#2006-037B "Urban Decentralization and Income Inequality: Is Sprawl Associated with Rising Income Segregation Across Neighborhoods?"
by Christopher H. Wheeler
May 2006
Revised November 2006

Existing research has found an inverse relationship between urban density and the degree of income inequality within metropolitan areas, suggesting that, as cities spread out, they become increasingly segregated by income. More...

PUBLISHED: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Regional Economic Development, October 2008, 4(1), pp. 41-57

#2006-027A "The Duration of Foreclosures in the Subprime Mortgage Market: A Competing Risks Model with Mixing"
by Anthony Pennington-Cross
April 2006

This paper examines what happens to mortgages in the subprime mortgage market once foreclosure proceeding are initiated. A multinominial logit model that allows for the interdependence of the possible outcomes or risks (cure, partial cure, paid off, and real estate owned) through the correlation of associated unobserved heterogeneities is estimated. More...

#2006-021B "The Determinants of Aid in the Post-Cold War Era"
by Subhayu Bandyopadhyay, and Howard J. Wall
April 2006
Revised October 2006

This paper estimates the responsiveness of aid to recipient countries’ economic and physical needs, civil/political rights, and government effectiveness. More...

PUBLISHED: in Sajal Lahiri, ed., Theory and Practice of Foreign Aid, Elsevier, May 2007, pp. 387-402. Reprinted in Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review, November/December 2007, 89(6), pp. 533-47.

#2006-018C "War and Pestilence as Labor Market Shocks: U.S. Manufacturing Wage Growth 1914-1919"
by Thomas A. Garrett
March 2006
Revised October 2007

This paper explores the effect of mortalities from the 1918 influenza pandemic and World War I on wage growth in the manufacturing sectors of U.S. states and cities from 1914 to 1919. More...

FORTHCOMING: Economic Inquiry

#2006-014A "Why People Choose Negative Expected Return Assets - An Empirical Examination of a Utility Theoretic Explanation"
by Thomas A. Garrett, and Nalinaksha Bhattacharyya
March 2006

Using a theoretical extension of the Friedman and Savage (1948) utility function developed in Bhattacharyya (2003), we predict that for financial assets with negative expected returns, expected return will be a declining and convex function of skewness. Using a sample of U.S. state lottery games, we find that our theoretical conclusions are supported by the data. More...

PUBLISHED: Applied Economics, January 2008, 40(1), pp. 27-34

#2006-012B "The Transition to Electronic Communications Networks in the Secondary Treasury Market"
by Bruce Mizrach, and Christopher J. Neely
March 2006
Revised April 2006

This article reviews the history of the recent shift to electronic trading in equity, foreign exchange,
and fixed-income markets. More...

PUBLISHED: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review, November/December 2006, 88(6), pp. 527-542

#2006-009A "The Impact of Local Predatory Lending Laws on the Flow of Subprime Credit"
by Giang Ho, and Anthony Pennington-Cross
February 2006

Local authorities in North Carolina, and subsequently in at least 23 other states, have enacted laws intending to reduce predatory and abusive lending. While there is substantial variation in the laws, they typically extend the coverage of the Federal Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act (HOEPA) by including home purchase and open end mortgage credit, by lowering annual percentage rate (APR) and fees and points triggers, and by prohibiting or restricting the use of balloon payments and prepayment penalties. More...

FORTHCOMING: Journal of Urban Economics

#2006-008A "Evaluating State Tax Revenue Variability: A Portfolio Approach"
by Thomas A. Garrett
February 2006

State revenue variability is evaluated using a volatility model rooted in portfolio theory. The model evaluates how closely a state's revenue portfolio is constructed to minimize variability in total state tax revenue. The model complements parametric methods of revenue variability. More...

FORTHCOMING: Applied Economics Letters

#2005-072C "Information and Drug Prices: Evidence from the Medicare Discount Drug Card Program"
by Emin M. Dinlersoz, Rubén Hernández-Murillo, Han Li, and Roger Sherman
November 2005
Revised December 2006

In early 2004, the U.S. Government initiated the Medicare Discount Drug Card Program (MDDCP), which created a market for drug cards that allowed elderly and handicapped subscribers to obtain discounts on their prescription drug purchases. More...

PUBLISHED: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review, November/December 2008, 90(6), pp. 643-66

#2005-065A "Human Capital Growth in a Cross Section of US Metropolitan Areas"
by Christopher H. Wheeler
September 2005

Human capital is typically viewed as generating a number of desirable outcomes, including economic growth. Yet, in spite of its importance, few empirical studies have explored why some economies accumulate more human capital than others. This paper attempts to do so using a sample of more than 200 metropolitan areas in the United States over the years 1980, 1990, and 2000. More...

PUBLISHED: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review, March/April 2006, 88(2), pp. 113-32