Behavioral Economics Commons^™

Equality In Times Of Uncertainty: Economic Downturn And Body Image Messaging Toward Women, Ritsa Giannakas

Honors Theses

A vast body of literature indicates that the economy and the status of women are interlinked, with higher levels of economic well-being tending to correspond with advancements in women’s rights. However, little of this research has investigated the changes in the wellbeing of women as it pertains to their physical and mental health, especially as it pertains to exploring the impacts of economics on eating disorder rates and societal messaging toward women. This thesis investigates a novel theory linking economic uncertainty and downturn to the spread of pro-eating disorder content online, positing that economic uncertainty may coincide with a “conservative …

Why The Public Discourse On Education Is Wrong, Jesus Felipe

Angelo King Institute for Economic and Business Studies (AKI)

ONCE upon a time, the Philippines was praised for its relatively well-educated labor force. Not anymore. The situation seems to have reversed: policymakers and commentators single out education as one of the primary causes for the country’s poor performance (lack of competitiveness) and the unemployability of many of its workers.

To put the discussion in the correct context, I will start by arguing that the relevant measure of progress for a developing nation like the Philippines is productivity. Without productivity increases, there cannot be increases in income. Productivity in the Philippines is low in general. Is education the key to …

Teaching In The Right Context: Textbook Supply Program, Language, And Vocabulary Ability In Vietnam, Tomoki Fujii, Maki Nakajima, Sijia Xu

Research Collection School Of Economics

An ethnic gap in education is prevalent around the world. This remains the case in Vietnam, a country that has achieved phenomenal economic growth and raised the educational attainment of the public. This paper examines the impact of language policy reorientation represented by the textbook supply program in Vietnam on the ethnic gap in children's learning measured by a vocabulary test. Applying difference-in-differences estimation to the Young Lives data between 2006 and 2015, we show that the program became more effective in narrowing the ethnic gap as the education policy became reoriented toward ethnic minority children. A causal mediation analysis …

Incentivizing Innovation: Promoting Technical Competency To Win Future Wars., James E. Bevins

Faculty Publications

Despite numerous studies and initiatives, most current Air Force efforts to add science and technology talent have been insufficient. This begs the question: How does the Air Force incentivize and promote the necessary technical competence required to win future competition, conflicts, and wars? Several key initiatives, grounded in behavioral economics, can incentivize innovation and pursue science and technology expertise. Developed in the context of peer adversaries’ actions; global trends in technology, competition, and conflict; and the global competition for science and technology talent, these recommendations have the potential to reform institutional culture and unleash the creativity and talent of the …

Experimental Evidence On Consumption, Saving, And Family Formation Responses To Student Debt Forgiveness, Jason Jabarri, Stephen Roll, Mathieu Despard, Leah Hamilton

Social Policy Institute Research

As policy-makers grapple with whether or not to forgive student debt, for who, and how much, it is important to explore how student debt forgiveness would relate to intended household decisions and behaviors. We conducted a survey experiment that asked participants with student debt to imagine a scenario in which the federal government forgave a certain amount of student debt. We then had these participants report on how this would affect their decisions and behaviors. 1,053 participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions that offered $5,000, $10,000, $20,000, and complete debt forgiveness. Our results indicate that student debt …

Assessing Gender Parity In Intrahousehold Allocation Of Educational Resources: Evidence From Bangladesh, Sijia Xu, Abu S. Shonchoy, Tomoki Fujii

Research Collection School Of Economics

Gender parity in education—an important global development goal—has been primarily measured through school enrollment, and the gender parity in education quality has received limited attention until recently. We address this issue by highlighting the intrahousehold allocation of education expenditure. We extend the hurdle model into a three-part model to enable decomposition of households’ education decisions into enrollment, total education expenditure, and share of the total education expenditure on the core component, or items relating to the quality of education such as private tutoring. We apply this model to four rounds of nationally representative household surveys from Bangladesh, a country that …

Not-So-Full-Ride Scholarship: Analysis Of Merit-Based Aid Gpa Renewal Requirements, Samuel Brown

Honors Theses

This paper examines the potential consequences of the 3.50 GPA renewal requirement for the Regents Scholar Tuition Commitment (RSTC) at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL). To examine these potential outcomes, I’ve synthesized several studies of Georgia’s Helping Outstanding Pupils Educationally (HOPE) program. Additionally, I sought to compare the RSTC with other similar programs at UNL’s peer Big Ten institutions. To accomplish this, I compiled and analyzed public information on merit-based programs at the 14 Big Ten schools from their university websites. In doing so, I found that the RSTC is in the lowest quartile in terms of value to the …

Health And Profit In Student Housing During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Austin Mcneill Brown

Population Health Research Brief Series

The decision to reopen some U.S. universities during the current COVID-19 pandemic may be tied to private financial interests in student housing.

Incentivized Learning And Libraries: A Comparative Study Of Summer Reading Programs In Connecticut, Andrew Morrison

Honors Scholar Theses

With digital forms of entertainment and media more inescapable than ever, it has become increasingly difficult to encourage children and teens to read. Simultaneously, despite an overwhelming amount of literature demonstrating the educational benefits of reading, especially as a necessity in the summer between academic years, library budgets are shrinking as federal funding nears its end. How do libraries promote summer reading amidst declining interest and decreased funding? Using data from public libraries across Connecticut, this paper investigates how libraries are adapting their children's summer reading programs to a changing landscape, how programs are designed to incentivize reading without eliminating …

College Crime And Retention Rates, Abigail R. Hauer

Student Publications

Increased media attention on college crime has led to greater prioritization of campus safety when selecting a college to attend. This, coupled with society’s view of higher education as a necessity to succeed in the labor market, creates a potential tradeoff between safety on campus and future job success. To analyze such tradeoff, I examine whether college crime affects retention rates at four-year American institutions. While literature has focused on college crime and factors that affect the decision to begin attending a college, no study has solely focused on the college crime and the decision to continue attending a college. …

Need Based Aid From Selective Universities And The Achievement Gap Between Rich And Poor, Sunha Myong

Research Collection School Of Economics

I study the role of need-based aid from selective universities in closing the achievement gap between rich and poor high school students. I focus on the incentive aspect of need-based aid that can change high school students’ effort choices. The impact of increasing need-based aid depends on the extent of borrowing constraints and how competition affects the relative performance of low- and high-income students. I develop a structural model of students’ learning, application, and admission processes, and estimate it with the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002, a nationally representative sample. I use a geographic variation in costs of attending selective …

Development Of Utility Theory And Utility Paradoxes, Timothy E. Dahlstrom

Lawrence University Honors Projects

Since the pioneering work of von Neumann and Morgenstern in 1944 there have been many developments in Expected Utility theory. In order to explain decision making behavior economists have created increasingly broad and complex models of utility theory. This paper seeks to describe various utility models, how they model choices among ambiguous and lottery type situations, and how they respond to the Ellsberg and Allais paradoxes. This paper also attempts to communicate the historical development of utility models and provide a fresh perspective on the development of utility models.

Entrepreneurship, Education And Credit: The Golden Triangle, Roberto M. Samaniego, Juliana Yu Sun

Research Collection School Of Economics

We develop a model to evaluate the impact of college education finance on welfare, inequality and aggregate outcomes. Our model captures the stylized fact that entrepreneurs with college are more common and more profitable. Our calibration to US data suggests this is mainly because higher labor earnings allow college educated agents to ameliorate credit constraints when they become entrepreneurs. The welfare benefits of subsidizing education are greater than those of eliminating financing constraints on education because subsidies ameliorate the impact of financing constraints on would-be entrepreneurs.

Loan Counseling For Graduate And Professional Students, Patricia Steele, Chad Anderson

Commissioned Research

This report provides an overview of existing literature that examines loan counseling and financial literacy for graduate and professional students, and includes actionable recommendations for stakeholders to better support students in making optimal financial decisions about their loans and other aspects of their personal finances. The report was authored by Patricia Steele, Ph.D., and Chad Anderson with Higher Ed Insight.

Impact Of International Remittances On Schooling In The Philippines: Does The Relationship To The Household Head Matter?, Tomoki Fujii

Research Collection School Of Economics

We study the impact of international remittances on schooling in the Philippines, taking into account the school-age individual's relationship to the household head. This consideration is important because employment opportunities abroad may be taken at the expense of the quality of child rearing. Our estimation results indicate that there are, indeed, significant negative guardian effects on school attendance and education expenditures when children with overseas parents are looked after by a relative other than a parent or grandparent. However, these negative effects tend to be outweighed by the positive impact of remittance flows from overseas.

Financial Literacy And Financial Inclusion Of Women In Rural Rajasthan, Emily Levi-D'Ancona

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Financial inclusion is an important step in development, as access to finances can help the poor build money and lift themselves out of poverty. In many parts of the developing world, and especially in India, microfinance is seen as a new approach to fighting poverty by bringing financial services, including low-interest loans, to the poor so that they can afford to start a business or invest and eventually gain self-sufficiency – in other words, a method of financial inclusion for the poor. However, microfinance in India cannot sufficiently reach the poor populations, especially those in rural India, and many of …

Does Retirement Make You Happy? A Simultaneous Equations Approach, Raquel Fonseca, Arie Kapteyn, Jinkook Lee, Gema Zamarro

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

Continued improvements in life expectancy and fiscal insolvency of public pensions have led to an increase in pension entitlement ages in several countries, but its consequences for subjective well-being are largely unknown. Financial consequences of retirement complicate the estimation of effects of retirement on subjective well-being as financial circumstances may influence subjective well-being, and therefore, the effects of retirement are likely to be confounded by the change in income. At the same time, unobservable determinants of income are probably related with unobservable determinants of subjective wellbeing, making income possibly endogenous if used as control in subjective wellbeing regressions. To address …

Family Labor Participation And Child Care Decisions: The Role Of Grannies, Gema Zamarro

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

One of the most significant long term trends in the labor market in most OECD countries has been the increase in the proportion of working mothers. However, not all countries show the same pattern. Countries in Southern Europe (Italy, Greece and Spain) show an average participation rate of about 45% whereas the participation rates in Northern countries (Denmark, Sweden) are around 75%. The characteristics of child care systems also differ significantly across OECD countries. This along with the characteristics of the labor market may have led families to get the necessary social services in an alternative way, i.e. through grandmothers. …

Why Did Universities Precede Primary Schools? A Political Economy Model Of Educational Change, Fali Huang

Research Collection School Of Economics

Universities were first established in Europe around the twelfth century, while primary schools did not appear until the nineteenth. This paper accounts for this phenomenon using a political economy model of educational change on who are educated (the elite or the masses) and what is taught (general or specific/vocational education). A key assumption is that general education is more effective than specific education in enhancing one’s skills in a broad range of tasks, including political rent-seeking. Its findings suggest that specific education for the masses is compatible with the elite rule, while mass general education is not, which refines the …

Teaching Ecological And Feminist Economics In The Principles Course, Julie A. Nelson, Neva Goodwin

Economics Faculty Publication Series

It can be difficult to incorporate ecological and feminist concerns into introductory courses, when one is also obliged to teach neoclassical analysis. In this essay we briefly describe how one might extend existing “multi-paradigmatic” approaches to feminist and ecological concerns, and then present an new alternative approach that may be more suitable for some students. This “broader questions and bigger toolbox” approach can be applied in both microeconomics and macroeconomics introductory classrooms.

Pre-Test Assessment, Thomas Berry

Publications – Dreihaus College of Business

Pre-tests are a non-graded assessment tool used to determine pre-existing subject knowledge. Typically pre-tests are administered prior to a course to determine knowledge baseline, but here they are used to test students prior to topical material coverage throughout the course. While counterintuitive, the pre-tests cover material the student is not expected to know, but serve as a motivational tool and a road map for the students, resulting in improved course performance.

What Matter For Child Development?, Fali Huang

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper estimates production functions of child cognitive and social development using a panel data of nine-year old children each with over two hundred home and school inputs as well as family background variables. A tree regression method is used to conduct estimation under various speci…cations. A small subset of inputs is found consistently important in explaining variances of child development results, including the number of books a child has at various ages and how often a mother reads to child by age …ve, while the e¤ects of race and maternal employment are negligible when detailed inputs are controlled.

Priming The Pump: Research As A Catalyst For Economic Growth, Jeffery T. Collins, Craig T. Schulman

Publications and Presentations

This analysis is designed to answer several important questions regarding the impact of research dollars invested in the state of Arkansas. We begin by discussing the state of the state in terms of income measures and measures of educational attainment levels. Throughout this analysis, the state of Arkansas is compared to the U.S., to a group of peer states , and, initially, to the state of Mississippi.

Next, we examine the linkage between income and education. We also examine higher education in the state in terms of spending, access and research dollars. From this general description we examine the present …

The Leverage Problem In The Valuation Of Privately Held Firms, Thomas Berry, John Houston

Publications – Dreihaus College of Business

No abstract provided.

Ua3/3/1 Analysis Of The Demand For Married Student Housing At Wku, 1966-1967, R. E. Kramer, William Calvert, James Darden, Robert Hancock, Carol Lehman, Gary Lloyd, Robert Matthews, Melven Morris, Ronald Roby, Daniel Saur, Wayne Wilcox, Aubrey Wilson, Wku President's Office

WKU Archives Records

The purpose of this study is to bring forth relevant information needed to determine the feasibility of an investment project for a married student housing complex on the campus of Western Kentucky University. Only the demand side of the market is analyzed; a potential investor will have the construction and land costs for such an enterprise at his disposal. With the information presented in this study it is hoped that a decision to construct a housing complex will be forthcoming. The study group attempted to present information that will allow a potential investor to make an intelligent decision as to …