William Trumbull | The Citadel (original) (raw)

Papers by William Trumbull

Unlike previous analyses that applied single activity related entrepreneurship measures like self... more Unlike previous analyses that applied single activity related entrepreneurship measures like self-employment, business ownership ratio, or the GEM's TEA rate, we use a complex entrepreneurship measure, the Global Entrepreneurship and Index (GEI) to examine the level of entrepreneurship in the V4 countries of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. GEI incorporates both individual and institutional factors of entrepreneurship in order to explain the role of entrepreneurship in economic development. The GEI, with its three sub-indexes and fourteen pillars, is a particularly suitable tool for examining the level, the components, and the configuration of the National System of Entrepreneurship. Investigating the V4 countries, we can see that the overall level of entrepreneurship in these countries fits to their level of economic development.

Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development

Purpose Using various macro-level measures of economic and political performance Shleifer and Tre... more Purpose Using various macro-level measures of economic and political performance Shleifer and Treisman (2005) and Treisman (2014) call Russia a “normal country” implying that Russia’s economic and political development is not deviating from the other middle-income or transition countries significantly. The purpose of this paper is to challenge this proposition and investigate whether Russia is a normal country in terms of entrepreneurship by comparing Russia with other post-socialist and similarly developed countries. Design/methodology/approach Many studies have examined Russia’s institutional setup to explain its deficiencies in entrepreneurial activity. However, there is a lack of comprehensive research taking into account both the individual and institutional dimensions of the entrepreneurial ecosystem. The authors use the Global Entrepreneurship Index (GEI) methodology to analyze Russia’s quality-related individual as well as institutional features from a system perspective in ...

Much has happened in the economics of crime since Becker's [1] seminal paper of two decades ... more Much has happened in the economics of crime since Becker's [1] seminal paper of two decades ago. The theory has been refined by, among others, Ehrlich [10; 11; 12], Block and Lind [4; 5], Block and Heinke [3], and Schmidt and Witte [30]. Attempts to test the model ...

Weimer/Cost-Benefit Analysis and Public Policy, 2009

The importance of ethnic populations in reducing informal trade barriers has received increased a... more The importance of ethnic populations in reducing informal trade barriers has received increased attention in the recent literature. This analysis extends the literature by estimating the effect of Latin American ethnic populations on U.S. state-level exports to Latin America. Overall, the results document a statistically significant foreign-born effect. Thus, the results support the notion that foreign-born populations can reduce informal trade barriers and help exhaust trade potential where significant cultural or political barriers exist. Furthermore, disaggregating by country suggests that the overall effect of foreign-born populations on trade is not uniform across countries. This suggests a need for caution when using aggregate data, even among a relatively homogenous sample of countries.

Weimer/Cost-Benefit Analysis and Public Policy, 2008

Cuba in Transition, 2004

In a perfectly free-market environment, trade between countries occurs when private actors in tho... more In a perfectly free-market environment, trade between countries occurs when private actors in those countries find it mutually advantageous to trade. Governments are involved only in that they create the market conditions that minimize transactions costs, thus maximizing ...

The Economic Journal, 1994

In 1990, the net amount of economic aid, or official development assistance, to all recipients fr... more In 1990, the net amount of economic aid, or official development assistance, to all recipients from all multilateral and bilateral sources was about $62 billion, an amount that exceeded the GDPs of Greece and Portugal. Despite the size of this yearly transfer there has been no rigors modeling and estimation of the criteria by which it occurs. As a result, there is little agreement about the extent to which ODA is allocated according to the needs of the recipient countries. The purpose of this paper is to develop a rigorous theoretical model of ODA allocation that can be used to provide consistent estimates of the importance of recipient needs. Copyright 1994 by Royal Economic Society.

Southern Economic Journal, 1989

Public Choice, 1992

This paper investigates the extent to which a commonly used electoral scheme-voting for n candida... more This paper investigates the extent to which a commonly used electoral scheme-voting for n candidates when there are n vacancies to fill-is likely to lead, in practice, to paradoxical results. Two types of paradox are investigated. One occurs when an increase in the number of vacancies causes a candidate to drop from the list of winners. The second occurs when the Condorcet candidate fails to win. Using a Monte Carlo study, we show that the likelihood of paradox can be substantial and depends critically on the degree of homogeneity of voters' preferences and on the number of voters.

Post-Soviet Affairs, 2006

Shleifer and Treisman (2005) argue that Russia is a "normal country." Their benchmark for normalc... more Shleifer and Treisman (2005) argue that Russia is a "normal country." Their benchmark for normalcy, however, refers primarily to middle-income countries like Mexico and Argentina. We propose that a more meaningful benchmark is the experience of other post-socialist transition countries, which share common political and economic histories with Russia, and have faced similar transition obstacles since communism's collapse. We compare Russia's economic performance, media freedom, democracy, and corruption since Russia began transition, to these benchmarks in all other post-socialist countries since they began their transitions. We find that Russia consistently and significantly performs below normal compared to its cohort. Did Russia's transition from socialism fail or succeed? Popular accounts of Russia's transition clearly suggest the former. Important recent work by Shleifer and Treisman (2005), however, challenges this common view. Russia is not a "collapsed and criminal state." It is, as they call it, "a normal country." In characterizing Russia this way, Shleifer and Treisman do not mean that Russia is without economic and political defects. But these defects, they argue, are the typical sort faced by middle-income countries, such as Mexico or Argentina. We contradict Professors Shleifer and Treisman with some trepidation. While their account performs an important service in correcting exaggerated descriptions of complete Russian failure, we argue that it goes too far in the other direction. Russia is not a "normal country," if "normal" refers to the experience of other post-socialist transition countries with common social, political, and economic histories under communism. Although countries like Mexico and Argentina have similar incomes to Russia's, their social, political, and economic histories are markedly different. These economies therefore provide a limited point of comparison for assessing Russia's normalcy. A more meaningful comparison would compare apples with apples-Russia's experience with the experiences of other countries transitioning from socialism. Shleifer and Treisman perform such a comparison to a limited extent, but do not do so systematically. It is especially useful to locate Russia's success relative to the post-socialist transition countries that define the frontier of transition success, and thus the transition potential, for countries like Russia. The experiences of these post-socialist nations tell us how well a country like Russia could be reasonably expected to perform in transitioning from socialism to the market. To determine this, we compare Russia's experience with those of the Visegrad Group

Law & Society Review, 1981

Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 1990

The issues involved in deciding whose preferences are to be counted in cost-benefit analysis are ... more The issues involved in deciding whose preferences are to be counted in cost-benefit analysis are often misunderstood or controversial. This paper attempts to resolve the issues in a number ofparticular cases by looking to the fundamental value assumptions underlying cost-benefit analysis. Cost-benefit analysis is useful only to the extent that there exists a general consensus that the value assumptions are legitimate. Certain implications of the value assumptions prove useful in deciding what preferences have standing.

Journal of Competition Law and Economics, 2011

The International Trade Journal, 2008

In this analysis, we propose the Hausman-Taylor (1981) method as an alternative estimation techni... more In this analysis, we propose the Hausman-Taylor (1981) method as an alternative estimation technique for estimating the gravity model of trade. We use an application to highlight the benefits of this technique for panel data estimation in general. Specifically, we compare the Hausman-Taylor method for estimating the unrealized US-Cuban trade potential to the OLS, fixed-effects, and random-effects methods using the out-of-sample approach. The Hausman-Taylor method is ideal because it allows for the inclusion of time-invariant variables in trade projections and circumvents the problem of an ad hoc estimation of the country-specific dummy variable needed for a projection based on the fixed-effects estimator. In addition, it removes the correlation between the error term and included variables which often plagues random-effects estimation.