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Articles 1 - 11 of 11
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Do Weapons Make Warfare? An Instrumental Variables Approach Towards Investigating The Relationship Between Small Arms Abundance, Civil Conflict Onset, And Civil Conflict Intensity, Gabriel S. Barrett
Do Weapons Make Warfare? An Instrumental Variables Approach Towards Investigating The Relationship Between Small Arms Abundance, Civil Conflict Onset, And Civil Conflict Intensity, Gabriel S. Barrett
Political Science Honors Projects
Scholars, journalists, and policymakers frequently attribute the intensity and onset of civil conflict to the abundance of small arms. However, the direction of causality has been difficult to assess due to a lack of data on the illicit small arms market and the plausibly endogenous relationship between the abundance of weapons and civil conflict. Using a new dataset of estimated small arms prices, I determine that a decrease in the price of small arms is significantly and negatively correlated with an increase in the intensity of conflict in the following year. I also determine that small arms prices increase in …
Building Research Skills In The Macalester Economics Major, J. Peter Ferderer, Gary Krueger
Building Research Skills In The Macalester Economics Major, J. Peter Ferderer, Gary Krueger
Faculty Publications
Economics majors at Macalester College have won numerous awards for their research papers, and this success has helped them land jobs in finance, consulting, and the nonprofit sector, as well as gain admission to top graduate programs. This article describes how the Economics Department at Macalester promotes economic research among its students.
Can The Rise Of Dual-Earning Households Explain Gentrification Of Us Central Cities?, Stefan F. Faridani
Can The Rise Of Dual-Earning Households Explain Gentrification Of Us Central Cities?, Stefan F. Faridani
Economics Honors Projects
The last four decades have seen a return of high-earning households to central cities. The consequences are urban renewal on the one hand and soaring inner-city rents on the other. In this paper I extend a monocentric city model of income sorting and urban rents to examine whether increases in the number of two-earner households can explain recent patterns of gentrification. I then present evidence from Washington DC that, among the young and married, the rich are shortening their commutes while the poor are lengthening theirs. However, among the unmarried, no such trend is discernible. These facts support the model's …
Food Crises And Asset Liquidation: Household-Level Evidence From Tanzania, Ibrahima Dieye
Food Crises And Asset Liquidation: Household-Level Evidence From Tanzania, Ibrahima Dieye
Economics Honors Projects
This paper studies the effects of food crises–large and sudden increases in food prices–on asset liquidation. Substantial research exists on household food insecurity as a result of a food crisis, but studies on households’ coping strategies have so far been limited to natural shocks such as flood, drought, and financial crises. In this paper, I use an adapted version of the asset-based poverty trap model to explain households’ use of asset liquidation as a coping strategy when faced with food crises. To test my theory, I employ a household-level panel data set from Tanzania that covers the years 2008, 2010, …
How Does Technology Affect Skill Demand? Technical Changes And Capital-Skill Complementarity In The 21st Century, Yifan Gong
Economics Honors Projects
This paper attempts to examine technology’s impact on the labor market through the lens of skilled labor. Technical changes in the late 20th century are skill-biased in nature, because they are found to complement with skilled labor who are adept at adopting new technologies. However, recent studies document a lower demand for high-skilled labor in the 21st century, compared with the late 20th century. Are technologies starting to substitute for human skills instead of complementing them? Drawing on the wage share data from 1975 to 2015 for 18 sectors in the United States, I find strong and robust evidence of …
Loans And Fertilizer Use: The Effect Of Timing In Pineapple Production In Southern Ghana, Jessica Timerman
Loans And Fertilizer Use: The Effect Of Timing In Pineapple Production In Southern Ghana, Jessica Timerman
Economics Honors Projects
In this study, I explore if the timing of credit in the pineapple production cycle affects fertilizer use at the first crucial application period in Southern Ghana. Using unique survey data collected at six-week intervals, results of Probit and Tobit models suggest that total credit has no effect on fertilizer use, but an additional dollar of credit specifically during the time of interest significantly increases the probability of fertilizer use by 0.138% and the amount of fertilizer by 0.797%. Findings suggest that credit should be targeted during agronomically important periods for input use in order to maximize the effect of …
Emotion And Decision Making: Effects Of Anxiety On The Shape Of The Decision Weight Function, Nicole Caicedo
Emotion And Decision Making: Effects Of Anxiety On The Shape Of The Decision Weight Function, Nicole Caicedo
Economics Honors Projects
Prospect Theory (Tversky & Kahneman, 1992) asserts that people make decisions not on the basis of final states, but in relation to gains and losses experienced from a reference point. Furthermore, when making decisions under uncertainty, the weights assigned to outcomes and their associated utilities are not, as in expected utility theory, equal to the probabilities of those outcomes. Rather, the weights used in expected utility calculations have an “s-shaped” relationship with the underlying probabilities so that people have a tendency to overweight low probability events and underweight high probability events. Currently, there is no clear explanation for why this …
Do Payday Lending Bans Harm Consumers? Evidence From The Pawn Market, Karlyn Russell
Do Payday Lending Bans Harm Consumers? Evidence From The Pawn Market, Karlyn Russell
Economics Honors Projects
Payday lending is a highly controversial form of short-term, small-dollar credit that is banned in 13 states. Proponents of payday lending claim it provides a needed service to low-income families, and that bans take away options for these consumers, while its detractors claim it exploits vulnerable borrowers. I analyze the behavior of consumers in the market of a substitute, pawn shops, and find that consumers in states where payday lending is banned use pawn shops significantly more than consumers in states where payday lending is legal. This indicates that bans on payday lending could harm consumer welfare instead of preventing …
The Good Guy Game: When Firms Reduce Carbon Emissions, Do Profits Increase?, Kevin Fortune
The Good Guy Game: When Firms Reduce Carbon Emissions, Do Profits Increase?, Kevin Fortune
Economics Honors Projects
No abstract provided.
To What Degree Do Retail Electricity Prices Inform Residential Solar Energy Investment Decisions?, Megan M. Davitt
To What Degree Do Retail Electricity Prices Inform Residential Solar Energy Investment Decisions?, Megan M. Davitt
Economics Honors Projects
The relationship between electricity price and household solar photovoltaic (PV) adoption has not been thoroughly studied. How much would a carbon tax, and increase in electricity price, spur growth in residential solar? This paper adds to the literature with a utility-level panel analysis. Consumer choice theory provides the framework for the empirical models. I use electricity price and net metered solar PV capacity data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA). Through a variety of specifications, I control for both utility and state-year effects. My findings suggest that electricity price is significantly positively correlated with solar adoption, with an estimated price …
The Impact Of Conditional Cash Transfers On Nutrition: Evidence From Mexico, Natalie Kronebusch
The Impact Of Conditional Cash Transfers On Nutrition: Evidence From Mexico, Natalie Kronebusch
Economics Honors Projects
In this paper, I study the effect of Oportunidades, a conditional cash transfer program in Mexico, on the micronutrient and macronutrient levels of program recipients. Overall, I find that Oportunidades has a positive, significant impact on micronutrient acquisition for Oportunidades beneficiaries. Program participants consume 20.5% more vitamins and 10.1% more minerals than individuals living in non-treatment households. This change could be critical for reducing rates of micronutrient deficiencies in low- and middle-income countries. Furthermore, I conclude that although Oportunidades induces higher micronutrient consumption, program recipients also consume higher levels of calories, fat, and sodium, all of which could be …