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Essays On The Economics Of Federal Programs, Diego A. Guerrero

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation consists of three essays in public economics and the political economy of the public sector. The document contributes empirical evidence on the impact of public policies on households, firms, and government. This first essay revisits the evidence on the intergenerational effects of the earned income tax credit (EITC) on the adult income of individuals who received the tax credit during childhood. The empirical strategy exploits formulaic changes localized across socioeconomic status in the tax schedule, and finds that tax credit transfers during early childhood increase adult income between 1.7 and 2.7 percent per \$1,000. Furthermore, the paper links …

New Geographies Of Electronic Commerce: An Appraisal Of Omni-Channel Strategies In The United States Grocery Industry, Connor Reed

Doctoral Dissertations

This body of doctoral research investigates the unique geography of e-commerce [electronic commerce] offerings among major grocery chains in the contiguous United States. Prior research has made efforts to understand the demographic and spatial dynamics that may influence consumers’ decision to shop online or in-store. Far less emphasis, however, has been placed on how firms have made key strategic decisions across space regarding e-commerce. This work leverages spatial econometric modeling and machine learning to understand how the characteristics of trade areas inform grocery chains’ decisions about whether to offer pickup, delivery, both, or no offering at a given store location. …

Economics In Transition: Issues Applicable To Climate Change, Odysseus Bostick

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation presents three essays on topics that characterize the challenges of the energy transition. The first two focus on mitigating the worst impacts of climate change while the final hones in on adapting to climate change.

The first essay estimates willingness-to-pay (WTP) of electricity customers for rooftop solar within the Tennessee Valley Authority. Applying a conditional logit model, the probability of adoption rises with utility rates and emissions-reductions and declines with costs. Evidence of social contagion exists with adoption probabilities increasing 55 − 57% when respondents know someone with panels. WTP also rises. Comparing aggregated to regional WTPs confirms …

The Impact Of Guaranteed Income On Political Participation, Daniel Horn

Doctoral Dissertations

This three-paper dissertation examines the impact of guaranteed income (GI) and cash transfer (CT) programs on political participation, aiming to contribute to understanding how social policies can shape civic engagement. The first paper provides a comprehensive literature review on GI and CT programs, focusing on their potential effects on political participation. By analyzing existing studies, this paper identifies key findings and gaps in the literature, setting the stage for further empirical investigation. The second paper develops and tests a new instrument called the Brief Political Participation Scale (BPPS), designed to measure political participation concisely and reliably. The third paper presents …

Greenwashing “Brown Gold”: A Critical Analysis Of Anaerobic Digesters And California’S Neoliberal Environmental Programs In Wisconsin’S Dairyland, Sarah Emily D'Onofrio

Doctoral Dissertations

Large dairy farms, also known as concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), have turned to anaerobic digesters as the industry is increasingly pressured to find ways to lower their greenhouse gas emissions. Digesters are machines that turn animal waste from CAFOs into electricity and fuel which are then sold as “credits” in California’s market based climate change mitigation programs such as cap and trade and the low carbon fuel standard (LCFS) program. However, this dissertation not only challenges the assertion that digesters are “green,” but also that these programs are doing what they claim to do in a deregulated and re-regulated …

Three Essays In Experimental And Behavioral Economics, Vasudha Chopra

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation presents three essays that use experimental economics methods. The first essay examines how behavior in inter-group contests is altered when players have incomplete information on their opponent. The game is a Tullock contest with heterogeneous groups (differences in cost-of-effort, prize value, and group-size), and players only know the probability their opponent is a particular type. For cost and value treatments, incomplete information increases effort in uneven contests but has no effect in even contests. Group-level effort is higher in group-size treatments, but incomplete information does not systematically alter effort. Overall, group-level effort is much higher than what standard …

Essays In Applied Microeconomics, Bokseong Jeong

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation is composed of three essays in applied microeconomics, each studying the behavioral response to incentives and regulations. The first chapter tests whether weakening criminal sanctions based on the use of violence effectively reduces the severity of a criminal act. In 2013, the United States Department of Justice reduced sentence years for drug criminals who do not possess weapons. Regression Discontinuity Design estimates of the probability of weapon possession of drug offenders show an 11-percentage point reduction in Florida's border counties. The second chapter estimates the impact of the refugee influx in Germany on recorded crimes by the immigration …

Cross-National Variation In Women’S Rights: Europe And Civil War, Nourah Shuaibi

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation evaluates the impact of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) on Women’s Social, Economic and Political rights in post-Conflict countries. In order to evaluate the relationship with sound causal logic, I set out to study multiple relationships to understand the impact of the variables in question. Looking at the nature of the relationship required an evaluation in 3 ways, which culminated in the writing of 4 separate chapters. Chapter 2 demonstrates the importance of understanding Women’s Rights and their role in economic development and peace building. This places women’s rights in context to set the scene for the rest of …

Essays On Decision Making Under Risk And Uncertainty, Dong Yan

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation uses economic theory, in tandem with experiments and other empirical methods, to better understand the role of information – for instance, missing information, conflicting information, and information overload – in determining outcomes in decision settings characterized by risk and uncertainty. In my first chapter, I use theory and experiments to compare market outcomes in a setting where the seller has better information on product quality than the buyer, and examine the effects of introducing a third-party who can credibly relay information on product quality. Under a range of conditions, I find market efficiency is higher when the information …

Essays In Behavioral Economics, Jing Li

Doctoral Dissertations

In chapter one, I propose a model consolidating the norm- and preferences-based approaches to explain laboratory bargaining outcomes. Social norms are identified by the axioms of cooperative bargaining theory, and other-regarding preferences are captured using Fehr and Schmidt's inequity aversion utility function. The model applies to bargaining situations where other-regarding agents abide by social norms in their decision-making. Preferences and norms interact to determine bargaining outcomes, and their interaction undermines the recoverability of the other-regarding preference parameters based on observations from the lab.

In chapter two, I employ a lab experiment to study whether men receive lucrative tasks more often …

Essays In Applied Health Economics, Bongkyun Kim

Doctoral Dissertations

I study how change in environmental factors and information provision about environmental risk effect on human capitals and individuals' behavior.

Psychological maternal stress is thought to be a factor in poor infant health, but direct evidence is difficult to obtain. In first chapter, we posit that the 1994 Northridge earthquake in Los Angeles, California provides a natural test of the effect of mothers' stress on infants' birth weight and gestation. The Northridge disaster featured a low rate of injury and a quick recovery, but long-lasting and well documented consequences for mental health. Difference-in-difference results show that infants born closest to …

Factors Influencing Greenhouse Gas Emissions From Land Use, Land-Use Change, And Forest Activities, Pattarawan Watcharaanantapong

Doctoral Dissertations

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are a major global issue because of their effects on climate and the resulting environmental and human impacts. The primary greenhouse gases (GHGs), carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄), and nitrous oxide (N₂O), are emitted into the atmosphere from a myriad of human activities such as energy supply, manufacturing, transportation, commercial and residential buildings, and waste. Additionally, management activities on agricultural and forest lands can influence GHG emissions substantially. Even though GHGs can be released into the air via the sectors mentioned, GHGs, especially CO₂, can be removed from …

Essays In Applied Economics: Applications Of Transformed Ordinal Quantile Regression, Okila R. Elboeva

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation consists of three essays on the application of Transformed Ordinal Quantile Regression (TORQUE) developed by Hong and He (2010). TORQUE is based on jittered response, a nonparametric link function, a semiparametric quantile estimation. When the response variable is categorical an application of the standard quantile regression is not optimal. TORQUE technique generalizes ordinary quantile regression, and as a semiparametric method it is more robust than Maximum Likelihood Estimators.

In the first essay I estimate conditional quantiles of happiness using the data from British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) for 2006. I find the continuity assumption of happiness ranking does …

Incentive Based Residential Demand Aggregation, Qinran Hu

Doctoral Dissertations

From the beginning of the twenty-first century, the electrical power industry has moved from traditional power systems toward smart grids. However, with the increasing amount of renewable energy resources integrated into the grid, there is a significant challenge in power system operation due to the intermittency and variability of the renewables. Therefore, the utilization of flexible and controllable demand-side resources to maintain power system efficiency and stability has become a fundamental goal of smart grid initiatives.

Meanwhile, due to the development of communication and sensing technologies, intelligent demand-side management with automatic controls enables residential loads to participate in demand response …

The Effects Of Trade Competition On Health, And Determinants Of Workplace Behavior, Thomas Clayton Mcmanus

Doctoral Dissertations

My dissertation consists of three essays related to workplace behavior. In the first paper, we design a controlled laboratory experiment to study image motives in a setting where decisions signal intelligence. The experiment results show that in some settings social scrutiny can discourage individuals from making choices that signal their intelligence, despite evidence that the signal was privately valuable. In the second paper, we study the effect of Chinese import competition on occupational safety and health at US manufacturers. We find that a change in US trade policy and Chinese import shocks significantly increases worker injury and illness rates in …

Three Essays On The Economics Of Higher Education: How Students And Colleges Respond To Financial Aid Programs, Jilleah Gayle Welch

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation consists of three chapters that examine the impact of financial aid programs on students' enrollment decisions, student outcomes, and colleges' financial decisions. In the first chapter, I use discontinuities in eligibility criteria for a large merit scholarship program to examine the impact of aid on community college students' outcomes both during and after college. Community colleges enroll a large share of first-time freshmen but represent a much smaller share of financial aid research. Furthermore, researchers have focused on the impact of aid on enrollment and outcomes during college, but none have yet considered the impact of aid on …

Economic Wealth And Social Welfare: A Longitudinal Analysis Of Transnational Well-Being, Kelly Brooke Martin

Doctoral Dissertations

Macro changes in the financial arena have prompted ongoing research focused on global economic trends. As America emerges from an era of stagnant wages, rising unemployment, and growing class stratification it is necessary to explore differences in cross-national socioeconomic behavior to address the changing needs of our country. Many studies attempt to describe statistical correlations between economic wealth and social well-being domestically and abroad by utilizing methodological perspectives that do not account for longitudinal change. To address the gap in existing research, this study seeks to measure variations in econometric indicators between the U.S. and Nordic countries to further explicate …

Theory And Experiments Exploring Behavioral, Financial, And Public Economics, Matthew John Mcmahon

Doctoral Dissertations

I study three questions which relate to one another only in that each explores facets of economics. First, I theoretically examine the conditions under which introducing an impure public good decreases total public provision. I introduce a central planner who can tax the private good to correct this and identify the market characteristics that typify this scenario. Second, I test the two standard competing dividend puzzle hypotheses using a laboratory experiment. Evidence from the lab, including variables unobservable in the field, reinforces empirical work supporting the outcome model over the substitute. Last, I obscure from dictators information regarding recipients' income …

Essays In Environmental Economics And The Economics Of Higher Education, Justin R. Roush

Doctoral Dissertations

Maximizing welfare in the economy requires effective policies that mitigate negative externalities and incentivize positive externalities. My first paper concerns emissions at manufacturing plants in the US, a major source of negative externalities. Globalization has created concerns that pollution can move across country boarders. Therefore, I study the environmental performance of foreign manufacturing establishments in the US to test if foreign establishments in pollution intensive industries are heavy emitters. I find that foreign firms are not dirtier than domestic establishments on average. However, they are significantly cleaner in industries with high fixed costs and dirtier in industries with low fixed …

Exploring The Heterogeneity Of Other-Regarding Preferences, Langchuan Peng

Doctoral Dissertations

This project studies the impact of heterogeneous other-regarding preferences on many issues, such as taxation, government revenue and income inequality. The first two chapters build upon the literature of relative income effects pioneered by Duesenberry (1949). This hypothesis says that the utility of an individual depends on not only his absolute income level, but also his relative income position. An individual gains utility if his income exceeds the income of most members in his comparison group and loses utility if his income falls below the income of most members in the group. Most previous studies consider either a symmetric or …

Essays On Resource Allocation Efficiency And Behavior, Julianna Marie Butler

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation is comprised of three papers in the field of microeconomics. The first examines bidder’s choice auctions using both field and laboratory experiments. The field experiments demonstrate that traditional bidder’s choice auction theory does not always hold; the laboratory experiments subsequently isolate several characteristics of this auction format to explain why. We find that while price revelation does not impact the revenue superiority of the auction mechanism, multi-good demand significantly reduces the revenue premium. Intuitively, risk aversion plays less of a role when bidders have the opportunity to win multiple goods. The second chapter is theoretical and presents a …

Theoretical And Empirical Essays On The Effects Of Proposed And Existing Environmental Policies, Luke Robert Jones

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation consists of three chapters that explore environmental policy. Chapter 1 empirically investigates the potential for incentives to encourage the adoption of low-emission alternatives to gasoline motorcycles. Hanoi, Vietnam, like many Asian cities, is experiencing rapid growth in the ownership of personal gasoline-powered motorcycles and scooters, and along with this heightened air quality issues. Electric scooters have the potential to reduce air pollution as an alternative to gasoline-powered motorcycles; however, electric scooters have yet to penetrate the Vietnamese and other large Asian markets. This study uses a choice experiment survey to elicit the demand for electric scooters, with focus …

Essays On Financial Fraud And Tax Evasion, Martin W. Tackie

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on the problem of misreporting in the corporate setting, where managers may commit accounting fraud, and in the public sector, where taxpayers may not truthfully report their income. Both accounting fraud and income misreporting have contributed to unprecedented financial losses to shareholders and governments respectively. As a result, policy-makers and shareholders are focused on one goal, that is, to mitigate the occurrence of accounting fraud and income misreporting. The process of achieving this goal starts with understanding how compensation contracts and tax schemes influence an agent’s willingness to misreport. This dissertation pursues these objectives using a blend …

Essays On Capital Gains Taxes And Housing, Zachary William Richards

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation is a collection of three essays regarding the effects of federal taxation of residential capital, with a focus on owner-occupied housing. Owner-occupied housing is granted a number of tax subsidies under the federal individual income tax code. Among them are the mortgage interest and property tax deductions and the tax exclusions on imputed rental income for the homeowner and capital gains from the sale of a primary residence.

In the frst essay, entitled \Does the Exclusion of Capital Gains Taxes on Housing Promote Labor Mobility?", I examine the impact of the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 (TRA97), which …

Essays On Urban Sprawl, Julie L. Marshall

Doctoral Dissertations

Essay 1

Sprawl is an ill-defined and complex concept and this contributes to the difficulties in addressing it. Many studies and local policies are implemented without defining the very situation that is trying to be prevented. In this dissertation, I address this issue by computing and empirically testing a number of different measures that capture some of the elements of sprawl. While controlling for a number of other explanatory factors, I examine different fiscal factors that may contribute to the level of sprawl an area experiences. Because the property tax is the predominant source of local tax revenue, my main …

Choice Experiments: Application To Air Quality Policy Options And Investigation Of Method's Incentive Compatibility, Jill Phillips Collins

Doctoral Dissertations

More than half of all Americans live in areas that violate at least one of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s air quality standards for ground-level ozone and fine particulate matter. The majority of these areas have many options to come into compliance with the standards, such as requiring vehicle inspection/maintenance programs, changing gasoline blends, and requiring additional controls on power plants. Chapter 1 explores the use of conjoint-based choice experiments to assist local policymakers in determining the most beneficial policy strategy using the case study of Knoxville, Tennessee. Given that different policy actions pass costs onto households in different ways …

Justification Of Antisocial Behavior, Wiliam Robert Walton

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to further the study of conditional reasoning (CR) methodology to study personality. The direction of the expansion was two fold. First was to increase the content area of the study of aggressive personality by developing justification mechanisms (JMs) for antisocial behaviors. Second, was to determine the feasibility of using different reasoning-based tasks to measure JMs. Thus the development of a CR based reading comprehension task to measure antisocial JMs was undertaken. This study represents the preliminary investigation of the viability of this measure.

The Conditional Reasoning Reading Comprehension test (CR2C) was administered to 833 …

The Impact Of The Louisiana Lottery On Salaries In Education, Melissa Vicknair Melancon

Doctoral Dissertations

The study was undertaken to decide whether lottery revenues impacted teachers' salaries in Louisiana. Economic recession brought on by the collapse of the oil and gas industry, disgruntled taxpayers, and the lure of easy money prompted Louisiana legislators to pass a bill adopting a state lottery. Initially, all funds were earmarked for education. Subsequently, lottery revenues were deposited into the general fund. Yet many thought the lottery would be a significant source of money for education and teachers' salaries.

Logged annual salaries were used in models for university teachers and for elementary and secondary school teachers. Variables were incorporated to …

The Relationship Of Loneliness And Social Isolation To Dietary Adequacy Of Noninstitutionalized Elderly Individuals, Dellmar Walker

Doctoral Dissertations

Characterizing older persons as being lonely and socially isolated has been widely suggested, yet it has not been substantially supported. Furthermore, loneliness and social isolation have been identified as contributing to dietary inadequacies among elderly individuals. The purposes of this study were to evaluate the dietary adequacy of elderly individuals in Rutherford County, Tennessee, and to determine whether differences could be attributed to loneliness, social isolation, physi­cal health, functional status, and participation in Title III congregate meal programs .

Sixty-one independently living elderly individuals over the age of 60 years participated in the study. Three-day food records were used to …