Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Randomized Tax Deadlines Can Help Economy, Julio C. Urenda, Olga Kosheleva

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Purpose: While the main purpose of reporting -- e.g., reporting for taxes -- is to gauge the economic state of a company, the fact that reporting is done at pre-determined dates distorts the reporting results. For example, to create a larger impression of their productivity, companies fire temporary workers before the reporting date and re-hire then right away. The purpose of this study is to decide how to avoid such distortion.

Design/methodology/approach: We want to make our solution applicable for all possible reasonable optimality criteria. Thus, we use a general formalism for describing and analyzing all such criteria.

Findings: We …

On Factor Models With Random Missing: Em Estimation, Inference, And Cross Validation, Sainan Jin, Ke Miao, Liangjun Su

Research Collection School Of Economics

We consider the estimation and inference in approximate factor models with random missing values. We show that with the low rank structure of the common component, we can estimate the factors and factor loadings consistently with the missing values replaced by zeros. We establish the asymptotic distributions of the resulting estimators and those based on the EM algorithm. We also propose a cross validation-based method to determine the number of factors in factor models with or without missing values and justify its consistency. Simulations demonstrate that our cross validation method is robust to fat tails in the error distribution and …

Applied Microeconomics And Business Intelligence In The Digital Age, Thomas J. Weinandy

Dissertations

The Digital Age is defined by advances in big data, low-cost computing, and modern analytical methods. In three chapters, I apply microeconomic thought to the influence these digital technologies have on business and consumer decision-making.

Chapter One considers how Transportation Network Companies (TNCs) like Uber and Lyft impact the relationship between the quantity of car service trips and fuel prices. I find that a single day 1% increase in fuel prices is associated with a 0.367 to 0.486% decrease in the number of TNC trips and a 0.033 to 0.088% increase in the number of taxi trips, even though the …

Understanding Modern History Of International Food Law Is Key To Building A More Resilient And Improved Global Food System, Michael T. Roberts

Journal of Food Law & Policy

This article advocates the need for a history of the development of modern international food law and suggests an analytical approach to complement the chronicling of events. Comprehension of this history will help elucidate the evolution of a complicated modern global food system, including its resiliency and vulnerability as demonstrated by Covid-19, thereby providing valuable context for change in the system where needed. This essay makes the case for such a history in three parts. First, it briefly demonstrates the need for a historical perspective through a critical examination of a journal article that speaks to Covid-19 food security in …

Socializing Vacancy: An Architectural Thesis, Greg Winawer

Architecture Senior Theses

A large portion of office space has been left vacant, and thus provides no beneficial program to its remaining occupants or the local urbanity it is surrounded by. When considering what can be done with this vacant space, the primary motivation should be to integrate a program which does the opposite: a program which positively disrupts its existing context to hybridize and improve the current outdated programmatic arrangement. To insert a residential program into an existing office tower both disrupts and enhances the rigorous flows of our working and our domestic lives. The predefined universal concept of the ‘working-day’ is …

Three Essays On International Trade, Renjing Chen

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

In the first chapter, we develop an estimation procedure to identify the partial (direct) effects of the GATT/WTO membership on variable and fixed trade costs, respectively. This procedure extends the techniques of Anderson and Van Wincoop (2003) on the structural relationship of multilateral resistance terms and of Helpman, Melitz and Rubinstein (2008) on the structural modeling of trade incidence. We then develop a general equilibrium framework (that allows for the presence of zero trade) to simulate the impact of variable, fixed, and total trade cost changes on the firm-level trade structure (including the bilateral export productivity cutoff, the weighted/unweighted extensive …

School Reopenings, Mobility, And Covid-19 Spread: Evidence From Texas, Charles J. Courtemanche, Anh Le, Aaron Yelowitz, Ron Zimmer

Institute for the Study of Free Enterprise Working Papers

This paper examines the effect of fall 2020 school reopenings in Texas on county-level COVID19 cases and fatalities. Previous evidence suggests that schools can be reopened safely if community spread is low and public health guidelines are followed. However, in Texas, reopenings often occurred alongside high community spread and at near capacity, likely making it difficult to meet social distancing recommendations. Using event-study models and hand-collected instruction modality and start dates for all school districts, we find robust evidence that reopening Texas schools gradually but substantially accelerated the community spread of COVID-19. Results from our preferred specification imply that school …

Studying Successful Ageing: A Showcase Of The Singapore Life Panel, Jee Yuen Yew, Jia Wei Gwee, Anirudh Srivathsan

ROSA Research Briefs

In this special issue of the ROSA Research Brief Series, we showcase two aspects of the work being done at the Centre for Research on Successful Ageing (ROSA). Firstly, we showcase the capabilities of the Singapore Life Panel (SLP) and the data that the SLP is able to obtain and measure on a monthly basis. Secondly, we showcase the amazing work of the SGUnited Traineeship Programme’s Research Assistants at ROSA who have proven themselves to be incredible assets in helping further ROSA’s aims of enabling successful ageing in Singapore. ROSA aims to measure well-being among older adults holistically in order …

Byzantine Empire Economic Growth: Did Climate Change Play A Role?, Thomas E. Lambert

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Different chroniclers of the history of the Byzantine Empire have noted various economic data gleamed from historical documents and accounts of the empire at different periods of time. Research for this paper has not uncovered any estimates of long term, annual macroeconomic data (gross domestic product (GDP), national income (NI), etc.) for the empire during its existence. Such data has been estimated to one extent or another for other nations and societies that have existed during the middle ages. This paper attempts to provide conjectures on approximate real GDP per capita trends for the empire over its existence from AD …

(Wp 2021-02) Attribute Substitution, Counterfactual Thinking, And Heterodox Economics, John B. Davis, Theodore Koutsobinas

Economics Working Papers

This paper examines how attribute substitution (AS), central to the psychology of choice and behavioral economic reasoning, can be understood when combined with counterfactual thinking (CFT), often called ‘what if’ or ‘if only’ thinking, and how their combination creates important opportunities for the seeing heterodox economics as a single research program alternative to mainstream economics. The first section of the paper discusses AS, CFT, and what a AS-CFT behavioral framework involves, and then emphasizes how this framework departs from fundamental assumptions mainstream rational choice theory employs. The second section reviews the foundations of behavioral thinking regarding AS, describes what it …

How Has Covid-19 Affected Financial Gains Of Big-Tech Companies?, Erin Flanigen

Finance Undergraduate Honors Theses

This study investigates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the financial returns received by Big-Tech companies in order to predict future financial returns and related business activities. The main objectives of this paper are to delineate business models and financial statements of Big-Tech companies prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic, present ample, relevant economic information regarding COVID-19, and encompass the effects of COVID-19 on global economies. This study then predicts the future economic effects of COVID-19 on Big-Tech companies. The selected Big-Tech companies included in this study are Facebook, Alphabet (Google), Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon; each company saw …

Jr. And Sr. High At-Risk Students Within Poverty: Formation Of The Mentor-Mentee Program In Addressing Their Needs, John J. Noggle

Doctor of Ministry Projects and Theses

In the Spring of 2015, I was driving toward Southwest Arkansas to my new appointment at Stamps First United Methodist Church. As I was driving further south on Highway 71, I began to notice how poverty-stricken South Arkansas was. Towns that were once the commercial service centers to their communities contained empty store buildings and little economic life. It was then that I knew that the majority of children in South Arkansas were At-Risk children in poverty. I felt a call in my Spirit to help those in need by developing a plan of action to help them in meeting …

Economic And Cost-Effectiveness Analysis Of The Community-Level Interventions For Pre-Eclampsia (Clip) Trials In India, Pakistan And Mozambique, Jeffrey N. Bone, Asif R. Khowaja, Marianne Vidler, Beth A. Payne, Mrutyunjaya B. Bellad, Shivaprasad S. Goudar, Ashalata A. Mallapur, Khatia Munguambe, Rahat Qureshi, Zulfiqar Ahmed Bhutta

Woman and Child Health

Background: The Community-Level Interventions for Pre-eclampsia (CLIP) trials (NCT01911494) in India, Pakistan and Mozambique (February 2014-2017) involved community engagement and task sharing with community health workers for triage and initial treatment of pregnancy hypertension. Maternal and perinatal mortality was less frequent among women who received ≥8 CLIP contacts. The aim of this analysis was to assess the incremental costs and cost-effectiveness of the CLIP intervention overall in comparison to standard of care, and by PIERS (Pre-eclampsia Integrated Estimate of RiSk) On the Move (POM) mobile health application visit frequency.
Methods: Included were all women enrolled in the three …

The Impact Of Covid 19 On The Selected Turkish Financial Indicators: Empirical Evidence From Toda Yamamoto Causality Test, Sabri Burak Arzova, Bertaç Şakir Şahin

Topics in Middle Eastern and North African Economies

Humanity has suffered from COVID 19 since December 2019. A global pandemic was declared by World Health Organization on 11 March 2021 (WHO, 2019). Pandemics such as bleeding fever, cholera, SARS, MERS, and swine flu have affected humanity throughout history. During pandemic periods, the measures, panic, decline in labor power, and consumption cause economic crises. Like other pandemics, COVID 19 has negative effects on countries, businesses, and households economically (Eichenbaum, Rebelo, and Trabandt, 2020: 1). Many studies have found a statistically significant relationship between public health variables (life expectancy, maternal mortality, etc.) and the economy (Bloom and Sachs, 1998; Robalino …

Divorce And Suicide: A Subnational Analysis In Turkey, Tolga Aksoy, Burak Yerlikaya

Topics in Middle Eastern and North African Economies

This paper investigates the relationship between divorce and suicide in Turkey. To this end, we employ province-level data between 2008-2017 and estimate two-way fixed-effect models. We find that divorce is positively correlated with suicide, with greater effects for males than females. However, the coefficient estimate of divorce on suicide is smaller for the prime working-age group. Divorce also has an indirect impact on suicide through income and unemployment. Accordingly, low income and high unemployment exacerbate the effect of divorce on suicide. Finally, results indicate that divorce increases the skilled male suicide rate and unskilled female suicide rate. These results are …

(Wp 2021-03) Social Economics, John B. Davis

Economics Working Papers

This chapter explores the evolution and contribution of social economics to modern political economic analysis. It reviews the origins and early history of social economics, discusses more fully recent postwar social economics, and then identifies new themes in social economics’ current research agenda. Social economics is distinguished from classical political economy and contemporary neoclassical and mainstream economics – and, indeed, from most other political economic approaches – by its goal of explaining and premising the concept of ‘social’ in economics. Its main organising principle is that the economy is embedded in human society rather than vice versa. Second, the chapter …

An Exploration Of The Impact Of Economic Recessions On The S&P 500 And Its Sectors, Weston Sizemore

Finance Undergraduate Honors Theses

The Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) is a method of predicting future stock prices based on past returns. Specific areas of CAPM analysis utilize regression analysis to accomplish this goal. Historic prices and returns for a specific stock in a company, or even whole sectors of the economy, are compared with the corresponding returns for the market. There have been several historical recessions in United States history, as well as a current, ongoing recession. These recessions, along with their causes and effects, will be discussed extensively in this paper. This paper utilizes an analysis of the Capital Asset Pricing Model …

Can Small-Scale Poultry Initiatives Alleviate Food Insecurity And Increase Empowerment For Women In Economically Disadvantaged Areas?, Patrick Daniels

Accounting Undergraduate Honors Theses

In the summer of 2019, I, along with 8 other students from the University of Arkansas departed the United States for the Central American country of Belize. Despite our limited knowledge of what Belize held in store for us, we were enthusiastic about the coming months. While we had different projects, we all set out with the same universal question in mind. How can we use the knowledge we have gained through education to make a positive impact on the lives of people living in an impoverished town? Some of the members of our team worked alongside local businesses to …

Effects Of Covid: Non-Essential V Essential Industries, William Shipley

Accounting Undergraduate Honors Theses

As the year 2020 has finally come to an end and the end of Covid is in near sight, it is important for us to look back at how it has shaped the world from an economic perspective. Ever since the closure of most of the U.S. and global economy in March 2020 it has made us deem which companies we consider essential and non-essential. This major decision came as all governments across the world had to close the operations of as many companies they could to limit the spread of the covid-19 virus. This major choice of determining what …

Are Small Businesses The Framework For A Successful U.S. Economy?, Carson Clevenger

Accounting Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis will investigate the impact of small businesses on the United States’ economy. I will be assessing several impact areas including gross domestic product, employment, and local economy contribution. This thesis will cover a study from the time periods of 1998-2014 of the gross domestic product and employment levels and will use numbers from the years of 2018- present for other impact areas. Furthermore, I will be analyzing certain sectors of the economy, comparing small businesses contribution to corporate contribution, in order to discuss if small businesses are necessary for our country’s successful economy.

Deconstructing Urban Sprawl: Differing Perspectives On A Pervasive Problem, Angela Simonetti

Honors Scholar Theses

Urban sprawl, broadly defined, describes the uncontrolled geographic expansion of cities and towns, oftentimes resulting in haphazard developments with relatively low-density land use and heavy dependence upon automobiles. This is, however, only one of many definitions, as urban sprawl, while an increasingly popular term in many disciplines, does not seem to have a standard definition. This poses numerous problems for those who wish to delve deeper into understanding it and its implications. Consequently, this project offers a discussion and analysis of the various conceptions of urban sprawl throughout an array of different academic disciplines with an emphasis on the environmental, …

The East Texas Housing Market In 2021 – May 2021, Manuel Reyes-Loya, Marilyn Young

Hibbs Newsletter

This issue of the Hibbs Newsletter complements the past issue of the Hibbs Brief, The Housing Market: Will It Crash or Boom in 2021?, with recent figures related to the U.S. mortgage rates and some of the most relevant housing market indicators for the East Texas area.

The Impact Of Socioeconomic Status On Single Women, Catherine Martens

Marketing Undergraduate Honors Theses

Since its formation in the 1700’s, America has been home to varying degrees of discrepancies between social classes, which include assumptions inherently held within these differences. Considering the fact that America was largely built by the hands of human slaves ruled by those with political influence often landowners, social hierarchy has been intricately woven into the fabric of America’s story from the beginning. Despite the progress that has been made to create and advance equal economic opportunity, there is still a considerable lack of social mobility available for those in lower socioeconomic statuses. More specifically, the impact of poverty is …

Covid-19: A Black Swan?, Ben M. Uehlinger

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

A Black Swan, as termed by Nassim Taleb, is an unexpected, high magnitude event that is often rationalized in hindsight. 9/11 and the Financial Crisis of 2008 are two examples of these tail probability events. Though COVID-19 has been regarded as momentous and unexpected, Taleb does not credit it as a true Black Swan. This paper aims to compare COVID-19 to these recent Black Swans in terms of predictability and significance. Cointegration was tested across 11 major sectors. Further economic indicators were explored with the goal of discussing the broader context of each event. It was concluded that COVID-19 was …

The Cost Of Crime: A Study On Human Trafficking, Kirsten Krug

Applied Economics Theses

Human trafficking is a billion dollar industry that impacts hundreds of thousands of individuals each year. Each year the United States alone spends millions of dollars on law enforcement programs designated to combat human trafficking.

This thesis examines the impact of those programs as deterrents for individuals who are willing to commit this type of violent crime, as well as why they might commit crime in the first place. In addition to providing an economic analysis of the impact of arrest and jail as deterrents on trafficking, the thesis will also look into what may cause an individual to fall …

Census Tracts, Racial Separation, And The Landscape Of Higher Education, Aaron Scholl

College of Business: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This dissertation centers on research at the intersection of labor, public, and urban economics. Chapter 1 details the role, process, and history of census tract delineation prior to each Decennial Census, and investigates short- and long-run implications of neighborhoods that receive further delineation, or become “split”. Using a difference-in-differences empirical design, I exploit Decennial Censuses from 1980 to 2010 to find that “split” census tracts increase in their proportion of Black residents and these effects persist decades. Further evidence suggests that the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program may play a role in concentrating residents in areas with greater census tract …

The Impact Of Graduate School Ranking On An Economics Professor’S Annual Earnings, Shailee Manandhar

Honors Theses

What are the economic returns to attending a more selective college? This thesis adds to the growing literature on college choices and economic returns by analyzing the effects of graduate school ranking on the annual earnings of economics professors in the United States. In order to answer this question, the author collected an original data set using publicly available salary information from a number of US-based institutions. The data in this paper uses McPherson’s ranking of US Economics Departments, h-index, and other factors collected from the individuals’ CVs to estimate the economic returns. The results from Ordinary Least Squares regression …

Consumer Motivations And Perceived Value In Online Second-Hand Luxury Fashion Shopping, Murphy Brianne Aycock

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The second-hand luxury fashion market is growing four times faster than the primary luxury fashion market and already represents a $24 billion market today (Beauloye, 2019; Siwak, 2020). Younger generations such as millennials and Gen Z are buying and selling preowned luxury products almost three times faster than any other age group (Beauloye, 2019). Digital selling platforms such as The RealReal and Vestiaire Collective are fueling the growth of the second-hand luxury fashion market (Beauloye, 2019). Despite the increased consumer interests and sales growth in the second-hand luxury fashion market, existing research has not concentrated on the underlying motivations of …

Asians And The Study Habits Of Non-Asians In The United States, Sabrina Tang

Honors Scholar Theses

In the United States, Asian American students spend an hour more per day studying than non-Asians (Hofferth et al. 2020). Chen and Stevenson (1995) attribute this to parents and peers who hold higher standards for Asian students. Compared to other races, Asian Americans tend to place a high value on education as a marker of achievement. This thesis explores whether Asian culture impacts non-Asian work ethic by examining whether non-Asians study more in geographic areas with larger Asian populations. I find statistically significant, but small increases in the study time of non-Asians where there is a greater population of Asians.

Taxes And The Incentive To Work Under Flat And Progressive Tax Systems In Slovakia, Orkhan Nadirov, Bruce Dehning, Drahomira Pavelkova

Accounting Faculty Articles and Research

This study examines the impact of taxes on the incentive to work under flat and progressive tax systems. Of particular interest are the changes from progressive-to-flat and flat-to-progressive tax conditions. To measure the impact of taxes on the incentive to work under both scenarios, we relate hours worked with the effective marginal tax rates. Using national accounts data and the Prescott’s (2004) labor market model, Slovakian work hours were examined at points in time around the adoption of a flat tax system in 2004 and a progressive tax system in 2013. In Slovakia, there was a transition from a progressive …