Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Essays On Human Capital, Health Capital, And The Labor Market, Charles Hokayem

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation consists of three essays concerning the effects of human capital and health capital on the labor market. Chapter 1 presents a structural model that incorporates a health capital stock to the traditional learning-by-doing model. The model allows health to affect future wages by interrupting current labor supply and on-the-job human capital accumulation. Using data on sick time from the Panel Study Income of Dynamics the model is estimated using a nonlinear Generalized Method of Moments estimator. The results show human capital production exhibits diminishing returns. Health capital production increases with the current stock of health capital, or better …

Whole Farm Modeling Of Precision Agriculture Technologies, Jordan Murphy Shockley

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation investigated farm management concerns faced by grain producers due to the acquisition of various precision agriculture technologies. The technologies evaluated in the three manuscripts included 1) auto-steer navigation, 2) automatic section control, and 3) autonomous machinery. Each manuscript utilized a multifaceted economic model in a whole-farm decision-making framework to determine the impact of precision agriculture technology on machinery management, production management, and risk management. This approach allowed for a thorough investigation into various precision agriculture technologies which helped address the relative dearth of economic studies of precision agriculture and farm management. Moreover, the research conducted on the above …

Public School Choice And The Public-Private School Decision, Kylie Goggins

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation is a compilation of three studies related to public school choice issues. Chapter 2 examines whether access to public schools of choice influences a household’s decision to choose private school for their child. I employ a multistate, individual-level data-set on students and their families — for which I have been granted access to restricted geo-code information. I supplement these data by matching students with their respective school districts using geographic information systems (GIS); I then examine whether relative measures of public school choice (PSC) in a school district influence the household’s public-private school decision. I find slight evidence …

Career Interruptions: Wage And Gender Effects, Jill Kearns

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines the effects of career interruptions on workers’ wages. In chapter four I examine whether controlling for the type of interruption differently affects men’s and women’s wages and therefore can be used to explain the remaining gender wage differences. The increased participation of married women in the labor force has increased their wages from just 30% of men’s wages in 1890 to nearly 80% as of 2001. Thus, although the gender wage gap has narrowed over time, it has yet to be eliminated. One argument for the persistence of the gender wage gap is that previously researchers have …

Market Structure And Mortgage Pricing: The Role Of Information In Firm And Consumer Behavior, Abdullah A. Al-Bahrani

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation analyzes information, market structure, and firm pricing strate-gies. I begin the dissertation with an analysis of the market structure of the mortgage in-dustry. I find that the configuration of the mortgage market at its present state is vastly different than its historical structure. The reduction in the cost of transmitting informa-tion has increased the collaborative environment and facilitated the dis-integration of the supply chain. Generally, the mortgage industry has been successful at reducing principal-agent problems and minimizing asymmetric information concerns that arise in segmented markets.

In the first essay I provide a theoretical explanation of the effect of …

The Labor Market, Political Capital, And Ownership Sector In Urban China, Xi Pan

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

Over the past three decades, economic reforms have brought about dramatic changes in China. The wave of structural and economic reforms regarding the State-owned Sector (SOS), and the surge of the Non-State-owned Sector (NSOS), have influenced returns in the labor market, such as the returns concerning human capital and political capital in urban China. Presumably, the NSOS would be more marketed-oriented compared to the SOS, and it would have different returns concerning political capital, as represented by Chinese Communist Party (CCP) membership. This is likely because the NSOS would not value Party membership as much as the SOS does. The …

The Relationship Between Information Technology And Construction Productivity, Dong Zhai

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

Over the past decades, information technology has been impacting industries, economics, the way of life and even the culture throughout the world. Productivity has been attracting much attention as an important indicator of economics, and numerous researchers have investigated the relationship between information technology and productivity. Construction is one of the largest industries in the United States, but little research has been conducted to investigate the relationship between information technology and construction productivity.

The major objective of this dissertation is to determine the degree (if any) to which information technology usage, specifically the use of information technology to automate and …