Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Sociohydrodynamics: Data-Driven Modeling Of Social Behavior, Daniel S. Seara, Jonathan Colen, Michel Fruchart, Yael Avni, David G. Martin, Vincenzo Vitelli

Data Science Faculty Publications

Living systems display complex behaviors driven by physical forces as well as decision-making. Hydrodynamic theories hold promise for simplified universal descriptions of socially generated collective behaviors. However, the construction of such theories is often divorced from the data they should describe. Here, we develop and apply a data-driven pipeline that links micromotives to macrobehavior by augmenting hydrodynamics with individual preferences that guide motion. We illustrate this pipeline on a case study of residential dynamics in the United States, for which census and sociological data are available. Guided by Census data, sociological surveys, and neural network analysis, we systematically assess standard …

Volatility Of The Usd/Chf Exchange Rate At The Beginning Of The Covid-19 Pandemic, Anna Gaweł, Janusz Kudła

Journal of Banking and Financial Economics

Purpose

We address the problem of forecasting USD/CHF volatility at the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis. We chose popular currencies (Swiss franc and American dollar) in the period 1.07.2020 to 31.12.2020.

Design/methodology/approach

We employed several volatility models, including APARCH, EGARCH, GJR-GARCH, TGARCH, and GARCH-MIDAS, on high-frequency USD/CHF data. Particular emphasis was placed on asymmetric models to capture volatility asymmetry.

Findings

The highest volatility occurred during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Volatility forecasts are most accurate with EGARCH and GARCH-MIDAS models that incorporate long-term asymmetry, particularly when predicting volatility over a longer planning horizon. GARCH-MIDAS models with short-term asymmetry …

Multidimensional Monotonicity And Economic Applications, Frank Yang, Kai Hao Yang

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We characterize the extreme points of multidimensional monotone functions from [0,1]ⁿ to [0,1], as well as the extreme points of the set of one-dimensional marginals of these functions. These characterizations lead to new results in various mechanism design and information design problems, including public good provision with interdependent values; interim efficient bilateral trade mechanisms; asymmetric reduced form auctions; and optimal private private information structure. As another application, we also present a mechanism anti-equivalence theorem for two-agent, two-alternative social choice problems: A mechanism is payoff-equivalent to a deterministic DIC mechanism if and only if they are ex-post equivalent.

How Air Travel Became Safer Through Cashless Service, Alan Saquella

Publications

In an age where convenience, efficiency, and security reign supreme, air travel has adapted accordingly. One notable change: the elimination of cash payments on board for food, drinks, and other purchases. This shift away from bills and coins did not happen by accident, it reflected a deliberate focus on safety, security, and smoother operations.

Employment Status And Evaluation Of Government Performance In Covid-19 Containment : Evidence From China, Jinye Chen

Lingnan Theses (MPhil & PhD)

Evaluation of government performance of citizens is crucial for regime stability as it could help authoritarian regimes to identify and address brewing problems before they fuel public discontent. It can also act as a potential mechanism for improving government performance and public services and establishing a good image of government. Following the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, Chinese government has adopted the zero-COVID policy to keep cases as close to zero as possible until December 2022. China’s job market also faced big pressure from the economic downturn caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. The pandemic is a shock that impact the …

Nba Player Types And Salaries: Assessing The Disparities In Pay, Nick Riccardi, Rodney J. Paul

Sport Management - All Scholarship

The purpose of this study was to identify player types that exist in the modern National Basketball Association (NBA), test whether player types are paid differently controlling for performance and other factors and construct successful rosters with cheaper payrolls.
We collected performance statistics and salary data for players and teams across five seasons (2018-19 to 2022-23). Cluster analysis is leveraged to group together player-seasons to identify the player types that exist in the NBA. Linear regression models are run to test for differences in pay by cluster membership while controlling for performance, age, and contractual details. Linear programming simulation models …

Impact Of Accounting Information Systems And Islamic Organizational Culture On Information Quality, Oelma Arfannur Azizi, Busra Busra, Marjulin Marjulin

Arab Economic and Business Journal

Amid growing demands for transparency and accuracy in financial management, an effective Accounting Information System plays a crucial role in ensuring that financial data is accurately. However, the implementation of such technology must be supported by a strong organizational culture,. The method employed in this research is a quantitative approach, utilizing inferential statistics to explain the impact of various research variables. The statistical tool used is Structural Equation Modeling -. The results of this study indicate that both the Accounting Information System and Islamic Organizational Culture have a positive and significant impact on the quality of accounting information

The Gift Of Giving: Recognizing Donors And Revealing Donation Amounts, K. Pun Winichakul

Economics: Faculty Publications

Publicly announcing how much individuals donate on behalf of themselves is a common fundraising strategy. For tribute gifts made on behalf of others, however, charities only reveal donor identities to the honoree with few revealing the size of their contributions. This paper examines the fundraising consequences of recognizing donors with and without information about donation amounts when notifying honorees of gifts made on their behalf. I find that revealing contribution amounts in addition to recognizing donors benefits fundraisers. I find that both the likelihood of giving on behalf of others and contribution amounts increase when honorees learn how much donors …

Family Ties: Nba Draft Position And Player Performance, Nick Riccardi, Rodney J. Paul

Sport Management - All Scholarship

This study aims to investigate the role, if any, that nepotism plays in the careers of players in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Career performance is compared between the 780 players drafted from 2007-2019 with familial relationships considered. Ordinary Least Squares and logistic regression models are specified to estimate the effect of having a relative on the success of an NBA player’s career. We find that siblings of NBA players earn more and reach minimum games played thresholds more often, while sons of NBA players earn more, but generally do not reach games played thresholds more often than similarly-drafted peers.

Tariffs And Trade Deficits, Lorenzo Caliendo, Samuel Kortum, Fernando Parro

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We develop a dynamic multi-country Ricardian trade model with aggregate uncertainty, where trade imbalances emerge as countries exchange goods and assets. We introduce a method for computing counterfactuals in this setting, which doesn't require specifying the stochastic process of shocks or solving for asset prices. Applying the model to tariff shocks, we quantify their effects on prices, income, spending, and trade imbalances. We find that higher U.S. tariffs reduce the U.S. trade deficit through general equilibrium adjustments, but raise domestic prices and lower real consumption. Our findings highlight that movements in trade imbalances are shaped by the structure of global …

Housing Crisis Outlook In Mountain West Metros, 2023, Kian Parikh, Yiselle Olivas Ruiz, Ivan Sun, Olivia K. Cheche, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Housing & Real Estate

This fact sheet presents 2023 data on housing market conditions in seven large metros across the five Mountain West states of Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah. The Lending Tree report, “Portland, Ore., Has Worst Housing Crisis Outlook – Here’s Why,” includes data on the 100 largest metros in the U.S. This fact sheet focuses on housing crisis outlook data for Mountain West metros appearing among the largest 100 metros in the nation: Phoenix, AZ; Tucson, AZ; Colorado Springs, CO; Denver, CO; Las Vegas, NV; Albuquerque, NM; and Salt Lake City, UT.

The State Of The Unions 2025: A Profile Of Organized Labor In New York City, New York State, And The United States, Ruth Milkman, Joseph Van Der Naald

Publications and Research

Organized labor has taken center stage in the 2020s, with workers leading successful organizing drives at Amazon, Starbucks, Apple, and across a range of industries from health care to higher education. Public approval of unions has reached its highest level in decades, and a new generation of workers is stepping forward as leaders in the movement. The State of the Unions 2025 provides the most comprehensive profile of organized labor in New York City, New York State, and the United States, highlighting where unions are growing, who is leading the charge, and how labor is shaping the future of work …

Can Correction Messages Reduce The Spread Of Fake News On Social Media? The Impact Of Information Updates On The Effectiveness Of Corrections, Kelvin K. King, Diego Escobari

Economics and Finance Faculty Publications

Although government agencies and fact-checking organizations issue correction messages to mitigate misinformation dissemination on social media, their efforts have been largely ineffective. Drawing on Information Manipulation Theory (IMT) and information extracted from over 84 million tweets, we examine the impact of correction messages and explore how different information updates affect their effectiveness. Our empirical approach differentiates between subpopulations of correction messages. The results support the existence of two distinct types: correction messages that significantly mitigate the spread of fake news—a 1 percent increase in “effective” messages decreases the spread of fake news by 0.89 percent; and those that amplify the …

The Effect Of Education Policy On Crime: An Intergenerational Perspective, Ulrika Ahrsjö, Costas Meghir, Mårten Palme, Marieke Schnabel

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We examine the intergenerational effect of education policy on crime. Using administrative data that links outcomes across generations with crime records, we show that the Swedish comprehensive school reform, gradually implemented between 1949 and 1962, reduced conviction rates for both the generation directly affected by the reform and their sons. The reduction in conviction rates occurred in several types of crime. Mediation analysis suggests that key channels include increased parental educational attainment and household income, as well as reduced criminal behavior among fathers.

Essays On Economic Behaviour, Yiting Guo

Lingnan Theses (MPhil & PhD)

My PhD thesis comprises three studies. The first study examines prosocial behavior; the second analyzes vaccination behavior; and the third investigates communicative behavior in the context of trade. Specifically, the first study investigates the impact of donation visibility on individual prosocial behavior. It develops a sequential-move model based on the prosocial behavior framework proposed by Benabou and Tirole (2006). In Stage 1, individuals decide whether to attend a charity event, and if so, in Stage 2, decide on the amount to donate. In this model, an individual’s decision to engage in prosocial behavior is influenced by three main factors: intrinsic …

Essays On The Health And Labor Market Effects Of Menopause And Menopause Hormone Therapy, Lucia Elvira Torres Frasele

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation explores how menopause and its medical management affect women’s health and labor market outcomes. Despite the centrality of reproductive transitions in the life course of women, economic research has largely ignored menopause, a biologically and socially significant milestone marking the end of fertility. This omission is surprising, given well-established medical evidence that links menopause to increased risks of health conditions that may impair the ability to work. The dissertation addresses this gap through two chapters that examine the causal impact of menopause and Menopause Hormone Therapy (MHT) on health and labor supply using two distinct empirical strategies. The …

Ectopic Adipose Tissue In Subsistence Populations With Minimal Coronary Disease, Large Left Atria, And Very Low Rates Of Atrial Fibrillation, Randall C. Thompson, Benjamin C. Trumble, Daniel K. Cummings, Angela D. Neunuebel, Paul L. Hooper, Samuel Wann, Adel H. Allam, Frances Neunuebel, Benjamin D. Gans, Samantha I. King, Edmond Seabright, Caleb E. Finch, Margaret Gatz, Kenneth Buetow, Michael I. Miyamoto, Guido P. Lombardi, M. Linda Sutherland, James D. Sutherland, Christopher J. Ward, Madeleine J. Lee, Ashna Mahadev, Daniel Eid Rodriguez, David E. Michalik, Chris J. Rowan, Tianyu Cao, Jonathan Stieglitz, Cameron M. Quick, Gregory S. Thomas, Jagat Narula, Damini Dey, Michael Gurven, Hillard Kaplan

ESI Publications

Background

Methods

Decomposing Trends In The Gender Gap For Highly Educated Workers, Joseph G. Altonji, John Eric Humphries, Yagmur Yuksel, Ling Zhong

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

This paper examines the gender gap in log earnings among full-time, college-educated workers born between 1931 and 1984. Using data from the National Survey of College Graduates and other sources, we decompose the gender earnings gap across birth cohorts into three components: (i) gender differences in the relative returns to undergraduate and graduate fields, (ii) gender-specific trends in undergraduate field, graduate degree attainment, and graduate field, and (iii) a cohortspecific “residual component” that shifts the gender gap uniformly across all college graduates. We have three main findings. First, when holding the relative returns to fields constant, changes in fields of …

Public School Funding In The Mountain West, 2020-2021, Sean Curry, Mohit Pande, Olivia K. Cheche, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

K-12 Education

This fact sheet examines the state of public school funding across the five Mountain West states of Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah. The data are sourced from the Education Law Center’s 2023 Making the Grade report, which provides data for all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. The original report provides grades for school funding, enrollment data, and funding data based on the 2020-2021 school year.

Offline Contextual Bandits In The Presence Of New Actions, Ren Kishimoto, Tatsuhiro Shimizu, Kazuki Kawamura, Takanori Muroi, Yusuke Narita, Yuki Sasamoto, Kei Tateno, Takuma Udagawa, Yuta Saito

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

Automated decision-making algorithms drive applications in domains such as recommendation systems and search engines. These algorithms often rely on off-policy contextual bandits or off-policy learning (OPL). Conventionally, OPL selects actions that maximize the expected reward within an existing action set. However, in many real-world scenarios, actions—such as news articles or video content—change continuously, and the action space evolves over time compared to when the logged data was collected. We define actions introduced after deploying the logging policy as new actions and focus on the problem of OPL with new actions. Existing OPL methods cannot learn and select new actions because …

Towards All-Under-Heaven: China’S Geoeconomic Strategy In The Asia-Pacific Region, Alfariza Dika Azzani

Global: Jurnal Politik Internasional

This research aims to understand China’s geoeconomic strategy in reshaping the alternative international order in the Asia-Pacific region. China’s economic rise increased its geopolitical influence and significance as a global great power. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) government, under Xi Jinping, has adopted classical ideas in its foreign policymaking, including tianxia. Tianxia is a classical concept of a hierarchical Sinocentric international order. An empirical study was conducted on several cases of China’s economic policy and analysed with the congruence method to determine the correlation between the tianxia concept and China’s economic policy. Tianxia served as a paradigm and justification for …

The Impacts Of Urban And Rural Education Inequality On Individual Career Development : The Case Of Guangdong Province, Shuang Chen

Lingnan Theses (Doctoral degree)

The study focused on the disparity in educational opportunities between urban and rural areas. This has been one of the most debated topics in China, especially when related to Guangdong Province. This dissertation explored how disparities in urban-rural educational outcomes influence individual career attainment and income levels and discusses the broader socio-economic implications of such disparities. This study positioned its analysis within the structural-functionalist framework and underlined how inequities in educational resources affect career outcomes. This focuses on a household registration policy called the hukou system, which has played a crucial role in determining education's access to resources and career …

How Public Education Policies Drive Economic Growth In Asean : An Analysis Of Resource Allocation Theory, Human Capital Accumulation, And Structural Transformation Pathways, Jiacheng Li

Lingnan Theses (Doctoral degree)

This study examines how public education policies influence economic growth across ASEAN nations through the theoretical lens of resource allocation theory. While ASEAN has maintained an average GDP growth rate of 5.1% since 2000, significant disparities between high-growth and low-growth economies persist in educational investment and outcomes.

Methodologically, the study conducts empirical studies and integrates panel data (1990–2023) across ten member states that underwent spatial econometrics analysis. It dissects three transmission pathways: (1) human capital accumulation enhancing labor productivity via skill development; (2) educational stratification driving industrial restructuring; and (3) spatial spillovers facilitating cross-border knowledge diffusion. These mechanisms are operationalized …

Formulation And Impact Of Wellness Tourism Policy On Household Income In Rural China, Zhuoer Zhong

Lingnan Theses (Doctoral degree)

Following the policy "Health China 2030" issued by the Chinese central government in 2016, wellness tourism has become one of the key strategic industries in China. Presently, research on wellness tourism policy in China generally focuses on market development. At the same time, there is a lack of relevant research on the extent to which policies on wellness tourism pay attention to rural revitalization and its effect on rural households. This study mainly aims to explore the Chinese government's attention to wellness tourism policy and the influence of wellness tourism policies on rural residents' income.

By using quantitative research methods, …

Trump Administration Trade Policy: A Historical Perspective And Key Questions & Takeaways, Matthew P. Schaefer

Yeutter Institute International Trade Policy Review

Offers a historical perspective with key questions and takeaways about the Trump Administration's trade policy. Covers the periods of the first Trump Presidency (2017-2021), the Biden Administration (2021-2025), and the second Trump Administration (2025-).

Low Beta Anomaly In Some European Emerging Markets, Tadeusz Winkler-Drews, Mateusz Mogilski

Journal of Banking and Financial Economics

The aim of the study was to identify the low beta anomaly and analyse the causes of its occurrence in five European emerging markets that were components of the MSCI Emerging Markets Europe index in the period 2010–2019. It was hypothesized that the determinants of the low beta anomaly in the analysed markets are factors from at least two of the three categories of variables. Using the Betting Against Beta model proposed by A. Frazzini and L. H. Pedersen (2014), we found that this phenomenon was not identified in three markets, but occurred in the remaining two markets, for which …

Factors Influencing The Performance Of Farmer-Producer Organizations (Fpos) And Their Societal Impact In Tamil Nadu, Arjune S

Theses and Dissertations

Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) are formed mainly for the farmers to have better institutional access to acquire them. They are also under the inspiration of the director's abstinence and the incentive of getting more money. These are socio-psychological individual differences and thus of importance to markets, the perception of markets, and market relevance of group interaction. Self-esteem, attitude to participation in group activities, and willingness to participate in these types of activities are of some significance for his/her performance because they have an effect on their performance afterward.

Farmer social empowerment increased but not farmer economic empowerment did so much …

Impact Of Exchange Traded Funds (Etf) Holdings On Retail Investors’ Mutual Fund Portfolios Performance, Arunachalam R Mr

Theses and Dissertations

As evidenced by the practices passed down through generations the importance of savings and investments is well established in Indian culture. Indian investors consider investment as an essential commitment to financial sustainability and safeguarding dependents. Indians implement investment strategies during their working years to ensure long term financial security and support for future generations.

These cultural practices support the foundation of personal finance in India and well established financial theories (MPT, CAPM and EMH) guide optimising investment outcomes (SEBI, 2020). The effects of inflation and increased life expectancy made Indian investors aware of the need for a substantial financial corpus …

Using Economic Data To Understand Local Childcare Challenges, Andrew J. Van Leuven, Tessa Conroy

Journal of Extension

The childcare sector holds vital implications for community development. Overcoming barriers to access and affordability requires a nuanced understanding of this complex sector, a requirement which is further complicated by limited data availability. This paper reviews key data sources and uses historical business data to explore and analyze trends in childcare establishment availability by region. Supplementing the analysis is a discussion of the implications for community economic development Extension professionals, including the importance of data literacy and the need to support local childcare providers.

Firm Capabilities Versus Regional Factors: A Random Forest Approach For Predicting Toxic Chemical Releases Among Us Industrial Facilities, Mahelet G. Fikru, Jennifer Brodmann

Economics Faculty Research & Creative Works

Predicting toxic releases remains a challenge for environmental protection, as effective regulation and mitigation depend on understanding the key drivers behind firms' pollution behavior. We examine the factors that influence firm environmental pollution by determining whether corporate capabilities or regional factors better predict toxic chemical emissions. We combine toxic releases data across 1976 industrial facilities in the United States with firm-level financial performance indicators and regional socio-demography variables to identify the most significant predictors of environmental outcomes. We use a random forest model due to its ability to capture complex, nonlinear interactions among predictors and provide robust variable importance rankings. …