Digital Commons Network^™

From Coverage To Care: Evaluating The Effects Of Aca Medicaid Expansion On Birth Outcomes, Bailey R. Lengfelder

Economics Honors Projects

I examine the impact of the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion on maternal and fetal health outcomes using National Center for Health Statistics Natality data from 2006 to 2023. I exploit staggered state adoption as a quasi-experiment, and the staggered differences-in-differences estimates indicate an increase in the share of Medicaid births but broadly no impact on maternal prenatal care, maternal health, and fetal health. The absence of statistically significant effects is consistent across heterogeneity groups. These null findings indicate that expanded insurance access through the Affordable Care Act may be insufficient to improve health outcomes. I do find a statistically …

“A Civilised Order”: Political Economy Of Welfare State Development In United States And South Africa, Camden M. Webb

Masters Theses

The welfare state and its development across national contexts in the twentieth century signaled a marked change in the state’s relationship with its citizens. They developed in a structural crisis between two political economy organizations, moving from liberal structures to regulated ones. As the world continues the current ongoing structural crisis out of the neoliberal structure, the future of welfare policy is uncertain. My research presents a Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) using the United States and South Africa as most-different cases to explore the similarities and differences in their national contexts that shaped their welfare state development in the early …

Ccb Release Impact On Indonesia’S Bank Lending: A Difference-In-Differences Approach, Sang Tyas Suci, Beta Yulianita Gitaharie

Jurnal Ekonomi dan Pembangunan Indonesia

This study investigates the impact of Indonesia’s Capital Conservation Buffer (CCB) release on loan growth during the COVID-19 recession. Using a Difference-in-Differences (DiD) approach and bank-level data from 2019:Q1 to 2022:Q2, it analyzes how regulatory capital relief affected lending. The results indicate that the regulation was an effective countercyclical tool to increase loan growth, particularly among less-capitalized banks. The research contributes to the limited empirical evidence on capital buffer policies in emerging markets by examining the effectiveness of temporary capital relief in crisis contexts. We suggest future research on the buffer reimposition and exploring its implications for post-crisis lending behavior.

Childlessness And Health In Middle Age And Older Adulthood: Evidence From Singapore, Christine Ho, Dahye Kim, Rohan Ray, Bussarawan Teerawichitchainan

Research Collection School Of Economics

Health and well-being in mature adulthood are important concerns given the prevalence of individuals aging without children. We exploit two new instruments for childlessness— infertility and the number of childless siblings—and condition our analyses on a rich set of covariates including childhood health and financial status, to investigate the causal relationship between childlessness and health in middle age and older adulthood. Using a nationwide dataset of 1,500 Singaporeans aged 50 and above, we show that OLS underestimates the negativeeffects of childlessness on health. We find that childlessness leads to higher likelihood of poorer self-reported health and mental distress. The results …

Zero-Sum Thinking, Meritocratic Beliefs, And Preferences For Basic Income And Universal Healthcare, David Chavanne

Economics Faculty Publications

This study uses survey responses to explore how support for basic income and universal healthcare is linked to zero-sum thinking and meritocratic beliefs. Consistent with earlier work, I find that zero-sum thinking and weaker meritocratic beliefs both lead to greater levels of support for basic income and universal healthcare. Using a path analysis, zero-sum thinking is also found to strengthen support for basic income and universal healthcare along two separate channels -- one via zero-sum thinking’s direct effect on policy support and a second via an indirect effect, whereby zero-sum thinking is attached to weaker beliefs in meritocracy, which in …

(Wp 2026-01) Du Bois And Veblen's Concepts Of Relative Position: Common Ground Or Stratification Economics And Institutionalist Economics, John B. Davis

Economics Working Papers

W. E. B. Du Bois and Thorstein Veblen employed the concept of relative position. Du Bois' thinking reflects how for Stratification economics people's relative positions explain racial discrimination and segregation. Veblen reflects how for Institutionalist economics people's relative positions explain the role institutions have in the evolution of the economy. Racism in the US marginalized Du Bois' contributions, leaving a divide between his and Veblen's thinking and also between Stratification economics and Institutionalist economics. This has limited the perceived importance of the concept of relative position in economics, leaving it with the 'position-less' asocial individualism of Neoclassical-mainstream economics. This paper …

Natural Resource Rents And Energy Poverty Nexus In Next Eleven Economies, Muhammad Salah Uddin, Ayub Ali, Zobayer Ahmed, Md Nasir Uddin Sikdar, Ahsan Habib, Abdullah Elah Al-Mahde

Finance Faculty Publications

Energy poverty (EP) remains a persistent global challenge with important implications for economic development, public health, and social welfare. While natural resources, particularly oil and gas, are often viewed as key sources of energy access, their effectiveness in mitigating EP remains underexplored in emerging economies. This study examines the relationship between natural resource rents (NRR), specifically oil rents (OR) and natural gas rents (NGR), and energy poverty (EP) in the Next Eleven (N-11) countries from 2000 to 2020. The primary objective is to assess how NRR influences EP at various levels of poverty using the Method of Moments Quantile Regression …

Ceo-Employee Pay Ratio Disclosure And Dividend Policy, Rajib Chowdhury, John A. Doukas

Finance Faculty Publications

We examine whether and how the magnitude of the CEO pay ratio affects dividend policy in the context of inequality-averse investors. Our results demonstrate a positive association between the two and remain robust to endogeneity concerns. We find that the CEO pay ratios positively affect dividends irrespective of whether CEO compensation contracts motivate risk-averse or risk-taking policy choices. This non-diverse effect on dividend policy across CEOs with different pay structures contradicts previous studies and highlights the wealth effect resulting from the SEC mandate. Further analyses reveal a negative effect of the pay ratio on cash holdings and investment inefficiency.

The State Of Short-Term Rentals – 2024, Elena Bigart, Melissa Weddell, Jesse Wheeler, Sophie Morris, Jenna Asnault

Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research Publications

This report examined the role short-term rentals (STRs) play in Montana’s housing challenges, building on earlier ITRR research (Bigart et al., 2021). Using a mixed-methods approach, the study analyzed STR and housing data from 2019 to 2023 and incorporated interviews with local officials to assess evolving regulations, occupancy patterns, and perceptions of STR impacts. Findings highlight that STRs interact with broader market forces contributing to tight housing conditions and underscore the need for balanced policy approaches that support housing supply and affordability while sustaining tourism-related economic activity.

Monetary Policy And Equity Market Reactions: Linking Monetary Theory To Sector Level Etf Performance, Joseph Freedman

Research Honors

This project examines how the economic framework of U.S. monetary policy translates into financial market outcomes by studying sector level equity responses to changes in the Federal Reserve’s effective federal funds rate. While monetary policy theory emphasizes how interest rates influence investment, borrowing costs and risk taking, financial markets reflect these mechanisms through asset prices. Exchange traded funds provide a useful lens for studying this connection, as they aggregate firm level behavior into tradable sector portfolios.

Using daily data from 2004 to 2025, this study analyzes eleven S&P 500 sector exchange traded funds to evaluate how monetary policy shocks are …

Dampak Program Pembangkit Listrik 35.000 Mw Terhadap Tingkat Pekerjaan Dan Kemiskinan Di Indonesia, Yohanes Dwi Anggoro, Jahen Fachrul Rezki

Jurnal Ekonomi dan Pembangunan Indonesia

This research analyzes the 35,000 MW Program’s impact on employment and poverty levels in Indonesia using the Callaway and Sant’Anna Difference-in-Differences (CSDID) method. The research uses panel data at the district/city level from 2007 to 2022. The analysis shows the program has a significant impact on reducing poverty, with an average reduction of 5,208 poor people in Model 1; 4,277 people in Model 2; and 4,284 people in Model 3. Based on a subset of regions, the analysis shows the program had a significant impact on increasing the employment rate by 1.2 percent, reducing 16,034 poor people in the Java-Madura-Bali.

Dampak Peraturan Daerah Terkait Kesehatan Terhadap Prevalensi Stunting Tingkat Kabupaten/Kota Di Indonesia, Cakra Yudi Putra, Teguh Dartanto

Jurnal Ekonomi dan Pembangunan Indonesia

Stunting remains a major public health challenge in Indonesia with long-term impacts on health, cognition, and productivity. This study examines whether health-related regional regulations (Peraturan Daerah or Perda) reduce stunting prevalence across 338 districts/municipalities in 2007 and 2013. Using Difference-in-Differences (DiD) and DiD with Propensity Score Matching (DiD-PSM) on secondary data from Riskesdas, Statistics Indonesia (BPS), and the Legal Documentation and Information Network (JDIH), we find no statistically significant causal effect of cumulative health Perda on stunting reduction, although OLS shows a negative association. Sanitation significantly reduces stunting in eastern Indonesia. Findings highlight the need for evidence-based, multisectoral, measurable, implementable, …

The Impact Of Remittances On Food Security In Times Of Crisis—Evidence From Covid-19 In Latin America And The Caribbean, Colin Cannonier

Funded Scholarship

This study examines the association between workers’ remittances and food insecurity in Latin America and the Caribbean using data from a Coronavirus survey covering over 100,000 individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic. Results indicate that receipt of remittances is associated with an 8.8% decrease (2.5% points) in overall food insecurity. Heterogeneous effects are observed among females, individuals in Latin America, and households with children. Remittances from the USA exhibit a stronger influence on reducing food insecurity. The findings underscore the potential importance of remittances in improving food security at both extensive and intensive margins. Policy issues are also discussed.

Assessing Attitudes Toward Ai Futures: Perceived Likelihood And Policy Preferences, David Chavanne

Economics Faculty Publications

The experiment presented in this paper uses vignettes to measure the perceived likelihood of different AI futures and assess how policy preferences change across these futures. One vignette varies the degree of future AI-driven job loss in a hypothetical scenario set five years into the future, while another vignette varies the degree of future AI autonomy across the same timeframe. Participants provide their perceived likelihood that the world will resemble the scenario in the vignette, and they also express their level of support for either universal basic income (UBI) or a jobs-guarantee program (JG) if the world in five years …

Policy Snapshot : Health Insurance Trends Among Child Care Educators, Sara Amadon

Straus Institute for Thriving Children & Families

This brief compares the health insurance status of child care educators in 2019 and 2024—spanning the COVID-19 pandemic and preceding 2026H.R.1’s implementation—to highlight shifting coverage patterns and state-level solutions to safeguard this essential workforce.

Towards Energy Access For All: Developing The Lived Energy Experience Index (Leei), Kentina Annie Ishimwe

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Energy is the fuel that powers the engine of civilization. Energy access metrics ensure that nations continuously work towards providing access for all. However, the prevalent binary indicator fails to consider that energy needs to be usable, accessible, affordable, and reliable. As a result, numerous tiered and multidimensional metrics, such as the Multi-Tier Framework, came about to bridge the gap but proved to be complex and complicated to implement. This study presents the existing literature review, assesses the limitations of current energy access measurement frameworks, and compares household energy needs with reported access statistics. Based on the findings, the Lived …

Human Rights Education For Children And Youth On Human Rights And Digital Technologies, Diane A. Desierto, Faisal Yamil Meneses, Notre Dame Global Human Rights Clinic

Journal Articles

AI Generated Summary

This document outlines the importance of human rights education for children and youth, particularly in relation to digital technologies, emphasizing the need for comprehensive, inclusive, and accessible educational frameworks.

C.A.S. Full Assessment Report: State Of Florida Government Portal, Delante Clark

Graduate Scholarship and Creative Works

The purpose of this assessment is to evaluate the cognitive overhead, transparency, and attentional integrity of

official State of Florida digital interfaces using the Cognitive Attentional Standards (C.A.S.) platform.

While the Florida Digital Bill of Rights (FDBR) establishes strict regulatory guardrails for consumer data

transparency, tracking opt-outs, and attentional safeguards, the State of Florida explicitly exempts its own

government agencies, public universities, and non-profit entities from complying with these rules.

This assessment serves to investigate the tension between legislative intent and government execution. By

analyzing public sector websites through the C.A.S. platform, this project will establish a “state-enforced vs.

state-executed” …

Shrinkflation And Consumer Demand, Aljoscha Janssen, Johannes Kasinger

Research Collection School Of Economics

This study investigates shrinkflation—the practice of reducing product size while maintaining or slightly changing prices—in the U.S. retail grocery market. We analyze a decade of retail scanner data to assess the prevalence and patterns of product size changes across various product categories. Our findings show that approximately 1.92% of products have been downsized. When comparing total sales, product downsizing is more than five times as prevalent as upsizing. Product downsizing typically occurs without a corresponding decrease in price and is widespread across product categories. Consequently, consumers end up paying more per unit volume. We further find that consumers are more …

Do Variations In State Consultation Programs Affect Construction Fatality Rates?, Wayne B. Gray

Economics

Background: Along with its enforcement program, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has a voluntary consultation program that responds to requests from firms to identify hazards at their workplaces. We studied the effects of this program on fatal work injuries in the construction industry. Methods: We first examined differences across states in their consultation programs using data from 2016 through 2022, during which time 47,418 consultation visits were conducted in construction. These included differences in frequency of consultation visits at construction firms, the average number of hazards identified per visit, and the scope of those visits. We then used …

Three Essays In Cpi Bias And Health Economics, Auderta Amoako-Nuamah

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The first essay estimates bias in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for elderly individuals in the United States using Engel curve methodology and household-level data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (1999–2023). The analysis focuses on how well the CPI reflects changes in the cost of living for older Americans, with particular attention to differences by gender and marital status. Results show that from 1999–2011, the CPI overstated the increase in the cost of living for both elderly and non-elderly households. In contrast, from 1999–2023, the CPI understated cost increases, with the bias generally larger for non-elderly households. Within …

A New Functional Setting For Term Structure Modeling Using The Health-Jarrow-Morton Framework, Michael Pokojovy, Ebenezer Nkum, Thomas M. Fullerton Jr.

Mathematics & Statistics Faculty Publications

The well-known Heath–Jarrow–Morton (HJM) framework provides a universal and efficacious instrument for modeling the stochastic evolution of an entire yield curve by explaining the interest rate dynamics in continuous time under no-arbitrage conditions. Existing implementations involve exponentially weighted function spaces as theoretical settings for the former stochastic evolution. While the choice of weight can have a drastic effect on model calibration and subsequent forecasting, it cannot be estimated from market data and does not allow for any objective interpretation. The proposed approach does not have this shortcoming as it adopts a suitably designed unweighted function space. The HJM equation is …

Too Much Of A Good Thing? Generic Entry, Drug Prices, And The Innovation Tradeoff, Kiara Jacob

CMC Senior Theses

This paper examines how the number of generic competitors affects generic drug prices and whether generic markets exhibit a competition threshold beyond which additional entry produces little further price reduction. Using monthly NADAC price data and FDA Orange Book manufacturer records, I construct a molecule-month panel of 17 molecules across four therapeutic classes from 2013 to 2023, restricted to generic price observations. Fixed-effects regressions show that generic competition is associated with substantial price declines: each additional generic manufacturer is associated with a 7.2 log-point reduction in average acquisition price. The main threshold specification shows that prices are approximately 49 percent …

From Collective Punishment To Collective Action, Samuel N. Johnson-Saeger

CMC Senior Theses

Regime change may be sought in two primary ways, absent a turn to internal or external violence: through nonviolent resistance, from within, and sanctions, from abroad. This paper is about how those two pathways are intertwined. I challenge two different strands of the existing literature. First, I show that Liou et al. (2022)'s finding that sanctions increase the predicted probability of nonviolent resistance movement progress is subject to substantial upward bias from country heterogeneity. Incorporating country fixed effects, I show that sanctions, on average, have no statistically significant effect on resistance outcomes. Second, I challenge Chenoweth and Stephan (2008)'s argument …

Teaching A New Dog Old Tricks: How Buy Now Pay Later Responds To Consumer Financial Strength, Ryunosuke Nakase

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis aims to answer three questions. 1) How does BNPL usage in the US respond to macroeconomic conditions reflective of consumer strength? 2) Does BNPL debt migrate toward credit cards during months following high BNPL spend? 3) How does BNPL respond to macroeconomic conditions at the firm level? I constructed a 4 year monthly and quarterly time series dataset spanning from 2021 to 2025. I utilize time series OLS regressions to examine the short-term behavior of BNPL volume monthly at the aggregate level and quarterly at the firm level. At the aggregate level, BNPL volume in the US is …

Determinants Of The U.S. Experience Economy: A Macroeconomic, Demographic, And Technological Analysis, 1984–2023, Chloe Ross

CMC Senior Theses

Pine and Gilmore et al. 1999 examine American consumers’ preferences for experiences over durable goods. Since then, there has been a multitude of research on the psychology behind this shift in consumption preferences, and there has been an abundance of media coverage of the new “experience economy.” This thesis goes beyond psychology and examines the macroeconomic, demographic, and technological determinants of experiential spending in the United States from 1984 to 2023. I use annual data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Expenditure Survey (CES) and variables from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED), US …

Medical And Recreational Cannabis In Colorado: Evidence From County-Level Sales And Medical Cards, Ethan Sattley

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis examines how Colorado’s cannabis market transitioned after recreational legalization by analyzing county-level medical card registrations and the medical share of cannabis sales from 2010–2020. Using an event-study design, I find that medical participation remained stable for several years after recreational sales began in 2014, but then declined sharply, by roughly 50–60 cards per 10,000 residents, about ten quarters after legalization. Using annual sales data, I show that the medical share of total cannabis revenue collapsed much more quickly, falling by more than half between 2014 and 2015 and converging near zero in most counties by the late 2010s. …

Beyond Bans: A Travel Distance-Based Approach To Estimating The Effects Of Dobbs V. Jackson Women’S Health Organization On Fertility And Labor Supply, Enya Kamadolli

CMC Senior Theses

The Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision had highly heterogeneous effects on abortion access across U.S. states, variation I exploit to identify causal effects on fertility and labor supply. Rather than a binary “total ban” indicator, I construct a continuous treatment measure based on changes in distance to the nearest legal abortion provider between 2021 and 2023, and apply a difference-in-differences design to state-level panel data. Effects are attenuated and imprecise in the South, consistent with diminishing marginal effects at large distances. In non-Southern states, I find that a 100 km increase in distance raises total births by about …

The Economics Of The U.S. Student Loan Market And The Case For The Education Development Financial Institution, Ian Akers

CMC Senior Theses

The United States student loan market is shaped by a variety of market failures–credit constraints, positive externalities, behavioral frictions including myopia, debt aversion, and misperception–that together justify government intervention in the market. Yet the design of federal intervention is just as important as its existence. This thesis details the economic theory underpinning the market for student loans, evaluates three historical federal student loan programs (the Perkins Loan Program, the Federal Family Education Loan Program, and the Federal Direct Loan Program) through the lens of that theory. The thesis then proposes a novel institutional model as a targeted response to the …

Algorithmic Trading In Idiosyncratic-Payoff Markets: A Multi-Agent System For On-Chain Prediction Contracts, Saif Aldeen A.K. Agha

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis documents the design, deployment, and forward-test evaluation of an evolutionary multi-agent algorithmic trading system on Polymarket, the largest decentralized prediction market. The system pairs a locally-hosted 72-billion-parameter language model with a gradient-boosted statistical filter and an evolutionary selection mechanism that maintains a population of approximately 500 autonomous trading agents. Each agent generates a probability estimate for an event, compares it to the prevailing market price, and trades the resulting disagreement.

The central empirical exercise estimates a panel regression of trade-level profit on the absolute disagreement between the agent's probability estimate and the market price, controlling for agent identity, …