Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Incentive Based Residential Demand Aggregation, Qinran Hu

Doctoral Dissertations

From the beginning of the twenty-first century, the electrical power industry has moved from traditional power systems toward smart grids. However, with the increasing amount of renewable energy resources integrated into the grid, there is a significant challenge in power system operation due to the intermittency and variability of the renewables. Therefore, the utilization of flexible and controllable demand-side resources to maintain power system efficiency and stability has become a fundamental goal of smart grid initiatives.

Meanwhile, due to the development of communication and sensing technologies, intelligent demand-side management with automatic controls enables residential loads to participate in demand response …

Cirugía Cosmética: Un Análisis De Su Historia Y Prevalencia En Latinoamérica, Elena R. Hamilton

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

The Economic Implications Of Evolving Aviation Funding Policy In Tennessee, Hunter Pressley Mccracken

Masters Theses

The majority of state funding for capital improvements at Tennessee’s general aviation and commercial airports comes through grants awarded from the Tennessee Transportation Equity Trust Fund (TETF). Through a 4.5 percent sales and use tax on the consumption of aviation fuel, users help to fund the continued improvement and maintenance of aviation facilities around the state. Aircraft refueling operations associated with the FedEx “SuperHub” in Memphis were responsible for two-thirds of the TETF’s revenue for Fiscal Year 2014. In response to speculation that FedEx would relocate its refueling operations to reduce its fuel tax liability, the Tennessee General Assembly passed …

The Effects Of Individual And Employer Characteristics On Hourly Employee Retention: An Empirical Study, Robert Allen Cobb

Masters Theses

This paper argues that employee tenure length is a function of not only firm specific characteristics and policies, but also individual characteristics, which can be identified and used in the pre-employment selection process. The information learned from this study can help hiring managers in identifying potentially high-production workers, by looking at several key factors that can be measured in a pre-employment application. This paper quantifies how the tenure length of employees can be influenced by not only the characteristics of the applicant, but also by decisions made by the employer. Some of these decisions include the starting wage, the number …

‘Capitalism A Nuh’ Wi Frien’. The Formatting Of Farming Into An Asset, From Financial Speculation To International Aid, Luigi Russi, Tomaso Ferrando

Catalyst: A Social Justice Forum

This paper deciphers the formatting of farming into an asset by tracking the modalities by which financial calculation is enabled across different sites of agency.

The first focus of our analysis are commodity futures markets, which have witnessed a double spike in prices in 2008 and in 2012. In the paper, we look at these hikes as the outcome of endogenous dynamics, caused by the changing makeup of market participants after 2000, which turned futures markets into resources for hedging commodity index-linked derivative products.

We subsequently analyse the increasing reliance on financial actors placed by public development agencies that channel …

Essays On Energy Efficiency And Pricing Behavior In The U.S. Automobile Market: Evidence From Hybrid Electric Vehicles, Sangsoo Park

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation consists of three essays on the energy efficiency and pricing behavior of firms in the U.S. automobile market with a focus on Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEVs).

The first essay analyzes the market share of HEVs and evaluates consumers' willingness to pay (WTP) for future fuel cost savings by purchasing fuel efficient HEVs. Estimates of consumers' WTP for future fuel cost savings and the finding of an implicit discount rate of 8.35%~14.35% suggest that consumers undervalue future fuel cost savings from purchasing HEVs, and that consumers want a return on their investment on fuel cost saving HEV technology in …

The Effects Of Trade Competition On Health, And Determinants Of Workplace Behavior, Thomas Clayton Mcmanus

Doctoral Dissertations

My dissertation consists of three essays related to workplace behavior. In the first paper, we design a controlled laboratory experiment to study image motives in a setting where decisions signal intelligence. The experiment results show that in some settings social scrutiny can discourage individuals from making choices that signal their intelligence, despite evidence that the signal was privately valuable. In the second paper, we study the effect of Chinese import competition on occupational safety and health at US manufacturers. We find that a change in US trade policy and Chinese import shocks significantly increases worker injury and illness rates in …

Economic Wealth And Social Welfare: A Longitudinal Analysis Of Transnational Well-Being, Kelly Brooke Martin

Doctoral Dissertations

Macro changes in the financial arena have prompted ongoing research focused on global economic trends. As America emerges from an era of stagnant wages, rising unemployment, and growing class stratification it is necessary to explore differences in cross-national socioeconomic behavior to address the changing needs of our country. Many studies attempt to describe statistical correlations between economic wealth and social well-being domestically and abroad by utilizing methodological perspectives that do not account for longitudinal change. To address the gap in existing research, this study seeks to measure variations in econometric indicators between the U.S. and Nordic countries to further explicate …

Analysis Of The U.S. Electric Power Industry, Yin Chu

Doctoral Dissertations

In the U.S., the power industry is a primary energy consumption sector. Accurate knowledge on production efficiency in the industry has vital welfare implication from both economic and environmental perspectives. The first two essays investigate the causal impact of the vertical separation of the electricity transmission sector from the generation sector on production efficiency. In the first essay, I ask whether the specific market restructuring is sufficient to enhance how efficiently production is allocated among producers. Based on a difference-in-difference comparison on cost-sensitivity of utilization between coal-fired generators in the treatment region (Southwest Power Pool) and that in a control …

Three Essays On The Economics Of Higher Education: How Students And Colleges Respond To Financial Aid Programs, Jilleah Gayle Welch

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation consists of three chapters that examine the impact of financial aid programs on students' enrollment decisions, student outcomes, and colleges' financial decisions. In the first chapter, I use discontinuities in eligibility criteria for a large merit scholarship program to examine the impact of aid on community college students' outcomes both during and after college. Community colleges enroll a large share of first-time freshmen but represent a much smaller share of financial aid research. Furthermore, researchers have focused on the impact of aid on enrollment and outcomes during college, but none have yet considered the impact of aid on …

The Identification Of Regulatory Impacts Using Panel Data, Jie Deng

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation broadly explores the use of panel data methods for identifying the effects of regulation. Chapter 1 applies dynamic panel models to control for potential feedback effects when examining the relationship between environmental regulations and firm performance. Specifically, this chapter uses data from the U.S. manufacturing industry to explore the effects of the Clean Air Act (CAA) on firm performance outcomes related to profitability, employment, and capital expenditures. The evidence suggests that feedback effects are present in the data and, more critically, appropriately modeling these effects can alter conclusions regarding the effects of environmental regulation.

Chapter 2 uses panel …

Mechanisms For Social Influence, Jeremy David Auerbach

Masters Theses

Throughout the thesis, I study mathematical models that can help explain the dependency of social phenomena in animals and humans on individual traits. The first chapter investigates consensus building in human groups through communication of individual preferences for a course of action. Individuals share and modify these preferences through speaker listener interactions. Personality traits, reputations, and social networks structures effect these modifications and eventually the group will reach a consensus. If there is variation in personality traits, the time to reach consensus is delayed. Reputation models are introduced and explored, finding that those who can best estimate the average initial …

Social Systems And Psychic Confluence: Flash Mobs, Communications, And Agency, Nicholas John Hauman

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation involves two components: 1) an analysis of the history of flash mobs including detailed descriptions of specific flash mobs and 2) an exploration of what this analysis elucidates concerning the interaction between individuals and social structure. By focusing on the flash mob as a form of communication, the dissertation displays how the flash mob has communicated multiplicitously through various social systems (e.g. art, mass media, economy, politics) to achieve various and often divergent ends. Within this larger understanding of the interaction between flash mobs and social structure this dissertation also finds, through an application of Luhmannian systems theory, …

A Theoretical And Experimental Investigation Of Efficiency, Equity, And Uncertainty In Tournaments, Nicholas Busko

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation consists of three essays centered around labor incentives that arise in relative compensation contracts. Chapter 1 poses the question: if devotion to a core competence were truly optimal, why would firms do otherwise? We argue that the behavior of drifting from the core may be motivated by the competitive incentives faced by managers who seek to rise within a firm. We find competition creates an incentive for a manager to look for less correlated opportunities that pull the firm in a new direction. In a symmetric equilibrium all managers behave this way, leading to lower expected output for …

Theory And Experiments Exploring Behavioral, Financial, And Public Economics, Matthew John Mcmahon

Doctoral Dissertations

I study three questions which relate to one another only in that each explores facets of economics. First, I theoretically examine the conditions under which introducing an impure public good decreases total public provision. I introduce a central planner who can tax the private good to correct this and identify the market characteristics that typify this scenario. Second, I test the two standard competing dividend puzzle hypotheses using a laboratory experiment. Evidence from the lab, including variables unobservable in the field, reinforces empirical work supporting the outcome model over the substitute. Last, I obscure from dictators information regarding recipients' income …

Exploring The Heterogeneity Of Other-Regarding Preferences, Langchuan Peng

Doctoral Dissertations

This project studies the impact of heterogeneous other-regarding preferences on many issues, such as taxation, government revenue and income inequality. The first two chapters build upon the literature of relative income effects pioneered by Duesenberry (1949). This hypothesis says that the utility of an individual depends on not only his absolute income level, but also his relative income position. An individual gains utility if his income exceeds the income of most members in his comparison group and loses utility if his income falls below the income of most members in the group. Most previous studies consider either a symmetric or …

Essays In Environmental Economics And The Economics Of Higher Education, Justin R. Roush

Doctoral Dissertations

Maximizing welfare in the economy requires effective policies that mitigate negative externalities and incentivize positive externalities. My first paper concerns emissions at manufacturing plants in the US, a major source of negative externalities. Globalization has created concerns that pollution can move across country boarders. Therefore, I study the environmental performance of foreign manufacturing establishments in the US to test if foreign establishments in pollution intensive industries are heavy emitters. I find that foreign firms are not dirtier than domestic establishments on average. However, they are significantly cleaner in industries with high fixed costs and dirtier in industries with low fixed …

Coup D'État And International Trade, Brian Alan Childers

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Locational Advantage And The Impact Of Scale: Comparing Local And Conventional Fruit And Vegetable Transportation Efficiencies, Charles Cate Grigsby

Masters Theses

Fresh produce in the United States often travels thousands of miles in diesel operated semi-trucks before arriving to market. Under a high fuel cost scenario, the current low-cost, efficient supply chain could become a high cost organizational structure for US food distribution. Rising transportation costs of food sourced from distant locations may provide competitive opportunities for small- and mid-sized local producers if transportation costs are a smaller portion of their total costs. Farmers selling fresh produce in east Tennessee farmer markets are surveyed to obtain baseline information on their transportation energy use to deliver their products to market. Local farmer …

The Impact Of Minimum Wage Rates On Obesity In The United States During The Great Recession, Benjamin C. Mallicoat

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.