Briefing | A breakdown of the West Indies Economic Conference

The Department of Economics at the University of the West Indies, Mona will once again host its annual economic conference West Indian Economic Conference (WECON) at the University of the West Indies Regional Headquarters on Thursday from 8:30 am through to 5:00 pm, and Friday 8:30 am to 1:30 pm.

The event will commence with welcoming remarks from our head of department, Professor David Tennant, and our Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, Professor Ian Boxill.

Several local and international economists will present cutting- edge research papers and research ideas on a wide range of topics relevant to modern issues.

PANEL 1: Firm Dynamics & Market Structures (11:00-12:30).

• Shengnan Fang will present a paper on 'An Empirical Test of Market Power in Dairy Industry: The Case of Dean Foods and Foremost Farms USA'.

• Phillip Gayle will present on 'Measuring Merger Cost Effects: Evidence from a Dynamic Structural Econometric Model'.

• Yin Lin will present on 'Cost Pass-Through in Commercial Aviation'.

• Adeel Faheem will present on 'Mergers, Competitive Conduct, and Vertical Relationships between Firms: Evidence from US Beer Industry'.

PANEL 2: Finance/Monetary I (11:00-12:30).

n Jan Keil will present a paper on 'The Value of Lending Relationships When Creditors are in Control'.

• Durronjae Boothe will present on 'Remittances and Economic Growth in Floating and Fixed Exchange Rate Economies: The Case of Latin America and the Caribbean'.

• Mehmet Orhan will present on 'Testing the Validity of the Lucas Critique around the Global Financial Crisis'.

• Nlandu Mamingi will present on 'The Impact of Banking Deregulation on the Banking System: Exploring the facts for Barbados'.

PANEL 3: Econometrics (1:30 - 3:00).

• Nadine McCloud will present on 'Calculating Degrees of Freedom in Multivariate Local Polynomial Regression'.

•Jeffery Racine will present on 'Bootstrap Model Averaging Unit Root Inference'.

• Daniel Henderson will present on 'Nonparametric Multi-dimensional Fixed Effects Panel Data Models'.

• Deniz Ozabaci will present on 'Additive Nonparametric Sample Selection Models with Endogeneity'.

PANEL 4: Government, Governance & Taxation (1:30-3:00).

• Kevin Williams will present on 'Workers' Remittances and Government Size'.

• Oronde Small will present on 'The Effect of Public Goods Messaging on Personal Income Tax Compliance among the Self-Employed: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Jamaica'.

• Richard Bernal will present on 'Brexit: Caribbean Amicus Curia Brief'.

Coffee Break: 3:00-3:10.

PANEL 5: Resource & Environment I (3:15-4:45).

n Nlandu Mamingi will present on 'Assessing the Total Economic Value of Barbados Welchman Hall Gully'.

• Nekeisha Spencer will present on 'Moving Closer to or Further from the Frontier? Hurricanes and Production Efficiency'.

• Alrick Campbell will present on 'Effects of Oil Price and Global Demand Shocks on Small Island Developing States'.

• Eric Strobl will present on 'Biodiversity and Economic Land Use'

• Gary Lyn will present on 'Climate Change, International Trade and Factor Reallocation'.

THE FIRST DAY WILL CLOSE WITH PANEL 6: Health, Labour & Education I (3:15 - 4:45)

n Micheal Delgado will present on "Socioeconomic Heterogeneity of Racial Income and Mobility Gaps in the United States" Patrice Whitely on "The Economic Cost of Hypertension Among the Elderly in Jamaica".

• Tennecia Dacass, will present on 'Intergenerational Effects of Mass Incarceration'.

• Nicholas Wright will present on 'Perform Better, or Else: Academic Probation, Public Praise and Students Decision-Making'.

DAY 2: MARCH 9, 2018 will be just as relevant.

PANEL 7: Special Econometrics (8:30-10:00)

• Arthur Lewbel, Professor of Economics, Boston College will present on 'Keeping Up With Peers in India: A New Social Interactions Model of Perceived Needs'.

• Shakeeb Khan, Professor of Economics, Duke University, will present on 'Identification and Estimation of Treatment Effects in Weakly Separable Models'.

Coffee Break: 10:00-10:15

Panel 8: Resource & Environment II (10:20 - 11:50)

* Nadia Grant-Reid will present on 'The Economic Impact of Hurricanes on Sea Island Cotton'.

* Luis Gautier will present on 'The Role of Non-zero Conjectural Variation in Pollution Abatement and Output in the Design of Emission Taxes'.

* Kelly-Ann Dixon Hamil will present on 'Analysis of Data of Different Spatial Scales: A Multivariate Process Approach'.

* Nielsen, Rasmus will present on 'The Political Economy of Uranium Extraction in Greenland: It's Not Elemental At All'.

Panel 9: Health, Labour & Education II (10:20 - 11:50)

* Diether Beuermann will present on: 'Universal Public Health Insurance, Adult Health Status and Labor Supply in Jamaica'.

* Winston Moore will present on 'Unemployment Duration and Green Jobs'.

* Michael Henry will present on 'Do More Globally Engaged Firms Really Pay Higher Wages? Empirical Evidence from Chinese Firm'.

Panel 10: Finance/Monetary II (12:00 - 1:30)

* Jason Christie will present on 'Identifying Countercyclical Capital Buffer Indicators for Excessive Credit Growth in the Case of Jamaica'.

* Mustapha Boamah will present on 'Real Interest Parity: Evidence from some Regional Trade Agreements'.

* Edward Ghartey will present on 'Exchange Rate Pass-through: Asymmetrical Empirical Evidence in Non-members of the ECCU'.

The conference will end with Panel 11: Economic Growth & Development (12:00 - 1:30)

* Christine Clarke will present on 'Sport Policy: Has It Mattered to Developing Countries, A Case Study of Jamaica'.

* Moises Schwartz Rosenthal will present on 'Institutions in the Caribbean: Engine or Obstacle for Development?'

* Ricardo Braxford, 'Applying Gravity Model To Analyse Trade Activities of Japan'.

* Wendel Ivey will present on the 'Resilience and Small Island States: Are They Heeding the Message?'

- Dr Andre Haughton is a lecturer in the Department of Economics on the Mona Campus of the University of the West Indies. Follow him on Twitter @DrAndreHaughton; or email editorial@gleanerjm.com