonstrates their relationship with outcomes variables for the continental United States and the District of Columbia. Hyatt et al. (Forthcoming) creates a means of describing psychopathy in terms of the Big Five personality traits. When these two findings are combined, a state-level estimate of psychopathy is produced. Among the typical predictions made regarding psychopathy, the variable with the closest univariate relationship with this new statistical aggregate is the percentage of the population in the state living in an urban area. There is not a clear univariate relationship with homicide rates.

Aging populations continue to put strain on government finances, as such demographic shifts cause fewer tax dollars and more citizens on pension programs. What effect does this have on the size of government across countries worldwide? We study this using the Economic Freedom of the World (EFW) index published by the Fraser Institute. One fifth of the index is comprised of measures of the size of government. We investigate whether the share of the population over 65 has a negative impact on this measure of the size of government, as well as whether it has a negative impact on the narrower measure of subsidies and transfers published in EFW. Using standard panel methods we find support for this hypothesis. These results are supported by the use of the aged dependency ratio as a robustness check.

There is a large and growing economics literature that seeks to explain how modern economic development and cross-country income differentials are the result of ancient historic, cultural, genetic, or other factors, whose effects persist in the modern world (Spolaore and Wacziarg 2013). Referred to by some as the “Deep Roots” literature, it broadly finds that these long-standing differences, whatever their mechanism, have powerful, positive predictive power in explaining modern levels of GDP per capita and other indicators of economic development.Drawing on Putterman and Weil (2010), we study the impact of deep roots as measured by ancestry by U.S. state, considering the average of how long each state''s ancestors have lived:(1) under a centralized state, a variable known as “State History,” and (2) with settled agriculture, a variable known as “Agricultural History.” The other contributions to this literature primarily focus on how State History and Agricultural History of the population affect economic development outcomes across countries. Instead, we look at its effects on economic output per capita across the U.S. States.We can only establish very marginal support for Putterman and Weil''s (2010) findings at the state level. Furthermore, there is no statistically significant relationship between the Deep Roots Variables score and the liberalness of a state''s economic institutions. Given the large literature on the importance of liberal economic institutions for economic growth and other outcomes (see, e.g., De Haan et al. 2006; Hall and Lawson 2014), the lack of a relationship between the quality of economic institutions and the Deep Roots Variables eliminates this institutional channel from the deep roots hypothesis.

Recent research has explored the determinants of economic freedom, an important measure of institutional quality. Elsewhere, some scholars have posited a negative relationship between the quality of economic institutions and democracy, at very high levels of democracy. This paper disaggregates the Polity IV index into a vector of twenty dummy variables to understand how differing degrees of democracy and autocracy may impact economic freedom, thereby leaving open the possibilities for non-linearities to express themselves in the analysis. Little evidence is found of any relationship in the long run, except possibly that very autocratic political institutions may have a negative effect.

This paper constructs an index to study two questions within a growing school of macroeconomic thought, Market Monetarism. This school argues that the central bank has full control over all nominal variables in the economy and is solely responsible for aggregate demand management. To manage aggregate demand, Market Monetarism argues the central bank should target Nominal GDP. This paper constructs an index that hopes to answer two questions. First, it attempts to determine size of the optimal NGDP target. Second, it attempts to determine the extent to which central banks should engage in level targeting, that is, whether it should correct past errors in hitting its target. We find evidence consistent with a five percent level target but are unable to find evidence regarding level targeting.

A look back at the first 100 years of Langley Air Force Base, once Langley Field, and its impact on Hampton, Virginia. The articles orginally appeared in the Daily Press of Newport News, Virginia.

Poetry. Sounds of the seasons abound in MILLBROOK. Yes, it is not summer. And Ryan Murphy tells you about how you''ve been through all this before: the staying the going the staying. He tells you that the wind will fix it all. Like some Usher--even more fucked-up than Usher--the poet collapses in his house''s walls. But there the flowers always hold hope and fear in their own seasons. MILLBROOK collects poems that have appeared in 6 x 6, like starlings, Manor House Quarterly, OR, The Portable Boog Reader, Provincetown Arts, realpoetic, Spinning Jenny, Touch the Donkey, Unsaid, We Are So Happy to Know You, The Volta, and elsewhere. "One of my favorite poets returns with a welcome new book after long silence...we might all do well to bring this book with us at every hour, on every journey."--Kevin Killian

Students in economics classrooms are increasingly digital natives, raised in a culture of engagement, expression and learning through online interactions using technological devices. We have turned the concept of a ''selfie'' into an instructional tool for students to demonstrate their understanding of economic concepts, as well as to engage personally with those concepts. A student self-assessment survey supports the expectations of the literature that the EconSelfies assignment leverages the power of visuals and narratives to help students link themselves with introductory economics material for improved learning outcomes.

An expanding literature explores the size of the fiscal multiplier at the state and local level. Often, these papers ignore the “general equilibrium” effects of fiscal policy. That is, they ignore the overall impact on a country like the United States and only focus on the effect on the economy of the individual locality. When general equilibrium effects are discussed, they are often thought of as “spillovers” affecting nearby localities. However, this interpretation is only valid on its own terms in specific macroeconomic conditions or with specific assumptions regarding the policy function of the central bank. It may not be useful generally to view these multipliers as policy-relevant unless localities are interested in beggaring thy neighbor by shifting aggregate demand from other localities to themselves.

This paper explores the relationship between country membership in major intergovernmental organizations and economic freedom. While claiming no broad theoretically-bound robust causal mechanism, I use fixed effects models to find baseline results finding a correspondence between economic freedom and membership in the EU, NATO, WTO, UN, OECD, World Bank, and IMF. While the results are not simple, the strongest findings are negative effects of the UN, IMF, and WTO, and positive effects of the World Bank and possibly the EU. I make no claims of causality. However, whatever the relationship could be endogenous to, for example the international openness of governments, is yet of interest.

This research note applies previously estimated effects of immigration on housing values to urban counties in the United States. Determining the extent to which increase in urban housing values is attributable to immigration fills a gap in the economics literature. Furthermore, our findings here also help estimate how much of the increase in the net-capital share of income since 1970 as observed by Piketty (2014) is caused by immigration. We find that in most urban counties in the United States, increased levels of immigration have had a modest but non-negligible effect on the level of real estate prices. These effects explain 32.4 percent of the increases in housing prices in the 20 densest counties since 1970, which we interpret in terms of capital share, following Rognlie (2015). While not all housing is urban, the magnitudes of these results suggest that there is some link between increased levels of immigrants and a higher capital share since 1970.

The appropriation of the quasi-rents from firms to labor is a more persuasive interpretation of the effects of minimum wages than is generally recognized.

I use matched county pairs on either side of US state borders to investigate the causal effects of the Economic Freedom of North America index (EFNA) on local outcomes. This method is similar to Dube et al. (2010). I construct a panel of county pairs running from 1981-2012 and four measures of outcomes, logged real incomes, logged real per capita incomes, employment, and logged real wages, employing single year and five year differences-in-differences. I find small, but precisely estimated, effects on incomes but mixed effects on wages and employment. All regressions show low R^2. This supports the hypothesis that state-level economic freedom improves capital income or that it attracts capital income across state borders.

Though counterintuitive, rates of business failure are effective proxies for entrepreneurship. We find that the foreign born population within US states is predictive of business failure ten years later. A one standard deviation increase in foreign born population corresponds to a 1.09 standard deviation increase in entrepreneurship thusly measured. We argue this is evidence that immigration leads to entrepreneurship and economic growth. The importance of entrepreneurship to economic growth is widely accepted. The role of immigration is more controversial. Concerns over potential costs of immigrants are making headlines in the popular press (Tumulty and Costa 2014; Debenedetti 2014) and some of the scholarly literature (Collier 2012; Borjas 2014). Most prominently, discussions of immigration center on its effects on labor markets and more recently, institutional quality. Less attention is given to their impact on entrepreneurship.

We apply System GMM and Panel Vector Autoregression (PVAR) to investigate the long run relationships between output, human capital, liberalized political institutions, and liberalized economic institutions. We find consistent evidence that economic institutions and human capital both greatly contribute to output. We also find, however, that political institutions typically have no discernable effect. We believe our methodology provides basis for the existence of causal relationships.

The Book of Mormon is a controversial text that has a lot of history and makes many claims in regards to authorship. In this study, the Book of Mormon is analyzed using latent semantic analysis to identify if the book as a whole has authorship unity and validity. Authorship unity would suggest only one author wrote the book. Authorship validity would suggest the authors within the text who claim authorship make a valid claim, in the sense that their writings within the Book of Mormon are of uniform authorship. Authorship unity and authorship validity are conflicting terms for this study, meaning both cannot be true about the Book of Mormon since it claims multi-authorship.

Political instability is often exacerbated in periods of aggregate demand shortfall, with both short and long-term implications for economic institutions. It has been conjectured that inadequate policy responses to recessions may be inimical to free economic institutions. This paper uses the Economic Freedom of the World index as its measure of economic institutions, and finds that the change in economic freedom in the following five, ten, and fifteen years is negatively impacted by an aggregate demand shortfall as measured by negative NGDP growth. The result is (largely) robust upon the exclusion of the monetary policy variables from Economic Freedom of the World, but is not robust if economic institutions are measured as trade openness.

Sam and Lou''s parents crave their morning coffee. What happens when they go without it? The brothers are determined to find out. But taking their parents'' coffee proves to be a big mistake. Without it, their parents turn into monsters! Children will love this wish-fulfilling adventure of monsters wreaking havoc at home, and adults will relate to the coffee-craving monsters. One part classic monster film, one part cheesy action movie, and all parts comedy, the book will keep readers of all ages chuckling with subtle jokes and bad one-liners.

The application of research-based methods of skill development has enabled people across a variety of fields to reach extraordinary levels of achievement. Among the various fields where superior achievement might be attained, training individuals to recognize the dignity of others and strive for remarkable accomplishment in humanitarian service would be an area that would greatly affect our schools, society and world.

Vitamin A deficiency (VAD) is a major public health problem that can cause blindness and increase the risk of disease and mortality in children. VAD is particularly prevalent in children of sub-Saharan Africa, but there is little reliable information available that describes the spatial distribution of VAD below national level estimates. To target interventions that cover affected populations, a clear understanding of the geographic distribution of VAD in children is necessary. However, collection of data on VAD and other micronutrient deficiencies is often costly and difficult, resulting in large gaps in knowledge of severity of micronutrient deficiencies. In cases where available data is sparse, spatial interpolation methods may provide a way to estimate micronutrient status at un-sampled locations. This study compared the accuracy of five different spatial interpolation methods in predicting the spatial distribution of vitamin A status and deficiency in children under the age of five in Cameroon, using infection-adjusted retinol binding protein concentrations collected in a nationally representative survey in 2009. The methods compared included Inverse Distance Weighting, Thin Plate Splines, Random Forests, Ordinary and Universal Kriging, as well as a combined consensus model. Inverse distance weighting performed the best in predicting RBP concentrations, with a Pearson''s cross-validation correlation coefficient of 0.61. This prediction was then used to create an estimate of the number of Cameroonian children who were vitamin A deficient at a higher spatial resolution than was previously available. While prevalence of VAD in children appeared highest in the Northern region of Cameroon, the overall number of VAD children was higher in the Extreme North and Centre regions of the country due to higher population density in these regions. The national proportion of VAD children predicted (33%) aligned well with the estimate based on the original survey data (35%).

We modify the standard nutritional efficiency wage model to allow for the fact that employers can directly provide calories to their workers rather than paying a higher wage to induce employees to spend more on their own caloric consumption. We derive the various theoretical outcomes that are possible depending on the assumptions about the transaction costs of directly providing calories. We argue that in most real-world situations the ability of employers to directly provide calories undermines the traditional efficiency wage theory as a cause of equilibrium unemployment.

The economics literature generally finds a positive, but small, gain in income to native-born populations from immigrants and potentially large gains in world incomes. But immigrants can also impact a recipient nation''s institutions. A growing empirical literature supports the importance of strong private property rights, a rule of law, and an environment of economic freedom for promoting long run prosperity. Comparatively little work has tried to explain economic freedom as a dependent variable. This paper empirically examines how immigration impacts a region''s policies and institutions. We find small but positive increases in institutional quality as a result of immigration.

When Father Malloy came to St. Michael''s Church he knew he was in for a challenge. His parish was in a tough neighborhood filled with kids who were forgotten. Fortunately for Father Malloy, he had a trick up his sleeve...basketball. Hector, one of the forgotten, only cared about two things, his struggling mother and basketball. When his mother loses her job, Hector begins to feel the pressure of having to provide for his family. But when Hector crosses a member of the dangerous gang, the Snipers, he suddenly has one more thing to worry about...his life. Can Father Malloy convince Hector to become part of the team? More importantly, can Father Malloy help Hector turn his life around? A Shot and a Prayer is a story of faith, teamwork and the belief that every one of us can make a difference. "This is the kind of book that is impossible to put down." - Tom Starita, author of Two Ways to Sunday

Kay is transported from the confines of her music appreciation class to a mysterious land where a man-boy named Rabenold wants nothing more than to fulfill his life''s mission to defeat the dreaded Trauermarsch. Also includes The Factory and The Suncatcher.

Along with the spread of ideas, finances and technology, globalization also leads to greater human migration. The number one destination for migrants is the US. At its peak, the undocumented immigrant population in the US rose to roughly 12 million in 2008. In recent years, many Americans have become concern with their perception of an out of control immigration problem. No place has this been more profound than the State of Arizona. In 2010, the State of Arizona took matters into their own hands and passed the country''s strictest anti-immigrant law, known as Senate Bill 1070. This book assesses the origins of Arizona''s state-sponsored immigration policy. It attempts to identify the social dynamics within Arizona that contributed to the overwhelming public support for SB 1070. Since it has been a few years after the law was passed, this analysis determines what impact the law has had thus far within the state. Finally, it postulates the future of the state and federal immigration policy in the US.

This paper discusses what evolutionary psychology can contribute to modern political economy.

A prequel to the television show explores what happened before Mr. Schuester took over the glee club, showing the beginning of Puck and Quinn''s romance and how the club functioned without its leader.

Ever wonder why the animals at the zoo are always so sleepy? This book will answer your questions once and for all. When Renee asks her father why the zoo animals are snoozing all day, he dreams up an elaborate answer. At night, the monkeys steal the zookeeper''s keys, and all of the animals come out of their cages to dance, eat, and play. Rhinos rock out. Alligators stroll under limbo polls. Elephants pound the piano. Pelicans cater. By the time the visitors arrive in the morning, the animals are all tuckered out. Renee doesn''t believe her father''s tale, but dads have a way of being right about these things. This fantastic story captures the culture and charm of the New Orleans and its beloved zoo with rich illustrations and playful rhyme.

The antibiogram is a fundamental component of antimicrobial stewardship programs. It serves to guide empiric therapy as well as track antimicrobial susceptibilities and resistance development over time. Currently, UCSD publishes a quarterly antibiogram that combines information from all units at both the Thornton and Hillcrest hospitals. While such information provides a global view of susceptibility rates, it masks potentially important differences among units and between hospitals that could be useful in determining appropriate empiric therapy. This project analyzed antibiogram data from 2009-2010 for eight different organisms (Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Streptococcus pneumoniae, Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Enterobacter, Enterococcus, Staphylococcus aureus, and Acinetobacter) and stratified them according to hospital (Thornton vs. Hillcrest), patient setting (inpatient vs. outpatient) and unit (general ward, ICU, ED, BMT service, Cancer Center and Owen Clinic). The results provide insight into how antimicrobial susceptibility rates differ within our own institution and justify institutional antimicrobial therapies.