Behavioral Economics Commons^™

The Influence Of Flavor On The Abuse Liability Of A Heated Tobacco Product And Its Feasibility As A Menthol Cigarette Substitute, Augustus White

Theses and Dissertations

Heated Tobacco Products (HTPs) purport to expose people that use cigarettes to fewer of the harmful or potentially harmful constituents of tobacco while still delivering reinforcing amounts of nicotine (Auer, Concha-Lozano et al., 2017). An exemplar of the HTP class, IQOS, and its three varieties of “HeatSticks” have been authorized by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as “Modified Risk Tobacco Products” (MRTP). However, as the FDA is planning to ban menthol as a characterizing flavor in cigarettes, questions remain regarding whether characterizing flavors should be permitted in HTPs (FDA, 2022e). New evidence regarding HTP abuse liability (i.e., the likelihood …

Heterogeneous Effects In The Prospects Of Upward Mobility Hypothesis: The Roles Of Risk And Political Beliefs., Nathaniel Badalov

Theses and Dissertations

I test for heterogenous effects in the Prospects of Upward Mobility (POUM) hypothesis framework. This framework suggests that individuals who are poorer than average but expect to become richer than average support less redistribution. Using a survey of households in primarily transition economies - Life in Transition Survey (LiTS2) and ordered logistic regression, I test whether the POUM effect is influenced by the riskiness of the individual's environment or political beliefs. The results suggest that the POUM effect holds independent of the riskiness of the environment but is conditional on political beliefs. The prospects of upward mobility decrease redistributive support …

Effects Of The Raising The Minimum Legal Purchasing Age For Tobacco On Cigarette, Cocaine And Inhalant Consumption, Ahmed Adil

Theses and Dissertations

Over the past few years, several states have passed laws that increase the minimum legal purchasing age (MLPA) for tobacco from 18 to 21 years. This study examines the impact of statewide MLPA laws on youth tobacco consumption. Using data from the 2009-2019 Youth Risky Behavior Surveys (YRBS) and a difference-in-differences approach, I find that the enactment of MLPA laws is associated with a decrease in tobacco usage among adolescents. I also find that MLPA laws have important spillover effects to other youth risky behaviors. MLPA law adoption is associated with a reduction in cocaine use and inhalant abuse.

Fairness Doesn't Have To Be Egalitarian: Evidence From Bargaining Games, Kevin Wong

Theses and Dissertations

I develop a theoretical model and provide experimental evidence that social norms of fairness play a critical role in determining equilibrium outcomes in bargaining games.

Cryptocurrencies Bandwagon…Fad Wave Or Investment Asset? Firm Level Analysis Of Panel Data In Egypt, Yasmine Galal

Theses and Dissertations

The crypto market is growing rapidly and gaining momentum globally. The current study is tackling the impact of the crypto exchanges on the stock market in Egypt. The author consolidated firm level data from DataStream and Cryptocurrency data from CoinDesk to conduct this study over the period 2014-2020. The methodology is based on Fixed Effect and IV-GMM models to study the differential impact across sectors and firm attributes. Our main findings can be highlighted as follows: (a) cryptocurrencies are substitutes to stocks. (b)Two periods are highlighted in the analysis: 2016 post currency devaluation and COVID-19 pandemic, where the adoption was …

The Extent To Which The Provision Of Water And Sanitation Services Affect The Individual’S Decision To Migrate: The Case Of Egypt, Sara Mohamed Soliman

Theses and Dissertations

Determinants of migration, although researched copiously shed little light on the importance of access to sustainable, basic water and sanitation utilities on an individual’s decision to migrate. This research reveals that individuals originating from rural Upper Egypt, rural and urban Lower Egypt, and rural and urban Alexandria and Suez Canal regions are more likely to migrate relative to those from the urban Greater Cairo region. Access to water has been deemed as insignificant while access to sanitation is a significant factor in determining migration patterns as do macro- economic differences in origin governorates, gender, educational background before migration, and employment …

Can The Circular Economy Concretize Sustainability? A Construal Level Approach To Encourage Sustainable Consumption., Jolie Gutentag

Theses and Dissertations

Despite a growing awareness and understanding of the impact our lifestyles have on the environment, most people have not adequately changed their consumption patterns. One possibility for the disconnect is the perceived abstractness of sustainability. Drawing on construal level theory, this research proposes that framing environmental sustainability as circularity, using the principles of the circular economy, reduces the perceived abstractness of sustainability. Four studies investigate the effects of circular framing on sustainable consumption behavior, including the moderating role of consumers’ chronic level of construal, an innate mindset reflecting a tendency to view information more concretely or abstractly. Findings provide initial …

Does Having A Baby Affect Tenants’ Renting Opportunities? Experimental Evidence From Nyc, Christina Katopodis

Theses and Dissertations

Access to reliable and stable housing is critical for the general population in urban areas and large cities. This paper tests for differential treatment in the rental housing market using an experiment conducted via e-mail for rental units advertised on-line. There are two emails with the same content, except for one shows the family status as childless and the other shows the family status as having an 18-month-old child. These emails were then sent to the landlords with an equal distribution. Apart from family status, there is no mention of socioeconomic status or any other identifying factors of the tenant. …

The Effects Of Public Policy On Charitable Giving, Arielle Sauer

Theses and Dissertations

This study analyzes the effects of No Child Left Behind, The Affordable Care Act, and the Clean Power Plan has on charitable organizations geared towards education, healthcare and environmentalism. I find that public policy negatively impacts giving to education and environmental nonprofits and positively impacts giving to health nonprofits.

Why We Use A New Currency: The Role Of Trust And Control In Explaining The Perception And Usage Of Bitcoin, Joseph B. Walton

Theses and Dissertations

Social media, e-commerce, global peer-to-peer technologies, and the near ubiquity of computers and smartphones allow people to interact, trust, and exchange value across traditional socio-economic control boundaries and over significant distances. Since the creation in 2008 of a new cryptographic currency system called Bitcoin, a financial technology market sector of about 250 billion USD has rapidly emerged, raising questions about the nature of currency in society and whether new types of non-national money are warranted and viable. This debate has pitted heterodox economic interests against orthodox economic interests while it has rekindled interest in theories that view money as a …

What Happens When Cross-Sector Partnerships Are Mandated? Analyzing Trust Through A Transaction Cost Approach, Vanessa Hubbard Rastberger Dr

Theses and Dissertations

Cross-sector partnerships that combine the perspectives and needs of public, private, and nonprofit sectors have been used to address public policy challenges. Research has shown that trust and reputation among partners play an important role in the performance of partnerships. Trust has been positively associated with the reduction of transaction costs of partnerships, and therefore, this study used a Transaction Cost Economics (TCE) approach as the theoretical framework.

Some partnerships are volitional while others are the results of legal or other mandates. Does this volitional or non-volitional (mandated) status affect how collaboration is perceived? For instance, will collaboration and trust …

Persuasion, Political Warfare, And Deterrence: Behavioral And Behaviorally Robust Models, William N. Caballero

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines game theory models in the context of persuasion and competition wherein decision-makers are not completely rational by considering two complementary threads of research. The first thread of research pertains to offensive and preemptively defensive behavioral models. Research in this thread makes three notable contributions. First, an offensive modeling framework is created to identify how an entity optimally influences a populace to take a desired course of action. Second, a defensive modeling framework is defined wherein a regulating entity takes action to bound the behavior of multiple adversaries simultaneously attempting to persuade a group of decision-makers. Third, an …

Elaborations On Multiattribute Utility Theory Dominance, David L. Vairo

Theses and Dissertations

ELABORATIONS ON MULTIATTRIBUTE UTILITY THEORY DOMINANCE

By David L. Vairo

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Virginia Commonwealth University, 2019.

Major Director: Dissertation director’s name, Dr. Jason Merrick, Supply Chain Management and Analytics

Multiattribute Utility Theory (MAUT) is used to structure decisions with more than one factor (attribute) in play. These decisions become complex when the attributes are dependent on one another. Where linear modeling is concerned with how factors are directly related or correlated with each other, MAUT is concerned with how a decision maker …

Patient-Centered Medical Homes And Hospital Value-Based Purchasing: Investigating Provider Responses To Incentives, Lauryn Walker

Theses and Dissertations

Provider incentives are a commonly used policy tool to mold provider behaviors.¹ However, while we frequently measure the change in patient outcomes, failure to consistently produce changes in outcomes does not mean that providers are not changing their behavior. This paper focuses on two programs with null or inconsistent quality outcomes to try to identify why such inconsistency occurs. The two programs, both ratified in the Affordable Care Act, are 1) patient-centered medical homes (PCMHs), and 2) the Medicare Hospital Value-Based Purchasing (HVBP) program.

Chapter 1: Using data from the Medical Expenditure Panel survey (MEPS), I match provider characteristic …

Proposition 47 And Crime: A Difference In Differences Analysis Of Incarceration Rates And Crime Using Border Counties, Brian J. Fischer

Theses and Dissertations

California passed Proposition 47 by vote and changed the way the state punishes drug and theft. I find an increase in crime using a difference in differences model by computing the change in thefts with the change in inmates. This effect sides with anecdotal claims and disagrees with empirical studies.

Cooperation And Reciprocity In Anonymous Interactions: Other-Regarding Preferences And Quasi-Magical Thinking, Gregory Klevans

Theses and Dissertations

In economic experiments, players often demonstrate concerns for the relative payoffs between themselves and other subjects, in addition to their own payoffs. In addition, they appear to do their parts to achieve efficient outcomes, particularly when they are ignorant of the opponent's decision. I present a parsimonious model of other-regarding preferences and quasi-magical thinking that explains such behavior, and I apply it to four games: the prisoner's dilemma, the traveler's dilemma, the ultimatum game, and the trust game.

Unemployment, Does It Really Hurt?, Claudia Vargas

Theses and Dissertations

This paper analyzes the consequences of changes in the unemployment rate in Colombia on the level of education attained for adolescents. Increases in the unemployment rate are associated with an increase in the average number of years of education. No significant effect was found for men of the same age.

How Should We Motivate Effort, Shamima Khan

Theses and Dissertations

This research uses an experimental design to study if the pattern and positioning of rewards influence the amount of effort participants put in. The three key hypotheses tested here are: 1) are people more likely to complete a task if the incentives are given in more regular intervals, 2) do uncertainty of reward timing hurt or help in maintaining motivation, 3) is intrinsic motivation more influential than the patterns in which incentives are structured? The treatments in this experiment are created by varying the reward structure of candies and pens in exchange of a simple math test completion. Among the …

Household Shocks And Transition Into Marriage: Evidence From Rural Ethiopia, Boyd K. Tembo

Theses and Dissertations

The study tests the primary hypothesis that household shocks do not have a positive and significant correlation with a child's transition into early marriage. It finds that there is no statistically significant correlation between parental death and transition into marriage for both genders of subjects in the study.

Causes And Consequences Of Risk Aversion In Middle Adulthood, Nataliya Rubinchik

Theses and Dissertations

I analyze how risk aversion may affect decision-making over time, what effects risk aversion may have on decisions, and whether one’s level of risk aversion varies over time. I find that risk preferences correlate with certain maternal factors, income, depression, and ethnicity. Risk aversion correlates with financial and health decisions.

Variation In Restaurant Sanitary Scores In New York City, Kyle Gregory

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine whether restaurants that are homogenous in nature would exhibit substantially different hygiene scores based on the underlying consumer learning behaviors present in the neighborhoods in which the restaurants are located.