Digital Commons Network^™

Limitations Of Law Enforcement Involvement In Harm Reduction: A Multivariate Analysis Of State-Level Policies And Overdose Deaths, Marilyn L. Brach

Senior Theses and Projects

Research Question: How do state-level policies authorizing law enforcement to carry and administer Narcan while on duty shape overdose mortality?

Methods: State-level policies Narcan administration policies were examined and categorized. A cross-sectional regression analysis was performed to evaluate the factors influencing state variation in drug overdose deaths. Following bivariate analysis, a panel regression analysis was then executed to precisely estimate the relationship between state-level law enforcement Narcan administration policies and drug overdose deaths.

Results: The cross-sectional analysis provided findings that were largely consistent with the current literature. A higher proportion of non-Hispanic white individuals and a higher proportion of individuals …

Recessionary Woes: Examining Economic Policies And Their Impact On Student Loan Debt And Housing Stability In The United States, Connor Recck

Senior Theses and Projects

Recessionary periods can seldom be avoided, but our modern public infrastructure has designed mechanisms to respond to these downturns. Economic policy has rapidly changed over the last 50 years, and the types of tools policymakers use have evolved with it. When looking at the Great Recession (2007-2009) and the COVID-19 recession (2020), a federal response structure was vital for the health of the macroeconomy. These recessionary periods serve as case studies for a review of economic policymaking activity in the United States since 2000. To examine the efficacy of the federal government’s fiscal and monetary infrastructure, policies focused on supporting …

The Impact Of Trade Liberalization On Informality: Evidence From Egypt And Kenya, Hanjatiana Nirina Randrianarisoa

Senior Theses and Projects

In 2015 the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa launched the Tripartite Free Trade Area, a continental trade agreement meant to boost intra-African trade. In addition to more extensive trade liberalization, these agreements are expected to significantly impact labor market dynamics and, according to most observers, boost employment opportunities. Most studies to date examining labor market outcomes in member countries focus only on the changes in formal employment opportunities. This is an important shortcoming because in many African countries, informal employment represents 50% or more of total employment. This thesis examines the impact of these deregulatory trade policies in …

The Dragon’S Neocolonial White Elephant Development: China’S Urban Infrastructure In Lusaka, Zambia, Kaytlin Ernske

Senior Theses and Projects

Presently, China is the largest donor, trading partner, and investor on the African continent. The current success of Sino-African relations can be traced back to global South-South cooperation beginning in the 1960s and 1970s when China assisted in funding independence movements across the African continent. Since then, China established itself as a reliable friend and alternative aid provider. The country has since transitioned from utilizing aid to foreign direct investment. Since 2013, China has continued to bolster its own global economic positioning by pushing a foreign policy agenda (One Belt One Road) that targets developing countries by providing massive loans …

The Demography Of Paid Family Leave As Applied To Connecticut, Mary Tursi

Senior Theses and Projects

Paid family leave policies have become an international standard, influencing how Americans view parental rights. This international influence has garnered domestic support, resulting in a few US states passing their own policies. Given that every state is unique, it is important to understand how demographic and policy differences influence leave usage in the presence of a paid leave policy. Using data from the Current Population Survey, these effects will be analyzed using difference-in-difference estimations on California, which has an existing paid leave policy, and then applying them to Connecticut, whose paid leave policy has yet to be implemented. The model …

Gender Bias In Self Perceived Confidence And Competence, Danielle Bibeault

Senior Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Bitcoin As A Global Currency: Exploring The Wild West Of Cryptocurrency, Ben Feola

Senior Theses and Projects

Bitcoin, and its contemporary substitute cryptocurrencies, are an exciting new evolution in our concept of money. However, there are currently factors holding back Bitcoin, the largest player in the cryptocurrency market, from a wider mainstream acceptance and adoption. The greatest force working against cryptocurrency’s ability to be an accepted method of exchange is its extreme price volatility which cannot be completely attributed to insufficient liquidity (Dyhrberg 2018). This research reexamines several GARCH models using a larger window with more observations than previous researchers, and determine that a GARCH(1,1) with an AR(6) term in the mean equation provide the best fit. …

The Effect Of The Affordable Care Act's Medicaid Eligibility Expansion On Labor Supply, Shannon Hebert

Senior Theses and Projects

Medicaid is a program that uses funds from the states and federal government to provide healthcare coverage to millions of Americans. A key goal of the 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA) was to expand Medicaid eligibility to include all adults with income below 138 percent of the federal poverty level. Unintended labor supply consequences may arise due to this eligibility expansion. This paper seeks to determine what the effect of the ACA’s Medicaid eligibility expansion on labor supply is.

In 2012, the Supreme Court ruled to make the expansion optional for states. As a result, many states chose not to …

Using Institutional Characteristics To Estimate Return On College Education, Nate Choukas

Senior Theses and Projects

Since the 1980s, the college wage-premium in the United States has reached all time highs. As a result, college education is a critical benchmark in securing high paying jobs. While the bachelor’s degree serves as a gateway into more lucrative careers, postsecondary education can be very costly, with some taking on substantial amounts of debt to finance their schooling. Despite the increasing wage-premium, there is an even wider earnings disparity amongst college graduates than between graduates and non-graduates. Research on higher education returns suggests that most individuals – even those ranked as having low ability – benefit financially from their …

Urban Development In Hartford: Neoliberalism, Inequality, And Trinity College As An Anchor Institution, Eavan Flanagan

Senior Theses and Projects

This thesis explores the ways in which neoliberal governance takes place in Hartford, CT, particularly as the city struggles to make ends meet. It looks at the Hartford's dependence on corporations, and its growing political and economic alignment with universities. This research examines the effects of urban renewal on the city, and how post-war policies and development shape the inequalities that exist in Hartford today. Lastly, this thesis examines the inequalities and spatial dynamics in Hartford's Southside neighborhood, Frog Hollow, and between Trinity College and Frog Hollow in particular.

Monetary Policy At The Zero Lower Bound: Implications Of High Costs Of Credit During A Recession, Louisa Kammerer

Senior Theses and Projects

This paper examines the challenges policymaker (and firms) encounter when confronted by a recession at the zero lower bound, when traditional monetary policy is ineffective in the face of deteriorated balance sheets and high costs of credit. Within the larger body of literature, this paper focuses on the cost of credit during a recession, which constrains smaller firms from borrowing and investing, thus magnifying the contraction. Extending and revising a model originally developed by Walker (2010) and estimated by Pandey and Ramirez (2012), this study uses a Vector Error Correction Model to analyze the effects of relevant economic and financial …

Leave-Taking’S Prevailing Effect On Real Wage Growth: Paid Vs. Unpaid Maternity Leave, Soe Han Tha

Senior Theses and Projects

Paid maternity leave’s effect on women’s real wage growth is indeterminate in theory. Paid maternity leave could help a woman return to the same job postpartum, reducing the unemployment in between jobs (which we see as external leaves). Simultaneously, paid maternity leave could incentivize women to take more leave within a job (which we see as internal leaves). According to the human capital theory, if more women increase leave-taking due to the subsidy on leave and the cheaper opportunity cost of pregnancy, women’s overall productivity will decline and their wage growth will slow down. This analysis uses the National Longitudinal …

Sovereign Debt Crises: Domestically Engineered Or Foreignly Influenced?, Michael C. Selfe

Senior Theses and Projects

Throughout the last half century, the world has seen its fair share of systemic banking crises covering every corner of the globe. Recently, the Eurozone crisis of 2010 and ongoing Argentinian debt crisis have continued to plague the global economy. The motivation behind this thesis is to examine what causes these sovereign debt crises. More specifically, it aims to examine whether these crises are caused by monetary and fiscal policy decisions implemented by central banks or if outside factors including the role of financial institutions are to blame. This thesis examines a number of individual case studies with regards to …

Does Human Capital Play A Role In The Growing Income Inequality In The Oecd Countries?, Jordan A. Cram

Senior Theses and Projects

Researchers have tried to determine reasons for the growing income inequality in the OECD countries, but human capital is not a reason typically addressed. This paper empirically seeks to determine a relationship between human capital and income inequality using multiple regression analysis. I hypothesize a negative relationship; meaning increases in the independent variable, average human capital in a country, will cause a decrease in the dependent variable, income inequality due to the idea that increases in education should increase the incomes of the poor more than those of the rich. Income inequality will be measured by the Gini coefficient and …

Twin Crises And The Financial Accelerator, Andrew Calabrese

Senior Theses and Projects

The incidence of simultaneous banking and currency crises is a recurring theme in emerging economies operating under fixed or quasi-fixed exchange rates. This thesis conducts an empirical analysis of the underlying determinants of so called “twin crises” by applying a probit econometric model to a sample of 48 emerging economies during the 1980-2013 period. Current account deficits are found to be a robust driver of twin crises, with vulnerability increasing in the size of the deficit relative to GDP. There is also evidence that real exchange rate appreciation and higher levels of short-term debt relative to reserves increase crisis probability. …

Deflation And Economic Output, Brian T. Love

Senior Theses and Projects

This paper will look at deflation and its relationship to economic output. This is an area of economic research that has received relatively little attention and, where it has, researchers disagree as to the how the two variables relate. In order to explore these questions, the following analysis will consider data from a sample of eight countries in VAR equations to look at the relationship between prices and economic output since the mid-1800s with control variables to limit potential omitted variable bias, and Granger-causality testing as well as impulse response testing to further analyze obtained results. The resulting analysis provides …

The Impact Of Earnings Announcement Surprise On Stock Prices, Jiayi Huang

Senior Theses and Projects

The 2008 financial crisis and recent volatility in global markets have provided important motivations to better understand the functioning of equity markets, since stock market crashes can trigger severe recessions through wealth and balance-sheet effects. Against efficient market theory, the literature has found much evidence that stock price movements seem unrelated to expected future movements in corporate fundamentals. This thesis investigates the impact of earnings announcement surprise on stock prices and contributes to the existing literature by examining the impact’s dependency on various factors (the P/E ratio, the output gap, whether the forecast error is positive or negative, and the …

Is There A Long-Term Relationship Among European Sovereign Bond Yields?, Ian Schaeffer

Senior Theses and Projects

Senior thesis completed at Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut for the degree of Bachelor of Science in Economics.

How Do People Update Beliefs About Themselves Under Risk, Zhongyi Tang

Senior Theses and Projects

This paper aims to understand whether people follow Bayes’ Rule to update beliefs about important attributes they do not know much about. If they fail to Bayesian update their beliefs, the paper investigates how the external environment, good news versus bad news, risk levels, and the imperfect memory factor contribute to the departure from Bayes Rule. An experimental approach is used to recreate a simplified entrepreneurship scenario in the laboratory environment which was implemented through oTree. 249 participants were recruited through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. Findings in this paper suggest that people with Low ability have tendency toward overconfidence which persists …

United In Diversity? The Political Implications Of Intra- Eu Migration, Isabel Monteleone

Senior Theses and Projects

Intra-EU migration is a phenomenon innate to the structure of the European Union. A politico-economic union of twenty-eight countries, the EU does what no other alliance of countries has endeavored before, serving as a unique product of globalization and integration, in every sense of the word. Bound almost entirely by a common currency, the European Union is established in the belief that economic cooperation in Europe can be achieved through the principle of free movement, despite each member states’ individual way of life, language, and political, religious, and cultural ideology.

Since intra-EU migration allows for the possibility of EU integration …

Profits With Purpose: An Economic Justification Of Conscious Capitalism, Luke Hickox

Senior Theses and Projects

For years, mainstream economic theory has assumed that the only legitimate purpose of business is to maximize profits. In Conscious Capitalism: Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business, authors John Mackey and Raj Sisodia reject this assumption, arguing that many firms have a genuinely motivated higher purpose. In addition to having a purpose beyond profit maximization, the conscious business model proposed by the authors calls for maximizing value for all stakeholders (employees, customers, suppliers, society, the environment, and investors), instead of for investors exclusively. However, the authors cite a number of examples of practices of conscious businesses that are justified in …

Corruption And Economic Growth In The Middle East And North Africa, Nour Chamseddine

Senior Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Transmission Of Banking Crises Using A Proximity Based Learning Model, Steven Yee

Senior Theses and Projects

In financial markets, banks play a key role in transforming illiquid assets into more liquid assets. However, their ability to spread the risk of liquidity shocks over a body of agents generates a positive probability for non-efficient bank runs. Building off of the classic Diamond-Dybvig framework, this paper uses an agent based model to observe the two equilibria, efficient risk sharing and the bank run. While previous literature has looked at under what conditions could a bank run equilibrium occur, this proximity based learning model (PBLM) focuses on the development of a panic driven bank run in light of limited …

How The Lack Of Copyright Protections For Fashion Designs Affects Innovation In The Fashion Industry, Serena Elavia

Senior Theses and Projects

The fashion industry is a multibillion dollar industry that continues to grow. Currently, there is an ongoing debate on whether or not fashion designs should be able to receive copyright protections due to a phenomena called fast fashion. Fast fashion is when low end designers copy high end designs from both the spring and fall Fashion Weeks, produce the copied product quickly and sell before the high end good is released to stores. Copying in the fashion industry is possible because there are no copyright protections granted to fashion designs. With recent legislation introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives …

China's Unbalanced Development, And What We Can Learn From It, Manfredo F. Camperio Ciani

Senior Theses and Projects

This paper argues that China’s development is unbalanced, and to see the unbalance we must divide the concept of development into different categories representing its different aspects, such as economic, urban, social, and sustainable. By looking at the different characteristics of development through time, it is possible to see where the unbalance lies. Furthermore, we learn that by categorizing the nature of development, we can gain a more comprehensive insight into the development of individual countries. In conclusion, this paper proposes the creation of a possible Development Index, as it can provide greater understanding of each country’s development.

Balance Of Power In Monetary And Fiscal Policymaking And Its Effect On Economic Outcomes, Rachel Ng

Senior Theses and Projects

By analyzing the balance of power between key policymakers involved in restoring the economy back to health during two periods in history – the Nixon administration and the 2008 financial crisis –, my thesis reveals the detrimental effects the political business cycle has on the success of recovery. In the Nixon era, the evidence supports the notion that Nixon coerced Burns into lowering interest rates past Burns’ threshold, which exacerbated inflation and sent the economy into the dismal state of stagflation. Contrary to the popularly held belief that the Fed acts as an arm of the Treasury, Bernanke held his …

Distribution And Debt: How Consumption And Household Debt Can Affect Economic Growth, Jeremy Rees

Senior Theses and Projects

Over the past 30-40 years, consumer debt has grown substantially faster than income in the United States. As a result, consumption has grown fast relative to national income. The economic growth that we have experienced in the US economy has shown to be unreliable as demonstrated by the Great Recession in 2007-2008. By creating unstable growth, consumer behavior could be an explanation behind the recession as well as the cause of future economic downturns. This paper implements a new theory of consumption practices and tests for the stability of economic growth and sustainability of consumer debt by using a neo-Kaleckian …

Negative Externalities And Environmental Regulation: An Application Of The Principal-Agent Model, Emily Hickox

Senior Theses and Projects

This thesis considers optimal enforcement strategies in the context of principal-agent relationships for industries where there is a high risk of negative externalities. The 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill—the largest accidental spill of all time—is used as a case study to highlight the regulatory issues that can arise in industries that can have far-reaching and negative impacts on society. An in-depth analysis of the events surrounding the disaster makes it clear that complex principal-agent relationships between agencies and firms are common in the industry, as are problems with conflicting objectives, improper incentives, and moral hazard. As these are all features …

Online Or Traditional University: A Comparison Of The Labor Market Returns To College Type, Leslie Schotz

Senior Theses and Projects

In a time when the rising costs of education have deterred students from seeking a college degree, finding a cost-effective alternative to a traditional university has become an increasingly important issue. This study seeks to evaluate the labor market returns to earning a degree online versus a traditional university through an econometric regression based on survey data of recent graduates from online and traditional universities. Regression analysis compares average income for graduates of online and traditional institutions while controlling for measures of school type, characteristics, selectivity, and region at the institutional level. The effect of college type on average income …

A Piece Of The Puzzle: Can Behavioral Insights Help Understand Currency Returns?, Samuel D. Russell

Senior Theses and Projects

This paper finds further evidence using a Cointegrated Vector Autoregression to support claims against the Uncovered Interest Rate Parity (UIP) ex post, referred to as the Forward Discount Anomaly (Fama, 1984). This anomaly suggests predictable profits simply from investing in a country with a higher interest rate. Potential explanations could be attributed to risk or deviations from the rational expectations hypothesis. UIP ex ante is tested using survey data. These results indicate a time-­‐ varying risk premium. Further it is found that this premium is related to the gap between the exchange rate and Purchasing-­‐Power-­‐Parity value. Additionally it is determined …