Digital Commons Network^™

Ai's Impact On The Labor Market: Shaping The Present And Forecasting The Future, Emma Ryan

Honors Projects in Mathematics and Economics

Artificial Intelligence is one of the fastest growing technologies, providing humans with a tool to assist them in their daily lives. While this is an advantage, there is also the downside that AI has the ability to remove routine and repetitive tasks. This paper takes a closer look at the impacts of Artificial Intelligence on the labor market and analyzes the implications of AI, both positive and negative. It elaborates on both the job opportunities present due to AI and the job displacement that may occur. A detailed survey was distributed to college students to understand their perceptions of AI …

Tax Increment Financing: A History And Analysis Of Its Success And Failure, Justin Cederlof

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

Tax increment financing (TIF) is used by cities and towns to subsidize projects within their jurisdictions. The name derives from the growth in the tax base that a (re)development is theoretically responsible for. The increase in tax revenue is directed to funds to pay for the project. TIF is used in 49 U.S. states and each state has unique legislation for its use of it, though there are large similarities between states on how it’s implemented. Research suggests mixed results with whether or not the increase in the tax base is enough to pay off how much money went toward …

Correlative Assessment Of Demographic Markers And Health Insurance On Self-Reported Health Status, Ismat Ara Sharin Sajnee

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

This study investigates whether known demographic groups report poorer health status even after adjusting for health insurance. Research analyzes the factors that correlate with poor reported health status and demographic markers associated with inequitable healthcare access. Sealy-Jefferson et al. (2015) explores the rate of health insurance as a primary mechanism to mitigate the financial risk of accessing health care, but significant racial and ethnic health disparities continue to exist among insured populations.

This study uses pooled cross-sectional data from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) from 2019 to 2023 and simple linear regression models to examine the relationship between demographic …

Latinas In The Figured World Of Economics: Constructing Identity And Agency, Cynthia Gamez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Women's endeavors to enhance their numbers, visibility, and presence in economics are a significant topic of discussion in the field of economics. While it has long been documented that women are outnumbered in economics, there was almost no research on Latinas: only on White women. Using a theoretical framework of identity and agency in cultural worlds, this qualitative study aimed to understand how Latinas who graduated with master's degrees from three universities along the U.S.-Mexico border constructed their identities and positioned themselves as economists. Ten Latinas who graduated between 2002 and 2022 from the Paso del Norte regional universities were …

The Influence Of Political Uncertainty On Financial Markets During U.S. Elections: A Comprehensive Analysis, Ryan Hale

Finance Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis examines the impact of U.S. presidential elections on financial market performance, focusing on volatility, investor behavior, and market returns. Political uncertainty during election years often triggers market fluctuations, influencing investor confidence, policy expectations, and sector-specific reactions. By analyzing historical election-year data, this study identifies consistent patterns of increased volatility, shifts in investor sentiment, and post-election market stabilization. Findings suggest that while short-term uncertainty affects market behavior, long-term investment strategies should prioritize broader economic trends over election-driven fluctuations. These insights provide practical guidance for investors navigating politically uncertain environments.

The Effect Of Employment Shocks On Earnings: Evidence From The Covid-19 Pandemic, Giovanny A. Martinez Rodriguez

Economics Honors Projects

Economic research has documented significant short, medium, and long-term labor market consequences following recessions (Goodman & Mance, 2011; Yagan, 2017; Farber, 2011). The Covid-19 recession triggered an unprecedented economic downturn, disproportionately impacting employment in industries with high concentrations of low-income and female workers. In this paper, I leverage the substantial spatial variation in employment shocks to examine their effects on earnings and employment outcomes in both the short and medium terms. I find remarkably stable trends in earnings and employment when comparing counties experiencing high employment shocks with those that did not. Although these results differ from previous recessions, they …

Preying For A Spot At The Table Examining Regulatory Policies And Solutions To Combat Predatory Microfinance Practices, Nicholas R. Brenner

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

Microfinance involves financial services such as small loans, savings accounts, and insurance to low-income populations typically excluded from traditional financial markets. While the services it provides can encourage entrepreneurship and work to alleviate poverty, insufficient regulation can lead to borrower exploitation and continued cycles of debt. This thesis explores the regulations leading to successful microfinance outcomes. Particularly, the variance in outcomes between Ghana and Jordan will be examined as a case study. In Ghana’s Wa West District, effective policies and financial literacy programs have enabled microfinance to promote economic growth. In the country of Jordan, however, a lack of strict …

Changing The Game: Examining The Impacts Of Name, Image, And Likeness Legislation On Dominance Within Ncaa Division 1 Men’S Basketball, Jaclyn Noel Lawrence

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

On July 1, 2021, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) implemented a policy change allowing collegiate athletes to benefit from their name, image, and likeness (NIL), enabling them to earn additional income through partnerships without penalty. This shift sparked widespread debate regarding its potential impact on competitive balance and dominance within college athletics—a principle the NCAA has long cited in defense of its amateurism model. Controlling for player, coach, and institutional characteristics, this study estimates a comprehensive model to assess the relationship between the presence of NIL opportunities and team success. We found no evidence that NIL alone has significantly …

The Economic Impact Of Fitness And Recreational Sports Centers On The U.S. Economy Using State-Level Data, Nicholas M. Schramm

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

This study utilizes state-level data to investigate the effect of fitness and recreational sports centers on the United States economy. Personal per capita income and the employment rate serve as the dependent variables. The explanatory variables consist of three fitness and recreational sports center sector proxies: the number of establishments, employees, and total annual payroll. The study will use a pooled regression model that includes fixed effects to examine the impact of the three explanatory variables on each dependent variable. The analysis showed positive and significant effects on the personal per capita income for each of the three explanatory variables. …

Sexism In Syntax: Language And Its Relationship With Female Leadership, Kyle Rains

Honors Theses

Despite a global trend towards more equal gender representation, not every country has improved at the same pace or to the same level. This study investigates language as a potential tool for better understanding the differences between countries regarding the presence of female managers. By using language as a tool, I arrive at two primary results: (i) pronoun drop is significantly and inversely associated with the presence of female managers, but gendered language structures have little association, and (ii) a gender intensity index can produce misleading results. These results suggest that language structures, such as pronoun drop, which are associated …

The People's Ledger: Reform Or Revolution?, Kostantinos R. Grigoras

Applied Economics Theses

The ramifications of the 2007-08 financial crisis, the later Covid-19 pandemic, and the technological developments surrounding cryptocurrencies and digital ledgers have led to increasingly explicit political views on banking apart from dominant mainstream economic narratives. As such, a widening range of authors from varying perspectives have sought to contribute a “programmatic vision” to the set of changes they assert as necessary in the current financial system. Saule T. Omarova’s (2021) controversial article, “The People’s Ledger: How to Democratize Money and Finance the Economy,” and the resulting political reaction to its goal of advancing such a programmatic vision in order to …

The Economic Impact Of The World Of Winter Festival 2025, Grand Valley State University, Christian Glupker

Other Faculty Publications

The World of Winter 2025 festival (WoW) is estimated to have generated or supported economic benefits for the city of Grand Rapids in the following ways:

• The total economic impact on the Grand Rapids area is estimated at $38 million in economic output, supporting 335 jobs.
• The total annual fiscal impact (tax revenue) of WoW is estimated at $311,000 for municipalities and $238,000 for Kent County.
• WoW attracted 2.3 million visitors, with 67% visiting from outside the local region.
• 44% of local visitors and 55% of all nonlocal visitors stated that WoW was their primary reason for visiting the area. …

Sociological Understandings Of Entrepreneurial Action And Intention, Jeffrey Cavanaugh

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Entrepreneurship as a trend has emerged across many different disciplines, drawing on theory from psychology, economics, and sociology. Importantly, sociologic aspects of entrepreneurship remain hidden from scholarship, as existing topics are often vague or narrowly partitioned. In my dissertation, I utilize sociological understandings of human interactions which define entrepreneurial intention and action. Specifically, I explore how entrepreneurs’ religion, rurality, and social media use influences their behaviors. Throughout these three quantitative essays, I contribute to a better understanding of the social psychology of entrepreneurship, and why entrepreneurial pursuits are so intricately linked to every aspect of society. Throughout my research, which …

Cares Act And Income Inequality In The Long Run, Kathleen Washington

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

In this paper, I will be looking at how the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, a revolutionary public policy, led to income inequality decreasing during the Covid-19 pandemic in the US. Additionally, from the data available, the CARES Act seems to not have had any long run effects on income inequality in the US. Although, I would recommend more research on the CARES Act’s long-run effects when more data become available as time passes.

Unintended Consequences: How Direct Cash Payments To Families Experiencing Poverty Lowered Child Poverty Rates In The United States, Wayne Dunn

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Child poverty has adverse effects for the children who experience it and it has long term social and economic consequences into adulthood. This policy analysis looks at the policy choices America has made in addressing child poverty and what effects, if any, those policies have had. After reviewing traditional in-kind policy options for addressing child poverty, this article focuses on the decreases in the child poverty rate that occurred with the passage of pandemic era legislation that provided direct cash assistance to all Americans. Because the assistance programs only happened in two consecutive years and were terminated at the end …

Food Security In Mauritius, Luke Hubbard

Economics Undergraduate Honors Theses

Located over 600 miles off the East coast of Madagascar, Mauritius is an island nation with a population of over 1.2 million people. In the summer of 2023, I had the opportunity to travel to Mauritius and conduct a representative food insecurity survey alongside other University of Arkansas and University of Mauritius students and professors. With more than 400 surveys in over 80 locations, we gathered data in every district on the primary island of Mauritius. The group used a survey based on the standard USDA question list and compiled the results to find that the population of Mauritius had …

Housing Prices & Labor Shortages: The Role Of Land Use Regulation, Rhys T. Cooper

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

In this analysis, I examine the impact of housing prices on labor shortages by estimating the effects of monetary policy shocks and land use regulation (LUR). In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, housing prices and labor shortages have increased across the U.S. Using regional data on job postings, available workers, housing prices, LUR, and nations monetary policy shocks, I estimate the relationship between LUR, monetary policy, and labor shortages though a difference-in-differences continuous treatment model estimated through local projections. The interaction between LUR and monetary policy is leveraged to address the endogeneity between housing prices and labor shortages. My …

Missing Piece Of The Pie: Public Expenditure On Education In Colombia, Ashante Gallimore

Economics

Public expenditure on education in Colombia is a crucial driver of socioeconomic development, with government investments that are aimed at improving access, quality, and equity across all levels of education. This thesis examines how these funds are distributed by analyzing whether financial resources are concentrated in wealthier areas or equitably distributed between wealthier and less fortunate Colombian regions. Using a comparative qualitative analysis, this study examines the sources of educational funding, the decision-making processes behind allocation, and how schools make use of their resources. A particular focus is on why primary education receives a larger share of funding compared to …

Estimation And Testing In A Fixed Effects Panel Data Model With Serially Correlated Error Component Disturbances, Badi H. Baltagi, Long Liu

Center for Policy Research

This paper revisits the fixed effects panel data model with AR(1) remainder disturbances and provides a bias corrected estimator for the serial correlation coefficient based on first differencing the panel regression to get rid of the fixed effects. This bias corrected estimator builds upon the estimator proposed by Han and Phillips (2010). Asymptotic properties as well as Monte Carlo results are provided that show the better performance of this new proposed bias corrected estimator. This is extended to the unbalanced panel data case and also illustrated using the empirical application in Donohue and Levitt (2001).

Two Essays On Finance And Culture, Gia Han Ngoc Doan

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation consists of two essays on finance and culture. The first essay examines the relationship between corporate quality culture and product recalls. The results show that firms with a stronger quality culture are less likely to have product recalls. This relationship is stronger for firms with more female directors and higher levels of managerial ability. We also find that for firms in high-tech industries, the impact of quality culture on product failure is more profound. The results are robust to various endogeneity tests and alternative models. Our findings support that a firm’s quality culture significantly influences product success and …

Hands On Archiving: Aid In Reorganizing The San Bernardino County Museum Archive Room And Archival Material, Ezequiel Vera

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This paper documents the process and details of the History Archives Inventory Project at the San Bernardino County Museum (SBCM). Most of the work of this project is done in-person and will include photographic evidence of the project, a written portion that will explain the process of the project, and secondary literature that will help explain the process of the project and its corresponding decision making. The History Archives Inventory Project is a multiple year-long project; this paper will be limited to my time working on the project while completing my Master of Arts in History at CSUSB. My time …

The Effects Of Income On Infant Health: Evidence From The Coal Boom And Bust, Chu Gek Chew

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

An individual’s health at birth is an important component in human capital accumulation, posing significant implications both in the short- and long-run. I investigate how infant health outcomes were impacted during a period of successive positive and negative economic shocks led by the coal industry between the 1970s to 1990s. Using exogenous variation within counties’ pre-existing coal reserves, I instrument for the changes in economic opportunities during the coal boom and bust. I find some limited evidence that an increase in income improves infant health outcomes. The incidence of low birthweight is decreasing in earnings growth, and effects are stronger …

Intraday Volatility In Financial Markets: Evidence From High-Frequency Data, Haolin Wang

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

In this study, we conduct an analysis of intraday spot volatility using high-frequency data from the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY). We begin with the assumption that the intraday volatility of asset prices exhibits time-variation. To capture this dynamic behavior, we construct proxies for the unobserved spot volatility by applying appropriate estimators to the high-frequency price data. Following the estimation procedure, we employ various forecasting models to generate volatility forecasts. Finally, we evaluate and compare the predictive performance of these models using established forecast evaluation metrics, and analyze the results.

Understanding Household Financial Stability: Examining The Effects Of Inflation And Income, Cyndy E. Gutierrez-Fierros

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This study aims to investigate the impact of inflation on US household financial stability from 2013 to 2023. As inflation rises, individuals’ purchasing power erodes leading to influence economic behaviors. Behaviors such as spending, saving, and borrowing should be a priority concern in the US economy. Results of this study reveal that inflation does not affect financial well-being and its direct impact on household stability is statistically weak. Regression testing shows that income emerges as the most significant factor. Most noticeably income influences savings and debt management in a positive way. As per these results, economic policies should be focused …

Leveraging Data Analytics For Enchanced Economics Prediction: A Study Of Predictive Models And Economics Indicators, Janelle Rueda

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The purpose of this project is intended to investigate the lack of use of data analytics in predicting and managing the impacts of economic crises. This project investigates what economic key factors can be used to create a framework model and evaluate the effectiveness of the key economic indicator being tested as early warning signs. The project uses programs such as Excel, RStudio, and Tableau for the collection of historical data, and regression analysis to determine if certain economic indicators have a statistically significant correlation with GDP, that may help enforce systems in place to help us mitigate economic crises …

The Value Of A Value: The Benefits Of Improved Decision Making Informed By Non-Market Valuation, David J. Pannell, Robert Johnston, Michael P. Burton, Md Sayed Iftekhar, Abbie A. Rogers, Cheryl Day

Economics

Information on non-market values has the potential to improve decision making but approaches to measure these values are costly and may be inaccurate. This study develops a Bayesian value of information (VOI) model to evaluate when and if the benefit of conducting a non-market valuation (NMV) study exceeds the cost, and which method of those considered delivers the highest expected net benefit. The approach is illustrated using a water quality improvement decision, with VOI estimated for stated preference, revealed preference and benefit transfer methods, the first two implemented at varying degrees of best practice. Information on the anticipated accuracy of …

Strategic Thinking Skills: A Key To Collective Economic Success, Syngjoo Choi, Seonghoon Kim, Wooyoung Lim

ROSA Journal Articles and Publications

We conduct a large-scale experiment to measure elementary aspects of strategic thinking skills and their linkage to labor market outcomes. Two incentivized measures of higher-order rationality and backward induction are developed. Males' (females') strategic thinking skills are positively (negatively) associated with individual labor income. However, among married individuals, strategic thinking skills are significantly and positively associated with their household labor income regardless of gender, highlighting the importance of strategic thinking skills for collective economic success. We argue that the intrahousehold channels encompassing collective labor supply with home-to-workplace spillover and marriage assortative matching offer the most plausible explanation for our findings.

The Impact Of Corporate Profits On Gdi Estimates: Forecasting And Data Revisions, Peterson Haas

Honors Theses

The National Income and Product Accounts (NIPAs) produced by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) provide key measures of U.S. economic activity, including gross domestic product (GDP) and gross domestic income (GDI). Although conceptually equivalent, GDP and GDI often diverge due to differences in source data and revision timing. This study focuses on corporate profits—a small but volatile component of GDI that is frequently revised, especially during the BEA’s annual (A1) and benchmark (C1) revisions. I examine how revisions to corporate profits influence GDI revisions and whether they can improve real-time estimates of GDI. First, I document the size …

The Impact Of Remittances On Children’S Educational Outcomes: The Case Of India, Neha Reddy Kalwala

Honors Theses

This paper investigates whether children in Indian households receiving more remittances have better educational outcomes. India is the world’s largest recipient of remittances and is characterized by a unique socioeco- nomic and demographic context that makes any educational improvements or disparities particularly impactful on global education metrics. Using panel data from the India Human Development Survey, I employ OLS and logit regressions with household fixed effects, a difference-in-differences strategy, and a Heckman selection model. Two measures of educational outcomes are analyzed: weekly hours spent at school and school enrollment. Findings suggest that an increase in remittances leads to a higher …

Evaluating Factors Of Coach Compensation In Ncaa Division I Fbs College Football, Ethan Vest

Honors Theses

This paper investigates the determinants of college football coach compensation, specifically examining whether individual coach characteristics or institutional characteristics play a greater role in compensation. Using six fixed effects regression models, I compare model performance using R-Squared, Adjusted R-Squared, Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC), Akaike Information Criterion (AIC), and subset F-tests. The results indicate that the school at which a coach is employed has a larger impact on compensation than individual identity. Further, lagged win percentage is found to be a significant variable on compensation, indicating that coaches negotiate their contracts in the off-season based on their performance in the previous …