Income Distribution Commons^™

The Impact Of Wealth And Sentiment On Consumption: Before And After The Great Recession, Joshua Schwartz

Honors Theses

I study the impact of consumer sentiment and the wealth effect on aggregate U.S. consumption before and after the Great Recession. First I will introduce a background of the 2008 financial crisis and some major factors leading up to it. I will discuss both the Michigan Consumer Sentiment index as well as the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence index. I will also discuss several measures of net worth relevant for my study. Second I will discuss the relevant literature and the main findings that correspond to my thesis. Third I will present the methodology used for my thesis and the several …

Do Preferential Trade Agreements Affect Us Exports? Empirical Evidence From Us Export Panel Data, Benjamin A. Fay

Honors Theses

The Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) created under the World Trade Organization in 1995 established minimum standards of intellectual property rights (IPRs) for member nations. Concurrently, the US has used preferential trade agreements (PTAs) to negotiate for stronger IPR protections within its trading partners.

This paper empirically accesses the effects of PTAs on US exports. I use a gravity model of trade to analyze changes in US exports to 19 trading partners who signed a PTA with the US during the period 1991-2015. I regress US exports on dummy (binary) variables that identify the signing and entry-into-force of …