Firm heterogeneity and lobbying

The structure of protection across sectors is usually interpreted as the result of competition among lobbies to influence politicians, but little attention has been devoted to the importance of individual firms in this process. This paper builds a model incorporating firm heterogeneity into a lobbying setup `a la Grossman and Helpman (1994), in a monopolistic competitive environment. We obtain that increased sectorial dispersion cause a fall in equilibrium tariff provided that the exporter’s cutoff is above the mean of the distribution. Also, higher average productivity brings about a fall in the equilibrium tariff, whereas an increase in export costs cause an increase in the tariff. JEL Classification codes: D43, D7, F12, F13, L11

The impact of the 2008 economic recession on three residential property type investments: a case study of five diverse zip codes in Washington DC, USA

There has been 47 recessions in the United States of America (US) since 1790. US recessions have increasingly affected economies of other countries in the world as nations become more and more interdependent on each other. The worst economic recession so far was the “Great Depression” – an economic recession that was caused by the 1929 crash of the stock market in the US. The 2008 economic recession in the US was a result of the burst of the “housing bubble” created by predatory lending. The economic recession resulted in increased unemployment (according to NBER 8.7 million jobs were lost from Feb. 2008 to Feb. 2010); decrease in GDP by 5.1%; increase in poverty level from 12.1% (2007) to 16.0% (2008) (NBER) This dissertation is an attempt to research the impact of the 2008 economic recession on different types of residential investments: a case study of five (5) diverse neighborhoods/zip codes in Washington DC, USA The main findings were that the effect of the 2008 economic depression on the different types of residential properties was dependent on the location of the property and the demographics/socio-economic factors associated with that location.