Economic Theory Commons^™

Three Essays In Applied Microeconomics: Philly Style, Alexander Christian Marsella

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

My dissertation analyzes several contemporary policy-based and institutional occurrences in an urban setting to help guide further advancements in reducing violence, drug overdose deaths, and other unhealthy behaviors that city governments look to curb. Several recent developments in Philadelphia offer a promising setting for studying policies that have broad implications.

Chapter 1 examines the effect of the West Philadelphia Promise Zone initiative on violent crime rates in a high-crime area of West Philadelphia, where a series of educational, public-safety, and quality-of-life improvement grants were disbursed from 2014 onward. My difference-in-differences analysis with two-way fixed effects and cluster bootstrapped standard errors …

The Cost-Effectiveness And Feminization Of The Human Papillomavirus Vaccine, Audrey Jammes

Scripps Senior Theses

Approved in 2006, the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine provided a medical breakthrough in combating cancer by inoculating first female and then male adolescents in 2010. In 2016, a new HPV vaccine was approved for all adolescents. However, it is the most expensive vaccine created in the United States and its female centered prescription led to debates regarding the vaccine’s necessity and risks. For the STS portion of this paper, analysis of the language in the vaccine’s prescriptions from 2006, 2010, and 2016 demonstrates two implicit assumptions regarding female health built into the vaccine’s rollout. Comparison of the two assumptions to …

Essays On The Impacts Of Extreme Natural Events On Health, Moumita Ghorai

Dissertations

This dissertation comprises three chapters that examine how extreme events impact health outcomes such as short-term illness, body mass index, probability of pre-term birth, and mortality. The study reveals the severe consequences of these events and shows that certain groups within a particular country are affected disproportionately.

The first chapter examines whether National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), India’s flagship workfare program, mitigates adverse health outcomes of a drought. This paper contributes to a growing area of research on adaptations to climate change. Using Indian Human Development Survey (2004-2005 and 2010-2011), a nationally representative panel data set, and high resolution …

Investigating The Economic Effects Of Food Affordability, Food Access, And Education On Obesity Rates In Mississippi Counties, Youssef Osman

Honors Theses

The growing rate of obesity across the United States is a topic of great concern considering both the health and financial costs associated with the disease. Many researchers have sought to determine the major causes of obesity so that policy suggestions can be made to reduce its occurrence. Some of the referenced drivers of obesity include high food costs, poor access to healthy food, and a lack of knowledge regarding nutrition. This thesis seeks to find the effects of county-level food prices, income, food access, and education level on obesity rates in Mississippi counties. The analysis uses cross-sectional data from …

The Social Determinants Of Diabetes And Coronary Heart Disease In South Asian American Immigrants, Mishal Ayaz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

An astounding 20% of South Asian Americans have diabetes (Matthews and Zachariah 2008). Conventional risk factors for coronary heart disease includes: age older than 65, sedentary lifestyle, cigarette smoking, hypertension, elevated low-density lipoprotein (LDL), cholesterol, and type 2 diabetes, all factors beyond health care (italicized for emphasis) (Mathews and Zachariah 2008). But conventional risk factors alone are not sufficient to predict the alarmingly high rates of coronary heart disease (“CHD”) for South Asian Americans. In fact, the only conventional risk factor more prevalent in this community than others is diabetes. So, the question remains, what factors are contributing to the …

Benefit-Cost Analysis Of Covid-19 Policy Intervention At The State And National Level, James L. Doti

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

This study analyzes the benefits of statewide policy intervention in reducing COVID-19 deaths and the costs of that intervention in lost jobs and lower real gross state product (RGSP). Policy interventions are measured by the Oxford stringency index which places a daily numerical value on the level of a state’s policy intervention.

Empirical evidence is provided that shows policy interventions have reduced COVID-19 deaths by 375,000 lives in 2020. On the cost side, it was found that policy intervention resulted in a loss of 7.3 million jobs and a decline of $410 billion in RGSP.

The study concludes by integrating …

Market Structure And Quality Of Service: Investigating Oligopolies And The Quality Of Nursing Home Care In California During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Tessa Ireton

Senior Independent Study Theses

Quality-of-service outcomes in nursing homes are of great social and human importance. However, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, consistently maintaining markets with high quality care has been a pervading issue in the American nursing home industry. Furthermore, the industry is strongly characterized by oligopolies, a market structure that literature indicates may be less compatible with quality service than competitive markets. With this paper, I aim to investigate the possible intersection of oligopolist market structures and the quality of nursing home care during the COVID-19 pandemic. I start by describing quality of care in nursing homes, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, …

Predictors Of Social Distancing And Mask-Wearing Behavior: Panel Survey In Seven U.S. States, Plamen Nikolov, Andreas Pape, Ozlem Tonguc, Charlotte Williams

Economics Faculty Scholarship

This paper presents preliminary summary results from a longitudinal study of participants in seven U.S. states during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to standard socio-economic characteristics, we collect data on various economic preference parameters: time, risk, and social preferences, and risk perception biases. We pay special attention to predictors that are both important drivers of social distancing and are potentially malleable and susceptible to policy levers. We note three important findings: (1) demographic characteristics exert the largest influence on social distancing measures and mask-wearing, (2) we show that individual risk perception and cognitive biases exert a critical role in influencing …

Rationing Social Contact During The Covid-19 Pandemic: Transmission Risk And Social Benefits Of Us Locations, Seth G. Benzell, Avinash Collis, Christos Nicolaides

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

To prevent the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), some types of public spaces have been shut down while others remain open. These decisions constitute a judgment about the relative danger and benefits of those locations. Using mobility data from a large sample of smartphones, nationally representative consumer preference surveys, and economic statistics, we measure the relative transmission reduction benefit and social cost of closing 26 categories of US locations. Our categories include types of shops, entertainments, and service providers. We rank categories by their trade-off of social benefits and transmission risk via dominance across 13 dimensions of risk and …

Differences In Tsimane Children’S Growth Outcomes And Associated Determinants As Estimated By Who Standards Vs. Within-Population References, Melanie Martin, Aaron Blackwell, Hillard Kaplan, Michael Gurven

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

Anthropometric measures are commonly converted to age stratified z-scores to examine variation in growth outcomes in mixed-age and sex samples. For many study populations, z-scores will differ if calculated from World Health Organization (WHO) growth standards or within-population references. The specific growth reference used may influence statistical estimates of growth outcomes and their determinants, with implications for biological inference. We examined factors associated with growth outcomes in a sample of 152 Tsimane children aged 0–36 months. The Tsimane are a subsistence-scale population in the Bolivian Amazon with high rates of infectious disease and growth faltering. To examine the influence of …

The Business Cycle And Health: An Analysis Of How Macroeconomic Conditions Impact Health Outcomes In The U.S., Talitha Kumaresan

Honors Theses

The U.S. spends about twice as much per person on healthcare, yet the disease burden remains higher in the U.S. than in comparable countries (Sawyer and Cox 2018; Sawyer and Gonzales 2017). Although health status is perceived to be an outcome of individual decision making, the business cycle also affects health. While the effect of macroeconomic shocks on health outcomes has been studied extensively, results remain inconclusive. This analysis uses longitudinal data over 30 years and panel data models to examine the effect of macroeconomic conditions on obesity, diabetes, hypertension, depression, congestive heart failure, and heart attack or myocardial infarction. …

Patriarchal Norms, Bargaining, And Gendered Attitudes On Intimate Partner Violence, Anna Eckenrode

Master's Theses

How do the underlying mechanisms of social norms and bargaining power relate to the acceptance of intimate partner violence within households? How do short run and long run determinants of gender norms affect attitudes toward IPV? This study begins to decompose the dynamics of the acceptance of IPV within couples using data from the Demographic Health Survey, as well as examine the relationship in the context of patriarchal societies using data from the Ethnographic Atlas. I find that females are more accepting than males of intimate partner violence, and females becoming more educated is associated with her being less accepting …

Measuring Health Outcomes Of Uncovered Employment: A Study Of Income, Social Mobility, Equality, And Health Indicators In An Under-Looked Segment Of The Labor Force, Zakariya Kmir

Undergraduate Economic Review

Economists have strongly supported the idea that unemployment causes many undesirable health outcomes. However, how does belonging to a different sector of employment tied closely to changes in minimum wage and inflation relate to overall health? To properly understand the numerical significance of health disparities in the uncovered sector of employment, this research is targeted at quantifying the relationship between the insured and non-insured within the uncovered sector. By substantiating the existence of severe health disparities as a function of the labor force dynamic, this research subsequently estimates the amount of inefficiency and negative health outcomes in the US economy …

The Effect Of Fast Food Restaurants On Type 2 Diabetes Rates, Grace Bailey

CMC Senior Theses

This paper conducts an analysis of county level data to determine the effect of fast food restaurants on type 2 diabetes rates. Due to endogeneity concerns with respect to the location of fast food restaurants, this paper follows the work of Dunn (2010) and uses the number of interstate exits in a given county to serve as an instrument for fast food restaurants. The strength of the instrument, which is theoretically and empirically tested in this paper, imposes some restraints on the interpretation of the findings. Using the Two-Stage Least Squares estimation method, I find that the presence of fast …

The Effect Of Paid Sick Leave On Physician Office-Based Visits, Korvin Vicente

Theses and Dissertations

This paper uses a balanced sample of workers from cross-sections of the National Health Interview Survey to estimate the causal effects of paid sick leave on the medical care seeking behavior of individuals, as measured by physician office-based visits.

Crop Residues: The Rest Of The Story, Douglas L. Karlen, Rattan Lal, Ronald F. Follett, John M. Kimble, Jerry L. Hatfield, John A. Miranowski, Cynthia A. Cambardella, Andrew Manale, Robert P. Anex, Charles W. Rice

Douglas L Karlen

Synopsis In the February 15, 2009 issue of ES&T Strand and Benford argued that oceanic deposition of agricultural crop residues was a viable option for net carbon sequestration (43 [4], 1000−1007). In reviewing the calculations and bringing their experience to bear, Karlen et al. argue in this Viewpoint that crop residue oceanic permanent sequestration (CROPS) as envisioned by Strand and Benford will not work. They further propose alternative possibilities in agricultural methods to achieve a net decrease of CO2 emissions.

American Obesity: Rooted In Uncertainty, Institutions And Public Policy, James Woodward

Theses and Dissertations--Public Policy and Administration

Despite the efforts of policymakers, medical professionals, and other stakeholders, obesity and related health problems show no signs of receding from their record-high rates. Public policy has largely taken the form of consumer advice, (e.g., USDA’s Dietary Guidelines). Since consumers bear most of the costs associated with their obesity, the goal of obesity prevention appears to be incentive-compatible, prima facie. That is, there is no a priori case for much further policy intervention unless existing advice is deficient or consumers’ exhibit systematically poor decision-making.

My review of the literature shows that scholars have long conveyed a consistent narrative regarding …

A Sustainability-Based Project Selection Algorithm: Socio-Technical-Economic Project Selection (Steps) Algorithm, Bharathi Bhattu

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Multi-dimensional aspects play a vital role in the task of project-decision making. Environmental effects are to be considered in addition to other technical and non-technical aspects in order to avoid undue environmental damage. This current work introduces a new decision-making algorithm (Socio-Technical-Economic Project Selection or STEPS) that is demonstrated with the use of RCA (recycled concrete aggregate) as riprap for slope stabilization and erosion control which leaches chemical arsenic when in contact with water. Arsenic has long been recognized for its lethal properties. The main intention of introducing this new algorithm is to use sustainability concepts of social, technical, and …

Historical Health Conditions In Major Us Cities: The Hue Data Set, Carlos Villareal, Brian Bettenhausen, Eric Hanss, Jonathan Hersh

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

The Historical Urban Ecological data set is a new resource detailing health and environmental conditions within seven major U.S. cities during the study period from 1830 to 1930. Researchers collected and digitized ward-level data from annual reports of municipal departments that detail the epidemiological, economic, and demographic conditions within each city. They then drafted new geographic information system data to link the tabular records to ward geographies. These data provide a new foundation to revisit questions surrounding the urban mortality transition and the growth of U.S. cities.

Mountain Monitor - 4th Quarter 2013, Kenan Fikri, Mark Muro

Mountain Monitor Quarterly

The quarter’s Mountain Monitor finds that the pace of economic recovery in the Mountain West region’s major metropolitan areas converged toward that of the rest of the nation in the last quarter of 2013.

While quarterly performance on the Monitor’s four indicators of economic recovery—employment, output, the unemployment rate, and house prices—varied considerably across the 10 major metro areas of the region, their combined performance broadly slowed to track with the rate of national economic recovery. The quarter’s average job growth remained unchanged in the region at 0.4 percent as the national economy caught up. The gap between the national …

Conditional Spending And The Conditional Offer Puzzle, Mitchell N. Berman

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Mountain Monitor - 3rd Quarter 2013, Kenan Fikri, Mark Muro

Mountain Monitor Quarterly

The quarter’s Mountain Monitor marks the four-year anniversary of Brookings Mountain West's quarterly tracking of the uneven pace of recovery across the major metro areas of the Intermountain West and it finds that, although the region continues to outperform the national economy the rate of recovery slowed moderately in the region’s metro areas.

As a group, Mountain region metro areas advanced on all four indicators of economic recovery tracked by the Monitor—employment, output, unemployment, and house prices—but their progress was more restrained in the third quarter of 2013 than it was in the second.

Beneath the regional headline of moderating …

Mountain Monitor - 2nd Quarter 2013, Kenan Fikri, Mark Muro

Mountain Monitor Quarterly

Economic recovery progressed steadily across the metropolitan Mountain West in the second quarter of 2013. Many of the region’s major metro areas counted among the strongest economic performers nationally, but output growth slowed over the quarter and the region‘s unemployment recovery looked to be stagnating. Moderate job growth and a fast and accelerating housing recovery buoyed the Mountain West economy in the second quarter.

Mountain Monitor-1st Quarter 2013, Kenan Fikri, Mark Muro

Mountain Monitor Quarterly

Economic recovery gained strength across the major metro areas of the Mountain West in the first quarter of 2013. Multiple metro areas achieved long-awaited full employment recoveries in the first quarter and regional production surpassed pre-recession levels of output for the first time. The region’s strong housing rebound continued to be a boon. Additionally, a special supplement to the Monitor shows that the healthcare sector has been an outsized contributor to recovery throughout the region. Despite progress on multiple fronts, though, many Mountain metro areas remain scarred with high unemployment rates, severely depressed house prices, and daunting jobs deficits.

The Role Of Competition And Patient Travel In Hospital Profits: Why Health Insurers Should Subsidize Patient Travel, Joseph S. Durgin

Honors Projects

This paper explores the effects of patient travel distance on hospital profit margins, with consideration to the effects of travel subsidies on hospital pricing. We develop a model in which hospital agglomeration leads to a negative relationship between profit margins and patient travel distance, challenging the standard IO theory that profit margins are higher for firms with greater distances of customer travel. Using data on patient visits and hospital finances from the California Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development (OSHPD), we test our theory and confirm that a hospital tends to have less pricing power if it draws patients …

Understanding The Legitimacy Of Both Dissension And Acceptance Of Accommodative Monetary Policy, Maximilian Bevan

Maximilian Bevan

No abstract provided.

Impacts Of Social Upbringing On Family Integration In Military Life In Sudan, Professor Issam A.W. Mohamed

Professor Issam A.W. Mohamed

In a country on the eve of losing one third of its land, 80% of potential natural resources and 75% of external exports value, economic future seems gloomy. Many opinions were given for economic solutions after the Southern Sudan secession. However, that does not support a theoretical framework that those are the only reasons for the expected economic collapse. Our theory here is that such collapse already happened because of economic mismanagement, corruption and hoarding initiated by the calls for empowerment and carried out by the regime's members. Such acts extended to the banks, economic institutions and randomized privatization. The …

Multinational Companies And Investments In Sudan: Case Study Of Oil Exploration And Extraction, Professor Issam A.W. Mohamed

Professor Issam A.W. Mohamed

The purpose of this paper is to present the role of multinational companies in general then its role in Sudan with particular emphasis on oil exploration and extraction. Chinese companies of multinationalities currently control the newly born oil industry in the country. Needless to say that the dire needs of the government because of its international isolation and sanctions compelled it to be subjected to bellow standards conditions in all economic and environmental aspects. The government accepted the conditions for the past twelve years. However, the secession of Southern Sudan into new country gives better re-negotiations opportunity to the newly …

Impacts Of Formal Financing On The Development Of The Sudanese Agricultural Sector, Issam A.W. Mohamed Professor

Professor Issam A.W. Mohamed

The agricultural sector of Sudan is faced by many problems. In the irrigated schemes, the government who officially owns most of them there are entrenched managerial problems that brewed for more than six decades. Moreover, the privatization policies of those schemes provoked many outcries and protests. Large schemes like Gezira have collapsed, this year 2011, only 10% of its over one million hectares were cultivated. The rainfed farming is not different with lack of machineries, shortages of available labor and high priced agricultural inputs, it is not expected to fare better than the irrigated schemes. However, even if those problems …

African Economic Blocs And Trade: Case Study Of Comesa And Sudan, Issam A.W. Mohamed Professor

Professor Issam A.W. Mohamed

Comprehensively, Economic Trade Partnerships and Blocs are important to a member country. However, with the continuing global financial distresses it is useful to evaluate them to maximize possible benefit. The question of joining, continue membership with the Comesa is vital to the Sudanese economy that presently stands in a very decisive time. The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa is a free trade area with nineteen member states stretching from Libya to Zimbabwe. COMESA formed in December 1994, replacing a Preferential Trade Area which had existed since 1981. Nine of the member states formed a free trade area in …