Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Examining The Low Volatility Anomaly In Stock Prices, Munish Malhotra

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Modern portfolio theory states that investments with greater beta, a common measure of risk, require greater returns from investors in order to compensate them for taking greater risk. Therefore, under the premise that market participants act rationally and therefore markets run efficiently, investments with higher beta should generate higher returns vis-à-vis investments with lower beta over the long run. In fact, many studies suggest that investments with lower beta actually generate equal to or higher returns relative to investments with higher beta. In looking at data for the S&P 500 going back 22 years between 1990 and 2012, this study …

Park Aid Systems: Factors That Affect Consumer Purchase Decisions, Nadeesha Kushlanie Surasinha Thewarapperuma

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Backover crashes in the United States result in at least 300 fatalities and 17,000 injuries every year. Backover crashes occur when a non-occupant of a vehicle is struck by a vehicle moving in reverse. Children are particularly vulnerable. Of the 300 fatalities, at least 100 deaths are children under the age of five. Limited visibility is one factor behind these deaths. The deaths are especially tragic, since the availability of a simple park aid device can expand a driver’s field of vision during a reversal maneuver. Park aid devices include a rearview camera or a sensory system.

This project is …

The Organic Beauty Industry: A Gendered Economic Review, Brianna D. Connelly

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Organic beauty has grown to a $6 billion dollar industry supplying consumers with products that align with unique social consumption preferences. This thesis explores the historical economic perspective of the traditional beauty industry and the development of the organic beauty industry. Capitalism influenced the traditional beauty industry during the pursuit for profits that lead to jeopardizing customer and environmental safety. Consumers responded to this behavior by founding an organic beauty industry that not only considered social issues, but negated gendered beauty standards in the process. Organic product efficacy has emerged as an issue that must be dealt with by regulation …

Institutions, The State, And Economic Development: An Analysis And Evaluation Of Ha-Joon Chang's Critique Of The Dominant Discourse And His Thoughts On State-Led Development Theory, Luke M. Jackson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This paper examines two distinct schools of thought on how to best spur economic activity in developing economies. Mainstream economists, like Hernando De Soto and Douglass North, argue private property rights and free markets, and the institutions which nourish and protect them, are the primary driver of economic growth. Heterodox economists, led by prominent author and economist Ha-Joon Chang, acknowledge institutions play an important role in inducing economic activity but challenge the notion institutions are the primary driver of development. They argue targeted state-led investment and regulation are as important, if not more important, than protecting market freedom and private …

The Case For Extending Patent Terms For Drugs That Treat Rare Diseases, Joanna Louise Thompson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This paper seeks to determine if extended patent terms can positively effect the production of drugs that treat rare diseases. It reviews the structure of the modern pharmaceutical company and considers the regulatory history that lead to this structure. The paper applies historically significant economic research in the field of patents and considers patent alternatives to establish the best method for incentivizing the development of these drugs. The paper finds that while there are numerous pitfalls and issues with the patent method, there are no viable alternatives. It also concludes that extending patent terms for drugs that treat rare diseases …

The Development Of The Risky Financial Behavior Scale: A Measure Of Financial Risk Tolerance, Yilong Zheng

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

There is an increasing need for a more comprehensive instrument to measure risk tolerance in human financial decision making studies. The traditional economic method and the more recent psychometric method of examining risk tolerance were both reviewed in the study. The purpose of this thesis was the initial development and validation of the Risky Financial Behavior Scale (RFBS), with items taken from four different domains noted in previous studies. Phase I and II consisted of item pool generation, construct determination from content experts' review and cognitive interviews. Data from these stages were collected and used for item revision prior to …

The Pursuit Of Balanced Income: An Economic Perspective On Wealth, Calvin E. Pierce

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to determine if households with moderate incomes have the opportunity to acquire pecuniary wealth. In an environment of increasing globalization, labor-eliminating technology, and an overburdened entitlement system, the position of wealth is necessary for households with a penchant for early retirement and particularly for those that will inevitably succumb to involuntary retirement. In these writings, qualitative and quantitative descriptions of wealth are offered; two microeconomic metrics are introduced to identify baseline wealth and to gauge proximity to this value; and strategies are devised to close the gap between these metrics.

The construct of the …

Monetary Effervescence: A Sociological Theory Of Religion Applied To Money, David J. Worley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project attempts to answer the question "What holds the construction of money together?" by asserting that it is money's religious nature which provides the moral compulsion for people to use, and continue to uphold, money as a socially constructed concept. This project is primarily descriptive and focuses on the religious nature of money by employing a sociological theory of religion in viewing money as a technical concept. This is an interdisciplinary work between religious studies, economics, and sociology and draws heavily from Emile Durkheim's The Elementary Forms of Religious Life as well as work related to heterodox theories of …

Longitudinal Effects Of Improving Inter-Parental Relationships In Low-Income Couples: Child Outcomes, Erica Grace Moran Etter

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Poverty and economic hardship create tremendous stress for families, and subsequently are risk factors for child psychopathology. The Fatherhood, Relationship, and Marriage Education (FRAME) program is a 14-hour psychoeducation intervention developed specifically to strengthen the ability of low-income mothers and fathers to reduce conflict, cope with stress, and co-parent effectively, hopefully helping to create more stable and secure environments for children. The FRAME study is a randomized controlled trial evaluating the efficacy of a couples-based intervention in a sample of 301 ethnically diverse low-income cohabiting mothers and fathers who are parenting at least one child together. Couples were randomly assigned …

School Quality Capitalization Into Housing Prices In Minnesota And Pennsylvania, Jonathan Taylor Smith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation develops and estimates a spatial autoregressive with autoregressive errors model of housing prices that accounts for both the endogeneity of spatially-lagged housing prices and local school quality measured by performance on state standardized tests. Two datasets are used from Boyertown, PA and Minneapolis, MN. Homes are spatially weighted against each other using a k nearest-neighbor approach. School quality is thought to be endogenous because unobserved neighborhood amenities in the error term of a hedonic regression are very likely positively correlated with local elementary, middle, and high school quality. Following previous literature, the optimal instrument matrix is constructed as …

An Analysis Of Shift Work: Compensating Differentials And Local Economic Conditions, Mary Colene Trent

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The theory of compensating differentials asserts that workers facing undesirable work conditions, such as night shift work, should receive compensating wage differentials. The theory assumes that workers can easily find jobs with desirable characteristics; thus, compensating wages are necessary to induce workers to take jobs with undesirable characteristics. This dissertation considers a variation of the theory of compensating differentials in which labor markets are weak. If workers are more likely to work night shifts in areas with weak economic conditions and if firms are less likely to offer compensating differentials for night shift work in areas with weak economic conditions, …

The Role Of Private International Financial Capital Flows In Support Of Development For Emerging Market Countries, Jason Victor Reuter

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Economic growth and development are critical issues for emerging market economies as they seek increase their standards of living. Financial globalization, innovation and international financial capital flows are prominent factors influencing macroeconomic stability and the pace of growth and development around the globe. This dynamic has become even more pronounced since the Asian Financial Crisis at the end of the 1990s and the Global Financial Crisis starting in 2008. In the wake of these two global economic events, the need for reflection on the drivers of growth and development as well as impediments to these activities is warranted. This thesis …

Three Essays On Odd-Lot Transactions, Hardy Johnson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation consists of three essays on odd-lot transactions. The first essay investigates the role odd lot trades play in equity markets, as well as how this role has changed over three distinct time periods- 2010, 2007, and 2005. In each of these time periods, we document the determinants of the proportions of odd lot transactions, the price contribution of odd lot trades, and the characteristics of odd lot trading on an intraday and intraweek basis. We find that odd lot transactions make up 8% of volume and 20-22% of trades. We find that odd lot proportions as well as …

Three Essays On: Cancelling Liquidity, Information Generation And Learning By Holding Privately Placed Securities, And Information Generation, Learning And The Trading Dynamics Of Institutional Traders During The 2007-2008 Financial Crisis, Ethan Watson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation consists of three essays on cancelling liquidity, information generation and learning by holding private placements, and information generation, learning and the trading dynamics of institutional traders during the 2007-2008 financial crisis. The first essay examines cancellation activity of limit orders. We document a two-fold increase in limit order cancellation activity over the last decade, and study the determinants of cancellations and the change in cancellation activity through time. We also examine the impact of order cancellation on market quality. We use an instrumental variable approach and estimate a simultaneous equations model to overcome simultaneity in the trading process. …