Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Zoom In, Class Out: An Event Study On Publicly Traded Ed Tech Firm Valuations During Covid-19, Matiss Ozols

CMC Senior Theses

This paper examines how publicly traded Ed Tech firms reacted to negative announcements regarding COVID-19. Using an event study method, I document how an international portfolio of Ed Tech firms react across multiple event windows. The results show that Ed Tech firms reacted positively to the announcement of the first US death and negatively to the World Health Organization’s declaration that COVID-19 was a pandemic. Additionally, differences in geographical location did not impact cumulative abnormal returns across event windows. Finally, firm-specific characteristics such as volatility and financial leverage had little or no significance on stock returns.

The Motherhood Wage Penalty: New Evidence On Long-Run Effects And Group Heterogeneity, Vera Kratz

CMC Senior Theses

This paper seeks to establish the magnitude of the long-run motherhood wage penalty. Using data from the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, I examine the difference between the real hourly wages of mothers and non-mothers in the long run. By comparing mothers to not-yet-mothers as well as never-mothers, I am able to better isolate the true wage penalty mothers face. My findings indicate that 21 to 25 years after the birth of their first child, mothers face a 31.75 percentage point wage penalty compared to non-mothers. In addition, I examine differences in the wage penalties of mothers by marital …

Converged Subset Portfolios: An Extension To Subset Optimization, Coleman Cornell

CMC Senior Theses

The limited span of useful data, coupled with increasingly expansive asset universes, cripples the traditional mean-variance problem. When optimizing in these environments, the pronounced effect of estimation error yields extremely unstable portfolios when evaluated out-of-sample. As a proposed solution to the "curse of dimensionality," Gillen (2016) presents subset optimization as a technique to reduce the impact of estimation error. Instead of optimizing jointly over the entire asset universe, subset optimization na\"ively aggregates over many "subset portfolios" that each optimize over a much smaller random sample of assets. Given the inefficiencies when using naive aggregation, converged subset optimization is presented as …

Feature Investigation For Stock Returns Prediction Using Xgboost And Deep Learning Sentiment Classification, Seungho (Samuel) Lee

CMC Senior Theses

This paper attempts to quantify predictive power of social media sentiment and financial data in stock prediction by utilizing a comprehensive set of stock-related fundamental and technical variables and social media sentiments. For conducting sentiment analysis, this study employs a pretrained finBERT model that provides three different sentiment classifications and respective softmax scores. Hence, the significance of these variables is evaluated with XGBoost regression and Shapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) frameworks. Through investigating feature importance, this study finds that statistical properties of sentiment variables provide a stronger predictive power than a weighted sentiment score and that it is possible to quantify …

Gambling Autonomy: The Impact Of Latin American Central Bank Independence On Risk Aversion Within Monetary Policy Implementation, Julia Duarte Schulman

CMC Senior Theses

This paper examines the effect of Latin American central bank independence (CBI) on risk-averse behaviors in monetary policy. Using a fixed effects panel regression, I document how multiple forms of monetary policy are influenced by different macroeconomic variables, conflicting policy targets and central bank independence benchmarks. The results show that increasing CBI has a positive impact on risk aversion, especially in policies targeting inflation and money supply. Additionally, the results show that interest rates and reserve requirements were especially susceptible to changes in independence, while the monetary base and volume of domestic credit were less influenced. Finally, as time and …

The Socioeconomic Impact And Allocative Discrepancies Of Fema Disaster Declarations And Aid, Emma Ranheim

CMC Senior Theses

In my thesis I examine the impact of natural disaster declarations on socioeconomic outcomes. I use counties that requested, but did not receive, a natural disaster declaration as controls for treatment counties that received the requested declaration. I construct a county-by-year panel dataset covering 2005 to 2016. I estimate a difference-in-differences model to estimate socioeconomic outcomes resulting from the disaster declaration decision. I find that receiving a declaration was associated with a 0.8 percentage point poverty reduction in 2010, but no other years or changes in socioeconomic outcomes were causally and significantly established by my model.

Determinants Of Housing Supply Expansion In The Western United States, Nathaniel Tolles

CMC Senior Theses

New residential construction is an important indicator of economic health. Previous empirical work demonstrates the profound power of housing starts in forecasting recession. Theoretical research, backed by empirical study, suggests that home prices and interest rates are closely related to the amount of residential investment. This paper attempts to better understand the complex relationship between various factors that influence the supply and demand of new housing; what information do suppliers and regulators use to determine how many new units of housing will be constructed? Specifically, we will look at the respective state housing markets of California, Oregon, and Washington by …

Not From My Wallet: Mental Accounting For Peer-To-Peer Digital-Payments, Jason Saltzman

CMC Senior Theses

This paper examined the presence and scope of mental accounting biases for peer- to-peer digital-payment systems (Venmo, PayPal, and Zelle) that have gained popularity in recent years. Payment mechanism related biases have implications for both consumers and retailers. The experimental study in this paper looked at different aspects of biases including how participants evaluate and account for money transferred through peer-to- peer digital-payment, if participants treat this money as completely fungible, and if treatment of this money is affected by demographic variables. Participants in the study were split into two treatments that differed only in regard to the account (peer-to-peer …

Understanding Place-Based Immigration: The Proposal, Its Popularity, And Its Prospects, Mohamad Moslimani

CMC Senior Theses

The idea to create a new class of place-based visas is gaining traction in policy circles. These visas, known in some instances as “heartland visas” and as part of a class of immigration reform called “place-based immigration” (PBI), are designed to give state and local governments the ability to sponsor immigrants to live and work in their local communities. The proposal has gained traction among a variety of candidates for federal office and local immigration policy stakeholders. The reason for this support is the proposal’s ability to address a grave issue facing numerous communities across the U.S.—and its ability to …

Would “Robot Umpires” Reduce Discrimination? Measuring Racial Bias In Major League Baseball Umpires, Hank Snowdon

CMC Senior Theses

Utilizing thirteen years of Major League Baseball pitch-tracking and play-by-play data, this study investigates racial discrimination by umpires when making pitch calling decisions. Two models are formulated, one that predicts the probability of a strike erroneously being called a ball (batter favoritism) and one that predicts the probability of a ball erroneously being called a strike (pitcher favoritism). The probabilities are modeled as a function of whether or not the pitcher’s or batter’s race is the same as the umpire’s. With over 3 million pitch observations, multiple sub-sample and time trend analyses are conducted to examine with whom the discrimination …

Sufficientarianism Revised: A Look At Past Theories Of Distributive Justice And Working Prospects For Future Theories, Georgia Dietz

CMC Senior Theses

In philosophy, distributive justice is the economic, political, and social structure that constitutes a larger debate on how resources should be divided in society. What is a ‘fair’ way of distributing resources? Many philosophers have created different frameworks that attempt to answer this question. This paper will focus on the attempts that have been made by sufficientarians, then look at problems with these theories that have been pointed out by critics, and finally attempt to revise sufficientarianism altogether.

‘It’S Like Baking A Cake’: An Analysis Of Conscience Voting In The New Zealand House Of Representatives Since The Introduction Of The Mixed-Member Proportional System In 1996, Harrison Hosking

CMC Senior Theses

Conscience voting in the New Zealand House of Representatives offers a unique opportunity to assess Sam Peltzman’s ‘Principal-Agent Theory’ as outlined in his 1984 paper, Constituent Interest and Congressional Voting.

This thesis begins with a brief assessment of the principal-agent model (and other literature regarding parliamentary representation) before looking at the New Zealand Parliamentary system and the phenomenon of private member’s bills and how they aid the legislative process. This is followed by an exploration of a constructed dataset of conscience votes that have occurred since the inception of the mixed-member proportional (MMP) electoral system in 1996. An analysis …

An Evaluation Of Knot Placement Strategies For Spline Regression, William Klein

CMC Senior Theses

Regression splines have an established value for producing quality fit at a relatively low-degree polynomial. This paper explores the implications of adopting new methods for knot selection in tandem with established methodology from the current literature. Structural features of generated datasets, as well as residuals collected from sequential iterative models are used to augment the equidistant knot selection process. From analyzing a simulated dataset and an application onto the Racial Animus dataset, I find that a B-spline basis paired with equally-spaced knots remains the best choice when data are evenly distributed, even when structural features of a dataset are known …

A Network Pandemic: Exploring The Effects Of Social Connectedness On The Spread Of Covid-19 In The United States, Mrinalini Bhushan

CMC Senior Theses

Social interactions influence the way we think and act. Recent literature on COVID-19 and social connectedness explores how social interactions influence people’s perceptions of the risk from COVID-19 and their behaviors. This paper seeks to investigate how social connectedness, political ideologies, and physical interaction are associated with local COVID-19 case and death rates at the US county level. Social connectedness, as defined by (Bailey et al, 2018) measures connectedness between US counties based on Facebook friendship links. I examine whether a county’s average social connectedness to other counties, as determined by the Facebook index, has an impact on its own …

Diversifying Investment Portfolios With Collectible Sneakers: Expected Returns And Benefits Of Diversification, Samuel Soo

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis seeks to identify if collectible sneakers can provide diversification benefits to an investor’s portfolio. Using data from a global collectible sneaker marketplace, StockX, I constructed an index to compare it with other traditional assets, including the S&P 500 index and 5-year US Treasury Bills. By calculating key metrics including expected returns, volatility, and correlation, I analyzed the risk-return characteristics of the collectible sneaker asset class compared to other traditional asset classes. From the data analysis I performed, I found that collectible sneakers did not outperform returns significantly compared to traditional asset classes, but had low correlations, which provides …

Dropping The Ball: A Political And Economic Analysis Of Public Subsidization For Stadium Construction Projects, Max Fisher

CMC Senior Theses

The results generated by this research argue that the high cost of public subsidization does not outweigh the benefits associated with new stadiums. By using several cost-benefit analyses, my research adds to the current literature that these projects, while seemingly beneficial for communities, induces negligible or even negative outcomes. In particular, this study details the Las Vegas Raiders and the New York Yankees, explaining how these teams were able to achieve a new stadium. To understand why politicians continually support stadium construction despite extensive literature showing its harms, this research includes explanations based on the political theory from authors such …

Information Prioritization: A Comparison Between Utility Maximizers And Probability Matchers, Yusuf Ismaeel

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis examines the differences between probability matchers and utility maximizers in their preferences for information sources in a lab environment. In this paper, we consider the best source of information to be the most connected one. We conducted several linear probability model type regressions along with logit regressions. Furthermore, we also attempted to control and fix any potential misclassifications in classifying the cognitive strategy by using instrumental variables. The results show that utility maximizers will almost always choose the most informed node. Probability matchers, on the other hand, do not exhibit such a behavior as the probability matching strategy …