Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Medicaid Expansion: Changes In Individual Health Outcomes, Julie Norman

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

The Affordable Care Act is one of the biggest changes in the American healthcare system in the 21st century. One element of the ACA is medicaid expansion, which opened up federal funding for states to cover any individual earning below 138% of the federal poverty line. 21 states expanded medicaid in 2014 while 12 haven’t expanded. This paper utilizes the disparity for a natural experiment to determine the efficacy of the program. Outcome variables of interest include measurements of individual health, health access and utilization, and premature death rates. The results indicate positive, but small improvements due to the policy, …

A Look At The Controversies Of The United States Export-Import Bank, Bo A. Johnson

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

The Ex-Im Bank is the official export credit agency of the United States. The Bank was established in 1934 to aid a depressed economy and foster global trade. Ex-Im was mandated to improve economic conditions and international trade by providing financial assistance where the private sector fell through, while not competing against private firms. The bank has four main tools to perform its responsibilities - direct loans, loan guarantees, working capital financing, and credit-export insurance.

The Ex-Im Bank has enjoyed a long history of strong bipartisan support. Opposition surfaced in the late 2000's leading to an Ex-Im temporary shutdown. The …

The Affordable Care Act: Five Years Later, Andrew Dana Izatt

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

The challenges facing the American health care system are well known and manifold. The United States pays substantially more for its health care than any other developed, industrialized nation. Per capita health care spending in 2012 was $8,745, up from $356 in 1970 without marked improvements in life expectancy, quality of life, or outcomes. But despite all of our health spending, large portions of our population go without health insurance. Being uninsured carries real consequences. A report published in the American Journal of Public Health, by researchers at Harvard Medical School, using statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and …

The United States Credit Rating Downgrade: European Reaction, Brian Scott Roseman

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

The purpose of this paper is to answer the important question of how investors viewed the debt obligations from European countries in reaction to the United States credit rating downgrade by Standard and Poor’s on August 5 2011. During this period there were a handful of countries in Europe that still had AAA ratings. This paper looks at the reaction of investors towards Europe, through the medium of Credit Default Swaps (CDSs). By analyzing the changes in CDS spreads, I am able to determine the perceptions of investors regarding the risk of European Sovereigns during the timeframe surrounding the U.S …

Essays On Population Aging And Social Security In The U.S., Shantanu Bagchi

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Over the past few decades, falling birth rates and increasing life expectancies have threatened the viability of social security programs all across the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). In this dissertation, I attempt to shed some light on the extent of the crisis that the social security program in the United States (U.S.) currently faces, and I also recommend one possible reform policy. In the first essay, I provide an alternative estimate of the impact of population aging on the future social security benefits in the U.S., while accounting for the household-level and macroeconomic adjustments to population aging. …

The Effect Of Right-To-Work Laws On Unionization In The United States, H. Craig Petersen, Keith Lumsden

Economics and Finance Faculty Publications

State right-to-work laws, the subject of considerable controversy in the industrial relations field, typically state that no person will be required to become a union member or, conversely, be required to abstain from union membership as a condition of obtaining or retaining employment. Little hard evidence exists on the effect of right-to-work laws. Meyers (1955) concludes that in Texas the law does not appear to have had a noticeable impact on union strength. Kuhlman (1955) finds that the Virginia law has caused little change in hiring practices, and he cites lack of enforcement as a major cause. Novit (1969), in …

The Supply Of Public School Teachers In The United States: A Study In Human Capital Theory, Andrew W. Bacdayan

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This study uses the principles of human capital theory to develop and test a theory of a supply of a class of educated manpower services with special reference to school teachers.

In the theory formulation, the determinants of the existing stock of teacher education capital are first identified. These are: (a) the price per man-year of teaching service, WTS, (b) the rate of interest, r, (c) the price of the human capital already embodied in the individual working for a college degree in teacher education, WCS, and (d) private costs of education such as foregone earnings and tuition fees, FERTN. …