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Recent QED Working Papers

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#1511.

Nabil Afodjo, Christopher Cotton, Maggie Jones

Student Experiences with COVID-19 in Canada

This article provides an overview of Canada’s primary and secondary school disruptions during COVID-19, then summarizes recent data and research showing the detrimental impacts of these disruptions on students. Novel aspects of our analysis include an assessment of the strictness of lockdown restrictions in schools compared to those in in-person dining, salons, and gyms, and an analysis of provincial data from BC identifying differential impacts between public and private schools, Indigenous students, and higher- and lower-performing groups. The paper concludes with a series of…

#1510.

Tanvir Ahmed Khan

Can Unbiased Predictive AI Amplify Bias?

Predictive AI is increasingly used to guide decisions on agents. I show that even a bias-neutral predictive AI can potentially amplify exogenous (human) bias in settings where the predictive AI represents a cost-adjusted precision gain to unbiased predictions, and the final judgments are made by biased human evaluators. In the absence of perfect and instantaneous belief updating, expected victims of bias become less likely to be saved by randomness under more precise predictions. An increase in aggregate discrimination is possible if this effect dominates. Not accounting for this mechanism…

#1509.

Jonathan Chiu, Thorsten V. Koeppl, Hanna Yu, Shengxing Zhang

Understanding the DeFi Network Through the Lens of a Production-Network Model

Decentralized Finance (DeFi) is composed of a variety of heterogeneous sectors that are interconnected through an input-output network of its tokens. We use a panel data set to empricially document the evolution of the DeFi network across its different sectors. We then employ a standard, theoretical production-network model to measure the value added and service outputs of different DeFi sectors which is fundamentally different from the commonly used metric of Total Value Locked (TVL). Our calibrated model is then used to study DeFi token prices and to predict the equilibrium effects of…

#1508.

Charles Beach

Quantile Tool Box Measures for Empirical Analysis and for Testing Distributional Comparisons in Direct Distribution-Free Fashion

This paper provides a set of tool box measures for flexibly describing distributional changes and empirically implementing several dominance criteria for social welfare comparisons and broad income inequality comparisons. Dominance criteria are expressed in terms of vectors of quantile statistics based on income shares and quantile means. Asymptotic variances and covariances of these sample ordinates are established from a Quantile Function Approach that provides a framework for direct statistical inference on these vectors. And practical empirical criteria are forwarded for using formal…

#1507.

Beverly Lapham, Daniel Teeter

A Gravity Analysis of Inter-Provincial Trade

In this paper, we provide evidence of frictions associated with trade in goods and services among
Canadian provinces. We examine empirical relationships between sector- and industry-level trade flows
and trading frictions associated with intra-provincial trade, inter-provincial trade, and
international trade. We also develop a novel method for estimating the magnitude of differences
across provinces, industries, and time in relative inter-provincial trade frictions. We find that
the ranking of these relative inter- provincial…

#1506.

John Hartwick

Hotellings Exhaustible Resource Extraction Model as a Linear Program

We translateHotellings continuous-time, exhaustible resource extraction Model of 1931 into a linear program of present value extraction cost minimization subject to a stock endowment and period by period demand constraints. The appropriate form of the demand constraints allows for resource rent rising at the rate of interest in the dual program. A useful variant has the stock size endogenous.

#1505.

Charles Beach

Sample Sizes for Reliably Estimating Lower and Upper Income Shares in Income Distribution Analysis

This paper uses distribution-free formulas for the asymptotic variances of sample quantile income shares – as typically published by statistical agencies as measures of the distribution of income inequality – to calculate how large a survey sample must be in order to estimate a more refined quantile breakdown for a given level of confidence. The approach is applied to decile and quintile earnings data to calculate required increases in sample size to obtain tail 5 percent quantal share estimates and to test changes in income shares. Simple rules of thumb are offered for such a required…

#1504.

Ludovic Mbakop, Glenn Jenkins, Leonard Leung, Kamil Sertoglu

Traceability, value, and trust in the coffee market: A natural experiment in Ethiopia

This study measures the impact of traceability attributes on international buyers’ willingness to pay for coffee produced in Ethiopia and the impact of accurate information on the production location of the coffee on the pricing according to its type and grade. Two sets of regressions models were used to investigate the important determinant factors affecting the export prices of trader and producer coffee, one each for trader and producer coffee, to measure the impact of the ECX on the prices and to evaluate the effect of the coffee types and grades on the prices. The results show that…

#1503.

Foroogh Nazzari Chamaki, Glenn Jenkins, Majid Hashemipour

Financial, Economic and Environmental Analyses of Upgrading Reverse Osmosis Plant Fed with Treated Wastewater

One of the most effective strategies to mitigate water shortages worldwide is to reuse the treated wastewater for freshwater production employing reverse osmosis (RO) technology. This strategy is appropriate in urban areas of arid or semi-arid regions as it can provide a sustainable and reliable water source close to the consumers. One of the drawbacks of RO is the high variability of production costs due to the electricity intensity. In addition, depending on the electricity source, it can also result in substantial environmental costs.

This study showed that upgrading pumping and…