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Full-Text Articles in Economics

Revolutionizing Lithium Extraction: Analysis Of Factors Affecting Commercialization Timelines With Insights From The Shale Gas Boom, Bilge Tayyar Jan 2024

Revolutionizing Lithium Extraction: Analysis Of Factors Affecting Commercialization Timelines With Insights From The Shale Gas Boom, Bilge Tayyar

CMC Senior Theses

This study draws parallels between Direct Lithium Extraction (DLE) and hydraulic fracturing to highlight the transformative potential of DLE technology in the lithium industry. The comparative analysis supports the hypothesis that DLE might expedite commercialization timelines, similar to the effect hydraulic fracturing has had on traditional shale gas extraction. The study includes a regression analysis to determine the factors affecting the commercialization of conventional lithium brine extraction methods, thereby better understanding the potential changes DLE will create. The regression model, based on data from 11 projects, examines the impact of variables such as temperature range, tax rates, royalty rates, regulatory …


Capturing Value In Emerging Markets: A Real Options Perspective On Resilience And Risk, Alexander Castillo Jan 2024

Capturing Value In Emerging Markets: A Real Options Perspective On Resilience And Risk, Alexander Castillo

CMC Senior Theses

This paper examines the evaluation of investment opportunities in emerging markets (EMs) through real options analysis, against the backdrop of their unique risk profiles and the recent trend of EMs exhibiting resilience in economic performance. While EMs are associated with high growth rates and infrastructure gaps, they have shown adaptability, particularly in monetary policy responses to inflation. This paper explores the sensitivity of net present value (NPV) and real options (RO) to changes in the capital asset pricing model, adapting the yield spread to capture default risk and local risk-free rates. Utilizing oil benchmark price data, the paper constructs a …


Analysis Of Government Stimulus During Covid-19 And The Bank Distress Of 2023, Kara Hagler Jan 2024

Analysis Of Government Stimulus During Covid-19 And The Bank Distress Of 2023, Kara Hagler

CMC Senior Theses

Due to the hardships that small businesses were facing from the onset of COVID-19 in March 2020, the government created the Payment Protection Program (PPP). This program used banks as the initial lenders for small business loans to facilitate loans from the government to small businesses. In this article, I study how participation in the PPP lending program contributes to the Bank Distress of 2023 by using a bank-level quarterly panel data set from 2019-2023. Estimation of difference-in-difference specifications reveals banks that opted into the PPP program experienced an increase in held-to-maturity securities relative to non PPP banks. The mechanism …


Is Green The New Gold? Esg’S Influence On The Financial Performance Of The Energy And Mining Industries, Alexa De Vegvar Jan 2024

Is Green The New Gold? Esg’S Influence On The Financial Performance Of The Energy And Mining Industries, Alexa De Vegvar

CMC Senior Theses

The demand for Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) reporting has increased in recent years. As the concern for climate change has moved to the forefront of the investment process, companies have needed to prioritize ESG in their operations. Previous literature addresses how ESG has benefited companies’ financial performance and increased shareholder value. The pandemic has proven to have positively impacted ESG reporting as social priorities shifted. However, studies have also shown that ESG reporting is too ambiguous to concretely display any relationship with financial performance. This thesis will analyze the impact of ESG and environmental data reporting on the Return …


More Than A Feeling: Exploring The Drivers Of Music Catalog Values, Emily Nutting Jan 2024

More Than A Feeling: Exploring The Drivers Of Music Catalog Values, Emily Nutting

CMC Senior Theses

This paper examines which characteristics of songs affect transaction price in the sale of artist’s music catalogs. My analysis tests many variables, including the number of years between the song’s release its catalog’s sale (age); the natural log of the number of Spotify streams the song has (popularity); the genre of the song; themes in the song, such as dating, violence, romance, obscenity, sadness, and feelings; and elements of the song like danceability, energy, loudness, instrumentalness (the prevalence of instrumentals relative to vocals in a song), and acousticness (the measure of sound made using instruments as opposed to electronic means). …


Driven By Change: The Impact Of Macroeconomic Shifts And Covid-19 On New Vehicle Sales, Jackson Aldrich Jan 2024

Driven By Change: The Impact Of Macroeconomic Shifts And Covid-19 On New Vehicle Sales, Jackson Aldrich

CMC Senior Theses

This paper examines the impact of macroeconomic factors and the COVID-19 pandemic on new vehicle sales. In order to address these two topics, a two-pronged approach was used with separate regression models. The macroeconomic variables include monthly supply of new homes, CPI for urban public transportation, unemployment rate, disposable personal income, inflation expectation, consumer sentiment, average gas prices, and total vehicle miles traveled which were regressed on total vehicle sales from 1978-2022. The regression results confirmed and supported current literature and highlighted the importance of the housing market and unemployment rate on new vehicle sales. The COVID-19 pandemic model variables …


Determinants And Effects Of Offset Usage Within The California Cap-And-Trade System – A Firm-Level Analysis, Adarsh Srinivasan Jan 2024

Determinants And Effects Of Offset Usage Within The California Cap-And-Trade System – A Firm-Level Analysis, Adarsh Srinivasan

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis examines the determinants of the usage of carbon offsets within the California cap-and-trade program for greenhouse gas emissions. It also investigates the relationship between a firm’s investment in offsets and its financials for publicly traded companies. Entity-level data from 2013 to 2020 was used, which was sourced from the California Air Resources Board. Multiple regression analysis was used to investigate factors that correlated with offset usage and whether offset usage correlated with EBITDA. Dummy variables indicating geographic location and economic sector of each entity were used as controls. The analysis found that total covered emissions and privately owned …


Impact Of Demand For H1b Visas In The Us On The Performance Of Listed Indian Firms, Jayaditya Shekhar Maliye Jan 2023

Impact Of Demand For H1b Visas In The Us On The Performance Of Listed Indian Firms, Jayaditya Shekhar Maliye

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis examines the relationship between Indian firm performance and the demand for H1B visas in the US. To test this relationship, a fixed effects model has been used on a panel dataset of 104 Indian firms listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and National Stock Exchange of India (NSE) over the period 2009 to 2021. The results show that an increase in H1B visa demand is negatively and significantly associated with Indian firm performance. These findings suggest that the US’s demand for high skilled labor overseas has consequences for firms in the home country.


Balancing Trade And Security During The Us-China Trade War: A Gravity Model Approach To South Korea’S Relations With The United States And China, Nathalie Chavez Jan 2023

Balancing Trade And Security During The Us-China Trade War: A Gravity Model Approach To South Korea’S Relations With The United States And China, Nathalie Chavez

CMC Senior Theses

In analyzing monthly trade and gross domestic product (GDP) data for South Korea, China, and the United States from January 2016 to December 2019, this paper attempts to quantify the effects of the US-China Trade War on Korea’s security and economic considerations. By using a three-country gravity model with both monthly and HS Code (harmonized system) fixed effects, it finds the following. First, increases in both real GDP for the United States and China, as well as real GDP for Korea, are positively associated with increases in Korean exports at statistically significant levels. Thus, the general predictions of the gravity …


Application Of Sentiment Analysis And Machine Learning Techniques To Predict Daily Cryptocurrency Price Returns, Edward Wu Jan 2023

Application Of Sentiment Analysis And Machine Learning Techniques To Predict Daily Cryptocurrency Price Returns, Edward Wu

CMC Senior Theses

This paper examines the effects of social media sentiment relating to Bitcoin on the daily price returns of Bitcoin and other popular cryptocurrencies by utilizing sentiment analysis and machine learning techniques to predict daily price returns. Many investors think that social media sentiment affects cryptocurrency prices. However, the results of this paper find that social media sentiment relating to Bitcoin does not add significant predictive value to forecasting daily price returns for each of the six cryptocurrencies used for analysis and that machine learning models that do not assume linearity between the current day price return and previous daily price …


A Comparative Analysis Of 14 Central Banks’ Monetary Responses Before And After The Covid-19 Pandemic In Relation To Central Bank Independence, Emelle Stottele Jan 2023

A Comparative Analysis Of 14 Central Banks’ Monetary Responses Before And After The Covid-19 Pandemic In Relation To Central Bank Independence, Emelle Stottele

CMC Senior Theses

In theory, during periods of economic downturn, economic policy should follow a countercyclical pattern. In this light, following the recent COVID-19 pandemic, monetary policy is expected to be contractionary. However, prior research shows that the cyclical nature of monetary policy can vary significantly across different countries. Research also suggests that these monetary responses differ based on the level of independence a central bank has for decision-making from government influence. This thesis studies the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the monetary responses across a panel of 14 countries from January 2018 to August 2022, capturing the impacts of the pandemic. …


The Paycheck Protection Program's Effect On Real Estate Prices, Someswar Amujala Jan 2023

The Paycheck Protection Program's Effect On Real Estate Prices, Someswar Amujala

CMC Senior Theses

This paper investigates the relationship between the Paycheck Protec- tion Program (PPP) and real estate price increases. The Paycheck Protection Program was established by the Small Business Association in 2020 to pro- vide forgivable loans to businesses to aid with potential losses from COVID- 19 impacts. I leverage zip code level data across the United States and a fixed effects panel data model to quantitatively measure the PPP’s influence on housing and rental prices. I find a positive and significant relationship between the number of PPP loans disbursed and housing and rental rates. Specifically, a 1% change in the number …


Did Demonetization Have A Bigger Impact On Ppis (Prepaid Payment Instruments) Or Mobile Banking In India?, Ansh Vora Jan 2023

Did Demonetization Have A Bigger Impact On Ppis (Prepaid Payment Instruments) Or Mobile Banking In India?, Ansh Vora

CMC Senior Theses

On November 8, 2016, Narendra Modi, prime minister of India, tele-advertised the entire nation and announced that India's highest value banknotes, the 500 and 1000 rupee “Rs” notes would be demonetized and taken out of circulation, effective midnight. Modi stated that this is an effort to reduce the large economy of black money, transition India into a digital economy, abolish funding of terrorist groups and illicit circulation of counterfeit notes. In this study, I choose to analyze the impact of demonetization on two digital payment methods - Prepaid Payment Instruments, “PPI” and Mobile Banking. The data used in this study …


The Economic Impact Of H1b Visa Approvals On Industry Specific Gdp, Tarika Dorairaj Jan 2023

The Economic Impact Of H1b Visa Approvals On Industry Specific Gdp, Tarika Dorairaj

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis examines the relationship between H1B visa approvals by industry and industry-specific GDP in the U.S. To example the economic impact of H1B visa approvals, a fixed effects model has been used on a panel dataset comprising of the top 10 employers in each NAICS industry, over the period 2010 to 2022. The results indicate that an increase in Industry H1B visa approvals is associated with a significant and positive increase in Industry GDP. In particular, an increase in H1B approvals in Finance and Insurance, Healthcare, Information, Professional, Scientific and Technical Services, and Real Estate have a positive and …


A Philosophical And Empirical Investigation Into Buddhist Economics, Hannah Doyle Jan 2023

A Philosophical And Empirical Investigation Into Buddhist Economics, Hannah Doyle

CMC Senior Theses

There is a growing body of literature on Buddhist economics from a philosophical perspective; however, no work to date has sought to empirically validate it as an effective economic theory at a global scale. In my paper, I draw on the long history of Buddhist metaphysics to construct an account of Buddhist ethics and then proceed to derive a set of Buddhist economic principles. I draw on the World Happiness Report’s methodology to quantitatively demonstrate the relationship between Buddhist economic principles and the psychological wellbeing of a country’s citizens, as measured through their own evaluation of their quality of life …


Impact Of Recessions And The Business Cycle On Altruism, Nicolas De Mello Jan 2023

Impact Of Recessions And The Business Cycle On Altruism, Nicolas De Mello

CMC Senior Theses

I examine how recessions and the business cycle impact the time individuals allocate to altruism, using American Time Use Survey data from 2002-2019. The aim of the paper was to create a measure of altruism to explore changes in attitudes towards charity and altruism instead of the financial ability to do so. Additionally, I want to understand how economic shocks, such as recessions, impact behaviors and habits across the US population. Using ordinary least squares and the Tobit model, I created two models to capture both changes during and after recessionary periods. The first model is a regression of individuals’ …


Contagion: China Evergrande Group’S Collapse And Its Impact On Belt And Road Stock Indices, William Han Wang Jan 2023

Contagion: China Evergrande Group’S Collapse And Its Impact On Belt And Road Stock Indices, William Han Wang

CMC Senior Theses

The Evergrande Group is a giant: a company that has liabilities proportional to 2% of China’s overall GDP. While there is evidence that Evergrande’s collapse harmed China and its surrounding economies, this thesis analyzes Evergrande’s default within the context of China’s central foreign policy: the Belt and Road Initiative. Through four selected event dates, a difference in means and medians test and standard panel regression is conducted to analyze differences in impacts for Belt and Road and non-Belt and Road participating countries’ stock indices. This paper’s hypothesis implies that Belt and Road countries would see comparatively more negative impacts on …


Understanding Financial Inclusion: A Comparative Analysis Of Financial Mechanisms In Uganda, Amari Huang Jan 2023

Understanding Financial Inclusion: A Comparative Analysis Of Financial Mechanisms In Uganda, Amari Huang

CMC Senior Theses

Financial inclusion is a critical means of empowering individuals to improve their own lives, and Uganda provides an excellent case study for examining various financial mechanisms in a developing country context. This thesis investigates four such mechanisms: formal banks, microfinance institutions, mobile money, and contribution clubs. The analysis is conducted using five criteria to evaluate their level of inclusion: (1) quantitative coverage, (2) standard of living, (3) gender, (4) education, and (5) social capital. The findings of this research suggest that the examined financial institutions can be seen as steppingstones, with each leading to the next, from contribution clubs to …


The Effect Of Free Trade Agreements On Innovation: Evidence From Us Bilateral Free Trade Agreements With Australia, Chile, Singapore, And South Korea, Cameron Stevens Jan 2023

The Effect Of Free Trade Agreements On Innovation: Evidence From Us Bilateral Free Trade Agreements With Australia, Chile, Singapore, And South Korea, Cameron Stevens

CMC Senior Theses

This paper combines two datasets to identify the effect of joining a bilateral Free Trade Agreement with the United States on innovation in four select countries: Australia, Chile, Singapore, and South Korea. Using an probability concordance developed by Lybbert and Zolas (2014), I map the number of patents recorded by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) into four digit North-American-Industry-Classification-System (NAICS) codes, which are then combined with industry level trade data from the US International Trade Committee (USITC). Using a difference-in-differences regression model, I estimate that joining an FTA increases the number of annual patent filings by 44 in a …


Assessing The Health Effects Of Burn Ban Policy Implementation: Evidence From Texas Counties, Jatin Suri Jan 2023

Assessing The Health Effects Of Burn Ban Policy Implementation: Evidence From Texas Counties, Jatin Suri

CMC Senior Theses

I exploit county-level variation in burn ban policies to estimate the effect of burn bans on respiratory disease mortality rates in Texas counties from 2008 to 2020. Using a fixed effects regression model that controls for year and county fixed effects, as well as drought index, firefighting resources, and aging population, I find that burn bans decrease respiratory disease mortality rates by 7 people per 100,000 in the year when the policy is implemented and reduced mortality rates, due to burn ban implementation, persist over a 3-year period. This result is statistically significant (p-value <.05) and provides a novel contribution to an area largely overlooked in previous literature. While previous studies have mainly focused on the economic and environmental effects of burn bans, this research specifically investigates the health outcomes associated with county-level burn bans. Additionally, this study provides evidence of the persistence of the benefits of county-level burn bans over a 3-year period. This contribution to the literature sheds light on the sustained benefits of implementing and enforcing burn bans, which has not been previously explored in prior research.


Heterogeneity In The Covid-19 Pandemic’S Labor Market Effects, Carlos Montelongo Jan 2023

Heterogeneity In The Covid-19 Pandemic’S Labor Market Effects, Carlos Montelongo

CMC Senior Theses

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, labor market outcomes in the United States drastically changed as the country entered its first recession since the Great Recession. The lives of millions of Americans became upended as economic shutdowns and lockdown orders spread across the United States. This paper attempts to quantify and examine the heterogeneity of employment trends before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic along the following four dimensions: race/ethnicity, gender, education, and age. By using cross-sectional data from the Current Population Survey, I gathered a representative sample of different demographic groups in the United States. My objective is …


Playing To Win: The Effects Of Implementing Gamification Strategies In Product Marketing, Sabrina Stone Jan 2023

Playing To Win: The Effects Of Implementing Gamification Strategies In Product Marketing, Sabrina Stone

CMC Senior Theses

Let’s play a game. What effect do you think video games have on twenty-first-century marketing? In this age defined by its nature of digitality, capturing the attention of consumers is an arduous competition. Through market segmentation, research, and the observable variables of consumer behavior, product marketing has turned to video games as a solution to appeal to younger demographics. Gamification is an increasingly applied product marketing strategy employed to increase favorable metrics. Of those key performance indicators (KPIs), boosted measures such as click-through rates, impressions, and engagement rates suggest that gamification is a strategic opportunity to persuade consumers to take …


A Comparative Study On How Governments And Outside Entities Responded To Natural Disasters: Haiti 2010, Ecuador 2016, And Japan 2011 Earthquakes, Cindy Burga-Romero Jan 2023

A Comparative Study On How Governments And Outside Entities Responded To Natural Disasters: Haiti 2010, Ecuador 2016, And Japan 2011 Earthquakes, Cindy Burga-Romero

CMC Senior Theses

With the world becoming more susceptible to natural disasters on account of climate change, it is important to better see and understand the relationship between a country’s economic and political stability to its ability to provide resources and take care of their people and their institutions. This paper looks at 3 earthquake events in the 21st century that have had large disastrous impacts on the country’s infrastructure, economy, and livelihood of people. The events that occurred in Haiti in 2010, in Ecuador in 2016, and in Japan in 2011 have all had major negative impacts on the vastly different countries. …


Renewable Portfolio Standards: Effectiveness And Carbon Implications, Alexander S. Albrecht Jan 2023

Renewable Portfolio Standards: Effectiveness And Carbon Implications, Alexander S. Albrecht

CMC Senior Theses

A renewable portfolio standard (RPS) policy is a popular regulatory tool implemented within the U.S. and abroad to limit energy sector emissions and incentivize renewable energy. Assessing their effectiveness and efficiency is a key component of achieving further reductions. We assess an energy market under an RPS using fixed-effects panel and 2SLS regression models to lend empirical credence to common theory-based concerns about RPS policy, namely (1) that they leave emissions unregulated once the RPS requirement is met and (2) that they do not incentivize full use of renewable energy resources. Our results show these to be valid concerns that …


Sexed Propensities And Gendered Penalties?: An Analysis Of The Economic Outcomes Of Transgender People, Jiwon Chung Jan 2023

Sexed Propensities And Gendered Penalties?: An Analysis Of The Economic Outcomes Of Transgender People, Jiwon Chung

CMC Senior Theses

Recent research has indicated the adverse economic outcomes of transgender people. The titular question of this paper refers to the effect on gendered economic outcomes that differences related to sex assigned at birth has for a sample of transgender individuals that is plausibly correlated with being at an early stage of their gender affirmation processes (e.g. social or medical transition). For this group of plausibly early-in-transition transgender individuals, I hypothesize and test a theory that draws the following account: assigned female at birth (AFAB) transgender individuals encounter significant economic penalties as a result of labour market decisions (i.e. industry sorting) …


Raising The Bar: The Impact Of Gender Quotas On Legislator Quality, Viola Hernandez-Derbez Jan 2023

Raising The Bar: The Impact Of Gender Quotas On Legislator Quality, Viola Hernandez-Derbez

CMC Senior Theses

We analyze the effect of a legislative candidate quota on the quality of congresspeople elected. We study a landmark legislation passed in 2014 in Mexico that required all parties to have an equal number of male and female congressional candidates. We observe a 31% increase in number of bills proposed in legislative sessions after the quota and a significantly higher likelihood for greater educational attainment among male and female deputies alike, controlling for an array of factors that could influence our quality measures. Since not all states had the same level of female representation when the quota was introduced, we …


Global Trade Implications Of A Russia And Ukraine-Like Conflict Between China And Taiwan, Jay Morris Jan 2023

Global Trade Implications Of A Russia And Ukraine-Like Conflict Between China And Taiwan, Jay Morris

CMC Senior Theses

This paper examines the effects of global trade in general from a Russia-Ukraine-like conflict between China and Taiwan as well as the consequences to the worldwide semiconductor industry. A main component of these effects comes from two assumptions: trade between Taiwan and the rest of the world will cease when the conflict occurs and a group of geopolitically aligned and developed countries called the “Allies” will sanction China across a range of product categories. The main effect of the sanctions is the reduction in imports to China in key strategic goods that help in winning military battles and or promote …


Guns And Fatal Police Shootings: Accuracy Of Firearm Prevalence Proxies In A Panel Data Analysis, Corin Elmore Jan 2023

Guns And Fatal Police Shootings: Accuracy Of Firearm Prevalence Proxies In A Panel Data Analysis, Corin Elmore

CMC Senior Theses

This paper explores the relationship between gun prevalence and fatal police shootings in the United States. Specifically, the study assesses the validity of using FSS (Firearm Suicides Per Total Suicides) as a proxy for gun prevalence. It examines whether FBI background check data can be a more reliable alternative. Through a panel data analysis, the study provides moderate evidence that FBI background check data performs better than FSS as a proxy for gun prevalence and that the relationship between firearm prevalence and fatal police shootings is positive. Additionally, the study finds that instrumenting FSS with background check data to account …


Examining The Effectiveness Of Nba General Managers At Determining Value In The Nba Draft, And The Impact Of Drafting Team On Player Future Value, Benjamin S. Glass Jan 2023

Examining The Effectiveness Of Nba General Managers At Determining Value In The Nba Draft, And The Impact Of Drafting Team On Player Future Value, Benjamin S. Glass

CMC Senior Theses

This study examines the effectiveness of NBA general managers at accurately drafting in accordance with the future values of players. Using draft position as a metric representing perceived value at the time of the draft, and second contract size to represent value of a player at the time of free agency, I compare the effects of different draft positions on the expected size of a players second contract. By examining divergences in the expected negative linear trend, I can identify positions in the draft which are being over/undervalued. I additionally look at the effect of team on second contract size …


Finding Answers In Gaps: The Relationship Between Drugs And Mexico's Economy, Mariela Centeno Jan 2023

Finding Answers In Gaps: The Relationship Between Drugs And Mexico's Economy, Mariela Centeno

CMC Senior Theses

This paper sets out to understand the economic conditions that paved the way for the evolution and resilience of a powerful and resilient drug economy in Mexico. To do this, I examine the relationship between a proxy for drug movement from Mexico and large economic variables in the country. I use a dataset that incorporates the drug seizures from 1997 to 2022 to understand whether privatization and the resulting rising economic inequalities in Mexico paved the way for a growing drug economy. This paper builds on current literature regarding drug market estimates and drug economy interactions. Using an OLS regression …