Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Essays On The Economics Of Sports Wagering Markets, Jacob Lamb

All Dissertations

Economists have long been enamored with using wagering markets and sports data to answer various economic questions. Wagering market data are readily available to answer any number of questions relating to sports and economics. However, most studies surrounding wagering markets have focused on searching for inefficiencies and, consequently, profitable betting strategies against the house. This dissertation takes a different approach, focusing on the information that can be extracted from efficient wagering markets and using that information to answer economic questions. Rather than hunting for inefficiencies, this dissertation confirms the efficiency of wagering markets and uses wagering markets to answer questions …

Free Money: The Feasibility Of Implementing A Universal Basic Income In The United States, Chase H. Dorn

Senior Theses

The objective of this thesis is to explore whether a universal basic income paid to all United States citizens is both economically possible and advantageous. A recent surge in popularity of the idea has led to a plethora of universal basic income experiments that have been or are being performed across the world, however there has yet to be a UBI implemented on a national level. Using data from these experiments and existing academic research into the policy, the first part of the thesis details the necessary components of a UBI, documents the history of the idea, notes the justifications …

Medicaid Expansion: Changes In Individual Health Outcomes, Julie Norman

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

The Affordable Care Act is one of the biggest changes in the American healthcare system in the 21st century. One element of the ACA is medicaid expansion, which opened up federal funding for states to cover any individual earning below 138% of the federal poverty line. 21 states expanded medicaid in 2014 while 12 haven’t expanded. This paper utilizes the disparity for a natural experiment to determine the efficacy of the program. Outcome variables of interest include measurements of individual health, health access and utilization, and premature death rates. The results indicate positive, but small improvements due to the policy, …

Economic Experiments On Group Identity And Bias, Nathaniel Christopher Burke

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Experiments in economics have been a valuable tool to understand the behavioral implications of incentives on the decision-making process. Particularly, aspects of decision making that cannot be observed in empirical data can be better isolated in an experimental setting such as bias and identity impacts. This dissertation uses three distinct experiments to further the understanding of individual biases, perceptions, and identity and how they impact the way people defer to these internal traits under incentives. This dissertation looks at how well individuals can make inferences about polling data that was collected from individuals susceptible to socially desirable responding. It also …

Essays In Urban Economics, Benjamin Stutts

Economics Theses and Dissertations

Chapter 1 examines how land use regulation affects residential segregation by income. Residential segregation by income severely limits access to opportunity for low-income households, restricting prospects of upward mobility. Land use regulations are one potential determinant of such segregation. However, establishing a causal link between such regulation and segregation faces two econometric challenges. First, regulation is potentially endogenous. Second, proper measurement of segregation is difficult. Concerning the first challenge, the prior literature relies on instrumental variables that may not be valid. Concerning the second challenge, the prior literature relies on measures that ignore the spatial dimension of segregation. This paper …

The Role Of Tax Incentives On Business Location And Economic Growth, Sadie Xi Rose Mazzola

Honors Theses and Capstones

No abstract provided.

A Theory Of Fire Service Provision: With An Empirical Analysis Of Response Time, Suppression Time, And Service Output, Hyong-Gu Hwang

Senior Independent Study Theses

We introduce a two-stage theoretical framework of fire services that justifies the status of response time as a factor input. In the first stage, the provincial government distributes a budget to its cities, resulting in varied numbers of firefighters and fire engines in each city. In the second stage, each city fire department places its fire stations at spatially optimal locations that minimize expected response times. When a fire occurs, the outputs from these two stages are actualized into dispatch level, response time, and suppression time. These intermediate outputs are then transformed into inputs for producing service output, which is …

Spreadsheets-In-Space: A Quantitative Exploration Of Movement, Currency Creation, And Conflict Within Eve Online, Christopher Alan Pryor

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

EVE Online is a massively-multiplayer online game with complex interactions between players and their unique, virtual environment. These relationships are the ongoing results of a conflict-driven economy, but they vary both in duration and by location.

This study attempts to quantify the direct effects of movement and indirect effects of conflict upon economic activity in the form of currency creation and delineate how successfully these relationships can be quantified by narrower time-spans and areas. Results of the mediation models used in this exploration indicate the changing relationship between movement (Ship Jumps), conflict (Ship Kills), and currency creation (Faction Kills) is …

Comparisons Of Ad Valorem And Unit Tax In Two Different Industries, Kai Zhang

Economics Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation analyzes the comparisons between unit and ad valorem tax in two different industries.

Chapter 1 considers an industry with one upstream monopolist and a fixed number of asymmetric downstream firms. I compare market outcomes from unit and ad valorem tax under three pricing schemes that the upstream monopolist can use, uniform pricing, third-degree price discrimination, and two-part tariffs. I find that ad valorem tax is always tax revenue preferred to unit tax when both are charged at the same layer as long as profit margin is positive. Downstream ad valorem tax improves total social welfare by relocating production …

Empirical Essays In Household Economics, Hao Li

Economics Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is consist of three empirical studies in economics. The first part empirically examines the effect of universal pre-k on labor force participation of fertility age women in Oklahoma. I investigate the policy effect from both theoretical and empirical perspectives. I apply the synthetic control method (SCM) to the Current Population Survey (CPS) data to identify the causal relationship between universal pre-k and female labor outcomes. I find that universal pre-k increases labor supply of women aged 25 to 45 in Oklahoma. The second empirical study focuses on how the birth outcomes of US children respond to exposure to …

The Effects Of Food Security On Socioeconomic Mobility In The United States: A Case Study In Allendale County, South Carolina, Taylor St Clarke

Senior Theses

This thesis examines the relationship between food security – defined as accessibility to an affordable, nutritious, and sustainable source of food – and socioeconomic mobility in the continental United States. This thesis is primarily focused on the effects of food insecurity on both individuals and communities, examining the chronic long-term effects of such insecurity on areas known as “food deserts,” which are often given status as areas of persistent poverty. This research further examines the effects of a sustained poor diet, brought about by food insecurity, on the individual and overarching community in a food desert and how such a …

Literacy Rates Analysis: An International Comparison, Macarena Arce

Economics Undergraduate Honors Theses

This paper attempts to provide a more complete reckoning of the economics of literacy rates around the world. It consists on a literature review about the economic benefits and costs of literacy rates and then it shows two econometrics models that attempt to predict literacy rates based on GDP, government expenditure, and several other independent variables.

Analysis Of The Economic Impact Of Constructing A Nba Arena On The Host City, Grant Gilchrist

CMC Senior Theses

Using economic data collected from 24 different Metropolitan Statistical Areas in the US, this thesis investigates the impact of constructing a new National Basketball Association (NBA) arena on the host city’s economy. When a simplistic model is implemented, which does not control for other economic factors or individual subject heterogeneity, significantly positive economic impacts of arena construction are observed. However, when a more appropriate model specification is implemented that controls for economic activity and individual heterogeneity, these effects are no longer statistically significant. This comparative analysis ultimately highlights the importance of appropriate model specification and supports the conclusion that new …

Is Dependence On Property Tax Funding Stifling Academic Achievement? Evidence From Public High Schools In New York, Nathan Sean Reece

Senior Projects Spring 2015

The United States has historically demonstrated a fervent interest in its public education system. Performance concerns have inundated the system for years, prompting overarching policy reforms that have received vast criticisms. This paper aims to highlight the link between these performance deficiencies and the nature in which public education in funded in the United States, and in the process of doing so argues that this system is outdated and needs to be changed. Our results indicate that a strong relationship exists between school districts that rely more heavily on property tax revenue and academic achievement in the form of graduation …

Essays On State Fiscal Institutions, Todd Richard Yarbrough

Doctoral Dissertations

The following three essays investigate the effect various fiscal institutions have on state budgeting decisions. In the first essay, the impact of stringent balanced budget rules on a non-general fund expenditure category, environmental expenditure, is investigated. The essay finds that states with especially stringent balanced budget rules have lower average environmental expenditure than states absent stringent rules. Using a Fixed-Effects panel estimation, the paper finds that stringent balanced budget rules are associated with 1.55% lower per capita environmental expenditure than weak rules. Further, the presence of political interest groups in a state significantly mitigates this reduction, causing environmental expenditure to …

Determinants Of Housing Prices In Pittsylvania County, Jason Hall

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

The purpose of this research is to determine the implicit factors influencing housing prices in Pittsylvania County, a rural county in Southside Virginia. Currently in Pittsylvania County there is a debate over whether or not to mine what is believed to be the largest deposit of uranium in the United States, containing approximately 119 million pounds of uranium ore at an estimated value of $7 billion to $10 billion. The Virginia Coal and Energy Commission issued its final approval for the National Academy of Sciences to study the debate from a socio-economic standpoint. The $1.2 million study is currently taking …

Assessing The State Of Black America In Terms Of Black Buying Power From 1990 To Present, Samina J. Mcgill

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

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A Grants Economics Analysis Of The Distributive Effects Of Old Age Benefits (Oai) Under The Federal Social Security Program (Oasdhi), Edward J. Peters

Graduate Thesis Collection

This paper is submitted in an effort to bring into perspective the grants elements of social security which have contributed to vast economic changes and to which, paradoxically, they must also adapt.