Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Preventing Pandemics: Contributing Factors To Susceptibility During The H1n1 Pandemic, Melanie A. Zilora

Honors Capstone Projects - All

This paper uses Poisson and ordinary least squares (OLS) regression techniques on panel data from the United Nations World Health Organization’s FluNet to evaluate factors contributing to a country’s H1N1 influenza (swine flu) pandemic outcomes. Countries with higher development (as measured by gross domestic product and the United Nations Human Development Program’s development index) and higher mean annual temperature (as measured in the capital city) tended to have an earlier first reporting of cases. Though subject to reporting biases, the results also suggest that mass vaccinations have a negative effect on weekly reported cases. Countries that would vaccinate in the …

The Effects Of Walmart On Healthcare And Unionization: Is America Really Saving Money And Living Better?, Leyla Ziad

Honors Capstone Projects - All

As the largest private sector employer in the United States, corporate retail giant Walmart continues to make waves in United States culture and the economy since launching its first store in 1962. As Walmart seeks to expand, the validity of its consumer guarantee to “save money, live better” has been increasingly scrutinized, given Walmart’s use of controversial business practices, most notably its employee benefit policies and anti-unionization efforts. With over 1.4 million employees in the United States, there is much talk surrounding the potential costs of Walmart’s low prices. This study analyzes selected healthcare and unionization impacts of Walmart in …

Essays On Foreign Direct Investment, Agglomeration And Productivity, Fariha Kamal

Economics - Dissertations

This dissertation investigates the role of foreign direct investment and agglomeration economies in the process of industrial development, with a focus on the productivity of manufacturing firms. The first chapter analyzes the importance of the source of foreign direct investment on the performance of domestic Chinese firms. The second chapter studies the interaction between foreign and domestic manufacturing firms operating in the same industry and located within the same Chinese city. The third chapter examines the response of multinational companies to changes in domestic institutions. My findings highlight the importance of the source of foreign direct investment, proximity to economic …

Essays On Testing Hypotheses When Non-Stationarity Exists In Panel Data Models, Sang Gon Na

Economics - Dissertations

This dissertation consists of two essays on testing hypotheses in panel data models when non-stationarity exists in the model. This is done under the high-dimensional framework where both n (cross-section dimension) and T (time series dimension) are large. In the first essay, I discuss the limiting distribution of the t-statistic; using different panel data estimators and propose using the t-statistic based on Feasible GLS estimator. In the second essay, I develop the bootstrap F-statistic for cross-sectional independence in a panel data model with factor structure.

The first essay considers the problem of hypotheses testing in a simple panel data regression …