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Articles 1 - 30 of 181
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Food As A Vector For Change: Lessons From The Third Sector On Improving Livelihoods With Nutritional Knowledge In Medellín And Bogotá, Solomon Treister
Food As A Vector For Change: Lessons From The Third Sector On Improving Livelihoods With Nutritional Knowledge In Medellín And Bogotá, Solomon Treister
Honors Theses
In this thesis I argue that improving diet in communities depends on building nutritional knowledge. In examining the role of community level organizations, I look specifically at how knowledge is conveyed through agriculture and gastronomy. This project analyzes how civil society organizations work to reintegrate individuals into food systems, compelling consumers to take agency over their diets and pursue better livelihoods. The industrialization of food systems has fundamentally changed the way humans connect with food and diet. In Colombia, internal displacements and urban migration have accelerated a loss of connection with the land and food processes. At the same time, …
Examining The Impact Of Living Arrangements On Children's Academic Achievement, Rachel G. Coan
Examining The Impact Of Living Arrangements On Children's Academic Achievement, Rachel G. Coan
Honors Theses
In my paper I examine how different living arrangements impact how well a child performs in school. The living arrangements are: living with both biological parents, living with biological mother, and living with biological father. Using a linear regression method, I regress living arrangements against GPA and find that children who do not live with both of their biological parents are expected to perform about 0.3 GPA points worse in school than children who do. With added control variables the difference in predicted GPAs decreases. Additionally, I find that living arrangements aren’t predicted to impact children differently depending on their …
Complexities Of Community Consultation In Chile's Lithium Industry, Isabella R. Whelan
Complexities Of Community Consultation In Chile's Lithium Industry, Isabella R. Whelan
Honors Theses
Echoed by November’s COP27 in Egypt, the climate crisis has become an increasingly pressing and global issue, with the need to move away from fossil fuels more urgent than ever. In attempts to decarbonize the global economy, many countries and companies have turned to electrification –particularly within the transportation sector, one of today’s largest contributors of greenhouse gasses. A crucial component of energy storage and batteries is lithium, now considered a “critical mineral.” Demand for lithium has skyrocketed in recent years and is only expected to continue growing. More than fifty percent of the world’s lithium supply is found within …
Two Sided Matching: A Study Of Underemployment, Benjamin E. Plevin
Two Sided Matching: A Study Of Underemployment, Benjamin E. Plevin
Honors Theses
This paper lays out a general equilibrium framework to study and predict the underemployment rate. A heterogeneous labor market in which both workers and firms differ in skill type is considered and calibrated to simulate both unemployment and underemployment rates. Qualitatively, the model’s predictions match the empirical evidence suggesting underemployment decreases with increases to unemployment insurance. Quantitatively, the one-shot foundation limits the model’s predictive capabilities.
Impacts Of Profamilia Program Spread On Contraceptive Use And Fertility Rates In Colombia During Its Introduction, Katherine C. Specht
Impacts Of Profamilia Program Spread On Contraceptive Use And Fertility Rates In Colombia During Its Introduction, Katherine C. Specht
Honors Theses
I examine the effect of the Profamilia program during its beginning years over the 1960s and 1970s as it spread across Colombia. I find that Profamilia effectively delays first birth, intercourse, and age at marriage, and reduces the probability of having had a teen birth. These outcomes were also linked to increased literacy rates, improved educational attainment, and an increase in employment. Birth spacing and contraceptive use increased. These findings support current research that improving access to family planning services is an effective method for decreasing women’s fertility and improving educational and employment opportunities for women. The implication that having …
Municipal Reform In The Progressive Era: Spatial Spread And Fiscal Outcomes Of The Commission Government, Daniel T. Hiller
Municipal Reform In The Progressive Era: Spatial Spread And Fiscal Outcomes Of The Commission Government, Daniel T. Hiller
Honors Theses
The Galveston-Des Moines Plan for commission government, seen as an important municipal reform during the Progressive Era meant to address corruption and inefficiency in many cities, was pitched by business elites and spread like wildfire in the 1910s. Is there a spatial component to the spread of the adoption of the commission form of government? What are the municipal fiscal outcomes of adoption? This paper shows that there was a spatial spread to its adoption using a lagged state adoption proportion variable. This paper also reveals that promises made by business elites such as increased efficiency and projects to improve …
Is Monetary Policy Neutral? The Effectiveness Of Monetary Policy Transmission Across The Income Distribution, Cameron Dyer
Is Monetary Policy Neutral? The Effectiveness Of Monetary Policy Transmission Across The Income Distribution, Cameron Dyer
Honors Theses
This paper analyzes the role of the interest rate channel of monetary policy on household consumption sensitivities across the income distribution. To study this, I build a heterogenous agent model where households experience interest rate shocks as a proxy for monetary policy in addition to income shocks. I find that the poorest quintile increases consumption by about 4.5% in response to a recessionary interest rate cut, with this effect weakening for each additional quintile. When interest rate shocks differ by income group, the poorest lose about 3.6% of consumption and monetary policy’s effect on aggregate consumption weakens. When the income …
The Effects Of Personality And Risk Preferences On Effort-Based Behavior: A Game Theoretic Approach, Hannah M. Davidsen
The Effects Of Personality And Risk Preferences On Effort-Based Behavior: A Game Theoretic Approach, Hannah M. Davidsen
Honors Theses
Our personality and preferences play a major role in the decisions we make in our everyday lives. Drawing from literature exploring how people innovate under different scenarios (Dubina, 2013), the present study expanded this topic to include any scenario where there is incentive to free-ride off of another’s effort. I designed a study in which participants (N=73) were asked to complete the Big 5 personality questionnaire, a cognitive reflection task, an altruism elicitation task, and a risk elicitation task, then were randomly paired with another participant to complete four different rounds of a public goods game. Each round of the …
Discrimination Among College Football Head Coaches, Yusuke Fukuda
Discrimination Among College Football Head Coaches, Yusuke Fukuda
Honors Theses
Several major sports organizations have come under scrutiny in recent years for alleged discriminatory practices towards minority coaches. In this paper, I analyze whether minority college football head coaches are more likely to be fired and to earn a lower salary. I observe a sample of 300 head coaches from 132 Division-I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) schools between the years 2006 to 2021. After controlling for performance and experience variables and holding the time and school or conference variables fixed in a Cox hazard regression model, I find statistically significant evidence that minority coaches face a higher likelihood of being …
Dynamic Double Auctions: An Analysis Of Secondary Sneaker Market And Its Future As An Nft Marketplace, Chris Zhu
Honors Theses
A theoretical analysis of a dynamic double auction over time shows that greater market density can result in more aggressive trading strategies from buyers and sellers. In addition, my model suggests a fast price discovery period initially, with impatient investors having a more aggressive approach. I confirm these results using resale sneaker data from the StockX website for five deadstock sneakers. I find that market density is positively correlated with bid prices, and the bid-ask spread decreases over time during the price discovery period. However, the results also indicate that sellers price in additional transaction costs and lags in their …
When An Economist Is A Mentor: For Yang Fan, Colby’S Teaching Philosophy Was The Right Fit, Kardelen Koldas
When An Economist Is A Mentor: For Yang Fan, Colby’S Teaching Philosophy Was The Right Fit, Kardelen Koldas
Colby Magazine
They say follow your passion to wherever it takes you. Yang Fan, the new Todger Anderson Assistant Professor of Investing and Behavioral Economics, did just that. He followed his passion for teaching and changed coasts, from West to the East. Now, he’s helping his students find and pursue their passions as well.
Ready, Willing, And Able, Gerry Boyle
Ready, Willing, And Able, Gerry Boyle
Colby Magazine
So what gives? How, after four years on Mayflower Hill, do these Colby alumni have an outsized impact in a fintech company that is focused on, for example, changing the way municipal bonds are traded? What makes them able to dive in and figure it out? “That’s part of the liberal arts education,” said Associate Professor of History John Turner, who taught Tagg Martin ’13, history major turned MarketAxess go-to analyst. “You’re always learning. … You are always going to be mastering something, as opposed to having mastered.”
Social Capital Unmasced: The Role Of Social Capital In State-Level Economic Growth, Meredith H. Allen
Social Capital Unmasced: The Role Of Social Capital In State-Level Economic Growth, Meredith H. Allen
Honors Theses
While the examination of social capital in social science research has expanded since the 1990s, little is known about its development over time or contributions to economic growth, particularly at the community level. I create a state-level index of social capital from 2008 to 2019 to analyze its evolution across the United States since the Great Recession. After analyzing the different rates of social capital improvement across the country, I then integrate the index in the production function and a growth accounting framework alongside capital and labor. I find that social capital is not only significant as a factor of …
Ethnicity And Education: College Attendance Patterns Among Early 20th-Century Maine's Immigrant Community, Jacob M. Nash
Ethnicity And Education: College Attendance Patterns Among Early 20th-Century Maine's Immigrant Community, Jacob M. Nash
Honors Theses
I examine the college attendance patterns of second-generation Russian-Jewish immigrants in Maine in the early 20th century relative to other ethnic groups using individual-level Census records. I employ the Abramitzky, Boustan, and Eriksson (ABE) algorithm to track second-generation Jewish, Italian, French Canadian, English Canadian and European immigrants from the 1910 Census to the 1940 Census. My logistic regression analysis indicates that second-generation Jewish immigrants in Maine attended college at significantly higher rates than their peers of similar background in every other ethnic group. While I cannot evaluate them, I also discuss potential explanations for the disparity in college attendance …
The Predictive Power Of The Term Structure Under Unconventional Monetary Policies, Luying Yang
The Predictive Power Of The Term Structure Under Unconventional Monetary Policies, Luying Yang
Honors Theses
Previous research has confirmed a positive relationship between the slope of the yield spread and future economic growth. Since the start of the Great Recession, a number of developed economies have hit the zero lower bound and adopted unconventional monetary policies such as large-scale bond/asset purchase programs and negative interest rate policies. This paper finds that the yield spread’s predictive power generally deteriorates after the central bank adopts its first bond purchase program. However, there is no general pattern of how these unconventional monetary policies impact the yield spread’s forecasting ability across countries.
‘The Robinhood Effect’ - Digital Technology In Global Financial Markets And Its Effects On Investor Decision Making, Ben Steib
Honors Theses
We are currently experiencing a revolution that is larger, arguably, than the industrial revolution, it’s the Internet, also known as the World Wide Web. The Internet has transformed how we live — how we talk, how we work, how we go about our daily business, and how we manage our finances on a global and individual level. In the late 1990s, an investor would search the World Wide Web and, within seconds, find 3,372 websites with the term "investment,” today, the same search for “investment” yields 1,860,000,000 results. Today, as proven with GameStop and other popular ‘meme stocks,’ social media, …
Gold Mining Districts And Path Dependence, Jason T. Dunn
Gold Mining Districts And Path Dependence, Jason T. Dunn
Honors Theses
This paper applies quantitative spatial analysis to the long-term impact of Western gold rushes, studying the effect of 19th century US mineral districts on modern (2010) population density, as a proxy for long-term economic growth. OLS regression estimates show positive effects for areas adjacent to historic mining districts. Census tracts within 15 miles of a mineral district but not containing one are 29.8% more dense than other tracts. Additionally, capital-intensive/large-scale mining was more persistent than labor-intensive/small-scale methods, and path dependence is achieved mainly through agglomeration. This research corroborates historical arguments focusing on the development of Western infrastructure for long term …
The Residential Location Choices Of Chabad Households: An Analysis Of Decision Making With Non-Price Constraints, Chasity A. Mcfadden
The Residential Location Choices Of Chabad Households: An Analysis Of Decision Making With Non-Price Constraints, Chasity A. Mcfadden
Honors Theses
Where an individual chooses to live informs many of their economic decisions and may be the single largest economic decision one makes in their lives. Through understanding the way that people choose their residential locations, we are able to better understand the opportunities available to them. Within the Chabad community, there is a large focus on emissary work, which calls Chabad Jews to move outside of large Jewish communities in order to help secular Jews become more religious. There are also certain religious amenities that are necessary to live a Chabad life, such as a local synagogue. So the question …
Naloxone Access And Opioid Use: A Theoretical Analysis, Caroline Dunsby
Naloxone Access And Opioid Use: A Theoretical Analysis, Caroline Dunsby
Honors Theses
Naloxone, commonly known by the brand name Narcan, is a medication that reverses the potentially fatal effects of an opioid overdose. Amidst the opioid epidemic that has taken tens of thousands of lives each year, many policies have been enacted to increase the public's access to naloxone, allowing non-medical personnel to save lives. There have been two distinct reactions to these policies. Those that support the policies state that harm reduction measures are necessary to save lives. Those that oppose the policies claim that by providing naloxone, states may be increasing risky opioid use - suggesting that naloxone leads to …
After School Programs And Their Effect On Children's Well-Being, John Steenrod
After School Programs And Their Effect On Children's Well-Being, John Steenrod
Honors Theses
As female labor force participation has gone up, families have turned more and more towards after school programs to provide adult supervision for their children, especially in low income areas. This paper utilizes longitudinal household data to examine the effect of these after school programs on noncognitive outcomes in children, and, in particular, follows the early education literature in using within-family comparisons for identification. I find that children who participate in after school programs are less likely to be depressed, and are more likely to have a high degree of emotional, social, and psychological well-being. Generally, participation is associated in …
Diversity, Bias, And Student Outcomes, Amanda J. Schmidt
Diversity, Bias, And Student Outcomes, Amanda J. Schmidt
Honors Theses
This paper examines how racially-motivated bias incidents relate to college students’ academic outcomes, and how this relationship differs across race. There is evidence that students’ academic outcomes are negatively impacted by bias, particularly among marginalized groups. This could have severe impacts on equality, overall student success, and future outcomes. I use Colby College student-level data to analyze the effects of bias incidents on both changes in individuals’ GPAs, and differences in probability of retention across individuals. I analyze the effects of one severe bias incident in the Spring of 2009, and the effects of several bias incidents which occurred over …
Effects Of Exposure To Chinese Imports On School Spending And Revenue From Property Tax, Yilei Bao
Effects Of Exposure To Chinese Imports On School Spending And Revenue From Property Tax, Yilei Bao
Honors Theses
I analyze the effect of exposure to Chinese import competition on school revenues per student from property tax, from local sources, and school expenditures per student in 676 Commuting Zones (CZ) from 1990 to 2007. I discover a negative relationship on the CZ level between exposure per worker to Chinese import competition and school expenditure per student, as well as school revenue per student from local sources. In contrast, impact on school revenue per student from property tax is not statistically significant. On average, in a given period, an increase of 1000 dollars in import exposure is related to a …
Impacts Of A Movie's Rivals' Releasing Decisions On Its Domestic Box Office Revenue, Yuanyuan Dong
Impacts Of A Movie's Rivals' Releasing Decisions On Its Domestic Box Office Revenue, Yuanyuan Dong
Honors Theses
This paper uses the OLS regression model to investigate and quantify the competition effects in the film industry, aiming to help film distributors in the making releasing decision. To do so, I define the movies that release within the same week as rivals and use the rivals’ characteristics variables to capture the competition effects. The regression results show that a movie’s rivals’ total production budgets and the number of opening weekend’s theater have significantly negative impacts on this movie’s box office revenue. After adding control variables and indicator variables for seasonality, the competition effects become less obvious with less precision. …
Do Global Cities Make Green Cities? How Global Governance Impacts Transportation In Bogotá And Medellín, Eleanor Jackson
Do Global Cities Make Green Cities? How Global Governance Impacts Transportation In Bogotá And Medellín, Eleanor Jackson
Honors Theses
This thesis examines how global and local governance has combined to deliver effective and sustainable public transportation in cities by comparing Bogotá’s bus rapid transit (BRT) system, TransMilenio, with Medellín’s mass transit system, STIMVA, often referred to as Metro de Medellín. After considering the rationales used to justify local and global authority over climate change, this analysis problematizes the supposed benefits of empowering global and local actors by highlighting the conflicts of interest that plague the elites who mediate the global and the local. In analyzing the global and local interactions, this work draws from extensive literature to highlight three …
Game Theory In Cricket, Shabab Ahmed
Game Theory In Cricket, Shabab Ahmed
Honors Theses
The paper uses the natural setting of cricket to test theoretical predictions in game theory. In this setting, the agents play a one-shot-two-person constant sum game. The paper assesses whether trained professionals in cricket follow the `mix' of strategies predicted by Nash equilibria. The test uses a unique dataset derived from commentary data comprising of bowler and batsman strategies and outcomes. The paper creates a model for bowler-bastman interactions in cricket and uses this in conjunction with the data to generate predicted Nash equilibrium frequencies. These predicted frequencies are then compared with the actual frequencies from the data. My study …
Investigating The Effect Crime Has On Uber And Yellow Taxi Pickups In Nyc, Kebing Li
Investigating The Effect Crime Has On Uber And Yellow Taxi Pickups In Nyc, Kebing Li
Honors Theses
How to manage the relationship between Uber and the local taxi industry has been a long-lasting and hot topic for most of the major cities around the world. Whether Uber is stealing money from and undermining the local taxi drivers or it is beneficial for public transportation has no certain conclusions. In this paper, we focus on the city of New York, where both Uber and traditional Yellow Taxi play important roles in public transportation and city culture in general, and we are trying to investigate the factors that are going to affect Uber and Yellow Taxi pickups in New …
Sacrifice, Benefit, And Reciprocity: Evidence From A Trust Game, Mirco Dinelli
Sacrifice, Benefit, And Reciprocity: Evidence From A Trust Game, Mirco Dinelli
Honors Theses
Social preferences have generated much interest in recent economic literature. While reciprocity has been closely examined by several economists using gift exchange and other games, much of their focus is on the effect of intentions and motivations. Instead, I focus on two strictly outcome-based factors in the context of a trust game: sacrifice made by the giver and benefit received by the recipient. I attempt to isolate these influences by varying the multiplier across variations of the trust game to create comparison groups that differ in one of these factors, but not both. Unable to control for all expected sources …
Mechanism Design, Matching Theory And The Stable Roommates Problem, Yashaswi Mohanty
Mechanism Design, Matching Theory And The Stable Roommates Problem, Yashaswi Mohanty
Honors Theses
This thesis consists of two independent albeit related chapters. The first chapter introduces concepts from mechanism design and matching theory, and discusses potential applications of this theory, particularly in relation to dorm allocations in colleges. The second chapter investigates a subset of the dorm allocation problem, namely that of matching roommates. In particular, the paper looks at the probability of solvability of random instances of the stable roommates game under the condition that preferences are not completely random and exogenous but endogenously determined through a dependence on room choice. These probabilities are estimated using Monte-Carlo simulations and then compared with …
What Effects Did United Airlines' De-Hubbing Of Cleveland Hopkins International Airport Have On Cleveland Passengers?, Joshua A. Young
What Effects Did United Airlines' De-Hubbing Of Cleveland Hopkins International Airport Have On Cleveland Passengers?, Joshua A. Young
Honors Theses
This paper uncovers the effects on passengers from United Airlines’ 2014 de-hubbing of Cleveland Hopkins International Airport (CLE). Airline networks are often reorganized for efficiency; during the process, an airport may gain or lose hub operations, affecting passengers in different ways depending on the market environment. I take an empirical approach using difference-in-differences models to analyze 28 quarters of Bureau of Transportation Statistics data. I find that de-hubbing contributed to significant reductions in airfare per mile out of CLE. This is consistent with past cases of de-hubbing where low-cost carriers were present. However, quality measures, including the number of nonstop …
The Impact Weather Has On Nyc Citi Bike Share Company Activity, Mark Martinez
The Impact Weather Has On Nyc Citi Bike Share Company Activity, Mark Martinez
Journal of Environmental and Resource Economics at Colby
This paper seeks to figure out the effect weather has on individuals’ behavior. A more focused approach to determining this effect is seeing how different weather conditions ranging from the temperature, the precipitation, the amount of inches of snowfall and the wind speed effect the ridership of Citi Bikes throughout all four seasons. The approach of this research paper is using data from the National Climatic Data Center that focuses in on the weather found in Manhattan, New York and correlates each of the weather conditions to the total number of trips per day that is provided by the Citi …