Presenter(s): Mohammad Arzaghi
Affiliation: Economics, American University of Sharjah
Coauthor(s): Ismail H Genc, Shaabana Naik (Economics, American University of Sharjah)
Date: Tuesday, December 8, 2020
Time: 4:00-5:00
Place: Online (https://meet.google.com/fft-wpmg-hsa)

Title: Clustering and Hotel Room Prices in Dubai 

Abstract: In this paper, we study the influence of the location and other hotel and room characteristics on the prices of hotel rooms in Dubai. The effects of different determinants are estimated using the hedonic price model for a cross-section of 250 hotel room prices in April 2020 in Dubai. In addition to the typical characteristics of hotels and hotel rooms such as hotel amenities, star rating, and room size, we include location characteristics such as accessibility to public transportation, airport, and local agglomeration and competition factors. Our results indicate significant and strong effects of accessibility to attractions, transportation, hotel's star rating, and room size, as we expected. Our empirical model can explain about 70 percent of the variation in the hotel prices in Dubai. We note that the star rating is highly correlated with hotel amenities (pool, gym, beach, etc.) and also the consumers' subjective review. In fact, the data indicates that the star rating, to a great extent, captures the influences of in-hotel amenities in the room price, and it is indeed a good proxy for the in-hotel services and amenities.

Presenter(s): Javed Younas
Affiliation: Economics, American University of Sharjah
Coauthor(s): Khusrav Gaibulloev , Gerel Oyun
Date: Tuesday, November 24, 2020
Time: 4:00-5:00
Place: Online (https://meet.google.com/wob-eqne-jcr)

Title: Conflicts and child sex at birth: evidence from Pakistan 

Abstract: Using insights from the literature on psychology and medicine, we examine the impact of stress-induced by conflict on child sex at birth. The psychological and social stressors associated with conflict prone events prior to conception trigger changes in maternal (and paternal) hormones that have an implication for birth outcomes. We extract data on 11,331 live births conceived between 2007 and 2012 from Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey 2012-2013. The individual birth data are matched with household information from the same survey. The district-level data come from the Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey and the monthly conflict incidents information is taken from the Terrorism Database. The analysis relies on two sources of variations: mothers’ exposure to Conflict prior to conception and districts that experienced conflict. The district-level analysis shows that conflict-laden events decrease the number of live male births and increase the number of live female births. We confirm this finding with individual birth data by showing that conflict prone attacks prior to conception reduce the likelihood of a male birth. These results provide microeconomic evidence of the potential long-term impact of conflict on fertility and population dynamics. In societies with a strong preference for boys, the reduction in the number of male births can have implications for selective abortions. Moreover, these findings call for a better understanding of the link between such shocks and adult life outcomes including health, education, and income.

Presenter(s): Jay Squalli
Affiliation: Economics, American University of Sharjah
Date: Tuesday, October 13, 2020
Time: 4:00-5:00
Place: Online - Link: (https://meet.google.com/jmk-weuh-zmu)

Title: Issues with online tests

Abstract: The presenter is an early adopter of online testing environment. He will share his experience with online tests. He will also answer audience questions.

Presenter(s): Kevin Devereux
Affiliation: University College Dublin
Coauthor(s): Mona Balesh Abadi and Farah Omran
Date: Tuesday, February 18, 2020
Time: 4:00-5:00
Place: SBA2060

Title: Correcting for Transitory Effects in RCTs: Application to the RAND Health Insurance Experiment

Abstract: Temporary randomized controlled trials are susceptible to transitory effects which may mislead inference. We find a large and significant `deadline effect' -- a surge in spending in the final program year -- in the RAND Health Insurance Experiment, identified by random allocation to three- or five-year enrollment terms. Participants facing lower coinsurance rates show larger spending surges. Controlling for this price-deadline interaction yields significantly smaller estimates of the long run price elasticity of drug spending (and in some specifications of outpatient care and medical supplies). This illustrates the importance of careful experimental design to identifying parameters of interest in RCTs.
 

Presenter(s): Usamah Al-Farhan
Affiliation: Sultan Qaboos University
Coauthor(s): Khaldoon Nusair, Hamed Al Azri, Saeed Al Muharrami
Date: Tuesday, February 4, 2020
Time: 3:00-4:00
Place: SBA2060

Title: Tourism Expenditure Differentials: The Effects of Differences in Targeted Utility and Markets Structures

Abstract: This paper aims at introducing hedonic mean-level and counterfactual quantile decomposition methodologies to the field of tourism economics, with the intention of stimulating future contributions to the investigation of tourist expenditures. Though rooted in labour economics literature, these methods allow for a better understanding of distributional differences in tourist expenditures as well as other tourism-related outcome variables, that are constructs of constituent characteristics and contributory values. With an application to Oman, we show that higher expenditures of high utility-targeting majority versus low utility-targeting tourists are explained by the formers’ higher willingness to buy, given their socioeconomic attributes and choices regarding trip-specific characteristics. Current market structures in Oman’s tourism industry do not contribute to the expenditure differential. Our results imply that revenues in Oman’s tourism sector could be maximized via efficient market segmentation and corresponding price differentiation, where higher utility-targeting tourists bear higher price levels, all ceteris paribus.
 

Presenter(s): Christian Rauch
Affiliation: Finance, American University of Sharjah
Coauthor(s): Bjorn Imbierowicz (German Central Bank)
Date: Tuesday, November 26, 2019
Time: 4:00-5:00
Place: SBA2060
Title: The Pricing of Private Assets – The Case of Mutual Fund Investments in ‘Unicorn’ Companies

Abstract: The past decade has seen tremendous capital flow into private asset markets. To a large part, this development was driven by mutual fund investments in high-growth and mature startup companies which exceed a valuation of $1 billion, colloquially known as ‘Unicorns’. This development is interesting for two reasons. First, it offers detailed insight into the valuation and pricing of privately held assets by sophisticated institutional investors. Second, it allows us to study the development and features of a new type of asset class. We collect comprehensive information on 223 private asset investments made by 80 separate funds of eight US mutual fund managers between 2009 and 2018. Primarily, we study the features, pricing patterns and value drivers of these investments. Our data shows that, perhaps surprisingly, mutual funds invest not just in ‘Unicorn’ companies but also in a variety of smaller privately held high-growth companies. The analysis of the pricing patterns suggests that valuations are primarily driven by external (valuation-) events and the contractual features of the convertible preferred securities used for the investments.

Presenter(s): Khusrav Gaibulloev
Affiliation: Economics, American University of Sharjah
Coauthor(s): Gerel Oyun, Dina Tasneem, and Javed Younas
Date: Tuesday, November 19, 2019
Time: 4:00-5:00
Place: SBA2060

Title: Developing healthy eating habits in children: Experimental evidence from UAE

Abstract: This paper uses experimental and behavioral economics approaches to identify effective interventions to develop healthy eating behavior at early age. We recruit over 1000 fourth-grade students from 20 public schools, which are randomly chosen from the four Northern Emirates in the UAE. We conduct four sets of experimental treatment among students: nutrition education in a neutral environment, nutrition education in an Arabic environment, religious priming, and food labeling. Health education is delivered by trained nutrition specialists following a carefully-designed comprehensive curriculum. The curriculum consists of 10 lessons and each lesson lasts for 45 minutes. The effect of alternative treatments on dietary choices is examined using lunch experiments. For nutrition education groups, the lunch experiment is repeated after 3 months to examine whether the effect lasts over a longer period of time. We obtain a rich set of information to control for various factors. A simple quiz of general knowledge on healthy eating is conducted among all participants. We survey the participants’ parents to obtain information about socio-economic characteristics and child behavior outside the classroom. The study contributes to the literature by examining potential mechanisms that effectively translate an individual’s health knowledge into health-promoting behavior. The findings hold important policy implications.
 

Presenter(s): Anis Samet
Affiliation: Finance, American University of Sharjah
Coauthor(s): Ali Mirzaei (AUS)
Date: Tuesday, November 12, 2019
Time: 4:00-5:00
Place: SBA2060

Title: Ownership Structure, Macro-prudential Policies, and Credit Growth

Abstract: We examine how the banking ownership structure differently affects the response of banks to macroprudential policies. Specifically, we explore the interaction between foreign and government banking ownership structure and macroprudential policies on bank credit growth across different banks in developed and developing countries. Using a panel data set of 507 banks over the period 2000-2013, we find that the macroprudential-ownership interaction affects credit growth and the impact is statistically and economically significant and is robust after controlling for bank and country-level variables and endogeneity issues.

Presenter(s): Ayesha Ali
Affiliation: Economics, the Lahore University of Management Sciences
Coauthor(s):
Date: MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2019
Time: 4:00-5:00
Place: SBA2060
Title: Countering Misinformation on Social Media Through Educational Interventions:  Evidence from Urban Pakistan

Abstract: The increasing availability of low-cost mobile Internet access in developing countries has led to the widespread use of social media platforms. Concurrently, the spread of misinformation on such platforms is also on the rise. Through household-level surveys, this research captures the trends in social media usage among low and middle-income users in Pakistan. A test, created with a list of actual news stories circulated on social media, is used to measure the extent to which users are likely to believe misinformation. Consequently, the research evaluates the effectiveness of two interventions for countering misinformation in a randomized control setting. The first intervention educates users about common features of misinformation through a video. The second intervention involves both showing an educational video and providing feedback to users regarding their past behaviors in engaging with misinformation. The results conclude that showing the video alone has no effect vis-a-vis countering misinformation. However, showing the video and giving personal feedback increases the ability of treated users to identify fake news by 11% relative to the control group.

Presenter(s): Kimberly C. Gleason
Affiliation: Finance, American University of Sharjah
Coauthor(s): Ujjal Chatterjee (AUS), Mina Glambosky (Brooklyn College, CUNY)
Date: Tuesday, October 22, 2019
Time: 4:00-5:00
Place: SBA2060
Title: New Technology, Trading Costs, and Financial Markets: Evidence from Bitcoin

Abstract: Interest in Bitcoin is immense, in part due to distrust of fiat currencies, and the platform it provides for retail traders. Traders are often unaware of the costs associated with Bitcoin trading or the liquidity of the assets for speculative purposes. While the academic literature has offered insights into the efficiency of the Bitcoin market and the features of the Bitcoin time series, few studies examine the pricing of Bitcoin related blockchain technology assets. There is a gap in the literature regarding trading costs of Bitcoin relative to Bitcoin related products in the equity and derivatives markets. Furthermore, no studies to date have examined how the initiation of futures trading on Bitcoin has impacted the spot market.  In this paper, we examine the trading costs (both implied and quoted spreads) of Bitcoin and Bitcoin based assets in three markets: the cryptocurrency exchanges using the underlying Bitcoin, the equity markets using Greystone Bitcoin Investment Trust, and the derivatives markets using the newly introduced Bitcoin futures. We find that aggregated implied and quoted spreads across exchanges for Bitcoin, GBTC, and Bitcoin futures are comparable in magnitude, implying that fundamentals drive digital assets’ trading costs. Further, we find that while spot Bitcoin and Bitcoin futures prices are similar, GBTC trades at a 51% premium to the underlying Bitcoin in the equity market. Our results provide quantitative guidelines for the future development of financial products based on blockchain technology.

Presenter(s): Ismail H Genc
Affiliation: Economics, American University of Sharjah
Date: Tuesday, October 15, 2019
Time: 4:00-5:00
Place: SBA2060
Title: Determinants of Hotel Room Prices in Dubai
Abstract: In this paper, we analyze the determinant of hotel room prices in Dubai within the framework of a hedonic model. We employ both ordinary least squares and the quantile linear regression techniques to identify the covariates of room prices. In summary, we find that the size of the room, and proximity to a beach positively contribute to the price based on OLS. OLS also reveals that distance to downtown is a negative factor is room prices. On the other hand, QLS reveals a much richer set of findings such as varying importance of covariates at different quantiles. Other than academic interest, the issue of importance to policy makers and the business community.

Presenter(s): Ismail H Genc
Affiliation: Economics, American University of Sharjah
Date: Tuesday, September 17, 2019
Time: 4:00-5:00
Place: SBA2060
Title: The impact of technology on regional price dispersion in the US
Abstract: In this paper, we analyze the behavior of prices (inflation) in the era of fast information dispersion made possible advances in technology in particular the internet. With the help of readily available information, prices, and by extension inflation, should quickly converge in a perfectly competitive market structure, generating a zero economic profit for companies. Thus, we explore the possibility of a price convergence in the form of a reduction in regional inflation in the United States. Related to that, we examine the permanency of such a phenomenon if observed, as it is a concern for the monetary policy makers. We do so, by analyzing the behavior of the standard deviation of inflation in a number of regions over time in the USA by employing univariate as well as multivariate models. A particular attention in the multivariate model is devoted to the role of technology. In sum, we show that the standard deviation of inflation is not constant over time, but we do not necessarily observed an ever-declining pattern.