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Three Essays On Incentive Mechanisms, Kuangli Xie

Economics Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, I use both theoretical and experimental methods to investigate incentive mechanisms of the sort commonly used by firms and governments. I have finished three chapters, two of which focus on how firms choose the appropriate incentive mechanisms to motivate their employees and the other one investigates how governments design mechanisms to improve social welfare. Chapter two provides a novel explanations why stock options are widely used in executive incentive contracts. Chapter three titled ``Ask Your Workers to Report Frequently, But Not Too Often'' studies how having employees reporting their progress to supervisors affects the employees' work effort. …

Bilingualism: Visualizing The Outcomes For Latinx Students In The United States, Paul Polanco

Teaching and Learning Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I analyzed the outcomes of bilingualism for the growing Latinx community living in the United States. Outcomes were quantitatively analyzed from four different perspectives: educational outcomes, job market participation, income, and social capital engagement. Chapters 1 and 2 cover previous studies about bilingualism, the importance of including outcomes that are not purely related to income, and general characteristics of the Latinx community. To perform the analyses, I used the Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002/2012 (ELS:2002) dataset, a nationally representative dataset administered by the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) of the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department …

The Effect Of Perceived Corruption On Voter Turnout In Post-Communist Countries In The European Union: Evidence From The Life In Transition Survey Iii, Ivana Pancurakova

Theses and Dissertations

This paper measures the effect of perceived corruption on voting in post-communist countries in the EU using probit models, Dong and Lewbel’s special estimator, and two stage least squares models. Corruption has a significant and negative effect on voter turnout even when controlling for the endogeneity in the corruption variable.

Economic Development And Peace: To Be Pursued In Tandem, Allison Fisher

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Peace and economic development are often regarded as separate fields with little overlap. The association with the field of economics makes the latter seem more measurable, more tangible, and therefore more academic. However, a shift is taking place as peace practitioners and researchers discover ways to compare the level of peace within and between countries. Current research in peace studies shows a salient link between the level of economic development and the level of peace within societies. Researchers that work in these two fields must pursue them simultaneously and jointly. The purpose of this paper is to highlight evidence of …

An Evaluation Of The Impact Of Leading Pedestrian Interval Signals In Nyc, Jeremy J. Sze

Theses and Dissertations

I evaluated the impact of the phased introduction of Leading Pedestrian Interval Signals (LPIs) on collision and injury outcomes at 12,987 signalized traffic intersections in New York City over the course of 25 quarters from 2012 to 2018. An intersection is treated when a LPIs is installed to give pedestrians lead time to cross the street before vehicles are allowed to move. Outcomes from NYPD’s Motor Vehicle Collisions data were matched to signalized intersections. I hypothesize that LPIs would reduce collisions and reduce injuries for pedestrians at intersections. A difference in difference fixed effects panel regression was used to identify …

The Quality Of Xbrl Structured Financial Statements: An Empirical Examination Of Custom Tags, Aidana Razhap Kyzy

Theses and Dissertations

In 2009 the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) adopted the eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) system to improve the process by which financial statements can be used. Interactive financial data filed with the SEC using XBRL provides easily readable and comparable financial data, thereby improving transparency and efficiency in the corporate market. SEC rules permit companies to use custom tags in their financial reports in cases when an appropriate element cannot be found in the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) standard XBRL taxonomy. The inordinate use of custom tags may result in a reduction of financial report quality by …

Essays On Convex Weighting For Global Vector Autoregressive Models, Garrison Leach

Economics Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on studying the impact that weighting schemes can have on forecasting performance and dynamic analysis in global vector autoregressive (GVAR) models. The first chapter discusses an existing gap in the literature regarding weighting scheme choice and develops a simple, yet powerful method for defining richer spatial linkages in a way that doesn’t sacrifice economic context. The new technique called convex weighting, extends the set of available options for defining spatial linkages in models that handle the curse of dimensionality via compression and offers a justifiable approach to alleviating uncertainty. The second and third chapters apply the newly …

Does Family Income Determine A Children Future Educational Attainment Level?, Diaisha T. Richards

Applied Economics Theses

Family income and education have been a major concern in a variety of researches, and as a topic in society. These two components are a major concern because they are known to be key elements in determining future success for an individual. Various studies investigated the significance, correlations and impacts these two factors have on one another. It is common for the amount of family income obtained to determine how much education one will receive in the future. This study focuses on testing the hypothesis that family income determines how much education a child will receive in the future. By …

The House That Credit Built: How Advertising Shaped A Culture Of Borrowing In The Decade Of Prosperity., Morgan Folden

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is an examination of the visual rhetoric of the advertisements in 1920s America that encouraged consumers to implement payment plans to purchase commodities. It begins with an analysis of a standard advertisement found in a popular subscription journal and describes the ad’s reliance on an editorial-style layout to appeal to the rationality of the viewer, a theme common among marketing schemes of the surrounding decades. It uses an art historical approach to provide a new lens in studying capitalist economics and the provocative issue of empowerment versus confinement in the general visual representation of American housewives. The latter …

Essays On Paid Family Leave In The United States, Beila R. Leboeuf

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Chapter 1: The first chapter is a literature survey that reviews the empirical research conducted on paid family leave in the United States. This chapter summarizes the documented benefits of paid family leave on women's labor force participation, leave usage, and children's health. Also, evidence that suggests potentially harmful effects of paid family leave is discussed. Possible directions for future research are explored, and the chapter concludes by considering the implementation of a national paid family leave program in the United States.

Chapter 2: The second chapter replicates and extends the results of Rossin-Slater et al. (2013). The purpose of …

Spreadsheets-In-Space: A Quantitative Exploration Of Movement, Currency Creation, And Conflict Within Eve Online, Christopher Alan Pryor

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

EVE Online is a massively-multiplayer online game with complex interactions between players and their unique, virtual environment. These relationships are the ongoing results of a conflict-driven economy, but they vary both in duration and by location.

This study attempts to quantify the direct effects of movement and indirect effects of conflict upon economic activity in the form of currency creation and delineate how successfully these relationships can be quantified by narrower time-spans and areas. Results of the mediation models used in this exploration indicate the changing relationship between movement (Ship Jumps), conflict (Ship Kills), and currency creation (Faction Kills) is …

Neighborliness: A Call To Racial And Socioeconomic Equity In Charlotte, North Carolina, David Daniel Docusen

Doctor of Ministry (DMin)

In Mark 12:28-34, Jesus is challenged by an expert in religious law to identify the most important commandment. He replies that loving God and neighbors is the most important of the over six hundred commandments. This research project investigates how healing can come to communities that have been racially and socioeconomically divided when a spirit of biblical neighborliness is present. The ubiquity of this call to neighborliness throughout Scripture highlights the importance of this topic, but special emphasis is given to Mark 12:28-34 and Isaiah 58:1-14 in order to focus the effort and scope of this dissertation.

Chapter One surveys …

Essays In The Economics Of Education, Breyon J. Williams

Theses and Dissertations

I examine, separately, the impact of three education programs on student achievement, using difference-in-differences and difference-in-difference-in-differences designs. First, I examine whether spillover benefits on achievement exist from preschool. I estimate the effect of exposure to a South Carolina preschool program that targets disadvantaged four-year-olds on students’ test scores in grades 3 through 5, where exposure means residing in a school district once the program was made available and disadvantaged students are those eligible for free or reduced-price lunch or Medicaid. I find that exposure to the preschool program not only increases the math and reading scores of targeted students, but …

Bowling Green Business: The Incentives Inciting Economic Growth, Paul Garbarino

Honors Projects

This paper analyzes the different factors and incentives influencing company and business site selection decision making. Policy incentives offered by governments for businesses, such as tax exemptions and reductions, subsidies, and promises of quality community life are evaluated for their effectiveness. This paper focuses on the City of Bowling Green, OH as a case study on what attracts businesses into local, smaller municipalities. Three manufacturer's within the Bowling Green jurisdiction are closely evaluated to determine what factors, including location, labor force, and quality of life, influenced their decisions to operate in Bowling Green.

Women And Stability: A Topological View Of The Relationship Between Women And Armed Conflict In West Africa, Michaela A. Pendergrass

Theses and Dissertations

The relationship between women and stability, if any, is a topic of much debate and research. Several large and influential organizations have all researched women's effect on stability. Furthermore, several of these world organizations, the United Nations, in particular, have declared gender equality to be a driving force in promoting stability and conflict prevention. Due to the United States active involvement in conflict prevention in such regions as West Africa, research concerning the relationship between women and stability is of particular interest to the United States Africa Command. As such, this research applied Topological Data Analysis, combined with other machine …

Evaluating The Impact Of Federal R&D Spending On Patent Registration: A Nasa Case Study, Jack Davis

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This paper examines the question of what impact federal R&D spending has on patent registration and future technological innovation. Because the causal relationship between federal R&D and patent grants is difficult to determine given aggregate trends and endogeneity, I use the sharp changes in NASA R&D funding between 1959 and 1975 as an interrupted time series. These unique circumstances, caused by the Space Race, make this time period a valuable event study in which to consider the impact of federal R&D. 1,996 unique patents granted to NASA and NASA-affiliates are considered, as well as an additional 19,845 unique patents which …

Pink Tape: Leftist State Bureaucracy And Neoliberalism In The Mining Sectors Of Bolivia And Ecuador, Cristina Nicole Mendez

Senior Theses

Latin America is the locus of various policy experiments and social movements, where political and economic leaders have vacillated between prioritizing neoliberalism and social security since the 1960s. Scholars have observed Latin American leftist governments for viable alternatives to neoliberal economics, but such projects have effectively failed to truly change the course of economic development in Latin America (Weyland, 2010; Escobar, 2010). One of the most salient contemporary instances of this ideological conflict has been the issue of land use rights and neo-extractivism, particularly in mining conflicts in the Andes of South America. This thesis posits that so-called leftist political …

Three Essays In Industrial Organization, Yiyi Hu

Economics Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation includes two papers about issues in two-sided markets and one paper discussing hierarchical Stackelberg model.

Chapter 1 analyzes endogenous horizontal product differentiation in a two-sided market with two platforms based on a two-stage Hotelling model. When the two sides are both single-homing, the platforms will choose maximal product differentiation in the equilibrium. However, when one side is multi-homing, and the multi-homing side views the platforms indifferent, the platforms choose minimal product differentiation in the equilibrium.

Chapter 2 investigates horizontal mergers in a two-sided market between three horizontally differentiated platforms. This chapter provides a theoretical analysis of impacts on …

Welcome To The Neighborhood: A Spatial Analysis Of Crime And Housing Values, Anthony Senick

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Crime is an obvious unwanted problem in any population anywhere in the world. Not only does it present problems for public safety, but it crime has negative monetary costs as well. One such way these costs can be observed is in their effect on property values. Past studies have examined this relationship between crime and housing values using the hedonic housing price model and spatial analysis, and I attempt to perform a similar analysis, but with the inclusion of new variables and spatial techniques, for the City of Akron, Ohio. With 2017 housing sale data provided by the Summit County …

Russian Climate Politics In 2019: Concessions And Trade Offs, Nikita O. Minin

Senior Projects Spring 2019

In the paper portion of this project, Russia’s political justifications for the signing of the Kyoto Protocol and the refusal to sign the Paris Accord are analyzed. Russia’s current adaptive strategies and trajectory towards creating a potentially devastating future for the planet are assessed in terms of their economic justifications. Overall this paper argues that the Paris Accord needs to be amended to be economically and politically fair for all signing countries. Currently Russia could lose GDP if they signed the accord, and this is presented as the primary reason for Russia’s refusal to sign. The thesis of the paper …

The Economic And Social Values Associated With Small South Dakota Lakes, Aaron Patrick Sundmark

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The valuation of small fishing lakes is a vital component in understanding the importance of fishing and of recreational resources, in general. Knowing the values associated with such lakes is essential when prioritizing management activities. The overall value of a lake as a resource for human benefit is estimated as the summation of both instrumental and non-instrumental values. Instrumental values consist of economic and utilitarian values, as well as the values that a lake provides from ecosystem services. Non-instrumental values consider what the lake is worth as a good of its own, such as aesthetic, moral, and spiritual values gained …

The Size Of The Multiplier: Comparing Alternate Views After The Great Recession, Daniel Focht

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis reviews the major theoretical frameworks and their outlook on the government spending, its effectiveness, the implied size of the multiplier and how they differed in empirical studies. This is followed by an estimation of the government multiplier for the major U.S. fiscal policy, namely the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), after the Great Recession of 2007-2009. Own estimation of the size of the multiplier is presented using a standard SVAR model based on New Keynesian approach for time period between 2009 and 2018. In addition, following the classical economic theory, the multiplier is recalculated in the absence …

Modeling And Forecasting Glacier National Park Visitation, Michael James Kernan

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

National parks have recently seen increased visitation demand. Glacier National Park is located in an area where changes in weather and climate will occur at an accelerated rate. Changes in fire and precipitation regimes are taking place at a time when Glacier National Park is setting new visitation records. This paper uses regression and forecast models to investigate the changing landscape of park visitation.

Findings suggest important impacts to monthly visitation and cycling on Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier National Park are associated with forest fire activity and precipitation. The conclusions of this paper support perceptions about the effect natural occurrences …

How Informational Imperfections Lead To Sub-Optimal Solutions In Health Savings Plan And Potential Remedies In A Competitive Marketplace, Jacob Gene Dengg

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the growing trend of consumer-driven health insurance, more consumers than ever have access to a high-deductible health plan paired with a health savings account, where consumers can save pre-tax income for healthcare but also face higher out-of-pocket prices, in hopes that consumers will become smarter shoppers. The Health Savings Plan is successful at lowering costs, but at the expense of consumers lowering their adherence to healthcare, raising health risk. Even in a competitive market, HSP plan designs require smart shoppers and more active healthcare self-management, but without dealing with the informational imperfections that need to be overcome to encourage …

Financial Crisis And Bank Lending Behavior In Nigeria, Michael A. Oyakojo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Bank lending is an important monetary policy transmission channel with significant impact on economic growth in Nigeria. The research was conducted to test the hypothesis that given the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) / government financial intervention, there is a significant increase in the lending behavior of Nigerian bank during and post 2008 financial crisis. Total loan ratio is the proxy for bank lending behavior while the dependent variables are bank specific characteristics like total assets, core deposit ratio and macroeconomic variables like the 91-day Treasury bill rate and inflation rate.

Using the fixed effects regression technique, it was observed …

Measuring The Economic Costs Of Workplace Sexual Harassment On Women, Maureen R. Cowhey

Scripps Senior Theses

Workplace sexual harassment costs the government and companies millions of dollars a year. Women who experience sexual harassment in the workplace suffer from negative mental and physical health problems, lower career attainment, decreased productivity, and a higher rate of job turnover. Sexual harassment is both costly and unjust, however the exact cost to women who experience sexual harassment is unknown. This thesis will measure the impact of workplace sexual harassment on wages in different industries. Using data on claims filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, I calculate and analyze the impact of sexual harassment on wages, age, sex, and …

The Role Of The State In International Trade Theory And Policy: Historical Evidence From South Korea And Brazil, Sumaiya Nehla Saif

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Since the early 1980s, the economic performance of individual countries has been increasingly dependent on global dynamics. Neoliberal policies, including free trade, have been fostered by the global community for both mature and developing economies, led by the view that free markets constitute the driving force of economic growth and development. Accordingly, the World Trade Organization (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) - in addition to the developments within mainstream economic theory - have contributed to portray the state as the carrier of inefficiencies and market distortions, which prevent the unfolding of economic freedom and …

New Technology, Old Ways? The Gender Price Discount In Online Contemporary Art Auctions, Madeleine Peterson

Scripps Senior Theses

There is evidence there is a global gender price gap in traditional global art auctions. Taking into account recent technological advances in the secondary art market, this study examines if there is a gender gap for the sale prices of female artists’ work in the contemporary, online art auction market. The analysis uses a unique data set of art works sold in Christie’s Online-Only Auctions for the year of 2018. We regress measures of price on gender and controls for various characteristics of the art work and artist. We find that while there is discount in prices of 17% for …

A Comparative Analysis On Output Gap - Inflation Relation: The New Keynesian Approach, Oladimeji Tomiwa Shodipe

Masters Theses

The thrust of this research paper is to examine the inflation information that is contained in the output gap using the New Keynesian Phillips Curve framework. As informed by the model, the study also sets to investigate inflation persistence and the influence of forward inertia on the current inflation. This paper follows the Gali and Monacelli (2005) of the small open-economy type of model. However, the current study differs by introducing external factors (trade and real exchange rate) not only on the hybrid model, also on the backward, forward and the hybrid restricted models for time-series data (1971-2017) of all …

Contrasting Chicago School And Kaleckian Theories: Industrial Organization, Income Distribution, And Historical Policy Significance In The United States, Henry Aaron Dobbs

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this paper is to identify the role that long-run industry concentration plays in determining the distribution of income, particularly in the past four decades in the United States, as well as examining how industry concentration has developed during that period. The paper is especially focused on the fall in labor’s share of income. First, I examine current literature regarding trends in industry concentration and its relation to the distribution of income. Next, I examine the historical impact of the Chicago School of Economics on this subject, focusing on the school of thought’s propositions regarding industry concentration, their …