Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Market Efficiency : Testing Price Discovery In The Bond And Credit Derivative Markets, Justin M. Polselli

Honors Theses

Recent developments in credit markets over the past few months have seen credit spreads widen dramatically for a range of debt products. Almost overnight, credit spreads for both investment grade and high yield bonds jumped as news continued to worsen about credit quality. The speed with which credit spreads increased this past summer led many investors to ask if markets were efficient in conveying material information, and to see if there were any indications prior to the credit crunch that the market for credit was going to tighten. New products such as credit derivatives have increased the number of indicators …

Forest Fires In Southern Europe : An Econometric Investigation Of The Existence Of Economic Incentives For Fire Arson, Radoslava Dogandjieva

Honors Theses

Devastating forest fires during the summer of 2007 resulted in an unprecedented level of destruction in the Mediterranean forests, prompting widespread speculation about profit-motivated arson as one of the principal causes of the fires. Forest protection laws essentially create a scarcity of land, making arson potentially profitable in several ways: the clearing of land for development and construction, expansion of farm size, and salvage logging (Economist 2007). This study seeks to evaluate the validity of these accusations by examining the relationship between land, wheat, and timber prices and incidence of forest fires in four countries: Spain, Greece, Italy, and Bulgaria. …

Nuclear Vs. Coal In Bulgaria, Peter B. Manchev

Honors Theses

In early 2005 the government of Bulgaria commissioned the construction of a new nuclear power plant (NPP) near the town of Belene on the Danube border with Romania. The € 4 billion project will be executed by a consortium appointed in October 2006 by the National Electric Company led by the Russian Atomstroyexport. The work will be overseen by the architect-engineer of the plant, the American company WorleyParsons. The endeavor received a “green light” in December 2006 when the Nuclear Regulatory Agency of Bulgaria approved the Belene site for the construction of a new nuclear power plant.

The need for …

An Analysis Of Tuition And Enrollment In Higher Education : Measuring Price Elasticity, Adam C. Wright

Honors Theses

The hierarchical nature of higher education, in which schools compete in small enclaves for the best students, and competition for higher rankings among private, non-profit liberal arts colleges has prompted some schools to drastically increase their tuition in order to correspond with the price changes of rival institutions. Since top liberal arts schools operate with sizable excess demand for enrollment spots, significant tuition alterations generally do not affect the quantity of enrolled students at these schools. However, the extent to which increases in tuition affect the quality of enrolled students has not been thoroughly examined. This study directly analyzes the …

Stock Markets And Household Wealth: Can A Stock Market Crash Cause A Recession In The U.S. Economy?, Ishan Singh

Honors Theses

Stock market wealth effects on the level of consumption in the United States economy have been constantly debated; there is evidence for arguments for and against its prominence and its symmetry. This paper seeks to investigate the strength of its negative effect by creating models to analyze unexpected shocks to the Standard and Poor's 500 index. First, a transmission mechanism between the stock market and GDP is established through the use of second-order vector autoregressive models. Following which, theory from the life cycle model and adaptations of previous researchers' models are used to create a structural model. This paper finds …

Demographic Differences In Household Expenditure For Low-Income Families: Evidence From The United States, Joerose Tharakan

Honors Theses

Despite being one of the world’s most prosperous countries, the United States of America was home to roughly 7.7 million households living in poverty in 2006. Of this figure, 53% percent of households were headed by a single mother. What is more disturbing is that a significant majority of these households were those of full time workers, unable to meet the basic needs of their families at federally mandated minimum wage rates. Researchers and activists from a multitude of disciplines have repeatedly called for an overhaul of the current method of estimating poverty in the United States` and further proposed …

An Incumbent's Guide To Reelection: The States And Economic Voting In U.S. Presidential Elections, Kyle Smith

Honors Theses

This study has two chapters. The first uses Ray Fair 's national economic voting model of U.S. presidential elections to pose and answer specific questions about how voting theory works in practice. The results suggest that economic activity in the year of an election is the primary determinant of voters' perceptions of presidential performance on the economy, while earlier years in the administration's term are not important. Also, voters hold the incumbent party responsible for economic conditions whether or not that party controls Congress. Finally, the results suggest that economic voting generally operates symmetrically -a fall in growth affects the …

The Impact Of The Common Agricultural Policy On Agricultural Productivity, Flemming Schneider Rhode

Honors Theses

In 2004 10 new countries, primarily Eastern European countries, joined the European Union (EU) with much media speculation concerning how this would affect their economies. This paper will look at how the Common Agricultural Program (CAP) affects agricultural productivity by measuring four independent variables and by using the 2004 entry as a natural experiment. The paper will estimate how the CAP affects the average farm size, fallow land area, proportion of farming dedicated to organic farming, and GOP growth. This is expected to impact agricultural productivity through increasing returns to scale, input availability, efficiency of land use and the Environmental …

Textbook Bundling : Is It Really Worth The Sum Of Its Parts, Kati Simmons

Honors Theses

Studies have been conducted examining the impact of commodity bundling on company profits and the premium prices charged for these bundles. With recent news of the skyrocketing costs of higher education, it is critical to highlight the specific effects of commodity bundling on the prices of textbooks. A study performed by the Government Accountability Office in 2005 cited that a main cause of increasing textbook prices is the recent inclusion of textbook supplements such as software and workbooks. This paper investigates the impact that different types of supplements have on the overall price paid for the bundle. Aggregate sales data …