Gregory Brock

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• PhD
• Professor (Full) at Georgia Southern University

The economic performance of Chechnya is examined for the first time using an aggregate stochastic frontier production function method. The 15 sectors of the economy are found to be quite inefficient in the use of capital and labour to produce aggregate output. Extensive growth is likely to continue though at a lower rate as federal subsidies from M...

Using a stochastic frontier production function at the raion (county) level of aggregation, Rostov Oblast rural economy’s formal economic growth 2009–2013 is analyzed in conjunction with satellite luminosity data capturing both the formal and informal economy. Satellite luminosity data reveal a growing economy with higher levels of secondary educat...

Local economic growth 1990-2011 along Mexico’s southern border is analyzed using a stochastic production function with subject-specific fixed effects and the convergence literature. An underlying Translog technology fits the data well with excess physical capital and labor evident. Local border economies converged following a neoclassical growth pa...

Regional Chinese infant mortality rates (IMRs) are examined using a stochastic frontier method for the first time. The composite error term method yields estimates of large underreporting of IMRs over time and provinces in China during the past 30 years. China does not follow the standard growth paradigm of more growth leading to lower IMRs. Fiscal...

Russian regional life expectancy at birth is shown to improve 1996-2019 using the average life expectancy as well as by gender with the extremely high gender gap decreasing. Life expectancy at the traditional retirement age also increases using a broad measure of economic development (Human Development Index) but not with a narrow measure (per capi...

Whether convergence wealth clubs exist across U.S. states is the aim of this study with wealth being defined as either home equity or stock market holdings. Using the nonlinear econometric Phillips and Sul “log t test” method that permits multiple equilibria, overall wealth and stock market per capita wealth are found to β-converge in growth rates...

What is happening in the labor market of Latin American migrants in the U.S. in terms of the relative demand and supply of workers defined by their occupation, when occupations are classified as non-routine and routine and, within these, into cognitive and manual tasks.

Using a nonlinear time varying factor model of club convergence with monthly COVID mortality data across Russia’s regions, two clubs of regions are found with most regions in a club with a higher mean mortality rate per one thousand inhabitants. No geographic regularity is evident though four remote regions appear to be better off than all the othe...

Using convergence estimations, the economies of the towns and districts of Rostov Oblast are shown to be resilient to four shocks to the economy – initial sanctions (2019), initial COVID and continuing sanctions (2020), continuing sanctions and worsening COVID (2021), war, harsher sanctions and declining COVID (2022). Agricultural output is resilie...

The study uses industry-level data to examine the drivers of Russia’s economic growth in 2000–2008, when the average annual growth rate was 6.45%, in comparison with 2010–2016, when it fell to 1.75%. We apply the stochastic frontier method to quantify input-driven, technology-driven, and efficiency-driven growth. The influence of the world oil pric...

Counterfactual estimates of excess deaths in Russian regions in the period 2020–21 are compared with officially reported COVID deaths to analyze underreporting. COVID mortality levels at the end of years 2020 and 2021 as well as annual growth during 2021 and the first half of 2022 reveal that COVID is a real threat to high labour productivity regio...

Labor productivity in rural Rostov Oblast is examined before and after the 2014 Ukrainian incursion across forty-three districts using six economic sectors' wages and labor force. A shift-share analysis indicates that throughout 2010-2021 improved aggregate labor productivity was primarily due to intra-sectoral rather than inter-sectoral labor real...

Using a general method of moments (GMM) aggregate production function adjusted for spatial autocorrelation, Russian regions 2001–2019 are found to exhibit no β convergence/divergence before 2009, 1% convergence 2009–2014 and then none again 2015–2019. Both human and physical capital contribute to aggregate growth as neoclassical theory predicts. Sp...

North Ossetia-Alania (NOA) regional mortality over thirty years of transition is described in detail for the first time. Though NOA and other Caucasus regions are perceived to have higher life expectancy than Russia overall, we find that, like the rest of Russia, men live much shorter lives in both rural and urban areas. Urban mortality is lower fo...

Counterfactual estimates of excess deaths in Russian regions in 2020 are compared with actual deaths to measure the initial COVID impact. COVID is a real threat to high labor productivity regions and those with relatively bigger defense sectors. Corruption is surprisingly found to lower excess deaths. Legacy Soviet human capital and early Putin era...

Economic growth and β-convergence of American states 1963–2015 is analyzed adjusting for significant spatial autocorrelation with system-GMM by considering the four Census macro regions individually. The Census regions converged over the last 50 years with both physical and human capital contributing to growth. In an early era (1963–1983), converge...

We examine energy efficiency in the European Union (EU) using an integrated model that connects labor and capital as production factors with energy consumption to produce GDP with a limited amount of environmental emissions. The model is a linear output-oriented BCC data envelopment analysis (DEA) that employs variables with non-negative values to...

Although coffee is still an important agricultural commodity in Colombia, the coffee share of GDP has significantly declined over the past 40 years. Controlling for changes in relative prices, factor endowments, and technological change, we analyze the coffee share decline in conjunction with other agricultural output by applying a Vector Error Cor...

The paper empirically examines municipality convergence within Mexico’s southern Oaxaca region. We find municipalities are converging more rapidly than the “iron law” of 2% with up to 8% β convergence. Though homicides from the Drug War have negatively impacted growth, overall crime perhaps through strengthening local institutions has a positive bu...

The quarterly empirical relationship between Mexican manufacturing labor productivity and salaries 1993-2015 is examined for causality and whether first order labor market equilibrium is evident. An equilibrium would mean salaries and labor productivity are cointegrated. Wages above productivity levels may lead to calls for government intervention...

Satellite data used in combination with a stochastic production function method reveal an inefficient formal economy in rural Rostov Oblast 2013-2015 embedded in an overall (formal and informal) relatively efficient economy with the measurement of both important to better understand non-economic impacts of sanctions. Increased military activity may...

FDI in to the ten counties of Lithuania 1997-2013 is substantial and widely dispersed. Applying a standard model of FDI impact on regional economic growth reveals dispersion of FDI as well as the amount has contributed to stronger regional growth. Results are not sensitive to the uniqueness of greater Vilnius though the county with the national cap...

Using a recently developed stochastic Translog production function frontier model, technical inefficiency, technological progress and returns to scale are examined during Russia’s 1998–2007 cyclical expansion at the branch level including both the market and non-market economy. The service sector plus high skill-intensive goods production is shown...

The impact of economic conditions on mortality in a large transition economy is analysed using county level data (NUTS III) from post-communist Romania 1997-2014 and a fixed-effects model. Overall mortality, circulatory diseases mortality, neoplasms mortality and external cause mortality move counter-cyclically relative to economic growth. The long...

The impact of electricity consumption on aggregate regional Mexican industrial labor productivity is examined using a stochastic production function. Electricity consumption is also used to gauge macroeconomic informality that varies greatly across regions with no geographic advantage in reducing it. Unlike prior research, persistent regional techn...

Using a spatial dynamic panel, the long-run industrial sector convergence rate across Mexico’s states is found to be 2%. The model is a system-General Method of Moments with correction for spatial autocorrelation and an explicit human capital input. The significant inequality between the richest and poorest states is caused by differences in factor...

Purpose – Has the Mexican inter-regional growth and convergence experience also occurred within single regions? Using the important southern region of Veracruz, the purpose of this paper is to examine this question over a 48-year period within a single Mexican state. Design/methodology/approach – Growth is examined using a standard two input stoch...

A recently developed stochastic frontier production function methodology is used to estimate econometrically how technical efficiency, technological progress, and returns to scale contributed to US states’ economic growth in 1979–2000. Improved regional human capital data that are superior to the traditional “years of school” data are included. In...

Using recently available night lights and electricity consumption data for the 212 municipios (counties) of Veracruz state in southern Mexico, the informal economy is analyzed at the Mexican county level for the first time with such data. Most counties between 2000 and 2006 are found to have growing informal economies though the richest county, Boc...

A production function analysis of the 32 Mexican regions reveals almost no technological progress and human capital impact in Mexican industry over a 44 year period. While extensive growth is found prior to 1985, little evidence for extensive or intensive growth except for the labor input is found. Recently developed variables for infrastructure su...

A stochastic production function analysis of the 212 regions of Veracruz province in southern Mexico reveals some inefficiency in manufacturing, mining, trade and service sectors in recent years. Poverty indices appear to influence a region’s ability to combine capital and labor to create output and value added in some years indicating a reduction...

Using the latest data (2009) and one historic year (2000) from a Russian nationally representative household survey, a tobit demand model is estimated to examine influences on both the decision to smoke and the quantity of cigarettes bought by Russian women of working age over the past decade. Our results suggest that better educated women smoke si...

Students’ attitudes towards economics as well as their knowledge of economics before and after taking a college introductory economics class is examined using standardized multiple choice economics knowledge and attitude questions. Prior knowledge of economics, having a bank account, and other biographical information are used to hold constant many...

Russian macroeconomic growth in the transition era is analysed across federal districts using a neoclassical production function often found in studies of Soviet-era economic growth. An adjusted capital stock series for Russian regions is created and used in the aggregate production function for 1995–2003 to analyse growth across the 11 federal dis...

Foreign Direct Investment in the United States is analyzed using a stochastic production function with FDI as an input. Low but significant technical inefficiency is found across American states similar to earlier studies but now with FDI explicitly accounted for. FDI is found to have a low but significant impact on regional economic growth. Suppor...

With the price of wheat and corn skyrocketing on global markets, farmers in developed countries might rightly question whether developing countries’ grain exports constitute a growing threat to their well-being. This paper discusses grain exporting by two transition countries - Russia and Ukraine - that may be seen as potential competitors to devel...

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in to the 10 counties of Lithuania is analyzed for the first time using new regional data now available for this small transition economy. At the county level, Lithuania appears to be exhibiting export led growth which is increasing business and household incomes despite a substantial number of workers leaving the co...

Using a unique large sample survey, the knowledge and attitudes of Georgia high school economics teachers towards economics is examined for the first time. Teachers are found to have a good knowledge of economics with perhaps more training needed in supply/demand analysis and monetary economics. A minority of teachers don't like economics and even...

In the intensely competitive retailing sector of the new EU accession countries, retailers often compete on the basis of diversification or high growth. With high growth, discount pricing is the key. As new member countries often have households with a low purchasing power, price-based competition is widespread. However, as these economies grow, re...

White Americans have long resisted the idea of reparations to the descendants of slaves. We examine the psychological basis of such resistance, primarily testing the possibility that resistance may be a function of Whites’ perception of the ongoing cost of being Black. White participants (n = 958) across twelve independent samples (varying in age,...

This article examines wages in rural Russia after the first decade of economic transition using data from a nationally representative household survey. The stochastic frontier analysis reveals that Russia's rural labour markets place high value on human capital. The overall level of rural wages, however, is very low, with the median wage 10% below...

Using recent regional data from Russia, the pattern of trade of Russia’s regions with the CIS and rest of the world (non-CIS) is examined using a series of gravity equations. Some evidence of shifting trade patterns toward non-CIS countries is found, but trade still has an inward orientation from the Soviet era reflecting infrastructure and other t...

Household income in rural Russia 2000-03 is examined using a nationally representative household survey. Household plots narrow the income gap between urban and rural households and are essential as both a means of subsistence for poor families and a source of extra income for wealthier households. Unemployment lowers household income per adult sub...

Regional economic growth in Russia's regions in 1995-2000 is analysed with particular attention paid to FDI and how it influenced growth during this period. FDI appears to have been essential before the 1998 crisis in helping the economy grow despite the initial chaos of the transition. Larger regional economies that have garnered most FDI and perh...

A stochastic frontier wage equation is employed to examine labor-market efficiency and estimate workers’ potential wages in Russia after a decade of economic reforms using a nationally representative household survey. Dynamic monopsony underpayment, defined as the differences between the highest wage a worker with given characteristics could earn a...

The closed cities of Russia are usually depicted in terms of their location production, and consequences for international security. However, be cause these cities are financed directly out of the federal budget, they also provide a window into Russia’s "nuclear fiscal federalism." The system of closed cities constitutes a fiscal archipelago that w...

An unusually detailed sample of large farms in Rostov, Ivanovo and Nizhny Novgorod regions of Russia in 2001 allows microeconomic examination of the production of grain and sunflower crops on Russian farms. Farms are found to have some excess capital and labour, but not land and other types of capital. New operators are found to be more efficient t...

A sample of 200 farms in the Leningrad Region of Russia is examined 1995-1998 using a stochastic frontier production function. Farms are found to have excess land and capital stock supporting findings in the literature. Proceedings of the Pennsylvania Economics Association 2003 Conference, pp. 299-307

Based on two rounds of a nationally representative household survey, this paper presents an exploratory study of risk factors and the economics of the decision to smoke by adults in Russia in the second half of the 1990s. With an overall smoking prevalence of 32.2%, smoking is much more prevalent among men (61.4%) than among women (10...

Applying a stochastic industrial production function at the aggregate city level for 72 cities in a single Russian region reveals industry in a variety of cities is quite similar in the ability to produce gross industrial output efficiently during the early transition era 1993-95. Weak evidence is found for cities becoming more diverse in industria...

U.S. states during the 1977-1986 business cycle are found to have small but significant technical inefficiency in the private sector. Inefficiency is influenced by several factors, including prior economic performance, location, Hicks labor augmenting technical progress in the manufacturing sector in an earlier 1970s period, college graduation, and...

Analyzes the impact of the telecommunications sector on Soviet economic growth using Granger and Sims causality tests. East European Quarterly, 2000, Vol 34(3), pp. 319-335

This note examines how the closed cities fared during the 1998 crisis using very recent 1998 annual budget data combined with earlier 1996 data to reveal a public finance crisis within cities containing some of Russia's most sensitive production plants.

Because of the lack of Russian Federation analysis and data availability at the federal level, the focus is on a single region that has been previously thoroughly analyzed with a production function during the Soviet era. Two specific questions can be addressed. First, with the current need to understand whether the bottom of both regional and fede...

Using 1971-90 panel data from a Siberian province, two econometric methods are used side by side to examine technical inefficiency with a suggestion as to how the methods might be used in sequence. Estimates derived from a random effects method reveal that technical inefficiency is both substantial and not time invariant. Results using either a ran...

In this paper, foreign direct investment (FDI) into Russia's regions during the period 1993-95 is analysed using recently available regional data. Russia's regions are shown to be much richer than China's, but much poorer than US states, though with far less FDI than either country. FDI into the regions is also low compared to both Western and East...

Scattered across Russia is an 'archipelago' of cities whose existence until recently was not even indicated on maps. These are the ZATO (zakrytye administrativno-territorial'nye obrazovaniya) or closed cities. Existing mainly outside the regional budget, these cities are financed directly by the federal budget although they use services provided by...

An analysis of crop variability over the long time period 1923-1989 allows comparison of agriculture in two economic systems - independent Lithuania and occupied Soviet Lithuania. East European Quarterly, Vol. 32(2), 1998, pp. 129-138

Using a large sample of farms in Volgograd province over a three year period (1988-1990), farm performance is examined using a stochastic production frontier method. Along with the widespread shortages of labor and machinery known to be endemic to the Soviet agriculture sector, the relative efficiency of farms is found to vary considerably within s...

Describes financing of secondary education in the U.S.

Using 1984-1989 firm level data from Vilnius, Lithuania, the industrial structure of a former Soviet city is examined for the first time. A combination of two panel data stochastic frontier methods is used to derive indices of relative technical inefficiency of firms within several branches in Vilnius. Economic Systems, Vol. 19(2), 1995, pp. 1-22

A sample of 345 collective and state farms in Volgograd province, Russia, provides data to test how state orders (goszakazy) affected farm productivity, and whether the price regime discriminated against farms with high quality land. Did the price regime impede agricultural reform by causing resource misallocation or a mistaken association of profi...

Panel data collected recently in Irkutsk Province show that significant technical inefficiency existed across industrial branches between 1970-1991. Technical inefficiency is much more widely dispersed across branches than has been previously reported in other studies suggesting the need for more microeconomic research. Economic Systems, Vol. 17(2)...

Comparative Economic Studies focuses on theoretical and policy issues faced by economies which were formerly centrally-planned. It also deals with the debates faced by both emerging and mature market economies; the latter are examined in the light of new circumstances and the need for institutional change. These analyses may be comparative in natur...

Comparative Economic Studies focuses on theoretical and policy issues faced by economies which were formerly centrally-planned. It also deals with the debates faced by both emerging and mature market economies; the latter are examined in the light of new circumstances and the need for institutional change. These analyses may be comparative in natur...