Successful Economics and Policy Conference
The recent academic conference held on Economics and Policy was a resounding success, exemplifying the cross-disciplinary, applicable nature of the subject matter.
Marriner Sponsored Confernces
The Marriner S. Eccles Institute for Economics and Quantitative Analysis sponsors several conferences each year, including the Utah Winter Organizational and Political Economics Conference and the Utah Tax Invitational (UTAXI).
QAMO Major: Enriching the Student Experience
Quantitative Analysis of Markets & Organizations (QAMO) majors builds analytical, technical, and problem-solving skills by utilizing game theory and econometrics to answer real-world questions.
Consumer Protection in Auto Lending
Jen Brown and Mark Jansen , 2020. In a study that examines the impact of consumer protection laws on loan terms and outcomes in auto financing, the authors find that while laws prohibiting wage garnishment benefit borrowers who default, borrowers who pay their debt in full face higher total observable loan costs where wage garnishment is [...]
Crossing the District Line: Border Mismatch and Targeted Redistribution
Allison Stashko, 2020. Using a probabilistic voting model in which parties compete to win legislative districts but can only allocate resources at the county level, the author shows that a mismatch in electoral district borders and local government borders—which occurs in every U.S. state—distorts the distribution of public funds. [download pdf]
Should Utah eliminate the sales tax on food?
Utah legislators are once again debating whether to eliminate the sales tax on food, in hopes of giving a break to lower-income households. But Eccles School professor Adam Looney argues in a new op-ed that while the proposal is laudable in its aims, it is based on a misinterpretation of economic data. Most of the [...]
Assessment Caps and the Racial Assessment Gap
Troup Howard and Carlos Avenancio-Leon, 2022. We show that legislative caps on assessment growth are associated with reduced racial inequality in property taxation. These reductions increase in treatment intensity and are largest in high minority neighborhoods and low-income neighborhoods, which prior work shows are more susceptible to assessment misvaluations. [download pdf]
Do Police Maximize Arrests or Minimize Crime? Evidence from Racial Profiling in the U.S.
Allison Stashko, 2020. In a study that aims to identify the type of discrimination driving racial profiling in police stops, the author solves two models of racial profiling and finds evidence that police officers search for illegal activity in order to maximize arrests, not to minimize crime. [download the pdf]
The Consequences of Student Loan Credit Expansions: Evidence from Three Decades of Default Cycles
Adam Looney and Constantine Yannelis, 2021. This paper studies the link between credit availability and student loan repayment using administrative federal student loan data. We demonstrate that policy-driven changes in credit available to high-default institutions explain almost all of the historical time-series variation in defaults. [download pdf]
Probability-Based Estimates of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 Seroprevalence and Detection Fraction, Utah, United States
Adam Looney, Matthew Samore, Steven Alder, Andrew T. Pavia, Nathan Seegert, Maclean Gaulin, Brian Orleans, Kristina Stratford, and Mu-Jeung Yang, 2021. We aimed to generate an unbiased estimate of the incidence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection in 4 urban counties in Utah, USA. [download pdf]