Digital Commons Network^™

Borderplex Business Barometer, Volume 4, Number 5, Thomas M. Fullerton Jr., Steven L. Fullerton, Ana Gutierrez Zubiate, Ignacio Santana

Border Region Modeling Project

No abstract provided.

An Econometric Analysis Of Homelessness Risk-Factors, Zac Smith

Economics Undergraduate Honors Theses

This paper explores the issue of homelessness within the United States and seeks to create an econometric model that identifies predicting factors of homelessness at a state level which can be used to estimate the size of homeless populations. The author analyzed the role of 16 factors including income inequality, minimum wage, unemployment, rental cost, poverty, education, veteran status, and substance abuse on the 2017 state homeless populations. Using an ordinary least squares regression, the model produced five significant variables: adjusted minimum wage, percent of income spent on rent, possession of health insurance, average winter temperature, and the unemployment rate. …

A Thumb On The Scale: Chinese Investment And Influence In Ecuador And Colombia, Christina Pendergrast

Honors Theses

Over the past two decades, Chinese involvement in the developing world has increased dramatically, raising concerns over the intentions behind the provision of development packages. Critics have accused China of a practice known as debt-trap diplomacy, a method of ensnaring less developed nations by providing more loans than those nations have the ability to feasibly pay back. While China denies that their loan and investment packages are provided with any ulterior motive, the influence held by an investor like China has the potential to impact these partner countries for decades to come. In light of the scope of China’s role …

"Bad Hombres" And The Bully Pulpit: A Study Of Presidential Rhetoric On Social Media And Behavioral Responses Of The Immigrant Population, Mary Vlamis

Honors Scholar Theses

For years, social scientists have studied the impact of presidential rhetoric on public opinion and consumer behavior. This paper adds to the literature on presidential rhetoric by investigating how presidential statements on social media change public behavior in a reaction to these statements. President Trump's immigration policy tweets are used to examine if there is a relationship between the president's statements and changes in behavior using and Google searches. I find no relationship between the instance of a President Trump’s tweet and changes in searching for related topics among both large immigrant populations and Trump supporters.

Borderplex Pandemic Monitor, Thomas M. Fullerton Jr., Steven L. Fullerton

Border Region Modeling Project

No abstract provided.

Mind Your Youth: Youth Unemployment And Islamic Radicalization, Caleb Ray

Honors Theses

This study examines the potential existence of a correlation between youth unemployment and Islamic Radicalization in the MENA using data from the World Bank, the Global Terrorism Database, and the Arab Barometer. It aims to add to the current body of research regarding socioeconomic drivers for radicalization and terrorism.

Limits Of Growth: An Ecological Approach To Mainstream Economics, Jacob Cannon Alder

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Modern economists today rely on several fundamental assumptions in the same way physicists rely on laws governing energy and motion. Economists use growth—ideally unrestricted growth—as the key assumption upon which they build models and policy recommendations. The central economic theory explains that growth will enhance individual well-being over time. However, every known physical system has boundaries beyond which it will collapse, and the observed reality is that economic growth cannot be separated from physical resource consumption. As a result, many societies are overshooting physical, ecological boundaries. This project focuses on a few of the complexities generated by a growth-oriented economy …

Utah County Level Drought Effect On Cattle Inventories 1981-2016, Fred Openshaw

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The Utah cattle industry generates 20.6% of sales value for the agricultural sector. As well, this industry encompasses about 34.4% of Utah farms. Besides these figures, Utah cattle ranchers depend heavily upon both public and private lands for grazing as a primary source of feed for their herds. The soil moisture levels of pasturelands impacts the forage yield for a particular year. As a result, the primary purpose of this research is to determine if drought impacts Utah county cattle inventory numbers and what the magnitude of the impact is by analyzing data from 1981 to 2016. A secondary purpose …

Predicting The Federal Funds Rate, Danielle Herzberg

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

This thesis examines various economic indicators to select those that are the most significant in a predictive model of the Effective Federal Funds Rate. Three different statistical models were built to show how monetary policy changed over time. These three models frame the last economic downturns in the United States; the tech bubble, the housing bubble, and the Great Recession. Many iterations of statistical regressions were conducted in order to achieve the final three models that highlight variables with the highest levels of significance. It is important to note the economic data has high levels of autocorrelation, and that these …

Paternal Provisioning Results From Ecological Change, Ingela Alger, Paul L. Hooper, Donald Cox, Jonathan Stieglitz, Hillard S. Kaplan

ESI Publications

Paternal provisioning is ubiquitous in human subsistence societies and unique among apes. How could paternal provisioning have emerged from promiscuous or polygynous mating systems that characterize other apes? An anomalous provisioning male would encounter a social dilemma: Since this investment in prospective offspring can be expropriated by other males, this investment is unlikely to increase the provisioner’s fitness. We present an ecological theory of the evolution of human paternal investment. Ecological change favoring reliance on energetically rich, difficult-to-acquire resources increases payoffs to paternal provisioning due to female–male and/or male–male complementarities. Paternal provisioning becomes a viable reproductive strategy when complementarities are …

Cruise Ship Ports And Human Capital Development: The Case Of Mexico, Jorge Herrera

Master's Theses

The cruise ship industry, the fastest-growing segment in the leisure travel market, has contributed significantly to the economic transformation of developing countries, particularly in the Caribbean Basin. This paper applies a difference-in-differences methodology to examine the causal impact of the introduction of cruise ship ports on human capital development in Mexico, as reflected by educational attainment. Using variations in school enrollment, segregated by gender and age across states and municipalities, I find that the economic consequences derived from this form of tourism do not translate into incremental, permanent improvements in all quality of life indicators considered, most saliently in schooling. …

Effects Of Parental Migration On Education And Personality: Evidence From Indonesia, Kyle Sullivan

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In developing countries, migration can be an important method for many families and households to produce additional income via remittances in order to meet their needs or invest in their children. However, migration is a dynamic process and the absence of a parent can have negative effects on those children left behind. This paper explores how parental migration is associated with their children’s years of education completed and how these associations are heterogenous by family compositions in Indonesia. I use a longitudinal dataset which allows for parents’ migrations to be attributed throughout an individual’s childhood to measure the cumulative impact. …

The Effect Of Sex Of Firstborn Children On Fertility Preferences, Lauren Lamson

Master's Theses

Fertility rates around the world are falling at the same time that male-skewed sex ratios at birth are on the rise. The individual fertility choices people make contribute to this inverse relationship, exacerbating the problem of “missing women” as well as a number of other adverse social and economic effects. The decision to have a child is extremely complex. Distilling the interaction between fertility and sex compositional preferences, fertility levels, and gender norms is an important step toward understanding both the reproductive choices people make as well as the formation of fertility preferences. I use individual-level data from the Demographic …

Effectiveness Of China's Plug-In Electric Vehicle Subsidy, Tamara L. Sheldon, Rubal Dua

Faculty Publications

Subsidies for promoting plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) adoption are a key component of China's overall plan for reducing local air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the light-duty vehicle sector. In this paper, we explore the impact and cost-effectiveness of the Chinese PEV subsidy program. In particular, a vehicle choice model is estimated using a large random sample of individual level, model year 2017 Chinese new vehicle purchases. The choice model is then used to predict PEV market share under alternative policies. Simulation results suggest that the 2.5% PEV market share of Chinese new vehicle sales in 2017 resulted in …

Technology In Major League Baseball: 2017 Houston Astros, Prisoner’S Dilemma, And Behavioral Solutions, Spencer Kinyon

Honors Scholar Theses

This paper compares and contrasts the economic model for baseball in the 20th century without technology and the economic model for baseball in the 21st century with technology. Major League Baseball (MLB) teams have evolved to use technology to improve the performance of players on the field. This paper explores the economics of penalties in MLB and how teams are penalized for their use of illegal technology. In the 2017 season, the Houston Astros used illegal technology that led the team to win the World Series. This paper provides a cost-benefit analysis to determine whether or not a team should …

Options For Unemployment Insurance Structural And Administrative Reform: Proposals And Analysis, Stephen A. Wandner

Upjohn Institute Policy Papers

The unemployment insurance (UI) program is broken. UI benefits and taxes are out of balance, with benefit payments tending to exceed tax revenues, while the program is unable to provide adequate reemployment services to permanently separated UI recipients. The current crisis in the UI program has been building over the past four decades. Although UI and Social Security were both enacted as part of the Social Security Act, reforms to the programs have diverged sharply. Congress has frequently amended the Social Security program to increase benefits and taxes, and then in 1972 it enacted a permanent annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) …

Has Covid-19 Impacted Price-Weight Relationships And Value Of Gain?, Elliott James Dennis

Extension Farm and Ranch Management News

First paragraph:

In the beginning of COVID-19, much of the attention was focused on managing the redirection of meat product from food service to retail stores. This past month has keenly focused on packing plant closures due to COVID-19 cases among workers and how to manage the supply of fat cattle already ready for slaughter. Fat cattle available for slaughter either cannot get bids or bids are significantly below breakeven prices leaving feedlots with decisions to be made about marketing and placements. The April 2020 Cattle on Feed report (https://usda.library.cornell.edu/concern/publications/m326m174z) revealed March placement decisions. Placements were down about …

How Do Farmers Experience Agroecology In Rural Communities Of Northern Ecuador?, Neil Michael Ayala Ayala

Latin American Studies ETDs

Agroecology, a concept in continuous evolution embraces science, practice and sociopolitical aspects. Its meaning is gaining space of debate and global interest as an alternative for building sustainable food systems and resilient communities, not only from the environmental perspective, but from all the dimensions of sustainability. The Andes region is recognized for its agrodiversity and for its history of agricultural activity; nevertheless, the effects of unsustainable agricultural practices inspired in the principles of the so called “Green Revolution” are evident. Conventional agriculture has decreased the capacity of resilience of the agroecosystems and their associated communities. Agroecology is often perceived as …

Separate And Unequal: The Causes And Effects Of Economic Inequality In Our Communities, And What We Must Do About It, Jonathan Payne

Honors Theses

This project seeks to create a deep understanding of some of the key causes and effects of economic inequality. In it, I review a wide variety of research and reporting on inequality as well as interview people that have been impacted by inequality in my community, Oxford, Mississippi. This information, as a whole, is not meant to create a complete, comprehensive understanding of income and wealth inequality, which would be impossible. Instead, it is a meditation on the origins, cycles, outcomes and ethical implications of the phenomenon. In it, I contend that the vast majority of negative outcomes of inequality, …

Ua3/10/2 Cares Act For Students, Wku President's Office - Caboni

WKU Administration Documents

Email from WKU president Timothy Caboni to faculty & staff regarding the Coronavirus Aid Relief & Economic Security Act for students.

Using Nonexperimental Methods To Address Noncompliance, Daniel Litwok

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

The analysis compares estimates of the incremental impact for those who receive HPOG with a program enhancement to the standard HPOG program. The experimental benchmark for the incremental impact comes from two-stage least squares with random assignment as an instrumental variable for enhancement take-up. Then, ignoring the randomly assigned conditions, the analysis estimates the counterfactual for those who “take up” the enhancement using ordinary least squares and inverse propensity weighting. The analysis also tests whether adding information that is only available due to the experiment—who complied with their randomization status and who did not—improves the nonexperimental estimates. The analysis compares …

Health-Related Anxiety In The Management Of Oral Soreness In An Hivseropositive Patient, Masita Mandasari, Zulvia Oktanida Syarif, Febrina Rahmayanti

Journal of Dentistry Indonesia

The number of people living with HIV (PLHIV) has been increasing since the first known case in the early 1980s. However, PLHIV can also experience comorbidities, such as health anxiety. In the oral cavity, anxiety is often associated with the etiology of parafunctional habits. Anxiety can be measured using self-administered instruments, such as the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) and Short-Health Anxiety Inventory (SHAI), which is specifically used in the medical setting. Objectives: We are describing a case of HIV positive patient with health anxiety who presented to the oral medicine clinic in our hospital with a complaint of …

Differential Diagnosis And Histopathological Analysis Of Localized Gingival Overgrowths: Study Of 218 Cases From Northeast Thailand, Lordjie Marr Morilla, Ajiravudh Subarnbhesaj, Poramaporn Klanrit

Journal of Dentistry Indonesia

Localized gingival overgrowths (LGOs) are relatively common clinical findings. These lesions can be associated with chronic irritation, infections, or they can represent benign or malignant tumors that can either be primary or metastatic. The etiology of these lesions is multifactorial, but the most prevalent cause is reactive hyperplasia and inflammation induced by dental plaque. Objective: This study presents the prevalence of LGOs in Northeast Thailand and identifies the most common LGOs in the region. Methods: A series of 218 LGO cases was studied. Results: Pyogenic granuloma (PG), gingival squamous cell carcinoma (GSCC), and peripheral ossifying fibroma (POF) were the three …

Evaluation Of Clinical Single Dental Implants Made Between 2013 And 2017, Zozan Erdoğmuş

Journal of Dentistry Indonesia

Objective: This retrospective study aimed to determine the profile of patients who underwent single tooth implants between 2013 and 1017 and to evaluate long-term follow-up and success. Methods: The results of 79 patients who underwent single dental intra-bone dental implantation in Diyarbakır Oral and Dental Health Hospital between 2013 and 2017 were evaluated separately in terms of gender, age, implanted area and number, systemic diseases affecting implant health, and missing implants. Results: In this study, single tooth implants were evaluated in 79 patients with a mean age of 39.55 years in men and 30.44 years in women. …

Coronavirus And The Economy: Repurposing Production, Helping The Needy, Saving Businesses, And Encouraging Job Preservation, Timothy J. Bartik, Brad J. Hershbein

Employment Research Newsletter

No abstract provided.

An Unemployment Insurance Covid-19 Crisis Response, Stephen A. Wandner, Christopher J. O'Leary

Employment Research Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Exchange Rate Regimes And Economic Growth, Amandarae Matthew

Undergraduate Theses

This paper explores the relationship between economic growth and exchange rate regimes among countries of lower income, lower middle income, upper middle income, and high-income countries. Countries must make careful consideration when choosing an exchange rate regime because each regime can have different long-term effects. A cross section pooled time series data will be used for a sample of 42 countries over the period of 2000-2018. Multiple models will examine the various relationships between types of exchange rate regimes, changes in exchange rate regimes, and economic growth. The components of the models being tested include political stability, change in terms …

What Immigration Means For U.S. Employment And Wages, Lilibeth Lopez

Showcase of Undergraduate Research and Creative Endeavors (SOURCE)

Immigration has a significant impact on U.S. economic growth. Immigrants account for 14.4% (over 44 million) of the U.S. population. Their success has an important impact on the U.S. economy. This paper will focus on the impact of immigration on employment and wages. The Center for Immigration Studies shows that immigration has impacts on wages and employment. The negative effect of immigration on wages is primarily confined to native workers in low-skilled occupations. Immigration lowers wages for those at the bottom of the economic scale. Factors such as technological change and globalization have also played a role in the deterioration …

The Shortage Of Teachers In America Today, Avery Davis

Showcase of Undergraduate Research and Creative Endeavors (SOURCE)

There is a shortage of skilled labor in America today, but there is no sector where this problem is more acute than in education. The news has often covered strikes by teachers’ unions across the country, where teachers have been asking for more pay from state governments. It is clear that teachers are underpaid compared to other college graduates; this makes the profession of teaching much less attractive. This is because of the nature of the labor market for teachers, causing them to be underpaid as a whole. Teachers’ salaries are 21 percent below the median salary for other college …

The Survival Of The American Beef Farmer In Today’S Market, Zackary Heustess

Showcase of Undergraduate Research and Creative Endeavors (SOURCE)

Once the world’s agriculture leader, the United States has lost dominance over recent decades to international competitors, specifically Brazil. Since the number of American farms reached its peak at 6.8 million in 1935, this number has fallen drastically to 2.1 million by 2002. This paper will touch on one specific area of this field, beef cattle farming. Even with annual beef consumption continuing to increase in the United States, some developing trends might threaten farmers even further in the near future. These trends include the rapid scaling of corporate farming, the increased concern over the environmental impact from red meat, …