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Paso Del Norte Economic Indicator Review, January, Hunt Institute For Global Competitiveness

Technical Reports

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Economic Propaganda In The United States, Brooklyn Montgomery

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis aims to identify and analyze three different forms of economic propaganda: cultural, structural, and political. I first examine ‘Do What You Love’ culture and its impact on the labor force. Chapter Two explores the propagation of neoliberal economics as an objective study, and the final chapter analyzes the use of Black capitalism as a political mechanism to quell Black radical sentiment. In detailing these phenomenons, I investigate the implementation, normalization, and effects, as well as the material repercussions of these ideas and structures.

Migration And The Quality Of American Cities, Chase Mendell

CMC Senior Theses

Across the United States, cities are expanding. It is the role of the city leaders to promote policies that benefit both current and incoming residents. While these policies have intended results, the realized benefits and damages are challenging to define because they are the result of individual choices and the unique characteristics of the city. As a result, policymakers need to consider a complex web of factors such as employment, taxation, housing, mobility, and environmental quality. This thesis seeks to analyze these overlapping factors to discuss how policymakers can increase well-being while mitigating potential harms.

Disembedded Liberalism: The Global Pressure On Democracy, Hallie Spear

CMC Senior Theses

The international political order is at a crossroads with divergent paths. Liberal democracy is once again threatened on the international stage. What's more troubling is that the most stable and influential democracies, the United States, those in Europe and India, seem to be vulnerable to the autocratic wave sweeping through the world. This thesis completes a critical analysis to understand the root causes of the recent disruption to democracy the world has observed. Focusing on three established, diverse, and populous democracies, this thesis investigates the economic conditions at play that made each nation vulnerable to populism. Neoliberal economic policies implemented …

The Transforming Importance Of Social Skills In The Labor Market In The 2010s, Andrew Bradjan

CMC Senior Theses

The growing importance of social skills has led to an increase in returns to wages and employment for workers specializing in social skill-intensive occupations. Between 2012 and 2019, social skill-intensive occupations grew by 3 percentage points as a share of the U.S. labor force. Math-intensive occupations also grew by a similar amount during this time. To analyze these patterns, I utilize a model of team production where workers trade tasks to exploit their comparative advantage. Social skills reduce coordination costs between workers and allow them to specialize and cooperate with other workers more effectively by trading tasks. This model predicts …

Liquidity Outbreak: A 49 Country Analysis Of The Money Supply’S Effect On Stock Markets During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Dylan Porter

CMC Senior Theses

This paper compares the effects of monthly money growth on monthly stock market performance in 49 countries around the world before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Countries are grouped in aggregate, by continent, and development status. OLS panel regressions show that lagged monetary growth variables are better monetary indicators of stock market performance than contemporaneous values. Variables that measure the pandemic’s progress (infections/deaths and government responses) are included alongside macro-economic variables but are seldom significant. Monetary growth had less correlation with the stock market during the pre-pandemic period (January 2018 - December 2020), suggesting that the uncertain economic conditions of …

Rural Development In Papua New Guinea: Mining, Logging, Agriculture, And Alternatives, Tj Askew

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis examines multiple approaches to providing rural, indigenous Papuans with improved social services and economic opportunities. Rural Papuans, who make up 80 percent of the population, face below average rates of nutrition, education, disease, crime, and other quality of life indicators. Due to location, land use rights, lack of infrastructure, and minimal access to economic markets, the PNG government has struggled to provide rural communities with basic social services. Historically, the development of resource extraction projects such as mining, logging, and agriculture have been the main strategies used to improve the livelihood of rural Papuans, with limited success. This …

The Federal Reserve’S Qe Practices Impact On Inflation: A Comparative Analysis Of The Gfc And Covid-Eras, Robert Driscoll

CMC Senior Theses

This paper investigates and compares the effects of the Fed’s quantitative easing policies on US inflation during the Global Financial Crisis and the Covid-era up to February of 2022. As inflation continues to rise, a quantitative measurement of the Fed’s monetary policy response to recessions and its resulting effect on the price level is becoming increasingly relevant. Supporting the quantity monetary theory, I test the impact of the Fed’s increasing their total assets and securities on their balance sheet on CPI and core CPI. Using multiple time series regressions and a single lag component on the analyzed variables. The model …

How A Supply Chain Stumble Changes A Company’S Policies And Progress 20 Years Later: A Case Study Of Gap Inc., Alexandra Futterman

CMC Senior Theses

Gap Inc. is the third-largest American retailer. Founded in 1969, Gap Inc. holds four brands, Gap, Banana Republic, Old Navy and Athleta. In the late 1990s and early 2000s Gap Inc. made headlines for child labor abuses along with many other large brands. After this negative attention, Gap Inc. began developing policies and practices to combat ethical supply chain issues. These policies included a Human Rights Policy, a Code of Vendor Conduct, working conditions standards, and even capacity building programs that boarded company reaches into communities they touch. In conjunction with the policies Gap Inc. has published several social responsibility …

The Lure Of Musical Comfort: An Analysis Of How Consumer Preferences In Popular Music Change Depending On The State Of The U.S. Economy Using Billboard Hot 100, Spotify Api, & Economic Data, Lindsey A. Larson

CMC Senior Theses

This paper examines data from Spotify’s Web API for all songs that have been on the Billboard Hot 100 chart from the first chart’s release in August 1958 to May 2021 to determine the relationship between music misery and economic misery. Twelve dependent variables– duration, danceability, energy, key, acousticness, speechiness, mode, loudness, instrumentalness, liveness, valence, and tempo– are used to measure the impact of Arthur Okun’s U.S. economic misery index on each characteristic. Using 12 individual linear regressions– one for each dependent variable– I find that during times of increased economic hardship, consumers are likely to choose to listen to …

Geographic Banking Discrimination In The United States, Simon Ross Gilbert

CMC Senior Theses

Financial institutions in the United States have historically discriminated against Black Americans in a multitude of ways. One potential dynamic of unequal access that remains understudied is geographic in nature. That is, are commercial banks less likely to locate in neighborhoods with more Black people? Using a fixed effects and selection on observables model, I find that a 1 percentage point increase in an area’s Black population is related to a 0.11 decrease in the number of commercial banks in that area. This effect is localized primarily in urban areas, particularly in cities in the Mid-Atlantic, Upper Midwest, and Pacific …

Cross-Cultural Examination Of Vacation Policy On Employee Satisfaction And Happiness, Ketan D. Parekh

CMC Senior Theses

With the advent of technological advancement, entrepreneurship, and a higher emphasis on meritocracy, societies across the globe have experienced intense competition to outdo one another. This has pushed companies to place increased importance on worker productivity; large and small companies want to see their employees work harder, longer, and faster. With this increased demand for work, companies today are making sure they have suitable reward systems to ensure worker satisfaction and quality work production. However, what these reward systems look like and how they function contrast significantly across cultures, especially as it pertains to corporate leave policies. This thesis examines …

The Health Effects Of Anthropogenic Pm2.5 Emissions, Andrew Charles Meyer

Honors Theses and Capstones

This study analyzes the health impacts of particulate matter 2.5 (PM2.5), a common anthropogenic pollutant resulting from vehicles, manufacturing, and wood burning. PM2.5 is an emission of particular concern given its small size of roughly 2.5 micrometers, allowing it to stay in the atmosphere for up to 10 days and penetrate the deepest area of the lungs, the alveoli. This penetration can lead to adverse respiratory and cardiovascular health outcomes, and ultimately lead to an increased mortality rate. This study utilizes data from 1,885 counties in the U.S. between 2001 and 2017, and included health outcome, PM2.5 , and demographic …

Corporate Taxes And Union Wages In The United States, Alison R. Felix, James R. Hines Jr.

Articles

This paper evaluates the effect of U.S. state corporate income taxes on union wage premiums. American workers who belong to unions are paid more than their non-union counterparts, and this difference is greater in low-tax locations, possibly reflecting that unions and employers share tax savings associated with low tax rates. In 2000 the difference between average union and non-union hourly wages was $1.88 greater in states with corporate tax rates below four percent than in states with tax rates of nine percent and above. Controlling for observable worker characteristics, a one percent lower state tax rate was associated with a …

The Effects Of Corporate Tax Rates And Foreign Investment On Unemployment In Tax Haven Nations, Timothy M. Campbell

Honors Theses and Capstones

Corporate tax haven nations are infamous for offering corporations lower tax rates so that they can operate at lower costs and increase their profits. How the tax policies of tax havens impact the citizens of those nations is seldom discussed. This paper aims to determine if the policies undertaken by tax havens to increase foreign investment benefit the welfare of the citizens of those nations in terms of employment rate. Using a small preliminary sample of havens and non-havens, an inverse relationship is observed between corporate tax rate and foreign direct investment, and corporate tax rate and employment. A larger …

Promoting Regulatory Prediction, Jonathan S. Masur, Jonathan R. Nash

Faculty Articles

It is essential for environmental protection that private actors be able to anticipate government regulation. If, for instance, the Biden Administration is planning to tighten regulations of greenhouse gas emissions, it is imperative that private companies anticipate this regulatory change now, not a few years from now after they have constructed even more coal- and gas-fired power plants. Those additional power plants will mean more irreversible greenhouse gases, and these plants can be politically challenging to shutter once built. The point is general to private actors making decisions in the shadow of potential government regulation. Better information about future government …

The Sec’S Climate Disclosure Rule: Critiquing The Critics, George S. Georgiev

Faculty Articles

Climate change is an existential phenomenon, which entails a wide variety of physical risks as well as sizeable but underappreciated economic risks. In March 2022, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) moved to address some of the information gaps related to the effects of climate change on firms by proposing a rule that requires public companies to report detailed and standardized information about important climate-related matters for the benefit of investors and markets. Though the rule proposal was welcomed by many market participants, it was also met with a level of opposition that was unusual in both its intensity …

Equality Offshore, Martin W. Sybblis

Faculty Articles

Global governance architecture, crafted by wealthy nations, has perpetuated the subordination of developing jurisdictions. The Article offers a novel and surprising analysis of governance tools used by wealthy countries and inter-governmental organizations to constrain offshore financial centers (OFCs) by focusing on the tools’ disparate impacts on tax havens whose populations comprise predominantly Black and Brown people. With tax haven issues garnering increasing attention, this Article provides a pathbreaking conceptual framework for examining the international tax, crime, and business discourse on OFCs. It also illuminates how the actions of powerful international actors, such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development …

ความสัมพันธ์ระหว่างพฤติกรรมการสูบบุหรี่กับการดื่มเครื่องดื่มแอลกอฮอล์ของประชากรไทย, ทัตพงศ์ รัตนอรุณ

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

วิทยานิพนธ์ฉบับนี้มีจุดมุ่งหมายเพื่อศึกษาความสัมพันธ์ระหว่างพฤติกรรมการสูบบุหรี่และการดื่มเครื่องดื่มแอลกอฮอล์ในประเทศไทย โดยใช้กลุ่มตัวอย่างจากการสำรวจพฤติกรรมการสูบบุหรี่และการดื่มสุราของประชากร พ.ศ. 2560 ที่ตอบสัมภาษณ์ข้อมูลพื้นฐานทางด้านประชากร ข้อมูลรายละเอียดเกี่ยวกับพฤติกรรมการสูบบุหรี่ และข้อมูลเกี่ยวกับพฤติกรรมการดื่มสุราหรือเครื่องดื่มที่มีแอลกอฮอล์ ซึ่งจัดเก็บและสำรวจโดยสำนักงานสถิติแห่งชาติ จำนวนทั้งสิ้น 89,154 ตัวอย่าง มาวิเคราะห์ด้วยแบบจำลองทางเศรษฐมิติ Bivariate Probit Model โดยกำหนดให้ ตัวแปรอัตราส่วนจำนวนนักดื่มรายจังหวัด ตัวแปรดัชนีราคาเครื่องดื่มแอลกอฮอล์รายจังหวัด และตัวแปรอัตราส่วนจำนวนการเกิดความรุนแรงในครัวเรือนรายจังหวัดเป็นตัวแปรเครื่องมือ (Instrumental Variables) ของพฤติกรรมการดื่มเครื่องดื่มแอลกอฮอล์เพื่อบรรเทาปัญหา Endogeneity Bias ที่เกิดขึ้น ผลการศึกษาพบว่าคนที่เป็นนักดื่มในปัจจุบันจะทำให้มีโอกาสในการเป็นผู้ที่สูบบุหรี่ในปัจจุบันด้วยสูงขึ้นอย่างมีนัยสำคัญทางสถิติ กล่าวคือคนที่มีพฤติกรรมการดื่มเครื่องดื่มแอลกอฮอล์จะทำให้มีโอกาสในการมีพฤติกรรมการสูบบุหรี่ร่วมด้วย และนอกจากนี้ ผลการศึกษายังพบว่ามีปัจจัยที่ส่งผลต่อการมีพฤติกรรมการสูบบุหรี่ ได้แก่ เพศ, ภูมิภาคที่อาศัย, อายุ, ระดับการศึกษา, สถานภาพสมรส, สถานภาพการทำงาน, ราคาผลิตภัณฑ์ยาสูบโดยเปรียบเทียบ และรายได้โดยเฉลี่ยต่อเดือน ซึ่งจากผลการศึกษาที่กล่าวมานั้น สะท้อนให้เห็นว่าการมีพฤติกรรมการดื่มเครื่องดื่มแอลกอฮอล์ที่แตกต่างกันทำให้มีพฤติกรรมการสูบบุหรี่ที่แตกต่างกันเช่นกัน รวมถึงยังชี้ให้เห็นถึงลักษณะการเป็นสินค้าที่ใช้ประกอบกันระหว่างบุหรี่และเครื่องดื่มแอลกอฮอล์อีกด้วย

Income And Happiness: A Commentary, Edsel L. Beja Jr

Economics Department Faculty Publications

The paper discusses five items pertinent to Palanca-Tan (2021) – namely, Easterlin paradox, Easterlin hypothesis, happiness-income model, happiness survey question, and happy poor. The goal is to offer clarification and to help enrich the understanding of readers of Palanca-Tan.

Decision Making And Reform Within The United States Criminal Justice System, Rainita Narender

CGU Theses & Dissertations

The United States Criminal Justice System has undergone massive legislative reform in the past decade. These reforms have prompted a demand to analyze the benefits and potential unintended consequences of proposed policies and legislation. The following dissertation measures policy implications across three types of actors in the criminal justice system: 911 call-takes, prosecutors, and law enforcement. As most citizen-officer interactions arise from 911 calls for service, the first chapter of this dissertation is a study on the “priming” effect 911-call-takers have on officer decision to arrest and use force on calls for service in Dallas, Texas (2013-2018). In this work, …

Economic And Financial Factors Affecting Currency Stability Of Floating Exchange Rate Regimes: A Survival Analysis, Istvan Zambori

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Currency crises can wreak havoc on countries economically, financially, and politically. This study has been conducted in the spirit of attempting to find a general notion of why such crises occur. The aim is to describe, based on empirical evidence, a general time dependent evolution of currency crisis probabilities. Furthermore, the goal is to uncover general and systemic variables driving currency crises. The research utilizes survival analysis. Durations of tranquility are used to determine probabilities of crises. In turn, economic and financial variables are used to test possible linkages to these crises. In the study, durations of tranquil periods are …

Climate Trailblazer Or Corporate Giveaway: An Economic And Political Evaluation Of Cap-And-Trade In California, Benjamin Reicher

Pomona Senior Theses

In this thesis, I conduct an economic and political analysis of California’s cap-and-trade program, the leading national (and international) example of a market-based strategy to reduce climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions. I evaluate the program on several economic and political measures of success, especially as contrasted with the performance of various regulatory policies that California also relies on to meet its emissions reduction targets. These regulations exemplify a command and control approach to emissions mitigation as opposed to a market-based approach, and indeed tend to be favored by grassroots activists who may be skeptical about market-friendly policies; my thesis seeks to …

Corruption, Remittances, And Public Goods: A Unified Framework, Luis Gautier, Puneet Vatsa

Economics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Remittances are an important source of income for the very countries afflicted by high levels of corruption. However, corruption undermines the development potential of remittances. With this in mind, we propose policy reforms that harness the potential of remittances while mitigating corruption. Unlike previous studies, we point to two channels: (1) the corrupt government’s trade-off between its financial interests (corruption), the provision of a public good, and the gains from a higher inflow of remittances; and (2) the household’s consumption of the public good relative to that of the privately obtained substitute of the public good.

The Green Wave: Effects Of Legal Marijuana On The Labor Market., Sara Varon

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

In this paper I examine the relationship between the introduction of recreational marijuana laws and the labor market. First, using Google Trends data I find evidence that states that undergo the treatment of recreational marijuana legalization will likely experience a large and significant increase in search volume terms related to marijuana demand following the implementation of marijuana regulations. Using this same data set, I find support for the theory that as marijuana legalization becomes more entrenched within each individual state, public interest for marijuana also increases which allows for the use of Google Trends data as a proxy for legalization …

Redesigning Price Setting Under The Universal Health Insurance In Egypt / إعادة تصميم التسعير في ظل التأمين الصحي الشامل في مصر, Ahmed El Agamy, Hebatalla Ahmed Ismail, Hend Hassan, Reem Gouda, Samah El Sayed

Papers, Posters, and Presentations

Since the Sustainable Development Goals were adopted by the United Nations Development Programme, Universal Health coverage became the main target for many nations. One of the main challenges facing the governments to achieve universal health coverage is maintaining adequate policies to set fair pricing for the healthcare services. Each country has different strategies to apply fair pricing and this paper is discussing the current pricing methods in Egypt and suggesting three policies to tackle its challenges.

The Effect Of Technological Advancements On Interactions In The Agricultural Commodities Market, Savannah B. Armas

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The objective of this research is to find, if and how, real and financial technological advancements influence interactions in the agricultural commodities market. Statistical testing was conducted to identify potential correlation and any positive linear relationships in the price data between agricultural commodities and their complementary agricultural chemical producers. Testing if higher trade volumes in this industry result from higher technology usage were initiated by identifying shared linear growth between general index volumes and agricultural commodities, alongside their chemical complement stock volumes. The scientific development of chemical engineering mirrors financial technologies influencing trader behavior as a significant contributor to agricultural …

Effects Of Conservation Management Practices On Soil Health And Crop Yields In Eastern South Dakota, Alex Mclain

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Conservation management practice adoption on agricultural land has increased in recent years due to increasing public and private investment. The anticipated impact of increasing conservation management practice adoption are reduced greenhouse gas emissions and improved soil, water, and air quality. Understanding how these conservation management practices affect agricultural producers economically is vital to properly incentivize these practices. The existing literature on how conservation management practices affect soil health and crop yields is mixed and generally has been conducted on experimental research stations. These studies may not fully account for the on-farm effects of conservation management practices. The objectives of this …

Towards A Better Understanding Of The Development Of Collaborative Consumption Pricing, Funda Sarican

2022

With the rise of social platforms, consumers started creating value by sharing human and physical resources. As a result, there has been an increase in collaborative consumption. My papers focus on the peer-to-peer travel accommodation service Airbnb, a popular online market for short-term housing rentals.

In paper one, an integrated framework for collaborative consumption pricing is developed by adopting the hedonic demand theory and leveraging the multilevel modeling method that accounts for various factors from nested data. This paper contributes to the research literature by extending the usage of multilevel modeling across cities to consider city effects and broadening the …

Health And Healthcare In The Financial Reporting And Audit Environments, Landi Morris

2022

This dissertation is comprised of three papers that integrate analyses of health, health crises, and healthcare entities in the financial reporting and audit processes. The first paper considers how physical health influences audit outcomes via auditors’ cognitive processing. The second paper considers a global health disruption that impacts the audit process. In the third paper, I examine financial and tax reporting of hospital entities. I describe each paper in further detail below.

The first paper, co-authored with Rani Hoitash, examines whether influenza (flu), a potential threat to the conduct of public company audits, is associated with audit outcomes. Because the …