{"title":"Shelby County v. Holder and Changes in Voting Behavior","authors":"Salvatore M. De Rienzo","doi":"10.1177/05694345221101133","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/05694345221101133","url":null,"abstract":"In Shelby County v. Holder (2013), the U.S. Supreme Court declared unconstitutional Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which required jurisdictions with histories of voter disenfranchisement to receive federal preclearance before altering voting laws. Since Shelby, 1688 polling sites across 13 states have closed. Utilizing a sample of eligible voters from the Current Population Survey, I first predict the likelihood of voting. Then, I analyze how Shelby has influenced the likelihood of ballot box access issues among non-voters. Overall voter turnout is 0.9pp lower in post-Shelby elections. Black eligible voters are 5.4pp less likely to vote after Shelby. However, Shelby is not associated with a higher likelihood of ballot box access issues. While the mechanisms through which Shelby affects voting behavior remain inconclusive, Shelby is significantly associated with widespread voter disenfranchisement. These findings are relevant for policymakers in creating a revised preclearance formula to curb voter disenfranchisement.","PeriodicalId":85623,"journal":{"name":"The American economist","volume":"67 1","pages":"195 - 210"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44013001","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Using Federal Reserve Economic Data® Data to Address Diversity and Inclusion in the Classroom","authors":"Diego Mendez-Carbajo","doi":"10.1177/05694345221084893","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/05694345221084893","url":null,"abstract":"This article describes 30 instructional resources produced by the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis suitable to address topics related to diversity and inclusion in the undergraduate economics classroom. These resources employ FRED® data to broach a wide range of topics in the areas of gender, race, and inequality. The resources take the form of FRED Blog Reading Questions and Answers, Page One Economics essays, and Lesson Plans. Borrowing from the science, technology, mathematics, and engineering literature, we argue for the use of examples and demonstrations that draw connections between formal instruction and the social context of the learning process itself. To that end, we put forward examples for leveraging economics data from FRED® in instructional settings emphasizing active learning and the development of practical data-related skills. JEL codes: A10, A22","PeriodicalId":85623,"journal":{"name":"The American economist","volume":"68 1","pages":"126 - 139"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-04-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45759117","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Financial Integration and Economic Performance: Comparative Evidence from SADC and ECOWAS Regions","authors":"B. Onah","doi":"10.1177/05694345221084339","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/05694345221084339","url":null,"abstract":"This paper examined the impact of financial integration on economic growth in Southern African Development Community (SADC) and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) countries over the period 1993–2013. Using the Panel ARDL PMG Model developed by Pesaran and Shin, other control variables (trade openness, inflation, government expenditure, and institutional quality) were captured in the model. It was found that there is a significant and positive impact of financial integration on economic growth in the ECOWAS region in the long run. Whereas, even after controlling for necessary variables, financial integration exacerbates negative and insignificant effects in determining economic growth in the SADC region, both in the short run and long run. The insignificant and negative impact of financial integration on the region’s economic growth was attributed to several possible factors, including the low level of financial development in the SADC region, which is unconnected with the poor level of governance, unstable and fragile financial stability, or low creditworthiness, that are prevalent in developing countries like those in SADC countries. The findings suggest, amongst others, that increasing financial integration could improve the productive capacity of the economy, including more investments and the efficient allocation of capital, thus enhancing economic growth in these regions. This paper sheds new insights on a better evaluation of the past and present theorizing on the subjects of financial integration and economic growth, especially in comparing the separate effects on the economies of the SADC and ECOWAS countries.","PeriodicalId":85623,"journal":{"name":"The American economist","volume":"67 1","pages":"226 - 240"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46914763","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Structured Notetaking and Student Performance in Microeconomics Courses","authors":"B. Artz, Denise Robson, Angel Camacho","doi":"10.1177/05694345211072518","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/05694345211072518","url":null,"abstract":"Notetaking is a vital component of student learning and perhaps even more critical in the recent emergence of e-learning settings. The conventional literature proposes notetaking increases student attention, provides students an external source of knowledge, and gives students the ability to encode learned material into a form most digestible to them. We utilize a framed field experiment to investigate whether training students in a structured notetaking method improves the quality of students’ notes and their performance on assessments in two Principles of Microeconomics courses in Spring 2019. We find in t-tests, ordinary least squares regressions, and fixed effects estimations that training in structured notetaking positively correlates with both the quality of student’s notes and their performance on course assessments.","PeriodicalId":85623,"journal":{"name":"The American economist","volume":"67 1","pages":"211 - 225"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46126046","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The ODE Undergraduate Research Award","authors":"","doi":"10.1177/05694345221079041","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/05694345221079041","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":85623,"journal":{"name":"The American economist","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47394095","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Michael Szenberg Prize for the Best Article Published by The American Economist","authors":"Carlos J. Asarta","doi":"10.1177/05694345221079038","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/05694345221079038","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":85623,"journal":{"name":"The American economist","volume":"67 1","pages":"3 - 3"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44345676","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The ODE Graduate Research AwardCompetition Sponsored by Omicron Delta Epsilon International Honor Society in Economics","authors":"","doi":"10.1177/05694345221079040","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/05694345221079040","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":85623,"journal":{"name":"The American economist","volume":"67 1","pages":"159 - 159"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46189226","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Closing the Curriculum Gap by Updating Content Standards and Guidelines for Teaching Monetary Policy","authors":"J. Ihrig, Scott Wolla","doi":"10.1177/05694345221085678","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/05694345221085678","url":null,"abstract":"The topic of the Federal Reserve’s (the Fed’s) implementation of monetary policy has a significant presence in economics teaching resources. Over the past decade or so, the Fed has purposefully shifted the way it implements monetary policy, introducing a new methodology with new policy tools. Unfortunately, many teaching materials are out of date with the Fed’s current ample-reserves regime and classroom teachers are often guided to teach old content. This guidance often comes from the Voluntary National Content Standards (VNCS) in Economics and the Advanced Placement (AP) Course and Exam Description that are sadly outdated. The VNCS influences the treatment of economics content in K-12 curriculum and textbooks, and the AP course framework determines the content taught in thousands of high school classrooms every year. As such, revising these influential documents is instrumental for closing the curriculum gap. We provide recommendations for how these materials can be updated.","PeriodicalId":85623,"journal":{"name":"The American economist","volume":"67 1","pages":"183 - 194"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43461686","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Gender Differences in Financial Decision-Making and Behaviors in Single and Joint Households","authors":"Jamie Wagner, W. Walstad","doi":"10.1177/05694345221076004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/05694345221076004","url":null,"abstract":"This study investigates gender differences in household financial behavior using data from the 2018 National Financial Capability Study, a large and nationally representative survey about adults’ financial behavior, knowledge, and attitudes. The behaviors include paying your credit card in full each month, having a 3-month emergency fund, having non-retirement investments, and having a non-employer retirement account. Results showed that single females were significantly less likely to engage in any of the financial behaviors compared to men. Additionally, females in joint households were also significantly less likely to engage in the behaviors compared to males. These results are robust when splitting the single and joint household samples by age, level of financial literacy, and using a sample from a prior year. Therefore, females may not be well-prepared for financial decision-making in single or joint households, which can have adverse consequences for managing current personal finances and building wealth for the future. JEL codes: D12, D14, I21","PeriodicalId":85623,"journal":{"name":"The American economist","volume":"68 1","pages":"5 - 23"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-02-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46117840","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}