Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Green Bonds, Green Returns: The Impact Of Green Bond Issuances On Financial Performance In The U.S. Energy Sector, Adora Lei

Honors Theses

This paper investigates the impact of green bond issuances on the financial performance of U.S. energy firms, the largest greenhouse gas-emitting sector. To explore the incentives for adopting green projects among firms with the most significant margin for improvement, I focus on Gross Profit Margin (GPM) and the Tobin’s Q Ratio as key indicators of profitability and valuation. Using a dataset of 462 companies, I analyze green and conventional corporate bond issuances from 2010 onwards in the context of their financial reports. The findings reveal that green bonds positively influence long-term valuation, with Tobin’s Q showing significant increases from the …

From Arrival To Citizenship: Assessing Refugee Resettlement In Canada, Ethan S. Kanef

Honors Theses

In this thesis, I examine the role of private sponsorship mechanisms in the resettlement of refugees in Canada. Private sponsorship allows citizens and organizations to do more to help those who need assistance, though there are positives and negatives to this program and concerns about its long-term stability. My thesis discusses the impacts of these resettlement mechanisms as a whole, based on a review of prior scholarship and interviews conducted in Montreal and Toronto. I focus on the refugee experience before arrival and the role of different application processes and culture in Quebec. After arrival, the paper examines economic and …

Black Rhino Conservation And Ranger Wellness In Namibia, Terra Gallo

Honors Theses

Wildlife rangers play an essential role in conserving biodiversity worldwide. Until recently, little was known about ranger working conditions and welfare. In 2019 the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) released a report that summarized survey results about ranger wellness from 7,110 rangers across multiple continents. However, the WWF study had geographic gaps and did not survey rangers from southern Africa, including the Republic of Namibia. In Namibia, rangers in the Kunene region are central to the conservation of the desert-adapted black rhino. Save the Rhino Trust (SRT) is a Namibian organization that supports rhino rangers and black rhino conservation. The aim …

Responding To Hurricane Maria: The Role Of Mutual Aid Societies In Withstanding Federal Failures, Caitlin Bracken

Honors Theses

Through a combination of research and interviews, this paper unpacks the policies that expose colonialist realities and how Puerto Rican mutual aid societies engaged with those policies in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. Policies and decisions such as cabotage law under the Jones Act; the quality of Puerto Rican bonds being triple-tax exempt; the inability to refinance or default on debt; the Insular Cases and other Supreme Court cases; and PROMESA, have established a colonial relationship with significant material and political consequences for Puerto Rico. These consequences were brought to light after Hurricane Maria, where the U.S.’s inadequate response resulted …

The Impact Of Signing Bonuses, Age, And Country On Mlb Success: Evaluating Investment Returns In The Mlb International Amateur Free Agent Market, Elliot Wolf

Honors Theses

MLB’s International Amateur Free Agent Market provides teenagers across the world opportunities to sign, develop, and potentially fulfill their dreams of playing in the MLB. It also allows teams to sign players at young ages, increasing the amount of time players can develop within a team’s minor league system. While signing bonus decision-making is backed up by a team’s scouts and data, the signing bonus a player receives is rarely a reflection of their future value. I argue that teams are not spending this money optimally. However, in an environment where players have low acquisition costs and volatile performance outcomes, …

Empowering Diversity: Unveiling The Impact Of Affirmative Action Policies On Intersectional Identities In Indian Village Councils, Auroshree Pani

Honors Theses

This study investigates the intersectional effects of affirmative action policies within the con- text of rural local councils in India. Utilizing the natural experiment provided by the randomized implementation of reservation policies in Uttar Pradesh’s gram panchayats, this research exam- ines how the intersectionality of marginalized identities—specifically gender and caste—affects policy outcomes. Employing data from the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guar- antee Act (MGNREGA) and gram panchayat elections from 2015 and 2021, the impact on job demand and public asset creation is evaluated. The findings reveal that while female leaders gen- erally improve job demand and public asset creation, …

The Effect Of Postpartum Depression On New Mothers' Return To Work Decisions, Nicole Walutes

Honors Theses

Postpartum depression rates in the United States have doubled since 2010, with potentially significant economic consequences. In this study, I examine the relationship between postpartum depression and new mothers’ labor force participation using a national longitudinal dataset of 738 new mothers. I examine two labor force participation outcomes: whether or not a new mother returned to work postpartum, and the number of days it took for her to do so if she returned. I include a detailed set of demographic and social control factors. I find that conditional on these controls, having postpartum depression relates to a statistically insignificant 4.73 …

Autopathography Across Media: Trauma And Fluid Embodied Subjectivity, He (Kristen) Shen

Honors Theses

Illness memoirs with first-person point of view have gained more attention in recent years among medical sociologists and anthropologists. Different from traditional “case histories”written by doctors that are in danger of ignoring patients’ voices, autopathograhical works delineate narrators’ transformative experiences of persons to patients, emphasizing the importance of gaining social understanding of illness. Focusing on three works within the category of autopathography across genres and media forms in the late 1950s and contemporary periods, The Cancer Journals (1980) written by Audre Lorde, The Collected Schizophrenias (2019) written by Esmé Weijun Wang, and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007) directed …

Sustainable Frameworks & The Circular Economy Within Digital Marketing & Advertising Agency Groups, Angelique Bautista

Honors Theses

Digital marketing significantly contributes to the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of marketing and advertising agencies. Despite efforts towards corporate sustainability, discrepancies in carbon accounting and sustainability practices persist across the industry. An increasingly relevant topic for many industries is the circular economy (CE). It is concerned with creating a structured and cyclical sustainable practice and/or operation. This research paper examines the intersection of the CE and environmental sustainability initiatives in global digital marketing, analyzing sustainability efforts and ordinances up to April 2024, alongside theories from Science and Technology Studies (STS). Then, CE principles are explored more in-depth and the sociotechnological …

Gratuity's Role In Final Cost: An Economic Assessment Of Tipping, Haley Wims

Honors Theses

Despite tipping being an extremely common economic decision for today’s consumers, little is known about how tip amounts are incorporated into conceptions of final cost. I explore how consumers think about tipping as a component of overall cost in a counter-service restaurant (CSR) setting in which tips are not based on the quality of service received. Results of an online survey indicate that even when participants are aware that they will have to tip on an item, less than half of them (47%) actually implement this knowledge into their expectation of the final cost of their purchase. Furthermore, individual differences …

The Fourth Industrial Paradigm: The Emergence Of Artificial Intelligence As A Business Tool For Startups And Technology Companies, Evan Barr

Honors Theses

Society is currently living in an era known as the Fourth Industrial Revolution (IR 4.0), which is primarily defined by technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, which provide prediction capabilities for businesses across all industries. But how are small technology companies and startup businesses navigating the influx of future possibilities of AI? This thesis examines how governments and consulting firms portray the future possibilities of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Using Sheila Jasanoff’s concept of sociotechnical imaginaries, the research explores how these imaginaries shape AI narratives through primary documents like the Biden Administration's "Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights" and McKinsey & …

Performance And Policy Indexes In Carbon Pricing Efficacy: A Cross-Country Analysis Of Policy Impact (2012-2020), Ke (Zoky) Zhou

Honors Theses

Climate change poses a significant threat to global ecosystems and human societies, driven largely by CO2 emissions from various economic activities. This macroeconomic cross-country study empirically assesses the effectiveness of carbon pricing in reducing CO2 emissions across three periods: 2012-2017, 2015-2019, and 2015-2020. Building on the foundational research by Best et al. (2020), the analysis extends to more recent data, capturing the evolving impacts of carbon pricing amid changing global economic and policy landscapes. A key advancement in this research is the creation and integration of two comprehensive indexes—a performance index and a policy index—constructed from 14 environmental performance or …

The Social Implications Of Assisted Reproductive Technologies: An Analysis Of Feminist Discourse And Popular Media, Charlotte S. Buswick

Honors Theses

Assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) have been a valuable tool in allowing many people to have children who previously struggled with infertility. However, feminists have raised the question: what impact do these new reproductive technologies have on women? This thesis investigates the discourse around the social implications of ARTs from the seventies to the present day. Looking at both feminist literature and portrayals of ARTs in women’s magazines, I performed a discourse analysis to track how the perception of the social implications of ARTs has changed over time. I also use a science, technology, and society (STS) studies lens to look …

The Effect Of The Tax Cuts And Jobs Act Of 2017 Expansion Of The Child Tax Credit On The Distribution Of Household Chores, Joseph M. Barrett

Honors Theses

This paper investigates the effect of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA) expansion of the Child Tax Credit (CTC) on time spent doing household work in married or cohabiting households with children. Using American Time Use Survey (ATUS) data from before and after the implementation of the TCJA, I conduct a difference-in-differences analysis to determine the effect of the CTC expansion on time spent on all household chores, on historically female household chores, on historically male household chores, and on childcare. Then, using an adapted version of Bargain’s (2008) collective utility model, I simulate the TCJA expansion …

Is Energy Localized Or Gone With The Wind? An Analysis Of Iberdrola’S Wind Energy Localization Initiatives In Burgos, Spain, Mia Cromwell

Honors Theses

While renewable energy systems offer solutions to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, promote sustainable development, and foster a just energy transition, certain energy projects account for local needs while others do not. While community energy projects are known to provide localized energy benefits, less is known about large-scale companies’ abilities to foster just transitions through their energy systems. To better understand how global actors can promote a just and sustainable transition through renewable energy deployment, I explore the following research question with a focus on the global electric utility Iberdrola: To what degree does Iberdrola implement energy localization initiatives through wind …

Felling For Photovoltaics: Remote Sensing For The Detection Of Solar Facilities In Maine, James A. Lane

Honors Theses

Solar power is an area with increasing development in the State of Maine. Photovoltaic solar, which uses large arrays of panels constructed on facilities of several hectares, is an ideal renewable energy source for Maine, because of its low population density and small proportion of conserved lands. Since most of the state of Maine is forested, the development of photovoltaic solar will require increasing amounts of deforestation. Environmental impacts of this deforestation include loss of carbon sequestration, erosion, damage to habitat, and inhibition of other forest benefits. This study uses Landsat data and remote sensing to analyze a large portion …

Petroleum And The Politics Of Decolonization In Indonesia: A Study Of Economic Development And Nationalism, Jan P. Wenger

Honors Theses

This study examines Indonesia’s reliance and independence on foreign direct investment (FDI) and multinational corporations (MNCs) in the oil and gas sector. Analyzing historical, economic, and political primary and secondary sources and conducting qualitative interviews, the research explores the friction between economic development aspirations and nationalist sentiments. The study reveals that the current ambiguity surrounding FDI and MNC policies in Indonesia’s oil and gas sector can be traced back to the country’s economic decolonization and demonstrates that Indonesia’s economic policies towards these factors shifted in the aftermath of political change. Since gaining independence, Indonesia has strived to balance the pursuit …

The Lie-Brary Of Congress: Misinformation’S Grip On The American Legislative Process, Caleb Bitting

Honors Theses

This thesis investigates the influence of misinformation on the policy-making pro- cess by examining its temporal relationship with congressional speech on the floor of Congress. Through the application of Granger causality tests, I aim to determine the extent to which misinformation permeates political discourse and affects representatives from both political parties. My findings reveal that misinformation drives congressional speech on certain issues, and it appears to have an asymmetrical impact on Republicans and Democrats. While not set up to answer the question about a false dichotomy, my thesis hints that Republicans spread significantly more systems-based misinformation than their Democratic counterparts.

Who’S Laughing Now? Satire’S Effect On Negative Partisanship, Emma West

Honors Theses

“Negative partisanship,” most basically defined as the phenomenon whereby Americans largely align against one party instead of affiliating with the other, has grave implications for democracy: it has already affected productivity in Congress, the acceptance (rather, lack thereof) of election results (e.g. 2016), and watered down the importance of ideology in American politics. Parsing the independent variables that influence negative partisanship is vital in combating its detrimental effects, and this project proposes satire as a possibility. An analytical history of both topics is explored. Interestingly, psychological mechanisms for interpreting satire and the out-party share many similarities in mechanisms of subjective …

Food As A Vector For Change: Lessons From The Third Sector On Improving Livelihoods With Nutritional Knowledge In Medellín And Bogotá, Solomon Treister

Honors Theses

In this thesis I argue that improving diet in communities depends on building nutritional knowledge. In examining the role of community level organizations, I look specifically at how knowledge is conveyed through agriculture and gastronomy. This project analyzes how civil society organizations work to reintegrate individuals into food systems, compelling consumers to take agency over their diets and pursue better livelihoods. The industrialization of food systems has fundamentally changed the way humans connect with food and diet. In Colombia, internal displacements and urban migration have accelerated a loss of connection with the land and food processes. At the same time, …

I Versus We: Social Regulations Exacerbated Tension Between Individualism And Collectivism During China’S Twenty-First Century Public Health Emergencies, Duan Wang

Honors Theses

Since 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has been a global public health problem, which stimulated restrictions like lockdowns, public service closures, and strict border controls that disrupted individuals' life patterns to mitigate the potential transmission within communities. Intriguingly, with its adherence to the “zero-COVID tolerance” policy, China represented a unique case in the overall global reopening trend after three years of the pandemic. Such an unwavering, uncompromising stance reflected conflicts between individuals and the Chinese government regarding COVID regulations, which exposed the tension between individualism and government-proposed collectivism.

This thesis investigates strict social regulations and the exacerbated tension between individualism and …

Food And Fuel: Investigating Expert Perspectives On The Intersection Of Solar Development And Farmland In Maine, Ellie Hankin

Honors Theses

Maine has established lofty goals including a 100% renewable portfolio by 2050 and increasing local food production by 30% by 2030 (Final, 2020; Maine, 2020). The National Renewable Energy Laboratory conducted a study on state technical potential for solar installation and included 4% of Maine farmland, equivalent to 52,000 acres being taken out of the food system for energy generation (State, 2021). Increased pressure on farmers and demand for solar installations has created a land-use conflict. This study investigates expert perspectives on the intersection of solar development and farmland in Maine. A total of 17 interviews with farmers, policy advocates, …

Instadamn –The Power Of Instagram’S Platform As An Instigator And Indicator For Offline Political Participation Among Young Adults, Natalie Davidson

Honors Theses

Over the past decade, exposure to various forms of political content on social media, as well as social media usage for political means, has been studied by scholars as a link to predicting offline political participation by social media users. While evidence has been gathered that categorizes activity on the platforms of Facebook and Twitter as potential influencers and predictors of offline political behavior, the literature on the political relevance of Instagram as a predictor of offline political participation has yet to be fully explored. Additionally, although younger generations have historically participated in some forms of political behavior (particularly voting) …

When In Rome, Do As Meloni And Salvini Do: Dissecting The Potentially Extreme Nature Of The Political Communication Of Italy's New Right-Wing Populist Duo, Thomas S. Erie

Honors Theses

The fundamental question that this research project aims to answer is: what are the defining characteristics of the style and rhetoric of the communication practices of Italian right-wing populist leadership and how do they relate to those of fascism? After the Italian elections of 2022, in which a right-wing populist coalition led by Giorgia Meloni and Matteo Salvini came to power, further research is necessary to understand the potential implications of this electoral result. Political communication has developed in recent years to shift towards direct communication from the leader to their base through social media and speeches published on YouTube. …

Examining The Impact Of Living Arrangements On Children's Academic Achievement, Rachel G. Coan

Honors Theses

In my paper I examine how different living arrangements impact how well a child performs in school. The living arrangements are: living with both biological parents, living with biological mother, and living with biological father. Using a linear regression method, I regress living arrangements against GPA and find that children who do not live with both of their biological parents are expected to perform about 0.3 GPA points worse in school than children who do. With added control variables the difference in predicted GPAs decreases. Additionally, I find that living arrangements aren’t predicted to impact children differently depending on their …

Stereotype Threat In Older Adults’ Episodic Memory Tests: Susceptibility And Protection, Talia Barrett

Honors Theses

The objective of the present study was to investigate whether prior task success would protect older adults against stereotype threat in an episodic memory test. Previous experiments have established that, whereas stereotype threat negatively impacts older participants’ episodic memory performance, prior task success benefits it. However, up until this point, researchers had yet to combine the two manipulations to test their joint effect on episodic memory. Participants were randomly assigned to read a stereotype threat or neutral passage, after which they were placed in the success or no success group. Participants next received a stereotype condition reminder, and they then …

Complexities Of Community Consultation In Chile's Lithium Industry, Isabella R. Whelan

Honors Theses

Echoed by November’s COP27 in Egypt, the climate crisis has become an increasingly pressing and global issue, with the need to move away from fossil fuels more urgent than ever. In attempts to decarbonize the global economy, many countries and companies have turned to electrification –particularly within the transportation sector, one of today’s largest contributors of greenhouse gasses. A crucial component of energy storage and batteries is lithium, now considered a “critical mineral.” Demand for lithium has skyrocketed in recent years and is only expected to continue growing. More than fifty percent of the world’s lithium supply is found within …

“…To Represent The Needs Of The Residents—Not The Needs Of The Outsiders” California’S Housing Crisis And The Dilemma Of Local Control, Ravi S. Joshi-Wander

Honors Theses

This thesis examines the role played by city-level governments in determining the availability of housing within their locale. I propose an overarching hypothesis that features of government which provide greater opportunity for the public to influence their local governments will lead to a decreased availability of housing. This hypothesis is tested over the course of two chapters. First, through an analysis of cities throughout California, the effect of different structural features of government are tested against several dependent variables which measure housing availability in a series of linear regressions. A statistically significant positive correlation is found between the presence of …

The Legislative Branch Revolves Around The White House: A Copernican Understanding Of The Evolving Relationship Between The President And Congress, Lukas K. Alexander

Honors Theses

Executive-centered partisanship is a new scholarly idea that focuses on the growing centrality of the president in party and governmental affairs. Scholars have looked at the president’s growing electoral, administrative, and organizational responsibilities to support the theory. While the evidence is compelling, there is a key aspect of our Federal government that is omitted in their theory - the president’s role in Congress. In this thesis, I look at the effect that the president has on legislative voting behavior between the 107th and 116th Congresses. To analyze the data, I examine the effect of the president on Senator voting behavior …

The Perceptions And Practices Of Japanese Identity In Contemporary France, Sara Gardner

Honors Theses

France is well known for promoting dominant white ideals of “Frenchness” over all others, stemming from the French republican ideal of culture-blind and colorblind universalism.. This universalism, however, is often criticized for glossing over individual heritage and struggles, and studies surrounding this issue often focus on ethnic groups that have made headlines, such as Muslim and North African populations in France. But what about less studied communities, such as the Japanese in France? These less studied populations are worth investigating as we can look at their experiences to further understand the impact of French nationalism. Through a primarily interview-based ethnographic …