Research @ BaylorBusiness -- Hankamer School of Business
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Browsing Research @ BaylorBusiness -- Hankamer School of Business by Author "Gwin, Carl R."
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Item Do We Really Understand Home Ownership Rates? An International Study(2005-08-13T17:12:19Z) Gwin, Carl R.; Ong, Seow-EngThis paper attempts to fill two gaps in the homeownership literature identified by Dietz and Haurin (2003): homeownership in less developed countries and the effects of race, ethnicity and income on tenure choice. We use United Nations data from 1993 and 1998 to offer a cross-country analysis of the determinants of homeownership rates. Consistent with the previous literature, this study confirms that 1. The price-to-rent ratio is an important factor in tenure choice and 2. Increases in income are associated with increases in the percentage of consumers who choose to own. However, these relationships seem to hold generally only for higher income developed countries. In contrast to the previous literature that finds race and ethnicity account for a significant portion of the differences in U.S. homeownership rates, this study finds no evidence that these determinants account for differences across countries. We investigate the rule of law and find it is closely correlated with income measures which may indicate that countries with stronger laws encourage higher homeownership rates. Finally, capitalist / (formerly) communist regime differences do not appear to explain cross country differences in homeownership rates. The paper offers insights from the international evidence for the potential of selected policies to increase domestic homeownership rates and identifies several avenues for future international homeownership research.Item Does Consumer Search Matter for Firm Markups?(2005-08-13T17:08:44Z) Gwin, Carl R.This study investigates the relationship between consumer search costs, inflation, and firm markups in retail trade by employing actual measures of search cost. Consistent with theory, results indicate that markups can be higher if search costs are higher and increases in inflation lead to increases in markups if search costs are sufficiently high. Two competing hypotheses on the link between inflation and markups, namely consumer search costs and alternatively long-term seller/buyer contracts, are then evaluated. As long-term contracts are rare in retail trade, this study's results make it hard to justify studying how inflation impacts firm markups without considering search costs.Item Religious Freedom and State Religion in an Interational Panel(2005-08-13T17:37:13Z) Gwin, Carl R.; North, Charles Mark, 1964-This paper explores the determinants and implications of church-state relationships. A theoretical model of a government’s decision to establish, or disestablish, a state church is developed and then tested with data from a 65-year panel of 31 countries. We also examine the effects of state religion and legal protection of religious freedom on religious attendance and religious pluralism. We show that, due to economies of scale in the provision of religious services, governments are most likely to establish a state religion in countries with homogeneous populations. We further show that heterogeneity of religious preferences reduces the likelihood of a state religion, that state religions undermine the overall religiosity of the population in religiously pluralistic countries, and that religious freedom protection increases religious attendance and spurs increases in religious pluralism. The overall implication of our model and empirical findings is that state religion is inherently self-destructive when religious freedom is guaranteed.