Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Why Did China Do This? An Analysis On China's New Gasoline "Price Floor" Policy, Youhan Ding

Scripps Senior Theses

Why did China choose certain policy over others that would achieve similar impact? Because China has a significant presence in the modern international community, it is difficult yet critical to understand the policy implications of the Chinese government under its unique political and socioeconomic context. This thesis shows the impact of a specific “price floor” policy China chose to employ in its oil and gasoline market, and identifies the factors concerning the Chinese regime that it took into consideration in the decision making process, through analysing data and official statements released by the government. After different parties affected by this …

Does Increased Access To The Arts In High Schools In The Los Angeles Unified School District Affect Graduation Rates?, Elizabeth K. Gile

Scripps Senior Theses

Determining whether the arts are beneficial to a student’s education is a widely, and hotly debated topic every year in the United States, with many studies published each year demonstrating the impact that the arts have on various educational outcomes, from increased test scores to higher graduation rates. This paper examines previous research on the efficacy of incentives and how students’ participation in extracurricular activities, from sports to the arts, could impact graduation rates. It also develops a model for analyzing the present value of a high school education to a student using a discounted present value analysis and conducts …

A Second Child? No, Thank You! The Impact Of Chinese Family Planning Policies On Fertility Decisions, Yinghan Qi

Scripps Senior Theses

In 1979, the Chinese government introduced the One-child Policy for the purpose of controlling population growth. Thirty years later, the fertility rate in China has declined to a very low level and one-child families have become the norm. At the same time, the consequences of low fertility rates have emerged. In 2015, the government announced a new policy that encouraged couples to have two children in order to raise the total fertility rate. In this paper, I analyze the economic and legal implications of the Chinese family planning policies. By examining to what extent fertility decisions are affected by government …

Meat Consumption And Health Outcomes: The Economic Risk Factors Of Non-Communicable Disease, Alley Bellack

Scripps Senior Theses

Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) are the most prominent cause of adult mortality, killing 38 million people each year and on the rise^[1]. Cancer, heart disease, diabetes and chronic respiratory diseases are responsible for 82% of NCD-related illness and death. These four diseases, along with mental illness, are estimated to cost the developing world $21 trillion over the next two decades.^[2]

Given the substantial health and economic detriments of NCDs, policy makers, government officials, and enterprises around the globe have begun to focus efforts on better understanding and preventing the proliferation of these diseases. Lifestyle factors, including increased inactivity, …

Robert Parker’S Wine Advocate And The Consequential Pricing Of Provençal Wines, Gweneth Marter

Scripps Senior Theses

Robert Parker is an esteemed, somewhat controversial wine-critic. Since 1978, Parker has assigned every wine he tastes a score between 50 and 100. He uses this method to communicate to both consumers and producers his opinion of the quality, taste, and aging potential of the wine. Between the years 2005 and 2015, Robert Parker graded 115 wines from the French region of Provence. The goal of this thesis is to determine whether and to what extent Robert Parker’s grades affect the price of wine. Through descriptive statistics and regression analysis of Robert Parker’s grade and year of production on the …

Compensating Against Turnover: Managers' Talent Retention Decisions In Major League Baseball Under A Budget Constraint, Emma Knoesen

Scripps Senior Theses

From 1997 to 1999 and 2003 to the present, Major League Baseball has had a luxury tax on high payroll teams. This paper analyzes the impact of the tax as a budget constraint on teams’ ability to reward and retain high performing players. In contrast to other papers, we use wins above replacement (WAR), a popular sabermetrics statistic, to measure performance. Using this metric, we quantify the number of top performers, how this performance is rewarded with salary, and how salary impacts players’ mobility decisions. We conclude that when using WAR, the distribution of performance is not heavy tailed and …

How Mobile Phones Can Spark An Entrepreneurial Revolution, Alison Choe

Scripps Senior Theses

In the last decade, there has been an exponential rise in mobile phones in both developed and developed countries. In light of that, this paper investigates whether the expansion of such mobile networks leads to increased entrepreneurial activity. By conducting panel regressions, I find the degree to which various stages of entrepreneurial activity is affected by increased mobile phone subscription rates. I use data from 80 countries from 2007 to 2015 and parse out the different effects between developing and developed countries, and between males and females. I find that larger mobile networks encourage entrepreneurship, particularly in the early stages, …

How "Costly" Is Healthcare For The Elderly?, Ruchika Majumdar

Scripps Senior Theses

This study focuses on the possible ways to improve healthcare services around the world, which increase the life expectancy for aging people. Utilizing a cost-effective analysis, the relationship between various healthcare expenditures and conditional life expectancy for people aged 60 and above was examined. A linear regression model was used to analyze data from 122 WHO (World Health Organization) countries obtained from the year 2000. The model included additional health-adjusted life years (HALE) at age 60 as the dependent variable and healthcare cost indicators as the independent variables. Regression results revealed that cost of healthcare was overall significant in contributing …

Are Donald Trump And Hillary Clinton Controlling The Stock Market? An Analysis Of The 2016 Presidential Election's Impact On Stock Market Volatility, Julia Tambone

Scripps Senior Theses

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump ran highly controversial campaigns in the 2016 Presidential Election, which then leaves us with the question of what impact is this having on the current economy? Prior analysis of political influence on the stock market tells us that isolating political impact on the stock market is nearly impossible. However, there are clearly defined 4-year cycles in stock prices that seem to correspond with election years. In this paper, I create my own index of stocks in the four major U.S. industries and measure both day-to-day and intraday volatility in stock prices across three comparable time …