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The Economics Of Childbearing: Three Essays, Andrea Kutinova

Doctoral Dissertations

Expenditure programs, business cycles, and government interventions can affect many decisions surrounding the birth of a child. For example, public insurance programs such as Medicaid have the potential to increase the utilization of prenatal care. This, in turn, may lead to better infant and maternal health outcomes. Given the high and increasing number of pregnant women covered by Medicaid, the effectiveness of the program in promoting prenatal care use and improving health needs to be evaluated. Also, the impacts of business cycles on childbearing are of interest to policymakers. For example, does unemployment substantially affect the decision to conceive a …

Non-Linear Aspects Of Financial Integration: An Analysis Of The Real Interest Rate Parity For Southeast Asian Economies, Fabricio Linhares

Doctoral Dissertations

This study assesses the extent to which selected economies in Southeast Asia are financially integrated among themselves and internationally, and investigates whether financial integration in the region increased following the deregulation of their markets over the 1980's and early 1990's. The analysis is carried out by examining the relationship between ex post real interest rates over 1970-2005. Following the work of Meese and Rogoff (1988), countries are considered financially integrated based on the stationarity property of their real interest rate differentials. Conclusions are drawn from a confirmatory analysis, which contrasts results from unit root tests, with and without structural breaks, …

Family Structure, The State Children's Health Insurance Program (Schip) And Child Outcomes, Minghua Li

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation consists of three separate but interrelated essays that investigate how family structure and public policy are linked to health and developmental child outcomes. Each essay employs two or three waves of the National Survey of America's Families (NSAF) as the primary data source. The first essay broadly investigates how family structure, including the less typical non-traditional families such as single father and grandparent households, are related to a wide of array of child outcomes with a focus on the interplay of parent-child gender. The results from this study show that children in single father families have better health …

Incidence Of Ticket Taxes And Fees In United States Domestic Air Travel, Joakim Karlsson

Master's Theses and Capstones

The United States is currently witnessing a vigorous debate on public funding of air transportation and the role of taxes and fees levied on airline tickets. Yet, there is remarkably little economic literature on taxation in the U.S. airline industry. Analysis of a large sample of tickets for travel in the continental United States shows that the effective tax rate has increased from 11% in 1993 to 16% in 2005. While the tax structure and levels have changed over time, this increase is largely due to a historical decline.

The theory of tax incidence asserts that economic incidence is a …

Cape Wind: Public Values And Perceptions Application Of Contingent Valuation Method, Eric Steltzer

Master's Theses and Capstones

The Cape Wind proposal to build 130 turbines in Nantucket sound has been a central figure in development of renewable energy in New England. The aim of this study was two fold. First, the contingent valuation method was used to estimate an economic value the public has on policy for the preservation of Nantucket sound, within the scopes of the project. The second goal was to identify lessons that could be learned from the Cape Wind proposal and applied to future renewable energy projects in New England.

Results revealed that the public has a positive economic value for a policy …