Laura E. Armey

The Impact of Electronic Financial Payments on Crime

In this paper, we test the hypothesis that access to electronic payments may reduce crime. Our results suggest that there is a negative and significant statistical relationship between access to electronic payments and the incidence of economic crimes such as robbery and burglary, while electronic transactions do little to reduce the incidence of non-economic crimes such as homicide and rape. This paper provides evidence that policies and technologies that enable the proliferation of cashless transactions have the desired impact of deterring crime.

Are phones fun? Usage and barriers to adoption for wireless data services among the younger generation of Asians

Using the World Wide Mobile Data Services Study, which provides multi-year multi-country data, we find that cultural differences are critical drivers of wireless data service adoption. We also find that age differences drive patterns in mobile data service adoption. Difficulty does not detract from use for younger users who are also interested in fun features. Demand, however, remains driven by usefulness and younger users, who are not yet using wireless data services for work, are less inclined to pay for them.

Taking technology to the field: hardware challenges in developing countries

ABSTRACT A great deal has been written about the various socio-political, economic, and cultural reasons that information and communications technologies (ICTs) fail to achieve the potential they represent. Far less attention has been paid to the technology itself, and the role that the hardware plays in the success or failure of ICT4D. Along these lines, we find a disconnect between much of the scholarly ICT4D research and many of the needs and concerns of practitioners and intended beneficiaries. Using interviews and surveys, this article asks ICT4D practitioners and end-users about the technology and hardware needs and challenges they face in the field. These practitioners consistently suggest that electricity is the most important hardware-related concern, followed closely by cost, robustness/ruggedness, and ease of maintenance/repair. We argue for the inclusion of hardware and technology considerations in the planning and implementation of ICT4D projects. Failure to address these concerns may account for the underperformance of many technologies in the development context.

Women at War: Understanding the Impacts of Combat on Women’s Educational Attainment

Abstract This paper offers a first view on the potential economic outcomes for American women serving along-side men in combat roles. Specifically, this paper examines the impact of deployment and exposure to intense combat for women who served in the most high-risk occupations open to them in Iraq and Afghanistan on their subsequent use of GI bill benefits for higher education. It also compares these women to men who served in the same capacities and women who served in lower risk occupations. Women in general, and in these occupations in particular, were more likely than their male counterparts to use the GI bill. Following deployment, this paper presents robust evidence that women in all capacities, and men, were more likely to use their GI bill benefits. Moreover, exposure to intense combat, which was far more likely to impact these women than other women, detracted from their propensity to use the GI bill. This negative impact on pursuit of higher education was similar for both men and women. Taken together, this paper provides evidence that deployment may benefit the young men and women alike who serve in the U.S. military, and that both suffer together when faced with exposure to intense fighting.

Minimizing Public Sector Corruption: The Economics of Crime, Identity Economics, and Money Laundering

Abstract This paper offers a simple strategic framework to help governments identify various policy mechanisms to minimize public sector corruption. The paper offers a formal model that blends the economics of crime with identity economics and money laundering. It presents a partial equilibrium framework that focuses on a representative public official engaged in a mix of legal and illegal effort. The model introduces various levers a government might use to impact the costs and benefits of illegal effort. The ultimate goal is to help turn volatile vicious cycles of political instability, into steady virtuous cycles of stability, growth, and sustainable development.

What Goes Up Must Come Down: Military Expenditure and Civil Wars

Abstract This paper examines the impact of civil war on military expenditure. We employ two measures of military expenditure: the share of military expenditure in general government expenditure and the logarithm of military expenditures. We would reasonably expect a priori that military expenditure as a share of general government expenditure increases during a civil war and that such increases would taper off over the duration of a civil war. We also explore whether the termination of a civil war induces a decline in the share of military expenditure as a share of the general government expenditure in the short-run. We find evidence the of share of military expenditure increases during a civil war and falls in the year succeeding the end of a civil war, and, in particular, if a war ends in a peace treaty. The level of military expenditures, however, rises during civil wars and does not appear to decline in the short-term after the end of a civil war.

Send Me: Racial Selection in Deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan

In this paper, we consider whether important criteria determined whether military service members would be sent to serve in Afghanistan or Iraq during the recent US-waged campaigns in those countries. Exploiting a comprehensive database of administrative records for 300,000 members of the US Armed Forces, we find evidence of severe bias in the selection of personnel deployed to these conflicts. Specifically, we find that African American or those who were married and had children were far less likely than other service members to have been deployed to serve in combat zones, and were less likely to face intense combat if deployed.

Hard lessons: combat deployment and veteran interest in higher education

ABSTRACT Over 2.5 million Americans served in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In this short article, we consider the impact of these experiences on their future welfare. Specifically, we ask if those who served in Afghanistan and Iraq are more or less likely to exploit their GI Bill benefits in order to pursue higher education than service members who did not directly participate in these conflicts. We exploit a comprehensive administrative dataset that the US Armed Forces’ Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC) provided to us. We find across models that deployment to Afghanistan or Iraq significantly increases the likelihood that veterans will take advantage of their educational benefits, but that exposure to violent combat significantly decreases it.