Digital Commons Network^™

The Impact Of Information Shocks And Partisanship On The Evolution Of Covid-19 In Connecticut, Joslin Valiyaveettil

Honors Scholar Theses

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all aspects of life within the United States since early 2020. How people decided to behave during this time heavily influenced the trends that followed, triggering both health and behavioral economic concerns. Those trends seemed to vary based on the area and the beliefs of those constituents. This paper explores how partisan beliefs had an impact on the changes in case rates that occurred within the top 30 most populated towns in the state of Connecticut. In July 2020, former President Donald Trump sent out a tweet publicly endorsing face masks for the first time. …

Incentivized Learning And Libraries: A Comparative Study Of Summer Reading Programs In Connecticut, Andrew Morrison

Honors Scholar Theses

With digital forms of entertainment and media more inescapable than ever, it has become increasingly difficult to encourage children and teens to read. Simultaneously, despite an overwhelming amount of literature demonstrating the educational benefits of reading, especially as a necessity in the summer between academic years, library budgets are shrinking as federal funding nears its end. How do libraries promote summer reading amidst declining interest and decreased funding? Using data from public libraries across Connecticut, this paper investigates how libraries are adapting their children's summer reading programs to a changing landscape, how programs are designed to incentivize reading without eliminating …

Housing Dynamics Of Older Americans In The 21st Century, Tim Murray

Doctoral Dissertations

The Life-Cycle Hypothesis suggests that households save during their working years and then draw down those savings in retirement. Housing equity constitutes a large portion of most retiree’s savings portfolios, yet older households are not using their accumulated housing equity to help increase consumption in retirement and often die with large sums of housing equity. This dissertation explores housing equity use by older Americas in three ways. Chapter 1 looks at homeownership and moving rates of older Americans and how having a guaranteed source of income from a defined benefit plan may have mitigated some of the effects of the …

Does A Better Running Back Mean More Rushing? Game Theory And The Nfl, Eric Lofquist

Honors Scholar Theses

In this paper I attempt to answer the question of whether or not teams in the National Football League (NFL) rush less with a better running back. This seems counterintuitive, but game theory supposes that this is true. Defenses facing a better running back will generally expect the offense to rush more and therefore defend the run more often. The offense, foreseeing the defense’s actions, will choose to pass more to counteract the run defense. This is the basis of the difference between the strategic effect and the direct effect in mixed strategies. The direct effect is when a player …

The Retirement Strategy Of Supreme Court Justices: An Economic Approach, Kayla M. Joyce

Honors Scholar Theses

Previous research has identified strategic behavior in the nomination, confirmation, and retirement processes of the Supreme Court, each independently. This paper analyzes the interaction between the justices, the president, and the Senate in these processes. I constructed a game theoretic model to consider the nomination and approval process of Supreme Court justices and the change in dynamics that might result from an impending election. I hypothesize that sitting justices take into account the party affiliations of the president and the Senate when they are deciding whether it is the optimal time to retire to achieve their own strategic objectives. The …

Can Nba Teams Benefit From Losing?, Ryan P. Hallisey

Honors Scholar Theses

It has been speculated that franchises in the NBA (national basketball association) lose on purpose because of the benefits that coincide with a team having a poor overall record. Teams that perform the worst are given the highest draft selections in the following season's rookie player draft, thus theoretically improving their chances of becoming a more winning team. Previous economists have used various methodology to prove that NBA teams do in fact lose on purpose; or tank. This paper builds upon this previous methodology to examine the direct impact, negative or positive, that losing on purpose has had on various …

Patents And Patent Term Restoration: Incentives For Pharmaceuticals, Stephen A. Kuchta

Doctoral Dissertations

Patent protection has proven particularly important to the pharmaceutical sector among R&D-intensive industries. Despite a common patent term for all inventions, the effective patent life for a new pharmaceutical is shortened by the regulatory approval process. The Hatch-Waxman Act of 1984 created patent term restoration to address the sector-specific erosion of patent incentives. The Act restores a percentage of patent time lost during the clinical trials process, extending the patent’s expiration date and delaying the entry of generic competitors. Restoration therefore introduces additional strategic considerations for the firm, as their investment decisions affect the time spent completing clinical trials. This …

Urban Parking Economics And Land Consumption: A Case Study Of New Haven, Connecticut And Cambridge, Massachusetts, Bryan P. Blanc

Honors Scholar Theses

It has become increasingly apparent that providing copious off-street parking has deleterious effects on urban form and function. This study compares parking policy in New Haven, Connecticut and Cambridge, Massachusetts that have pursued very different types of parking policies that have resulted in different outcomes in terms of land use. Since 1951, off-street parking provision has increased by nearly 400% in New Haven, meanwhile both employment and residential population have declined in the city. In contrast, off-street parking provision in Cambridge has risen around 140% since 1952, while employment and residential populations in the city have increased by 50% and …

An Economic Analysis Of Wine Grape Production In The State Of Connecticut, Jeremy L. Jelliffe

Master's Theses

The Connecticut Wine and Vineyard industry has grown at a steady 3.9% per year over the past decade (ATTTB, 2009). Economic models estimate that the wineries sub-sector contributes $38 million dollars to the state economy and direct employment of 106 residents (Lopez et al., 2010). Programs to support and foster further growth of the industry and CT farm vineyard culture include the Department of Agriculture’s CT Wine Trail and the annual CT Wine festival (DOAG, 2010). Farmland preservation groups also support vineyard development since grape growing tends to secure tracts of farmland for long periods of time.

Investment analysis for …

Development & Application Of The Transportation Index For Sustainable Places (Tisp), Jason Zheng

Master's Theses

The purpose of transportation systems go beyond the movement of people and goods. These systems shape the natural and built environment which subsequently affects social and economic interactions. However, conventional metrics typically only address the mobility aspect of transportation via measures such as level of service and congestion. Metrics are needed to evaluate the broader impacts of transportation.

This work describes the Transportation Index for Sustainable Places (TISP), a performance metric designed to assess the sustainability of transportation systems with respect to environmental, social, and economic outcomes. The development of the TISP was guided through literature review focused on understanding …

Policy Suggestions For Emissions Trading In The U.S.A., Nathaniel Wallshein

Honors Scholar Theses

This honors thesis will examine current and theoretical "cap and trade" emissions trading schemes in an attempt to make recommendations on how to improve this regulated commodity market. The various control mechanisms available to regulators will be discussed: including allocation methodology, benchmarking, banking, variation in design frameworks, etc. To aid and support the proposed policy recommendations, this paper will investigate the design framework of the SOx emission trading scheme in the US, the Kyoto Protocol, and the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). The political, social, and economic context of these schemes will be taken into account when considering the …

Deterrence And Incapacitation: Towards A Unified Theory Of Criminal Punishment, Thomas J. Miceli

Economics Working Papers

Economic models of crime have focused primarily on the goal of deterrence; the goal of incapacitation has received much less attention. This paper adapts the standard deterrence model to incorporate incapacitation. When prison only is used, incapacitation can result in a longer or a shorter optimal prison term compared to the deterrence-only model. It is longer if there is underdeterrence, and shorter if there is overdeterrence. In contrast, when a fine is available and it is not constrained by the offender's wealth, the optimal prison term is zero. Since the fine achieves first-best deterrence, only efficient crimes are committed and …

Guns And Books: Legitimacy, Revolt And Technological Change In The Ottoman Empire, Metin M. Cosgel, Thomas J. Miceli, Jared Rubin

Economics Working Papers

New technologies have not always been greeted with great enthusiasm. Although the Ottomans were quick to adopt advancements in military technology, they waited for almost three hundred years to allow the first book to be printed in Arabic script. We explain differential reaction to technology through a political economy approach centered on the legitimizing relationship between the rulers and their agents (e.g., military or religious authorities). The Ottomans readily accepted new military technologies such as gunpowder and firearms because they increased the net revenue available to the ruler and reduced the expected value of revolting against him. But they objected …

The Time-Series Properties On Housing Prices: A Case Study Of The Southern California Market, Rangan Gupta, Stephen M. Miller

Economics Working Papers

We examine the time-series relationship between housing prices in eight Southern California metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs). First, we perform cointegration tests of the housing price indexes for the MSAs, finding seven cointegrating vectors. Thus, the evidence suggests that one common trend links the housing prices in these eight MSAs, a purchasing power parity finding for the housing prices in Southern California. Second, we perform temporal Granger causality tests revealing intertwined temporal relationships. The Santa Anna MSA leads the pack in temporally causing housing prices in six of the other seven MSAs, excluding only the San Luis Obispo MSA. The Oxnard …

A New Economic Analysis Of The American Revolution, Paul Hallwood, Ambyre Ponivas

Economics Working Papers

We offer an analysis of the American Revolution in which actors are modeled as choosing the sovereign organization that maximizes their net expected benefits. Benefits of secession derive from satisfaction of greed and settlement of grievance. Costs derive from the cost of civil war and lost benefit of Empire membership. When expected net benefits are positive for both secessionists and the Empire civil war ensues, otherwise it is settled or never begins in the first place. The novelty of our discussion is to show how diverse economic and non-economic factors (such as pamphleteering by Thomas Paine and the morale of …

Bank Capital Requirements And Capital Structure, John P. Harding, Xiaozhong Liang, Stephen L. Ross

Economics Working Papers

This paper studies the impact of capital requirements, deposit insurance and tax benefits on a bank's capital structure. We find that properly regulated banks voluntarily choose to maintain capital in excess of the minimum required. Central to this decision is both tax advantaged debt (a source of firm franchise value) and the ability of regulators to place banks in receivership stripping equity holders of firm value. These features of our model help explain both the capital structure of the large mortgage Government Sponsored Enterprises and the recent increase in risk taking through leverage by financial institutions.

Free Riders, Holdouts, And Public Use: A Tale Of Two Externalities, Thomas J. Miceli

Economics Working Papers

Free riders and holdouts are market failures that potentially impede the completion of otherwise beneficial transactions. The key difference is that the free rider problem is a demand side externality that requires taxation to compel payment for a public good, while the holdout problem is a supply side externality that requires eminent domain to force the sale of land for large scale projects. This paper highlights that distinction between these two problems and uses the resulting insights to clarify the meaning of the public use requirement of the Fifth Amendment takings clause.

The Effects Of Credit Risk On Dynamic Portfolio Management: A New Computational Approach, Kwamie Dunbar

Economics Working Papers

The study investigates the role of credit risk in a continuous time stochastic asset allocation model, since the traditional dynamic framework does not provide credit risk flexibility. The general model of the study extends the traditional dynamic efficiency framework by explicitly deriving the optimal value function for the infinite horizon stochastic control problem via a weighted volatility measure of market and credit risk. The model's optimal strategy was then compared to that obtained from a benchmark Markowitz-type dynamic optimization framework to determine which specification adequately reflects the optimal terminal investment returns and strategy under credit and market risks. The paper …

Is The Median Voter Decisive? Evidence Of 'Ends Against The Middle' From Referenda Voting Patterns, Eric J. Brunner, Stephen L. Ross

Economics Working Papers

This paper examines whether the voter with the median income is decisive in local spending decisions. Previous tests have relied on cross-sectional data while we make use of a pair of California referenda to estimate a first difference specification. The referenda proposed to lower the required vote share for passing local educational bonding initiatives from 67 to 50 percent and 67 to 55 percent, respectively. We find that voters rationally consider future public service decisions when deciding how to vote on voting rules, but the empirical evidence strongly suggests that an income percentile below the median is decisive for majority …

Solving The Non-Linear Dynamic Asset Allocation Problem: Effects Of Arbitrary Stochastic Processes And Unsystematic Risk On The Super Efficient Portfolio Space, Kwamie Dunbar

Economics Working Papers

In this paper we propose a methodology that we believe improves the effectiveness of several common assumptions underlying Modern Portfolio Theory's dynamic optimization framework. The paper derives a general outline of a stochastic nonlinear-quadratic control for analyzing and solving a non-linear mean-variance optimization problem. The study first develops and then investigates the role of unsystematic (credit) risk in this continuous time stochastic asset allocation model where the wealth generating process has a non-negative constraint. The paper finds that given unsystematic risk, wealth constraints and higher order moments the market price of risk is non-constant and the investor's optimal terminal return …

"Ripple Effects" And Forecasting Home Prices In Los Angeles, Las Vegas, And Phoenix, Rangan Gupta, Stephen M. Miller

Economics Working Papers

We examine the time-series relationship between housing prices in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Phoenix. First, temporal Granger causality tests reveal that Los Angeles housing prices cause housing prices in Las Vegas (directly) and Phoenix (indirectly). In addition, Las Vegas housing prices cause housing prices in Phoenix. Los Angeles housing prices prove exogenous in a temporal sense and Phoenix housing prices do not cause prices in the other two markets. Second, we calculate out-of-sample forecasts in each market, using various vector autoregessive (VAR) and vector error-correction (VEC) models, as well as Bayesian, spatial, and causality versions of these models with …

International Transfer Pricing For Goods And Intangible Asset Licenses In A Decentralized Multinational Corporation: Review And Extensions, Peter C. Dawson, Stephen M. Miller

Economics Working Papers

We review and extend the core literature on international transfer price manipulation to avoid or evade taxes. Under negotiated transfer pricing with a viable bargaining structure, including performance evaluation disconnected from the transfer price, divisions voluntarily exchange accurate information to obtain firm-wide optimality, a result not dependent on restraint from exercising internal market power. For intangible licenses, a larger optimal profit shift for a given tax rate change strengthens incentives for transfer pricing abuse. In practice, an intangible's arm's length range is viewed as a guideline, a context where incentives for abuse materialize. Transfer pricing for intangibles obliges greater tax …

Lease Defaults And The Efficient Mitigation Of Damages, Thomas J. Miceli, C. F. Sirmans, Geoffrey K. Turnbull

Economics Working Papers

The traditional law of leases imposed no duty on landlords to mitigate damages in the event of tenant breach, whereas the modern law of leases does. An economic model of leases, in which absentee tenants may or may not intend to breach, shows that the traditional rule promotes tenant investment in the property by discouraging landlord entry. In contrast, the modern rule prevents the property from being left idle by encouraging landlords to enter and re-let abandoned property. The model reflects the historic use of the traditional rule for agricultural leases, where absentee use was valuable, and the emergence of …

The Great Moderation Flattens Fat Tails: Disappearing Leptokurtosis, Wenshwo Fang, Stephen M. Miller, Chunshen Lee

Economics Working Papers

Recently, Fagiolo et al. (2008) find fat tails of economic growth rates after adjusting outliers, autocorrelation and heteroskedasticity. This paper employs US quarterly real output growth, showing that this finding of fat tails may reflect the Great Moderation. That is, leptokurtosis disappears after GARCH adjustment once we incorporate the break in the variance equation.

Modeling The Volatility Of Real Gdp Growth: The Case Of Japan Revisited, Wenshwo Fang, Stephen M. Miller

Economics Working Papers

Previous studies (e.g., Hamori, 2000; Ho and Tsui, 2003; Fountas et al., 2004) find high volatility persistence of economic growth rates using generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) specifications. This paper reexamines the Japanese case, using the same approach and showing that this finding of high volatility persistence reflects the Great Moderation, which features a sharp decline in the variance as well as two falls in the mean of the growth rates identified by Bai and Perronâs (1998, 2003) multiple structural change test. Our empirical results provide new evidence. First, excess kurtosis drops substantially or disappears in the GARCH or exponential …

Efficient Production Of Wins In Major League Baseball, Brian Volz

Economics Working Papers

Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is applied to Major League Baseball salary and performance data from 1985 to 2006 in order to identify those teams which produced wins most efficiently and the characteristics which lead to efficient production. It is shown that on average both National and American League teams over allocate the most resources to first basemen. Additionally, it is found that National League teams should allocate significantly more resources towards starting pitching while American League teams should allocate significantly more resources toward second base. It is also observed that efficient teams use younger less experienced players and employ rosters …

Dynamic Stock Market Interactions Between The Canadian, Mexican, And The United States Markets: The Nafta Experience, Giorgio Canarella, Stephen M. Miller, Stephen K. Pollard

Economics Working Papers

This paper explores the dynamic linkages that portray different facets of the joint probability distribution of stock market returns in NAFTA (i.e., Canada, Mexico, and the US). Our examination of interactions of the NAFTA stock markets considers three issues. First, we examine the long-run relationship between the three markets, using cointegration techniques. Second, we evaluate the dynamic relationships between the three markets, using impulse-response analysis. Finally, we explore the volatility transmission process between the three markets, using a variety of multivariate GARCH models. Our results also exhibit significant volatility transmission between the second moments of the NAFTA stock markets, albeit …

Measuring Unemployment Insurance Generosity, Stephane Pallage, Lyle Scruggs, Christian Zimmermann

Economics Working Papers

In this paper, we develop a methodology to summarize the various policy parameters of an unemployment insurance scheme into a single generosity parameter. Unemployment insurance policies are multdimensional objects. They are typically defined by waiting periods, eligibility duration, benefit levels and asset tests when eligible, which makes intertemporal or international comparisons difficult. To make things worse, labor market conditions, such as the likelihood and duration of unemployment matter when assessing the generosity of different policies. We build a first model with such complex characteristics. Our model features heterogeneous agents that are liquidity constrained but can self-insure. We then build a …

Unemployment Insurance Generosity: A Trans-Atlantic Comparison, Stephane Pallage, Lyle Scruggs, Christian Zimmermann

Economics Working Papers

The goal of this paper is to establish if unemployment insurance policies are more generous in Europe than in the United States, and by how much. We take the examples of France and one particular American state, Ohio, and use the methodology of Pallage, Scruggs and Zimmermann (2008) to find a unique parameter value for each region that fully characterizes the generosity of the system. These two values can then be used in structural models that compare the regions, for example to explain the differences in unemployment rates.

A Review Of The Empirical Evidence On The Effects Of Fiscal Decentralization On Economic Efficiency: With Comments On Tax Devolution To Scotland, Paul Hallwood, Ronald Macdonald

Economics Working Papers

This paper reviews the existing empirical evidence on tax decentralization ("tax .devolution") from central government to sub-central government. Sub-central government is taken to be levels above the local level: such as within the UK at the level of Scottish government/executive in Edinburgh, and at the provincial government level in Canada or Spain. Our interpretation of the literature is that there is increasing empirical support for the proposition that tax decentralization helps in promoting economic efficiency and economic growth. It is noted that a distinction must be drawn between tax decentralization and spending decentralization. Where tax decentralization follows spending decentralization - …