Digital Commons Network^™

Esg And Misvaluation In U.S. Equity Markets, Rohaan Bhojwani

CMC Senior Theses

Existing research has produced conflicting conclusions on whether environmental, social, and governance (ESG) characteristics are efficiently priced in equity markets. While some studies argue that ESG performance improves firm value through lower risk and stronger fundamentals, others suggest that investor demand has inflated valuations in the past beyond intrinsic worth. This thesis examines whether ESG-driven valuation gaps represent justified pricing through firm fundamentals or systematic mispricing using Bartram and Grinblatt’s Agnostic Fundamental Analysis Framework (2018).

For this paper, I analyze the top 1000 U.S public firms by market value. I regress the market value on 19 accounting fundamentals for these …

The Future Of U.S. Higher Education: Equity Implications Of Shifting Immigration Policies, Research Institute For Social Equity Rise

Research Institute for Social Equity

This report examines the impact of U.S. immigration policies on higher education and international students from 2000 to 2025. It traces five major policy eras, from the post- 9/11 security overhaul and Obama-era expansion to the restrictive turns of 2017–2020 and 2025, and analyzes how shifting regulations have influenced enrollment patterns, economic contributions, and student well-being. Despite hosting more than 1.1 million international students in 2023–2024, the U.S. share of the global student market has fallen from 20% to 16%, underscoring how policy volatility and restrictive measures weaken national competitiveness. Drawing on federal data, scholarly research, and institutional reports, this …

Good Food In The Neighborhood: Localizing Nutritious Food Access, Joseph Pool

Honors Program Theses

Given contemporary changes to federal budget priorities and recent challenges to federal food access funding, this research explores the potential benefits of entrusting state-level and municipal-level policymakers with food access policy. More specifically, this research suggests that “localizing” food access has the unique benefit of not just addressing the affordability of food, but the physical accessibility of it. As observed in the previous literature and expounded upon here, food provisioning requires consideration of nutrition, physical accessibility, and financial affordability. Programs that only address one of these priorities fail to adequately help people receive the food they need. Through policy analysis …

Improving Maternal Health: Investigating The Early Impacts Of Medicaid Coverage Of Doulas In Oregon, Miriam Akhmetshin

Scripps Senior Theses

While the U.S. spends more per-capita than any country on healthcare, we experience the worst maternal health outcomes of high-income nations. In addition to hefty healthcare bills, an overwhelming majority of mothers experience pregnancy-related health issues that decrease productivity and utility. Thus, it is critical to research cost-effective solutions that can improve maternal health and promote equitable outcomes. Doulas are trained non-medical professionals who support mothers and families before, during and after birth. As a growing body of medical literature points to the role of doulas in decreasing costly medical interventions, insurance companies have begun covering their services. In 2014, …

A Practitioner’S Guide To Panel Data Quantile Regression, Antonio F. Galvao, Carlos Lamarche

Economics Faculty Publications

Quantile regression for panel data has become a common model of interest for econometricians and statisticians. The theoretical literature has addressed important questions, including identification, estimation, and statistical inference. Although recent advances have enabled practitioners to estimate flexible models under a wide range of assumptions, practical issues have not been fully addressed. In this paper, we offer a guide to empirical practice intended to help applied researchers navigate the challenges of estimation and inference for panel quantile models. We also present a series of practical recommendations and illustrations, emphasizing both “why” and the “how” to help researchers with the implementation …

An Examination Of Remittance Inflow Variation In Net-Emigration Countries, Andrew Rizko

CMC Senior Theses

This paper examines the structural and institutional determinants of remittance inflows in a panel of 40 net-emigration countries from 2000 to 2024. By restricting the sample to countries with negative average net migration, the analysis holds migration pressure constant and isolates the role of domestic conditions in explaining cross-country variation in remittance dependence. Using fixed effects and correlated random effects (Mundlak) estimators, I find that labor force participation is the most robust within-country determinant: a one percentage point increase is associated with approximately a 2.3 percent decline in remittance inflows, consistent with remittances functioning as a structural need in contexts …

Forecasting The Unpredictable: The Bullwhip Effect In The Toy Industry, Mannat Sethi

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis investigates the bullwhip effect, the amplification of demand variability as it moves upstream in a supply chain, with a focus on the toy industry, and comparative analysis with the technology and consumer goods sectors. Using annual data from 1993 to 2024, the study analyzes production and retail growth for Mattel, Hasbro, Intel, and Procter & Gamble to assess how variance between consumer demand and firm output has changed over time. Bullwhip ratios are calculated as the variance of production growth divided by the variance of retail growth across two periods: 1993–2008 and 2009–2024.

The findings show that toy …

The Low Human Rights Advantage And The Failure Of Globalization: The Challenge Of China Inc., Shaomin Li

Management Faculty Publications

Purpose

We develop a framework of the low human rights advantage – labor repression, state discretionary expropriation and total control – that reduces factor costs and enables coordinated resource mobilization. These mechanisms generate economic advantage only when combined with access to global markets, which provide demand, capital and technology. By leveraging this low human rights advantage, the Chinese state has transformed China into a giant corporation that combines the agility of a firm with the resources of a nation, thereby reshaping global competition. Economic integration without corresponding political integration is a major contributor to the failure of the current wave …

Unlocking Organizational Support Through Psychological Empowerment: Identification And Test Of Transformational Leadership As A Catalyst Of Perceived Organizational Support, Ryan L. Klinger, Nathapon Siangchokyoo, Tipat Sottiwan

Management Faculty Publications

Organizational support theory (OST) explains how employees develop and respond to beliefs about their organization, with perceived organizational support (POS) representing a central construct within this framework. Integrating psychological empowerment theory, we examine an intrinsic motivational pathway through which POS relates to employee in-role performance and identify transformational leadership as a contextual catalyst that may strengthen this process. We test a multilevel moderated mediation model using multisource and multi-time data from 217 employees and 41 supervisors. Results indicate that POS is positively related to in-role performance through the psychological empowerment dimensions of competence and self-determination. Moreover, transformational leadership strengthens the …

Consumer Responses To Ethical And Privacy Concerns In Ai Chatbots: Evidence From Offensive Language, Gender Bias, And Digital Privacy, Jikhan Jeong

Economics Faculty Research & Creative Works

Due to the rapid innovation of artificial intelligence (AI) and big data, AI chatbots have become increasingly influential computational social systems (CSS) in everyday life. However, the expansion of interactions between AI chatbots and consumers has raised significant ethical and privacy concerns. Using data from an online survey, this study empirically examines how consumer concerns about AI ethics and privacy influence their intention to use AI chatbots. These concerns are categorized into three types: 1) offensive language (generated by AI chatbots or users); 2) gender-biased language (from either source); and 3) digital privacy violations. The findings suggest that prior experience …

Esg Risk And Agricultural Commodity Integration, Alper Gormus, Yoav Wachsman, Elif Gormus

Finance and Economics

This study investigates how major agricultural commodities interact with diversified U.S. equity funds, sorted by their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) risk exposure. Using daily Morningstar data on 880 U.S. equity mutual funds, we construct portfolios representing high- and low-ESG-risk equities and examine their linkages with prices for eight agricultural commodities. Applying Fourier-augmented Toda–Yamamoto VAR and LM-GARCH models that accommodate both abrupt and gradual structural breaks, we document clear heterogeneity across ESG risk segments. Low-ESG-risk portfolios exhibit minimal price and volatility spillovers from agricultural commodities, whereas high-ESG-risk portfolios display strong and often bidirectional transmissions—particularly for coffee, corn, cotton, livestock, and …

Women's Work And Wealth: Measuring The Impact Of Incremental Liberations, 1850-1870, Hannah Kelly

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Using a two-way fixed effects difference-in-difference model, this project analyzes data from the IPUMS Full Count census for 1850, 1860, and 1870 at a state level for 48 states. Four models assess the impact of property laws on women's real property holdings, labor force participation, household types, and real property values.

By quantifying the impact of various legal reforms on women's economic empowerment, this project fills a gap in the understanding of the intersection between law, society, and women's economic agency during a transformative period in pre-industrial American history. These impacts can implicate the effectiveness of legislative measures in advancing …

Expanding State Tax Authority: Public And Private Sector Impacts Of Wayfair, Maxwell Pastoria

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The 2018 Supreme Court decision in South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc. (Wayfair) overturned the longstanding physical presence rule for state sales tax collection, enabling states to enforce tax obligations on remote sellers through marketplace facilitator and economic nexus laws (Oyez, 2018). This study investigates the effects of these two post-Wayfair tax laws on state sales tax revenues, entrepreneurship, and public expenditures across all 50 states. Using a two-way fixed effects difference-in-differences (TWFE DID) framework, this research analyzes how policy adoption influenced per-capita outcomes in tax revenue, firm formation, and government spending in social services, education, infrastructure, and …

Tail Dependence: The Impact Of Risk Spillovers On Real Estate Markets In Times Of Economic And Geo-Political Uncertainty, Stanimira Milcheva, Simon Stevenson, Lingshan Xie

Finance Faculty Publications

The first half of the 2020's has seen a degree of economic and geo-political uncertainty not observed since the 1970s. This paper looks at how listed real estate is exposed to capital market shocks by estimating Conditional Value-at-Risk (CoVaR), which captures the sensitivity of real estate returns to extreme movements in broader equity markets. We use threshold Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (tGARCH) and Copula co-dependency functions to accurately account for tail behavior and dependency structures. We find a significant increase in downside spillovers from capital markets to listed real estate during the Covid period across most countries. However, the response …

Teacher Education For Religious Diversity In British Columbia: Policy Recommendations For Sikh And Chinese Mahayana Buddhist Inclusion, Ashton Kemper

Laurier Undergraduate Journal of the Arts

No abstract provided.

Editors' Note, Jenna Abdel-Kader, Hannah Desjardine

Laurier Undergraduate Journal of the Arts

No abstract provided.

The Kindness Of Strangers: Theory And Evidence On Spatial Distance And Giving, James Konow, Leonie Kuhl, Nora Szech

Economics Faculty Works

Arguments for directing charitable giving to distant beneficiaries for their greater benefits contradict actual charitable donations that go mostly to more proximate beneficiaries. Controlled studies reveal mixed results finding the giving-distance relationship to be direct, inverse, flat, or various combinations of the three. This paper reports a new theory of the distinctive relationship between giving and spatial distance and relevant results from four experimental studies. Two studies vary distances between donors and beneficiaries locally: a field experiment involves local refugees and a laboratory experiment local people in need. Both find significant inverse relationships between giving and spatial distance. Two other …

The David And Goliath Phenomenon: When Small Powers Win Big Wars, Vivian Pettigrew

2026 Research Poster Competition

After over a decade of war, hundreds of thousands dead, and twenty-four years of power, Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria collapsed in November of 2024 in just twelve days. The success of fragmented Syrian rebels against such a long-standing and powerful government challenges widely held assumptions about power and stability. This research addresses these challenged assumptions by examining the so-called “David and Goliath phenomenon," or cases in which smaller states or rebel groups come out victorious against greater powers. Understanding these cases is crucial to explaining predictability in war and regime vulnerability, while also having important implications for modern international …

An Analysis Of How Adverse Weather Conditions Impact Concessions Revenue At Live College Sporting Events, Luke V. Eiermann

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Previous literature finds that weather affects consumer behavior, though these findings are conflicting among sports fans. While there have been some studies into weather’s effects on attendance, there has not yet been research into its effects on concessions revenue. This is a topic of interest as adverse weather is increasingly prevalent in consumers’ lives, and learning more about their behavior in response to adverse weather is becoming more important. I performed a fixed effects panel data regression, using weather data sourced from the NOAA and sports and population data sourced from various locations. I did not find significant results for …

The 2025 American Society Of Pediatric Otolaryngology Workforce And Compensation Survey: Current State And Future Directions, Lyndy J. Wilcox, Cristina M. Baldassari, Amy C. Brenski, Emily Boss, John Carter, David H. Chi, William O. Collins, Charles A. Elmaraghy, Andrew J. Tompkins, Craig S. Derkay, The Aspo 2025 Workforce And Compensation Committee

Department of Otolaryngology (ENT) Faculty Publications

Objective

To provide an updated comprehensive assessment of the Pediatric Otolaryngology workforce in the United States inclusive of compensation, productivity, practice patterns, and on-call burden.

Study Design

Cross-sectional electronic survey.

Methods

A structured electronic survey was developed by members of the American Society of Pediatric Otolaryngology (ASPO) Workforce and Compensation Committee. The survey evaluated six domains: demographics, compensation, workforce dynamics, productivity, on-call burden, and future priorities, and was distributed to all 480 presumedly actively-practicing, domestic ASPO members.

Results

The survey response rate was 68% (327/480). Ninety-one percent of respondents held an academic appointment with relatively equal percentages of each rank …

Essays On Public Policy, Labor Markets, And Regional Economics, Toby Heaney

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This dissertation consists of three empirical essays examining how economic and political outcomes respond to changes in public policy, information, and local economic conditions. Across the three studies, the dissertation applies empirical methods to questions in political economy, economic forecasting, and regional economics, with particular attention to how the effects of economic shocks and policy changes vary across individuals, markets, and geographic areas.

The first essay examines the role of policy salience in electoral outcomes. Building on rational-choice and median-voter models, it argues that voters may respond disproportionately to policies that impose concentrated and highly visible costs, even when those …

From Sentiment And Risk To Trade: A Country-Level Study On Geopolitical Trade Effects, Seung Heo

Publications and Research

Can geopolitical risk reshape international trade? I construct directed, monthly measures of bilateral geopolitical risk and its associated sentiment from approximately 5.1 million news articles in the GDELT Event Database, and estimate their effect on trade among eight Asia-Pacific economies at the HS2 product level over 2015--2025, using Poisson pseudo-maximum-likelihood gravity local projections with high-dimensional fixed effects. Pooled across countries, rising risk produces an immediate expansion of trade led by verbal threats and by news tone orthogonal to event content, rather than by material acts, indicating that how a conflict is reported can move trade before the conflict materializes. A …

The Trade-Off Between Quality And Quantity: Evidence From A Field Experiment On Tutoring, Rohen Shaw

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

High-dosage tutoring has the potential to substantially raise adolescent academic achievement, but schools may lack the resources to deliver small-group tutoring frequently at scale. This paper studies the relative importance of tutoring group size (quality) versus tutoring frequency (quantity) using a randomized controlled trial in a Midwestern U.S. charter middle school. Students were randomized to a control group, tutoring twice a week in 2-student groups, or tutoring three times a week in 3-student groups, with equal total cost per student across the two treatment arms. The results show that tutoring in 2-student groups led to a statistically significant improvement in …

Impacts Of Spatial Intensity Policies On Jakarta Property Prices, Stevanus J. Manahampi, M. Halley Yudhistira

Jurnal Ekonomi dan Pembangunan Indonesia

This study examines the effects of floor area ratio (FAR) and building coverage ratio (BCR) on property prices in Jakarta. Using a hdonic price mdel with data from property listings and a geographical information system (GIS) analysis, it explores how these regulations influence values across regions and property types, accounting for access to amenities and infrastructure. Results show FAR lowers prices in dense areas like Central Jakarta but raises them in less developed regions like East Jakarta. BCR effects are mixed, positive where infrastructure is strong but negative where it is weak, underscoring the need for context-specific urban planning.

Hubungan Pertumbuhan Ekonomi Dengan Inflasi Di 90 Kabupaten-Kota Indonesia, Samsul Arifin, Hermanto Siregar, Lukytawati Anggraeni, Yeti Lis Purnamadewi

Jurnal Ekonomi dan Pembangunan Indonesia

This study aims to explain the relationship between economic growth and inflation in 90 Indonesian cities during the period 2018–2022 using the GMM estimator with Windmeijer - Sigmund robust standard errors. The author’s findings reveal that the two-way relationship between the two is that economic growth has a significant positif effect on inflation, while inflation has a negatif but insignificant effect. Through the results of this study, policymakers and stakeholders can consider priority objectives, namely achieving economic growth targets compared to inflation problems during the COVID-19 crisis and economic development during the future economic recovery.

Menilai Kembali Kapasitas Pajak Daerah: Mampukah Menggeser Sektor Terbelakang Menjadi Sektor Maju?, Oki Sakti Nugrahajati, Setyo Tri Wahyudi, Ahmad Ibnu Riza, Annisa Nurul Hakim

Jurnal Ekonomi dan Pembangunan Indonesia

Tulungagung Regency’s Locally Generated Revenue (PAD) remains concentrated in three main types of taxes, while levies contribute less than optimally. This study aims to analyze the potential and performance of regional taxes and levies as instruments of fiscal independence in Tulungagung Regency using overlay analysis. The analysis shows that several taxes with low contributions have experienced significant growth, indicating policy space for expanding the revenue base. This finding implies that the overlay analysis approach can guide the determination of more precise and contextual fiscal strategies, as well as contribute to the development of a regional fiscal evaluation framework and the …

Dampak Kebijakan Hilirisasi Nikel: Kuasi-Eksperimen Di Sulawesi, Siddiq Robbani, Uka Wikarya

Jurnal Ekonomi dan Pembangunan Indonesia

Studi ini menganalisis dampak kebijakan larangan ekspor bijih nikel (2014–2016) dan pembangunan smelter (2009–2021) terhadap PDRB per kapita dan konsumsi rumah tangga per kapita menggunakan data panel seimbang dari 81 kabupaten/kota di Sulawesi periode 2006–2021. Dampak kausal dan efek spillover dianalisis menggunakan metode Difference-in-Difference (DiD) dan Spatial Durbin Model (SDM). Hasil penelitian menunjukkan kebijakan larangan ekspor tidak berdampak pada kedua variabel. Pembangunan smelter justru berdampak negatif terhadap PDRB per kapita, tetapi menghasilkan efek spillover positif pada PDRBperkapita daerah tetangga dan efek spillover negatif terhadap konsumsi rumah tangga per kapita di daerah non-smelter.

El Paso Business Cycle Downturn Analysis: 1991 – 2025, Steven L. Fullerton, Thomas M. Fullerton Jr.

Border Region Modeling Project

Recession indicator research for the United States and other national economies has accelerated since 2019. Because of relative ease of implementation, these indices show much promise and expand the business cycle toolkit for applied economists, policy analysts, and business planners. From a regional perspective, a potentially attractive feature of these indices is fairly minimal data requirements. This study extends this branch of the business cycle literature into the realm of regional economics. An application of the framework is developed for El Paso, Texas, USA. That metropolitan economy is a natural candidate for this type of exploratory analysis because of the …

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.

Strategic Peer Region Selection For Economic Development, Xiaobing Shuai, Riley Ford

School of Professional and Continuing Studies Faculty Publications

Benchmarking against peer and aspirational regions is essential for economic development because it provides meaningful context for evaluating performance and shaping strategy. These comparisons help highlight regional advantages that attract new investments, as well as uncover gaps that may represent opportunities for future growth. ...

This article provides a practical, data-driven framework that economic development organizations can use to identify peer and aspirational regions, strengthen benchmarking efforts, and support strategy development. A case study illustrates how this can be applied to better interpret economic indicators and inform decision-making. For EDOs, this approach offers a more consistent way to evaluate competitiveness, …