|
|
My research interests are in
economic corruption, economic development, empirical growth models, global development,
good governance and institutions and macroeconomic volatility,
as well as the education of economics.
Institutions and Economic Growth:
Published Papers
Williams, A.,
E. Birch and P. Hancock (2012)
‘The Impact of On-Line Lecture Recordings on Student
Performance’,
Australasian Journal of Education Technology
[28(2): 199-213].
The use of online lecture
recordings as a supplement to physical lectures is an
increasingly popular tool at many universities. This
paper combines survey data with student record data for
students in a Microeconomics Principles class to examine
the relative effects of lecture attendance and on-line
lecture recordings. The main finding is that students
using the online lectures as a substitute to attending
lectures are ultimately at a fairly severe disadvantage
in terms of their final marks. Moreover, students
attending few face-to-face lectures do not close this
gap by viewing more lectures online.
In contrast to this,
students who attend the majority of lectures in person
do receive a benefit from additional use of the lecture
recordings. The results provide empirical evidence that,
when used as a complementary tool, lecture recordings
are a valuable supplement for students. However, when
used as a substitute to attending lectures, lecture
recordings provide no additional benefit.
Williams, A (2011)
Shining a Light on the Resource Curse: An
Empirical Analysis of the Relationship Between Natural
Resources, Transparency and Economic Growth - World
Development [Vol. 39 (4) - 2011]
One of the most common policy prescriptions for
overcoming the so-called ‘resource curse’, particularly
for extractive industries, has been to call for greater
transparency and accountability from governments.
However, despite the conceptual attraction of this
policy, it has never been empirically proven that
resource-rich countries are actually less transparent
than other countries, and whether this lack of
transparency has had a significant negative effect on
economic growth. Using a relatively new index of
transparency that has extensive coverage, both across
countries and time, the results suggest a strong and
robust negative causal association running from (point)
resource export revenues to transparency. Furthermore,
there is also some evidence that this lack of
transparency is associated with a subsequent decrease in
economic growth.
[Regression results not reported in paper (excel)]
Williams, A. (2009)
On the
release of information by governments: Causes and
consequences - Journal of Development Economics
[Vol. 89 (1) - May 2009]
The release of economic and social data by a
government provides many benefits to its
citizens on a number of different levels.
Information has value in itself (for example, to
facilitate a more efficient allocation of
resources), but it could also perhaps be seen as
a signal of the degree of political and
institutional transparency. In order to evaluate
the potential association between the release of
information and the institutional and economic
circumstances across countries, a new index is
developed that has extensive coverage across
countries (175) and time (1960–2000), and is
based on the quantity of reported socioeconomic
data contained in the World Development
Indicators and the International Finance
Statistics databases. Using a series of
Granger-causality regressions, the release of
information by governments is shown to have a
significant positive effect on the quality of
the bureaucracy in the short run and, in the
longer term, a significant effect on investment
and financial sector development. In terms of
reverse causality, the evidence shows that the
degree of constraints on the executive branch of
government and education both have a positive
effect on the quantity of data released by
governments.
Williams, A, A. Siddique (2008)
The use (and abuse) of governance indicators in
economics: a review - Economics of
Governance [Vol. 9 - 2008]
The relatively recent increase in empirical work
on the relationship between governance and
economic performance has come about largely as a
result of the development of a series of
indicators that has allowed this relationship to
be quantified. For the researcher, it is
important to understand the advantages and
disadvantages of these indicators, both to
ensure the appropriate indicator is chosen, and
to be aware of the limitations each entail. To
that end, this paper reviews the common
indicators used in empirical analysis, as well
as some of the other estimation problems that
can arise when using these
measures.
|
|
|
Economics of Education Papers:
Williams, A.,
E. Birch and P. Hancock (2011)
‘The Impact of On-Line Lecture Recordings on Student
Performance’, UWA Discussion Paper 11.09.
Birch, E. and
Williams, A.
(2011),
“The impact of supplementary on-line resources on
university academic performance: A study of first-year
economics students”, paper presented at the First
Year Higher Education Conference, Fremantle, June 2011.
Birch, E. and
Williams, A.
(2010), ‘The
importance of prior knowledge of the subject studied in
explaining the academic outcomes of first-year commerce
students’,
paper presented at the Quantitative Analysis of Teaching
and Learning in Higher Education Forum, Melbourne,
Australia, February 2010.
Birch, E. and
Williams, A.
(2009), ‘Do
PASS programs improve the academic performance of
poor-performing first year university students?’ paper
presented at the
12th Pacific Rim First Year in Higher
Education Conference 2009, Townsville, Australia, July
2009.
Birch, E. and
Williams, A. (2009),
‘The
determinants of academic performance in first-year
university economics: the importance of prior knowledge
of economics?’,
paper presented at the 14th Australasian
Teaching Economics Conference, Queensland University of
Technology, July 2009.
Birch, E. and
Williams, A.
(2009), ‘Do
peer-to-peer learning programs improve the academic
performance of poor-performing first year university
students?’, paper presented at the Teaching and Learning
Colloquium, University of Western Australia, May 2009.
|
