Theses/Dissertations - Economics
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Browsing Theses/Dissertations - Economics by Author "Gardner, H. Stephen."
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Item The determinants of Chinese housing price inflation.(2013-05-15) Lin, Fangshi, 1988-; Gardner, H. Stephen.; Economics.; Baylor University. Dept. of Economics.Housing prices in major Chinese cities have been soaring since 2003. Some economists believe that this represents a dangerous speculative bubble while others argue that Chinese housing price inflation is a normal consequence of supply and demand adjustments in a rapidly-developing economy. This study attempts to explain the movement of housing prices in 35 large and medium-sized Chinese cities between 2002 and 2010. Here, we review many of the causal relationships that have been explored in previous research, but we uncover some interesting evidence on the financial side of the Chinese housing market that has received little attention in previous studies. We find, for example, a reciprocal relationship between local housing prices and the revenues of local governments. A strong housing market provides rising revenues for a local government, and rising revenues, along with personal saving, seem to feed back into the financial base of the local housing market.Item The utility of the passing time and measurement of the purchasing power of currencies in the flexible-exchange-rate system.(2008-11-17T20:23:43Z) Seka, Gilles-Eric Kotchi.; Gardner, H. Stephen.; Economics.; Baylor University. Dept. of Economics.In economics, it is not the quantity that matters the most; it is the amount of utility. The purchasing power of a currency is not merely the volume of goods the money can obtain, but the amount of utility it can command. Primarily, money exchanges for some units of time spent laboring. As such, the ratio of the utility of time to the money wage should measure the purchasing power of the currency. This marginal utility of the time is the first derivative of the utility production function, derived from the compound interest equation, with respect to time. It follows that the purchasing power of the currency is dependent on both the rate of interest and the wage rate. This measure of purchasing power allows computation of a purchasing-power-parity exchange rate that truly reflects the fundamentals of the economy.