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Three Essays On The High-Speed Rail Network In China, Shiyu Cheng

Theses and Dissertations--Economics

My dissertation consists of three essays that study the economic consequences of China’s high-speed rail (HSR) expansion.

In the first essay, I use the college admission cutoff scores to reveal students’ college preferences under the enrollment quota. By exploiting the quasi-experimental variation in whether or not college cities are connected by the HSR network, I document a two-point increase in the cutoff scores following a HSR station opening in the college city using difference-in-difference (DD) approach. Colleges in the megacities experience a larger increase in cutoff scores after the station opening. These findings suggest that the HSR network stimulates “brain …

Targeting Intensive Job Assistance To Ex-Offenders By The Nature Of Offense: Results From A Randomized Control Trial, Christopher R. Bollinger, Aaron Yelowitz

Institute for the Study of Free Enterprise Working Papers

As many as two-thirds of newly-released inmates will be arrested for a new offense within three years. This study evaluates the impact of job assistance on recidivism rates among ex-offenders. The job assistance program, run though the private company America Works, uses a network of employers to place clients. Ex-offenders were randomly assigned to intensive job assistance (treatment group) or the standard program (control group). The intensive program is meant to improve average work readiness for ex-offenders. It reduces the likelihood of subsequent arrest among non-violent ex-offenders, but has little effect on violent ex-offenders. The re-arrest rate for non-violent ex-offenders …

Socioeconomic And Other Dynamics In The Geographical Distribution Of Success In The English F.A. Cup, Edward Genereux

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

The F.A. Cup, which is England’s primary football (soccer) knockout competition, is the world’s oldest competition in the sport, but no comprehensive study into factors that correlate with success has been undertaken. The purpose of the present thesis is to fill this void by assessing the strength of the nine regions of England, as well as the collective strength of non-English clubs in the competition. The coefficent formula used by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) for ranking member associations is utilized in a form adapted for the generally single-legged nature of the F.A. Cup. The figures ascertained are …

Protecting Life And Lung: Protected Areas Affect Fine Particulate Matter And Respiratory Hospitalizations In The Brazilian Amazon Biome., Derek Michael Sheehan

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

I assessed the impacts of upwind protected area coverage on local respiratory health within the Brazilian Amazon. A hypothesized mechanism is the legal prohibition of human ignited fires within protected areas, reducing particulate matter pollution, impacting respiratory health downwind. The connection between fires and respiratory diseases in the Amazon is well established (Smith et al. 2014; Rangel and Vogl 2019; Rocha and Sant’anna 2020). What is not well understood is the potential that government policies aimed at preventing ecosystem loss may also promote health and wellbeing, combining the UN sustainable development goals 3 and 15. Protected areas currently dominate government …

In-Flux: Economic And Community Adaptations Of Former Timber Mill-Towns In The American West, Cherilyn P. Ashmead

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Once built around natural resource extractive industries, rural communities’ economies are changing as the United States is transitioning away from its industrial past. While much research has focused on rural economic shifts from natural resource production toward amenity-driven economies (Morzillo et al., 2015; Winkler et al, 2007), less research has explored the economic and demographic trends in areas pursuing new modes of production. This two-part study focuses on an understudied region with historic ties to timber in dry mixed-conifer forests, much of which are under federal land management. With few natural amenity draws, the region has largely maintained production-based sectors. …

Gold Mining Districts And Path Dependence, Jason T. Dunn

Honors Theses

This paper applies quantitative spatial analysis to the long-term impact of Western gold rushes, studying the effect of 19th century US mineral districts on modern (2010) population density, as a proxy for long-term economic growth. OLS regression estimates show positive effects for areas adjacent to historic mining districts. Census tracts within 15 miles of a mineral district but not containing one are 29.8% more dense than other tracts. Additionally, capital-intensive/large-scale mining was more persistent than labor-intensive/small-scale methods, and path dependence is achieved mainly through agglomeration. This research corroborates historical arguments focusing on the development of Western infrastructure for long term …

Discrimination In Modern Labor Markets: A Field Experiment, Taekmin Nam

Economics Honors Papers

With the growing prominence of big data and algorithms in the hiring process, it seems only apt to systematically identify the effect that these changes are having on labor markets. In this paper, I seek to take the first step in filling this void by systematically analyze the effect of big data and algorithms on discrimination in the hiring process. I conduct a correspondence study adapted to the new job application process to see how big data and algorithms are affecting discrimination in the hiring process.

Clash Of Interests? Conflicting Perspectives Of The State And Border Communities On Smuggling In Nigeria, Akhigbe Allwell O.

Young African Leaders Journal of Development

Smuggling has been a signature of African borders. The study takes a critical look at the issue of smuggling in the Imeko border community of Nigeria that is situated at the Benin border. It examines the perspectives of the state and the border communities and uses the Onion method of Conflict Analysis to determine the actual needs of both parties and how they could be met. While the government sees it as a crime that robs the state of its much-needed resources, the border communities consider smuggling to be legitimate trade relations with their kinsmen across the border as a …

The Impact Of Different Provincial Economic Activities On Local Government's Revenue: The Case Of Provincial Administrative Organizations (Paos) In Thailand, Tanut Puangnuam

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

Fiscal decentralization is a tool for government to delegate the authority to local government organizations (LAOs) in order to reduce the income gaps across regions. The government has responsibility to transfer funds to LAOs and reshape local revenue arrangements. The Provincial Administrative Organizations (PAOs) are the higher tier of LAOs at the provincial level. The majority of PAOs’ revenue comes from locally levied revenue, surcharge and shared revenue and intergovernmental transfer. Among the change of the development of Thailand’s provincial economy in Thailand, the revenue of the PAOs is significantly linked to economic growth in each province, which comes from …

Local Fiscal Adjustments From Depopulation: Evidence From The Post–Cold War Defense Contraction, Timothy M. Komarek, Gary A. Wagner

Economics Faculty Publications

In this paper, we estimate the long-term causal effect of population losses on local government revenue, expenditure, and debt by exploiting a quasi-exogenous change that reduced the number of US military personnel by about 40 percent between the late 1980s and 2000. Aggregating across governmental units within commuting zones, we find that real per capita total revenues and expenditures remained unchanged for remaining citizens. At the same time, however, we note several important compositional effects. First, local governments appear to have offset reductions in state intergovernmental aid by increasing property tax revenues. Second, they significantly shifted the composition of expenditures …

The Feasibility Of Containerization In The Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway System, Nick Edwards

Political Science Theses and Capstones

The use of waterways to transport goods has always been a staple of civilization dating back to some of our earliest days. And throughout history it has always played a pivotal role in our economies and affected the very way in which our civilizations developed. Perhaps one of the world's most important waterways is the Great Lakes that lie directly in the heart of the North American continent and connect the heartland of North America to the Atlantic Ocean. Thus, providing a vital mode of transportation for shipping a variety of products from North America’s heartland to the rest of …

Debilitating Debts And Recapacitating Loans: How Fintech Made Markets For Unsecured Consumer Debt Using Alternative Data And Machine Learning, Michael Joshua Mccanless

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

This thesis investigates the production and management of consumer debt on digital platforms. First, this study investigates how borrowers navigate spaces of debt and indebtedness created by fintech consumer lenders. Second, this thesis analyzes the process and impact of ‘alternative’ data and machine learning on fintech credit scoring models. As consumer lending ‘moves online’, this research analyzes the increasingly important role of digital spaces in the creation and management of debt. Tracking the interfaces and algorithms used by online consumer lenders, I weave together insight from digital and financial geographies to argue that digital technologies are enabling firms to marketize …

Three Essays In Regional Taxation, Kenneth Tester

Theses and Dissertations--Economics

This dissertation looks at the role that geographically limited taxation and the behavioral response of economic agents to different forms of regional taxation. While geographic taxation is typically thought to be confined to state and local taxes, federal tax policy can also create designated areas that receive preferential tax treatment. In this dissertation, both types of regional taxation are examined and are unified under common themes such as tax mobility and the definition of the tax base.

In chapter 2, I examine the important effect of how the location of high income earners employment is influenced by taxes in the …

A Network Pandemic: Exploring The Effects Of Social Connectedness On The Spread Of Covid-19 In The United States, Mrinalini Bhushan

CMC Senior Theses

Social interactions influence the way we think and act. Recent literature on COVID-19 and social connectedness explores how social interactions influence people’s perceptions of the risk from COVID-19 and their behaviors. This paper seeks to investigate how social connectedness, political ideologies, and physical interaction are associated with local COVID-19 case and death rates at the US county level. Social connectedness, as defined by (Bailey et al, 2018) measures connectedness between US counties based on Facebook friendship links. I examine whether a county’s average social connectedness to other counties, as determined by the Facebook index, has an impact on its own …

Effects Of States’ Laws On Youth Physical Activity Participation And Obesity Prevalence, Chae Young Chang

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

The alarming prevalence of obesity and lack of physical activity among adolescents led to immediate policy action to address these concerns. Accordingly, many states introduced and enacted their own legislation to encourage physical activity in schools. Few studies have explored the effectiveness of the new legislation, however, especially at the state level. To answer the fundamental question of whether policy is effective and to describe the varying effects of state obesity policies, this study analyzed the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System from 2007 to 2017. Using the difference-in-differences method, this study found that legislative efforts to encourage physical activity had …

Profitable Retail Customer Identification Based On A Combined Prediction Strategy Of Customer Lifetime Value, Yinglu Sun, Dong Cheng, Subir Bandyopadhyay, Wei Xue

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

As a fundamental concept of customer relationship management, customer lifetime value (CLV) serves as a crucial metric to identify profitable retail customers. Various methods are available to predict CLV in different contexts. With the development of consumer big data, modern statistics and machine learning algorithms have been gradually adopted in CLV modeling. We introduce two machine learning algorithms—the gradient boosting decision tree (GBDT) and the random forest (RF)—in retail customer CLV modeling and compare their predictive performance with two classical models—the Pareto/NBD (HB) and the Pareto/GGG. To ensure CLV prediction and customer identification robustness, we combined the predictions of the …

The Determination Of The Factors Affecting Air Transportation Passenger Numbers, Tüzün Tolga İnan Asst. Prof. Dr.

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

So long as human beings are required to go between places, the civil aviation industry will always exist. In this study, a country-based examination has been applied to air passenger numbers. 50 countries are selected according to the highest rating of air transportation passenger numbers, gross domestic product (GDP), total population, and human development index (HDI) data. 28 of these countries are included in the analysis which is common in at least three of these rankings. The relationship between the four parameters is examined via correlation analysis. Thereafter, the related parameters were taken as independent variables in multiple linear regression …

Quantifying The Impact Of Remapping Floodplains On Residential Property Values In Snohomish County, Washington: A Hedonic Approach, Carson Joseph Risner

All Master's Theses

Flood events are the most common and costly natural disasters. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) quantifies flood risks in the form of Flood Insurance Rate Maps (FIRMS). These FIRMS delineate flood risks and are used to set flood insurance premiums. Changes in land use, the augmentation of the natural environment, is threatening the validity of the Nation’s FIRMS. Therefore, Congress has approved remapping programs to update these FIRMs ensuring that current flood risks are known. This remapping presents another issue, specifically for properties that are remapped into a flood zone. Current literature suggests that properties within flood zones are …

The Afcfta And African Trade—An Introduction To The Special Issue:, Hippolyte Fofack, Andrew Mold

Journal of African Trade

No abstract provided.

Estimating The Effect Of Afcfta On Intra-African Trade Using Augmented Ge-Ppml:, Hippolyte Fofack, Richman Dzene, Omar A. Mohsen Hussein

Journal of African Trade

No abstract provided.

Proving Hegel Wrong: Learning The Right Lessons From European Integration For The African Continental Free Trade Area:, Andrew Mold

Journal of African Trade

No abstract provided.

Afreximbank In The Era Of The Afcfta:, Benedict Oramah

Journal of African Trade

No abstract provided.

Evaluating The Spatial Trends And Statistical Determinants Of Residential Solar Uptake In Washington State, Caleb Michael Valko

All Master's Theses

Washington State’s Clean Energy Transformation Act and other state and federal policies encouraging solar power make Washington a ripe candidate to examine growth, trends, and potential determinants or barriers to residential solar uptake. In this thesis, residential solar is cumulatively and annually mapped by county (2000-2019) and Census tract (2017-2019) across the state to identify trends over time and space. Each variable (income, age, households, race, education, solar insolation, cost of solar per watt) was isolated individually to analyze the relationship (if any) to the dependent variable (i.e., residential solar installations). The covariates are then combined into a multiple regression …

Field Management Research In Vietnam: Lessons For Navigating Social, Cultural, And Data Challenges, Phuong Anh Nguyen

School of Economics and Business Administration Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Redefining Sustainable Tourism In Covid-19: A Political-Economy Approach, Eylla Laire M. Gutierrez

DLSU Business & Economics Review

Tourism has emerged as a critical sector generating economic growth and development across countries in the world. However, in the face of the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is also considered as one of the most heavily hit sectors. Given the backdrop of all the measures implemented to prevent the spread of the outbreak and the changing mindset of actors towards travel, sustainable tourism is expected to play a more critical role in the face of the new normal. This article aims to provide a better understanding of sustainable tourism by utilizing a political economy approach. Specifically, this article …

Pulling Back The Curtain: A Student Collaborative Case Study Of Equity Issues In Colorado’S School Finance System, Amy Jo Schwartz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

After the Great Recession, a seven percent decrease in funding ended decades of academic growth and further widened the achievement gap between White and Black students (Jackson et al., 2020). Colorado’s school-finance system is particularly distorted and inequitable because of a series of tax-limiting policies which, combined, have led Colorado to become one of the lowest-funded per pupil states in the country (Resnick et al., 2015). The purpose of this study is to describe the policymaking context, as it relates to equity within Colorado’s school-finance system and explore policy alternatives to improve equity within the system. The study was designed …

Marketing Strategy Analysis Of Thailand’S Tourism During Covid-19 Pandemic: A Case Study On Phuket Sandbox, Michela Pia Di Cecco Dortona

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

This paper utilizes three marketing tools in order to identify the marketing strategy of the Phuket Sandbox scheme. It aims to discover the target group of consumers, strengths and weaknesses of the scheme, and the type of tourism products that the Phuket Sandbox has to offer to tourists. The main findings are that the destination is strong in its medical and cultural tourism products but may suffer from crime events and degradation of tourism resources. Another finding suggests that tourists who visit Phuket through the Phuket sandbox scheme falls into the middle and upper class category within generations Z, Y, …

Strategic Marketing Analysis : A Case Study Of Spotify, Thanawat Chatsri

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

This individual study explores and discusses the organizational and market aspects connected with creating a management framework that has enabled Spotify to have a disproportionate share of the music streaming industry's total earnings, Therefore, Spotify can continue dominate the market. The research comprises of two studies : one investigates the company's history, performance, and marketing initiatives, and another analyzes the market situation. The paper finds that the company's present shortcomings include its high royalty costs, unique selling proposition, payment to music owners, and current licensing agreements with music rights holders. Apart from that, the threats to Spotify include legal conflicts …

Higher Educational Type And Major Area: Which Is The More Important Indicator Of Earnings In Mainland China?, Qi Ren

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

Using data from Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) 2018 which contain comprehensive information of the highly educated in mainland China, this paper estimates which of the two variables, type of tertiary education and major fields, is of greater importance to private earnings. With adoption of Ordinary Least Square (OLS) and Shapley Variance Decomposition based on R-squared, empirical results reveal considerable heterogeneity in returns to educational type (vocational college and academic university) and to major area. The former one is the more significant determinant of labor market outcomes and higher vocational qualification holders face a huge wage penalty. What’s more, the …

How Kerry Express Becomes Thailand’S No.1 Non-Governmental Parcel Delivery Company: A Case Study Of Kerry Express, Polyos Kulvichien

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

The primary goal of this research is to evaluate how Kerry Express becomes Thailand’s No.1 non-governmental parcel delivery company. For investigation, the author studies the history of the parcel delivery industry in Thailand and Kerry Express’s success factors. Kerry entered to Thailand in 2006, but the firm just started to expand its parcel delivery business in 2014 after the market liberalization in 2013 and in fact the first private firm to offer parcel delivery service to the C2C segment in the country. Thailand's parcel delivery industry was formerly monopolized and dominated by Thailand Post for many decades; the organization was …