Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Forecasting The Future: The Early United States Weather Bureau, Robert T. Canning

Honors Theses

The national weather service of the United States came into being in 1870 for the practical utility of the American people. The interaction between weather, agriculture, and commerce provided the impetus for the inception of the service. Many historians put forward the notion of an obdurate weather bureau, a scientific backwater with no interest in modernization until after World War II. I disagree with this popular historiography and instead offer a history of the weather bureau’s attempts to institute the latest meteorological practices that takes into consideration the burdens and obligations of the bureau, as well as the historical context. …

What Causes Ministers Of Finance To Get Fired?, Bradley Turner

Honors Theses

This paper seeks to establish the determinants of turnover in finance ministers. Based on an original worldwide data set, political and economic factors are considered for 58 countries. While the same political factors affect Minister of Finance turnover in both advanced and developing economies, the economic variables that matter differ between the sub-samples. Finance minister turnover is higher during years that there is also presidential turnover. Further, emerging economies have a higher Minister of Finance turnover than developed economies during years without presidential turnover. Results largely hold for robustness checks.

The Influence Of Framing Effects And Regret On Health Decision-Making, Sarah Falkof

Honors Theses

This study investigates methods for influencing decision-making regarding preventative vaccine shots. Specifically, the research assessed the influence of message framing on regret and future action likelihood. In Experiment 1, participants read information about an available vaccine shot that was either framed positively or negatively. Participants were told whether they decided to get the shot (action) or not get the shot (inaction) and rated their feelings of regret after being told they got sick, regardless of their decision. Results showed that participants who read the positively framed information experienced more regret overall than participants who read the information with the negative …

The Effectiveness Of Capital Controls On Capital Inflows In Emerging Markets, Kathleen A. Davis

Honors Theses

Capital flows have become increasingly more volatile over the past

decade, causing growing concern in emerging markets over the potential damages

large sudden capital inflows and outflows can cause those economies. Capital

controls have been used since World War I as a way to try to control these flows.

After being abolished nearly everywhere, they have recently been reintroduced in

a number of countries. The main analysis of this paper looks at the effect of the

capital controls on capital inflows from 2000 through 2010 in an 8 country sample

of emerging markets who have recently implemented changes in their …

Should She Run? The Decision For Female Congressíenal Candidates, Laura . J. Maloney

Honors Theses

This study, “Should She Run? The decision for female congressional candidates,” explores Why Women decide to or not to run for Congress. lt focuses on the influence of state political Culture with a case study on the emergence of female candidates in the primaries for U.S. House of Representative races New England districts from 2002-2010. After running a series of general linear models, the study Ends that certain aspects of a state’s political culture do impact female candidate emergence in New England. Looking forward, it suggests that the key to shrinking the gender gap in the U.S. Congress is to …