Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Elusive And Complex Parabolic Relationship Between Terrorism And Gdp Per-Capita, Kianna Becker

Honors Capstones

The 21st century saw a dramatic focus on terrorism after the events of September 11, 2001. The search for an explanation for the causes of terrorism have led economists to turn to the role of GDP on terrorism. This research aims to search for a pattern in the relationship between GDP per-capita and acts of terrorism. Previous research has pointed towards both a positive and negative trend. The stark different findings in previous research attests to the various ways terrorism is measured and analyzed. Encapsulating the previous research, this research merges the two theories and aims to show there is …

The Spatial Associations Between Crime And Economy In Chicago 2015-2020, Hongtao Huang

Honors Capstones

The severity of the crime is often the most intuitive reflection of whether a region is safe and the top factor for the public when evaluating a region. Economist's list of the safest cities in seven major North American cities, Chicago was ranked at six, just above Dallas. Chicago scored the lowest in personal security, which is closely tied to the crime. Against the backdrop of higher unemployment and prices, this study is interested in how property-based crimes are related to the economic decline in Chicago geographically. The study used the heterogeneity analysis tool Geodetector to investigate the correlation between …

Grocery Sales And The Pandemic, Joy A. Salentine

Honors Capstones

The focus of this paper is to examine the impact of COVID-19 on grocery sales in the United States. My hypothesis is that periods with higher COVID-19 severity, measured through the number of COVID-19 deaths, will show higher grocery sales, all things equal, due to the increased demand during the unusual circumstances of the pandemic. Using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S Department of Agriculture, and the Bureau of Economic Analysis, I perform a regression analysis to test my hypothesis. The results confirm my hypothesis by showing that there is a positive and significant effect …

Effect Of Cash Transfer On Household Fertility Choice And Children's Human Capital Accumulation In Uganda, Shaila Ahmed

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This analysis examines the effects of conditional and unconditional cash transfer on household fertility decisions and other indicators of human capital accumulation. To test my hypotheses, I rely on the UCT and CCT sub-arms of the Cash-Plus Program recently implemented in Uganda. The design of the Cash-Plus Program follows randomized control trials for intervention. My empirical findings show that the Cash-Plus Program have no discernible impact on beneficiary households' pregnancy incidence. The only effect on the primary outcomes of interest is a marginally significant effect for household heads aged 25 to 49, who received unconditional treatments. The results also show …

Three Essays Examining The Effects Of Labor Market Conditions On College Enrollment And Completion, Dezhi Jiang

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This research explores the causal effects of labor market conditions on college enrollment and attainment of high school graduates and answers the following questions: Does leaving high school in unfavorable labor market conditions cause a higher probability of college enrollment? Is this effect different between gender and across racial/ethnic groups? Does this effect vary regarding cognitive ability? Does this effect change over cohorts/generations? And does the positive effect on college enrollment in the short run translate into a positive effect on college degree attainment later?

The analysis that uses the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97) data suggests that …

Three Essays Examining The Impact Of Paid Maternity Leave Offers On Women’S Labor Market Outcomes, Murshed Jahan

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation consists of three essays on the relationship between paid maternity leave benefit offers and different labor market outcomes of women of childbearing age. The first essay examines the impact of paid maternity leave offers in fringe benefit packages on wages of this particular group of women. Since the access to paid maternity leave and wage can be simultaneously determined by other factors, this essay uses an instrumental variable approach to estimate the effect. The information on access to paid maternity leave and other covariates for this analysis is extracted from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97). …