Date of Award
1-1-2019
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Ph.D. in Economics
First Advisor
Joshua R. Hendrickson
Second Advisor
John R Gardner
Third Advisor
Andre Liebenberg
School
University of Mississippi
Relational Format
dissertation/thesis
Abstract
The price-specie-flow mechanism (PSFM) is a theory of the adjustment of the balance of trade and gold flows as a result of deviations in relative prices across countries under a gold standard. The PSFM is central to quantity-theoretic discussions of economic fluctuations under a gold standard as well as analysis of whether central banks follo``the rules of the game'' of the gold standard. In short, the PSFM is the standard working assumption when it comes to gold standard adjustment. However, at least since Adam Smith there has been an alternative to the PSFM that has come to be known as the monetary approach to the balance of payments. The distinction between the PSFM and the monetary approach have important implications for both quantity-theoretic explanations of economic fluctuations as well as the interpretation of the so-called "rules of the game." In the first chapter, I outline and test the empirical predictions of each theory to determine which is more accurate. The evidence is mixed, but largely favors the monetary approach to the balance of payments. In the second chapter, I use the national level skill group framework pioneered by Borjas (2003) to estimate the impact of immigration on the wages and the employment rates of native men and women separately. I find that a 10\% increase in immigrant labor supply depresses wages of native women by about 3.5 percentage points but does not have a significant effect on the wages of native men. In exploring the possible explanations for the differences in wage impacts, I find that human capital differences could account for a large portion of these differences. There is not much support for blanket discrimination against immigrants and native women as a group, but the result could still be consistent with a more detailed discrimination story.
Recommended Citation
Boateng, Kwabena Okyere, "Essays On Money And Labor" (2019). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 1918.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/1918