First Author:   Amitrajeet A. Batabyal Department of Economics, Rochester Institute of Technology aabgsh@rit.edu   Department of Economics, RIT, 92 Lomb Memorial Drive Rochester, 14623-5604, United States   585-475-2805(Phone) 585-475-2805(Fax) http://people.rit.edu/aabgsh Second Author: Hamid Beladi Department of Economics, University of Texas at San Antonio Hamid.Beladi@utsa.edu