Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Sunk Or Dunk?: An Empirical Analysis Of The Effect Of Sunk Cost Fallacy In Professional Basketball, Hailey Dicicco

Business and Economics Presentations

This project is divided into two sections. The first section is a comparison between the NBA and WNBA, using performance metrics from game statistics. I researched the history of women in sports and specifically read about how women first became integrated into the game of soccer. In the regression for section one, we used a few selected performance metrics and minutes in order to observe any relationships between specific skills and minutes. We also focused on the difference between the leagues in terms of what game stats are more or less significant.

In the second section of this paper, we …

New Kid On The Blockchain: The Rise Of Cryptocurrency In The Global Arena: Humanitarian Usage With Blockchain, Rhonda S. Binda

Open Educational Resources

In 2018, the world was shaken by the fast rise of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies that use a decentralized, blockchain technology for payment transfers outside of the traditional banking system. The potential impact this alternative form of banking could have in the medium and long term on the over 2 billion people globally unbanked is tremendous. Additionally, blockchain itself is being used for value transfer combined with bio and genetic tagging technologies in refugee camps for example, bringing to rise a new era where technology for development is disrupting education, healthcare and security programs globally.

An Economic Growth Analysis Of Native American Reservations In California, Mahsa Ashabi

Economics

A history of institutional oppression and genocide has shaped Native American communities across the United States today, reflected in large disparities of socioeconomic outcomes and productivity. Due to a lack of comprehensive data and macroeconomic research, alternative forms of spatial data and theories regarding human settlement develop a lens of understanding of this stagnation.In our efforts to better understand growth on Native American reservations, we utilize nighttime lights data to proxy for economic output in these geographic areas, measuring the settlement characteristics of reservations themselves and against surrounding U.S. regions. Through a series of log-log regressions that focus on Zipf’s …

A Process For Field Studies In Behavioral Economics, Victoria Ferraro

Senior Honors Projects

Field experiments enable economists to test whether theory adequately captures behavior in natural settings, or whether evidence supports reevaluating the reasoned abstractions comprising the theory. Economics, and social science more generally, has increasingly valued the evidence provided by field studies. These studies typically require a relationship with an external partner site providing the environment for the study, but existent research offers little guidance for developing these relationships and designing procedures for effective collaboration. The purpose of this paper is to provide greater insight into what is necessary to conduct field experiments in economics, particularly behavioral economics in private market settings. …

The Economics Of Water Utilization: Tools And Applications, Matt Bogard

Agriculture Department Seminar Series

Given worldwide problems of access to safe potable water, this presentation examines how tools of economics can aid in drafting appropriate mitigating policies. Utilizing partial equilibrium analysis, it demonstrates the role that prices play in social coordination and then applies the framework to real world examples. In addition it examines Pigouvian Taxation and Coasean Bargaining as two classic methods for dealing with externalities in the context of water pollution. Second-best solutions such as tradable permits and metered pricing by public utilities are discussed. This presentation concludes by examining the issues and challenges that policy makers face when trying to implement …

Power, Privilege, And Special Interests: Rent Seeking And Subsidies In Agriculture, Matt Bogard

Agriculture Department Seminar Series

This presentation covers what Public Choice economists refer to as ‘rent seeking,’ generally seeking favor or special privilege from government through subsidies or regulatory advantages. Particularly, the biotech industry is the area of focus for this presentation. Problems with rent seeking in the biotech industry involve less innovation and industry consolidation. Policies related to biotech regulation, school lunch programs, the Clean Air Act, and ethanol subsidies are discussed. A game theoretic approach is used and it is concluded that issues related to rent seeking and special interests are not adequately addressed by recent campaign finance reform efforts. Alternatives such as …