Education Commons^™

A More Sustainable Future: Energy Efficiency Policies In Buildings, Campbell Miller

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

Energy efficiency is often times the most cost effective solution towards reducing energy demand. Energy usage in buildings accounts for upwards of 40% of the total energy consumption in the United States, as well as the vast majority of the growth in energy demand. Despite this buildings are often not built to be energy efficient, causing the residential and commercial sector to paying for hundreds of millions dollars on unnecessary energy use. The reason for this is the many market failures including: risk, lack of information, and access to capital. Looking at policies by the United States and China attempting …

Finance In The Fifth Dimension: Lessons In Logic For The Social Sciences, Dawson J. Sanders

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

The purpose of this paper is to highlight lessons from various areas of academia that I feel would benefit all social science. I will discuss physics, biology, sociology, and more, doing my best to explicitly state their relationships to economics throughout the paper. I hope that the lessons learned here will together serve as a means for prescribing and evaluating solutions to social problems and assist in the development of models through a new level of methodological dimensionality where applicable. The fifth dimension will serve to metaphorically illustrate this new way of thinking, through which we will construct a theoretical …

Coal Trains And Home Values: The Effect Of The Gateway Pacific Terminal Project On Housing Prices In Bellingham, Washington, Rose G. Howe

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

The proposal to build the Gateway Pacific Terminal generated much controversy in Bellingham, Washington. As a deep-water port slated to export large quantities of coal and other commodities, the Gateway Pacific Terminal (GPT) threatened to increase the amount of rail traffic passing through the region.The following study uses a hedonic price model to test whether proximity to the railroad affected the sales price of houses in Bellingham after the announcement of the GPT environmental review process. Little previous research focuses on the effect of rail traffic on housing prices in the Pacific Northwest and no empirical studies have examined the …

Effects Of Microfinance Penetration Rates On Education Participation, Samuel W. Martinez

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

Microfinance, or the extension of financial services to low-income individuals unserved or underserved by traditional financial institutions, has been championed as a method of reducing poverty and creating social change, especially in developing countries. However, empirical studies examining the effects of microcredit programs have found mixed results as to the success of these loans. This study attempts to determine the impact that the presence of microfinance institutions in a country has on education participation rates, specifically examining country- level World Bank data over a 10-year period. Regression results for this data suggest positive effects of microfinance penetration on secondary education …

The Economic Impacts Of Cross-Border Retailing, Daniel Edgel

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

An economic impact estimation of cross-border shopping from British Columbia to Whatcom County and forecast of the impact of future changes in retail shopping trends.

The Gender Wage Gap And Child Poverty: A Statistical Analysis, Kristine Farwell

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

Child poverty is an immense societal problem because of the unnecessary hardship it creates for the children who experience it, and the ways in which it negatively impacts others as well. Poor children experience malnutrition, lower academic performance, and higher death rates than children not in poverty. In addition, poverty continues to follow them throughout their life time. There are additional negative results for society as well. Higher healthcare costs and lower productivity can harm the economy. Communities with high child poverty levels also experience additional education and interaction challenges (Griggs and Walker 2008). Reducing child poverty would not only …

Moneysense, Angela Martin

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

Money is something that permeates everyone’s daily lives. No matter who you are, rich or poor, white or black, college educated or a high school drop out, everyone has to deal with money at some level. Getting a job, opening a savings account, budgeting for one’s monthly bills, and using a credit card are activities that most men and women will experience at some point in their lives. Everyone has to deal with money but few actually receive any type of formal training or education on exactly how to do these things.

Learning by ones mistakes is common when it …