Digital Commons Network^™

Eliminating Latent Discrimination: Train Then Mask, Soheil Ghili, Ehsan Kazemi, Amin Karbasi

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

How can we control for latent discrimination in predictive models? How can we provably remove it? Such questions are at the heart of algorithmic fairness and its impacts on society. In this paper, we define a new operational fairness criteria, inspired by the well-understood notion of omitted variable-bias in statistics and econometrics. Our notion of fairness effectively controls for sensitive features and provides diagnostics for deviations from fair decision making. We then establish analytical and algorithmic results about the existence of a fair classifier in the context of supervised learning. Our results readily imply a simple, but rather counter-intuitive, strategy …

The Economic And Psychological Determinants Of Sleep Among Adults In The United States, Caroline Jackson

Honors College Theses

No abstract provided.

The Cost Of Not Knowing: Observing How Financial Literacy Affects Amount Of Retirement Saving, Josina Genetti

Honors College Theses

No abstract provided.

Caribbeanomics: Assessing The Effectiveness Of U.S. Foreign Aid In The English-Speaking Caribbean, John Keane

Honors College Theses

No abstract provided.

A Woman's World: Gender Discrimination In The Entertainment Industry, Veronica Weinstein

Honors College Theses

No abstract provided.

The Health Care Systems Of The United States And Spain: A Comparison, Tasia Harman

Senior Honors Theses

When it comes to understanding and improving the United States health care system, comparison and analysis with the health care system of another country provides valuable insights. In this thesis, the United States’ health care system was compared to that of Spain, as the health care system of Spain is generally ranked well above the United States in terms of quality, function, and cost. In the comparison, information such as the health of the population, the quality of health care received, accessibility, and health care costs indicate the state of the health care systems and their ability to function well …

Does Medicaid Increase Emergency Room Use: Evidence From Oregon Health Program?, Md Fourkan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis paper strives to identify the relationship between Medicaid expansion and Emergency Department use. I use a Monte Carlo simulation for demonstrating the endogeneity problem and a copula model using the Oregon Health Program (OHP) data to show the previous literature has exaggerated the causal relation between Medicaid expansion and Emergency Department use. This paper can be divided into two parts. First, it tries to focus on the under-identification of multiple endogenous variables problem in typical econometrics papers, where researchers correct for a single endogenous variable but intentionally or unintentionally ignore the endogeneity of one or more other independent …

Implicit Bias In The Criminal Justice System: An Economic Review, Brianna Duseau

Economics Honors Papers

This project seeks to investigate implicit racial bias in the prosecution section of the criminal justice system and calculate its potential economic consequences. Combining past research and analyses of racial bias in other contexts with evaluations of legal rulings and precedents that hinder effective reform, potential areas for change and further study are identified. An experiment is designed to identify racial bias within the context of a drug offense where race and strength of evidence are isolated variables. Subsequent results are analyzed in the context of economic and social cost to both individuals and the United States as a whole.

The Economic And Social Values Associated With Small South Dakota Lakes, Aaron Patrick Sundmark

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The valuation of small fishing lakes is a vital component in understanding the importance of fishing and of recreational resources, in general. Knowing the values associated with such lakes is essential when prioritizing management activities. The overall value of a lake as a resource for human benefit is estimated as the summation of both instrumental and non-instrumental values. Instrumental values consist of economic and utilitarian values, as well as the values that a lake provides from ecosystem services. Non-instrumental values consider what the lake is worth as a good of its own, such as aesthetic, moral, and spiritual values gained …

Food Assistance Programs In The Us And Their Impact On Childhood Obesity, Jannatul Kawsar

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Numerous food assistance programs (FAP) aim to ensure food security among low income American households. However, the literature suggests that participation in food assistance programs may be associated with the US childhood obesity epidemic. The goal of this study is to analyze the association between the number of major food assistance programs children participate in and childhood obesity. The major food assistance programs considered are the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), the National School Lunch Program (NSLP), and the School Breakfast Programs (SBP). This is the first study to …

Prenatal Stress And Birth Weight: Evidence From The Egyptian Revolution, Ronia A. Hawash

Scholarship and Professional Work - Business

The Egyptian Revolution that ignited in January 2011 resulted in intense violent conflict between protestors and former regime allies. This generated a significant amount of fear and stress among people who lived in proximity to such events. We use this exogenous shock as a natural experiment to test the causal relationship between prenatal stress and birth weight. Governorate-level fatalities resulting from this conflict will be used as an exogenous indicator for prenatal stress. Using fixed effects and difference-in-difference analysis, results show that higher prenatal stress resulting from political conflict during the first and second trimesters of pregnancy has a …

Empirical Essays On Science And New Technology Adoption, Huifeng Yu

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The first chapter studies how the quantity and quality of research output varies over the career using 5.6 million biomedical science articles published over three decades. We show that controlling for selective attrition reconciles conflicts in a longstanding, interdisciplinary literature. While research quality declines monotonically over the career, this decline is easily overlooked because the highest “ability” authors have the longest publishing careers. Our results have implications for broader questions of human capital accumulation over the career and also for federal research policies that shift funding from late- to early-career researchers – while providing more funding to researchers when they …

Health Shocks, Labor Market Activities, And End-Of-Life Medical Expenses, Yuan Fang

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Health capital depletes with each additional health shock. The presence of health insurance may reduce out-of-pocket costs, and hence increase the demand for care following a shock. Also, death is the ultimate health outcome for an individual that follows periods of health morbidities and health shocks. Towards the end individual lives, the demand for and cost of health care increases tremendously, but these costs vary significantly across socio-demographic groups.

Essays On Malpractice Reform, Physician Human Capital, And Physicians' Location Choices, Siyang Li

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

In response to the sharp increases in the malpractice insurance premiums in the 1970’s, almost all states in the US have passed tort reforms since then. Previous studies found that tort reforms can reduce malpractice pressure faced by physicians in terms of the size of malpractice rewards and the frequency of malpractice lawsuits. However, there is mixed evidence that state malpractice reforms affect the aggregate supply of physicians in a state. Constrained by the availability of state-level counts of physicians utilized in difference-in-difference framework, most studies were not able to further test for the existence of heterogeneous effects across physicians.

Data Literacy In Economic Development, Simon Halliday

Economics: Faculty Publications

In economic development and other economics electives, students regularly encounter economic measures of absolute and relative deprivation, from poverty measures like the Foster-Greer-Thorbecke index to measures of distribution like the Gini index. By “doing economics,” students practice applying economic measurement to real-world data and develop more general data literacy. The author proposes a series of exercises starting with stylized 10-household economies, proceeding to nationally representative cross-sectional surveys using MS Excel or Google Spreadsheets, and culminating in students applying their acquired data literacy to a team project. The data sources are easily tailored to alternative household surveys in low- and middle-income …

Promoting An Ethical Economics Classroom Through Partnership, Simon Halliday

Economics: Faculty Publications

In teaching economics, the instructor scaffolds what they teach on an implicitly assumed or explicitly recognized ethical vision. Such a vision holds true even as economists often separate “positive economics” from “normative economics,” claiming positive economics finds its basis in data and theory whereas normative economics concerns the ought or ethical statements that data or theory may imply (Davis, 2016). Economics, furthermore, suffers from lack of diversity: from white men constituting the majority of researchers and teachers, to textbooks that fail to show the diverse range of real people participating in the economy (Aerni, Bartlett, Lewis, McGoldrick, & Shackelford, 1999). …

On Cluster Robust Models, José Bayoán Santiago Calderón

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Cluster robust models are a kind of statistical models that attempt to estimate parameters considering potential heterogeneity in treatment effects. Absent heterogeneity in treatment effects, the partial and average treatment effect are the same. When heterogeneity in treatment effects occurs, the average treatment effect is a function of the various partial treatment effects and the composition of the population of interest. The first chapter explores the performance of common estimators as a function of the presence of heterogeneity in treatment effects and other characteristics that may influence their performance for estimating average treatment effects. The second chapter examines various approaches …

Consumer Perceptions And Demand For Locally-Grown Vegetables In South Dakota, Richard Mulder

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

An increasingly popular topic in the food labeling field over the last 15 years has been the increasing body of research for food that is locally produced. Consumers’ definition of, attitudes toward, and willingness-to-pay (WTP) for local food have been areas of interest for researchers. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that contributes to the current body of local foods’ research for vegetables by providing information on these areas of interest for the state of South Dakota. This study acquires data through a consumer-intercept survey conducted in grocery stores throughout South Dakota with a sample …

Assessing The Potential Impacts Of The Tax Reform For Acceleration And Inclusion And The Build Build Build Program, Caesar Cororaton, Marites Tiongco, Justin S. Eloriaga

Angelo King Institute for Economic and Business Studies (AKI)

The Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) Act has prompted key changes in the personal income tax regime through excise taxes on most goods such as petroleum, sugar-sweetened beverages, and automobiles. The TRAIN was implemented to generate funds for the Build Build Build (BBB) program and at the same time to address income inequality and poverty. This paper aims to assess the potential growth, poverty, and distributional effects of the TRAIN Package 1 and the BBB Program using a computable general equilibrium model with poverty simulation. Results suggest that TRAIN I has prompted additional revenue in social programs and …

Innovation, Ceos, And Ipos, Zhilu Lin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In Part 1, I study if CEOs with innovative ability impose a cost upon their firms. I find that while there is a positive effect of a CEO’s innovative ability on firm innovation, the benefit is only when CEO’s innovative ability is useful for the firm. Further, firms with innovator CEOs spend more on R&D projects but with lower efficiency and hold more cash but with lower cash value compared to firms with non-innovator CEOs. These results suggest that innovator CEOs create an overinvestment problem. In Part 2, I study the effects of talent cycling on IPO long-run performance and …

The Intergenerational Transfer Of Criminal Justice Involvement: Risk And Protective Factors As Moderating Variables, Caitlin Storm

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Previous literature identified evidence of a transfer of criminal justice involvement between generations of family members. This relationship has proven especially strong between parents and children. Different demographic factors slightly alter the strength and significance of the transfer, but the established relationship between the criminal justice involvement of the parent and the increased likelihood of the child’s criminal justice involvement remains consistent. Data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 was used to analyze the effect of the father’s criminal justice involvement on his child’s. Using binary logistic regression models, predictor variables were included in a step-wise fashion to …

Essays On The Underlying Capacity Of The State And Its Effects On Economic Development, Alma Alicia Bezares Calderón

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on three main topics: state capacity, conflict and development. During my progress in my program, I have become more interested in these issues as I have seen how closely linked they are and how they help to explore questions related to prosperity, or the lack of thereof. In particular, my research, and more precisely this dissertation, concentrates on the connection among these three issues in low- and middle-income countries. In the first chapter, titled ”How Strong is your Shield? Subnational State Capacity and Violence in Mexico” I center the analysis on the case of Mexico, a middle-income …

Going To Extremes: The National Parent Teacher Association And Political Extremism In The 1960s, Sarah E. Heath

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

In the 1960s, the National Parent Teacher Association (PTA) reported efforts at “infiltration” by conservative extremist groups, including the John Birch Society (JBS). Extremists sought to take over PTA meetings to obtain a mainstream platform for minority opinions. The PTA parried extremists’ efforts with a deluge of activities and publications dedicated to democratic fair play and research-based approaches to education. In spite of a coherent plan for dealing with such techniques in the 1960s, the methods used by the Birch Society and other conservative extremist groups appear to have resumed in contemporary educational discussions. Once again, opinions that appeal to …

Racial Segregation In Indianapolis, 1990–2010: A Spatial Perspective, Vijay Lulla, Owen Dwyer

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

The index of dissimilarity is the most widely used method for measuring racial segregation. When applied to Indianapolis, this index has returned results showing the city to be among the most segregated in the country. The resulting measure, however, suffers from two shortcomings. First, the index of dissimilarity is sensitive to the census-defined geographic unit chosen for the analysis; thus, this index returns different (though proportionate) results depending on whether the population data are aggregated to larger or smaller enumeration units. Second, the index of dissimilarity cannot account for the influence of spatial proximity; adjacent census blocks interact regardless of …

Effects Of Cisnormative Beauty Standards On Transgender Women’S Perceptions And Expressions Of Beauty, Delmira Monteiro, Mixalis Poulakis

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

The authors conducted a qualitative study exploring the effects of cisnormative beauty standards on transgender women’s perceptions and expressions of beauty. Twelve self-identified Caucasian transgender women completed a semistructured interview that provided descriptive data related to the women’s perceptions of societal beauty standards. Analysis of the data revealed the following primary themes: Participants viewed the beauty of transgender and cisgender women as diverse or as encompassing a broad range of variability; societal beauty standards were influential on participants’ expressions of beauty; and participants’ viewed out-group transphobia as a factor contributing to discriminatory and prejudicial perceptions of transwomen’s beauty.

The Impact Of Perspective In Identifying And Responding To Potential Sexual Misconduct: A Study Of University Students, Nichole Maki Weller, Kathy Parkison, Steven R. Cox, Michael Plummer

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

Recent events have demonstrated a divergent understanding of sexual harassment and other forms of sexual misconduct. Although sociocultural standards regarding sexual misconduct have changed over time, including improved social and workplace standards and protections, it is clear that not everyone views these events through the same lens. The lens is even less clear when potential misconduct is viewed from the distinct perspectives of a “victim” and a “perpetrator.” We surveyed 424 undergraduate and graduate students at Indiana University Kokomo to identify the impact of perspective and various sociodemographic characteristics that may influence perceptions of what is, and is not, sexual …

“But I Only Wanted Them To Conform”: A Detailed Look Into The Initial Cohort Of Girls At The Indiana Reformatory Institution For Women And Girls Between 1873 And 1884, Molly Whitted, Michelle Williams

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

For the past four years, as part of a group of currently and formerly incarcerated scholars, we have researched the “inmates” and staff at the Indiana Women’s Prison during the institution’s first decade. Then known as the Indiana Reformatory Institution for Women and Girls, the facility was located near downtown Indianapolis on Randolph and Michigan Street. We focused on a key constituent of the Indiana Reformatory for Women and Girls: the girls themselves, heretofore voiceless and uninvestigated.

Our primary sources include the annual reports of the reformatory and the original registries for the girls during the survey period of 1873–1884. …

Strategies For Providing Loans To Small Businesses, Linda Faye Evans

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Between 2007 and 2013, the number of loans banks provided to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) declined. The purpose of this single case study was to explore the strategies that senior bank lending officers used to improve lending to SMEs. The sample size consisted of 4 senior small business lending officers who have in lending for 5 or more year in Houston, Texas. The conceptual framework used was agency theory. Data were collected using semistructured interviews with 4 senior bank lending officers from a bank in the Houston, Texas area, a review of documents from lending officers, and other artifacts …

Accounts Receivable Management Strategies To Ensure Timely Payments In Rural Clinics, Anthony N. Medel

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Healthcare business leaders in a rural clinic setting can enhance profitability by implementing strategies to ensure timely payments. The purpose of this multiple case study was to examine strategies applied by healthcare leaders in rural clinics to improve profitability. The population included 10 rural clinic managers and billing staff from 5 rural clinics in the southwestern region of the United States. The conceptual framework for this study was Wernerfelt's resource-based value theory. Implementing Yin's multiple-step data analysis process, data from semistructured interviews were transcribed, coded, and analyzed to identify strategies used by rural clinic managers and billing staff to enhance …

Economic Impact Of Expanding The Morgantown Industrial Park, Eric Bowen

Bureau of Business & Economic Research

No abstract provided.