Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Natural Disasters And Human Capital: Empirical Evidence From Indonesia, Lei Lv

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In developing countries, natural disasters could destroy physical capital and adversely affect human capital accumulation by disrupting individual decisions. Such decisions play a critical role in determining individuals' human capital accumulation process and have a lifelong effect on their happiness and economic prosperity. To better understand how natural disasters affect human capital in developing countries, this dissertation uses the earthquakes in Indonesia as a natural experiment to study how this earthquake affects health, child marriage, and education. For the first chapter, I study how the 2006 Yogyakarta Earthquake a affects water-related acute disease symptomsin the short and long run. By …

Surviving A Broken System: Synergies Between Solidarity Economies And Sustainable Development Goals, Julie Beach

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Capitalism has created problems including wealth polarization, rapid depletion of natural resources, and pervasive systemic societal issues. Hard work is not enough to solve the unequal distribution and barriers preventing access to necessities. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were created to remedy the harsh reality of global inequities and negative environmental impacts by working towards a more just and equitable future for all. Solidarity Economies (SE) offer an alternative framework to achieve these goals.

This research used multiple qualitative methods to investigate the synergies between SE and SDGs in a growing urban environment. St. Petersburg, FL struggles with affordable housing, food …

The Impact Of Critical Illness Insurance Among Older Adults In China, Jiaosi Li

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Although China has made considerable progress towards universal health insurance coverage, high out-of-pocket medical expenditures due to catastrophic illnesses (e.g., cancer, heart attack, or stroke) remain a concern. To address this concern, the Critical Illness Insurance (CII) program providing additional coverage for high medical expenditures was introduced in 2012. We combine data on the timing of CII implementation across prefecture cities in China with the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) to examine its impact on medical expenditures, inpatient utilization, health outcomes, household consumption and savings. To account for the staggered implementation across regions, we employ the Difference-in-Differences (DiD) …

Organizing Economies: Narrative Sensemaking And Communciative Resilience During Economic Disruption, Timothy Betts

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation unites organizational communication, and economic theory to understand how individuals make sense of economic crises, imbed power and logic in those understandings, and construct new economic realities in the aftermath of crisis. Contra economic orthodoxy, this project conceives of economy and economics as a social construct. As a social construct, individuals organize economy and economics through discourse, make sense of through narrative, and rebuild through communication. This dissertation combines different theoretical perspectives—actor-network theory, antenarrative organization theory, and the communication theory of resilience—to recenter social scientific accounts of economic reality around communication, story, and power.

Specifically, I focus on …

Two Essays In Applied Microeconomics: Retirement, Income Inequalities, And Other Economic Indicators Of Health And Life Satisfaction, Zahra Akbari

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The following proposal includes two essays in applied microeconomics. The first essay studied the relationship between income differences among siblings and the health outcomes of the individuals. Health inequalities and the factors associated with them have been a significant interest of health economists. Among those factors that can lead to health differences in adulthood, many studies have studied financial status. There are still many questions about these factors which should be answered in this area, especially about the adulthood income relative to a reference group and how it can be related to differences in adulthood health. The main goal of …

Who To Choose? Rating Broker Best Practices In The Medicare Advantage Industry, Darwin R. Hale

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to help navigate the U.S. Healthcare system in a way that maximizes value and minimizes risk to Medicare Beneficiaries. We do this through the creation of a tool that will aid in the selection of an independent health broker. Brokers are the trusted resource who have the responsibility and expertise to optimize client value through needs analysis, education, and expectations setting. Beneficiaries need help with life impacting health and wellness decisions and ongoing support across the continuum of care. The qualitative research included interviews of industry experts with combined Medicare experience of more than …

Essays In The Industrial Organization Of Healthcare Markets, Maysam Qadimi Rabbani

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation consists of four chapters each looking at one dimension of the impact of market concentration on patient well-being. The chapters are titled:

• Chapter 1: Non-Profit Hospital Mergers: The Effect on Healthcare Costs and Utilization
• Chapter 2: Mergers with Future Rivals: An Entry Barrier
• Chapter 3: Can Mergers Do Good? Lessons From 25 Pharmaceutical Mergers
• Chapter 4: Retail Pharmacy Mergers: The Case of Walgreens and Drugstore.com

Chapter 1 has been published in the International Journal of Health Economics and Management (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10754-021-09303-8). It examines a non-profit hospital merger. Merger courts offer leniency to non-profit cases on the premise that they …

Reference-Dependent Choice On Digital Platforms, Joshua K. Kaisen

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Throughout this dissertation I explore a significant departure from the standard model of rationality known as reference-dependence. The theory reference-dependence asserts that an individual’s choice is dependent on their frame of reference established through factors divorced from their rational cost and benefit. This behavior is inefficient as individuals fail to rationally optimize their payoffs. This behavior is understudied in natural settings where isolating specific stimuli which may establish a reference is challenging. However, digital platforms contain limited stimuli which are fully observable to researchers and present an ideal setting to study the theory of reference-dependence. Thus, I introduce three new …

Cannabis Capitalism In Colorado: An Ethnography Of Il/Legal Production And Consumption, Lia Berman

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Coloradans have changed their fundamental views on illegal substances since the decriminalization of cannabis in Colorado. Since the legalization of medical cannabis in 2014, state-sold dispensary cannabis products have straddled the line between legal and illegal network systems in a hybridized “il/legal” market system, a term designed to be ambiguous of the formal and informal economies that it represents (Nordstrom 2007, xxvii). The cannabis commodity chain has proved both familiar and strange when it comes to its production, consumption, and distribution of a federally illegal substance. Colorado’s history as a pioneer in culture and legislature has been repeated with cannabis …

Essays On Snap Participation, Bmi, And Food Purchasing Decisions, Samaneh Ghadyani

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation estimates the SNAP-eligible individuals’ Body Mass Index (BMI) changes by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) in Chapter 1. It also examines whether the food packages’ nutrition fact tables’ refinements improve SNAP-recipients’ healthy food purchasing decisions in Chapter 2. Below, the summary of these chapters are provided:

• Chapter 1: The Effects of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 on the Body Mass Index (BMI) of SNAP-Eligible Individuals
• Chapter 2: Do Changes in the Nutrition Facts Labels Affect SNAP-Participants’ Food Purchasing Decisions?

Chapter 1 studies the effects of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act …

Essays In Applied Public Policy And Health Economics, Stephen W. Poteet

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the first chapter, we investigate the changing landscape of America’s marijuana legislation. We first build a theoretical model to determine the impact of these changing laws on adolescents and take a closer look at the intricacies within the market. Then we provide an empirical analysis to test our hypotheses and improve upon econometric models used in previous research. We use data from the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) administered from 2009 to 2017 in the United States. Our identification strategy included a non-linear generalized difference-in-differences approach and a group-time treatment effect. When focused on adolescent usage in the past …

Does Hedging Success Matter? An Empirical Study Of Jet Fuel Hedging In The U.S. Airline Industry, Brian Hornung

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Airlines commonly employ hedging as a risk management strategy to protect themselves against sudden, unpredictable increases in the price of jet fuel. In a seminal paper by Carter, Rogers, and Simkins (2006), it is established that jet fuel hedging by airlines increases the firm value of the airline. This dissertation replicates their study using an expanded dataset over a greater period of time. This study finds a smaller “hedging premium” than Carter, Rogers, and Simkins (2006). It is shown that the leasing of aircraft plays an important role in the relationship between the hedging premium and capital expenditures.

The measure …

Power, Property Rights, And Political Development: A Property Rights Theory Of Political Development And Its Application To The Study Of Development In Honduras And Costa Rica, Ricardo R. Noé

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Following the dissolution of the Federal Republic of Central America in 1838, Costa Rica and Honduras were highly underdeveloped politically and economically, while at the same time lacking a strong conservative presence found in the more politically established and economically developed Central American countries of Guatemala and El Salvador.

However, By the late 20th century Costa Rica established itself as a bastion of democracy in Latin America, supported by a strong middle class. While on the other hand, Honduras would fall victim to a continuous string of coup d’états, with the last being in 2009, by a military that did …

Essays On The Disposition Effect, Matthew Henriksson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation contains two essays that shed new light on the disposition effect – that is, the tendency for investors to be especially eager to realize gains over losses. The first essay combines county-level natural disaster data with individual investor transactions to document an increased disposition effect for investors impacted by a natural disaster. This effect is increasing in disaster severity and decreasing in the length of time following the event, suggesting that extreme natural disasters can significantly influence investor behavior, especially in the short term. These findings are not explained by liquidity needs, tax incentives, or informed trading. The …

"I Think Of The Future": The Long 1850s And The Origins Of The Americanization Of The World, Joshua Taylor

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

While historians often point to the rise of the United States as a major global player and technological leader on the world stage in the 1890s and early 1900s, this study argues it was the 1850s, not the 1890s, that this transition occurred. It utilizes transnational methodologies to analyze European perceptions of the United States, American international businessmen, and new ways Americans thought and talked about their place in the world. During the 1850s, European travelers to the United States began to recognize the young nation was taking the lead in technological innovation, while American businessmen like Samuel Colt began …

A Tall Ship: The Rise Of The International Mercantile Marine, Jeffrey N. Brown

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Between 1890 and the outbreak of the Great War in 1914, nations on both sides of the Atlantic attempted to gain prestige by building the world's greatest steamships for their merchant marines. In 1901, the United States entered this competition with the advent of J.P. Morgan's International Mercantile Marine, which built on the previous work of shipping magnate Clement Griscom. This project will explore why and how Morgan built his monopoly and the implications and repercussions this project had for both Atlantic shipping and U.S. foreign relations. Moving beyond Morgan the man, it also tells the story of the key …

Essays On Health, Healthcare, Job Insecurity And Health Outcomes, Ichiro Nakamoto

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This doctoral dissertation proposal is comprised of three separate chapters, all of which uses the nationally representative uniform survey Health and Retirement Survey (HRS) to examine the relationship between health, insurance, health care and health outcomes. Below, the brief introduction for each section is provided:

 Chapter I: Medicare Part D and Patients' Well-being

 Chapter II: Parent's Health Insurance and Informal Care

 Chapter III: Job Insecurity and Health (with Dr. Ayyagari)

In chapter I, I explore how Medicare Part D (MD) affects the well-being of the severely sick patients both in the short- and in the long- term. …

Essays In Applied Microeconomics, Lijuan Feng

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Chapter 1 studies the effect of body weight on labor market outcomes. Using longitudinal data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS) from 1989 to 2011, and both instrumental variable and fixed effects estimation to control for the endogeneity of body weight, I examine the wage effect of BMI by gender, type of residence area, and occupation. Results from linear OLS regression show a positive relationship between body weight and income for males in both rural and urban areas and females in rural areas, while a negative one for females in urban areas. After controlling for the unobserved individual …

Toward Improving Export Diversification And Economic Growth In Small Island Developing States, Marlo B. Murphy-Braynen

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation seeks to address the following research question: How does export diversification impact economic growth in Small Island Developing States? More specifically, this dissertation sheds light on the strength and nature of the relationship between export diversification and economic growth with a focus on Small Island Developing States (SIDS). Informed by prior literature and the empirical analysis in this dissertation, I propose a conceptual industry development model that aims to stimulate and promote export development, diversification, and growth within the context of Small Island Developing States in general and with a specific focus on The Bahamas. In accordance with …

A Cost Benefit Analysis Of Using A Battery Energy Storage System (Bess) Represented By A Unit Commitment Model, Nemanja Mihailovic

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis aims to provide a general overview of a cost and benefit analysis of incorporating a battery energy storage system within unit commitment model.

The deregulation of the electricity market in the U.S. has only been around for the last two decades. With renewable energy and energy storage systems becoming less expensive, a decentralized market scheme is becoming more popular and plausible. The scope of this work is to provide a fundamental understanding of unit commitment and a cost analysis of applying a battery energy storage system to an already established power system.

A battery energy storage system (BESS) …

Essays On Family-Friendly Policies, Child Planning And Children’S Early-Age Outcomes, Stefani Milovanska-Farrington

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation consists of three chapters which examine family-friendly reforms, child planning or children’s early-age outcomes. The following are the titles of the chapters of the present dissertation:

• CHAPTER 1: Are Parents and Grandparents Substitutes or Complements? The Effect of Parental and Grandparental Supervision Time Investment on Children’s Early-Age Development.
• CHAPTER 2: The Effect of Family Welfare Support on the Likelihood of Having Another Child and Parents’ Labor Supply.
• CHAPTER 3: The Effect of Maternity Leave Expansions on Fertility Intentions: Evidence from Switzerland.

Chapter 1 uses evidence from Scotland to examine the effect of grandparents’ childcare provision relative to the …

Essays In Applied Microeconomics, John Hartman

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the first chapter, I investigate reputational effects of the disclosure of negative information in a market affected by adverse selection. A series of recent discoveries has increased consumer concern over the presence of counterfeits in the market for fine and rare wine. For the thousands of bottles sold at auction each year, house reputation is used as a quality assurance mechanism to signal product authenticity. Using sales data from 2005-2015 for the ten largest auction houses, I study consumer reaction following two recent disclosures of an auction house having offered or sold counterfeit wine. My identification strategy to examine …

Education And Health Impacts Of An Affirmative Action Policy On Minorities In India, Robin Dhakal

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Article 334 of the Constitution of India (1950) stipulates that certain electoral districts in each state should be reserved for minority groups, namely the “Scheduled Caste”(SC) and the Scheduled Tribe”(ST), through the reservation of seats in the states' legislative assemblies. Even though the original article stated that the reservation policy would be in place for just twenty years, it has been amended several times and is still in effect. This dissertation examines the impact of the policy on the education and health outcomes of the SC population. Variations in seat quotas are generated by the timing of elections in different …

Determinants Of Tipping Rates: New Findings And Extensions, Christopher Carl Olson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

There is a movement underway to eliminate the practice of tipping restaurant servers that is gaining momentum (Goldberger, 2015). In lieu of gratuities, restaurants are simply raising menu prices or assessing a service charge and paying servers a fixed hourly wage (Kummer, 2016). Before restaurateurs can adopt such a strategy, they need to thoroughly understand the factors that affect tipping behavior in order to develop meaningful fixed wage rates that do not diminish service levels or employee morale. The first step in this process is a better understanding of the determinants of tipping rates.

The existing research has identified many …

Autonomous Vehicles: An Empirical Assessment Of Consumers’ Perceptions, Intended Adoption, And Impacts On Household Vehicle Ownership, Nikhil Menon

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Emerging automotive and transportation technologies have provided revolutionary possibilities in the way we might travel in the future. Major car manufacturers and technology giants have demonstrated significant progress in advancing and testing autonomous vehicles in real-life traffic conditions. Governmental agencies are grappling with how to plan transportation systems for a world with autonomous vehicles. Past research has shown that not all technologies are immediately welcomed by the public. Autonomous Vehicles would have to likely go through a similar phase, and would need to overcome not just technological challenges but also social barriers for successful penetration into the marketplace. Most previous …

Essays In Health Economics, Olga Petrova

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Over the past two decades, a growing body of literature within health economics has provided evidence of the impact of fetal conditions on individual’s health and economic outcomes over the entire life course. This dissertation contributes to the field of health economics by investigating the effects of two distinct types of public policies, antimalarial interventions in sub-Saharan Africa and medical marijuana laws in the United States, on early-life health.

Chapter 1 adds to the increased understanding of the impact of in utero exposure to large-scale interventions to combat endemic diseases by examining the effects of antimalarial interventions aimed at preventing …

Conceptualizing Social Wealth In The Digital Age: A Mixed Methods Approach, Kristina Oliva

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As society continues to shift into the digital age, the relationship between social exchange and economic activity is becoming increasingly homogenous. The success of digital products are largely sustained upon the leverage of social relationships and the quasi-sharing of material items, services, and digital media. Emergence of the sharing and on-demand economies is evidence of the necessity to understand social exchange as a form of economic transaction. As such, this study attempts to conceptualize and define the concept of social wealth to understand the basis of an economic synthesis. In attempt to theoretically integrate the concept, a mixed methods design …

Testing The Medical Arms Race Hypothesis: A Spatial Approach, Robyn M. Kibler

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The surgical robot experienced rapid uptake throughout hospitals in the US despite lack of clinical evidence that it is superior to existing methods and undeterred by its high cost. This type of technology may be a “weapon” in the medical arms race hypothesis which asserts that competition among hospitals may be welfare reducing wherein it encourages resource use that is not commensurate with beneficial health outcomes. This paper is a case-study of the diffusion of the surgical robot among hospitals in Florida. We address the medical arms race hypothesis directly by investigating whether a hospital’s decision to adopt a robot …

Impact Of Health Insurance For The Poor On Labor Market Out Comes: Evidence From Indonesia., Youssef Fassi Fehri

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

I examine the impact of a health insurance program for the poor implemented in Indonesia in 2005 on labor supply and informal work measured by employment status outside of the private and public formal sector. As a first step to its ambitious plan for universal coverage, this program extended subsidized health insurance coverage to a large proportion of Indonesia’s poor and near-poor population. Using a rich longitudinal survey, I estimate the average treatment effect on the treated using a combined propensity score matching method with difference in differences. The richness of the data allows me to control for a set …

The Impact Of Criminal Justice Interventions And Social Policies On Family Violence: Theory And Evidence, Sianne Diana Vijay

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In 2014, the Child Protective Services received 3.6 million referrals alleging child abuse and neglect, of which, 702,000 children were victims of abuse and neglect and an estimated 1,580 children died due to maltreatment. In addition to this appalling toll, the welfare effects of child victimization are substantial. Evidence suggests that compared to demographically similar adults who were non-victims, adults with documented histories of maltreatment are more likely to engage in criminal behavior; have adverse mental and physical health problems such as depression, addiction and post-traumatic stress disorder; and have lower levels of education and earnings. These essays contribute toward …