Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Evaluating The Impacts Of Respondent Errors In Arms: A Case Of Farm Service Agency Loans, Louise Nicole Mcminn

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Many studies have used the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS) to research various aspects involving the agricultural sector in the United States. Since nonresponse and inaccurate reporting may cause significant bias in statistical analysis, research was conducted to determine the magnitude of response error on the farm debt section of the ARMS Phase III. A multinomial logit model identified demographic, structural, and financial characteristics of FSA Farm Loan Program (FLP) borrowers who refused to indicate if they had end of year farm debt, or who accurately or inaccurately classified their farm operations as having end …

Information Propagation In Financial Markets, Garrett A. Mcbrayer

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation consists of three essays which examine information flows through financial markets and across firms, and investigates the factors affecting the process of information dissemination. The first essay examines whether the announcement of a credit rating change for a given firm contains information pertinent to the valuations of intra-industry peer firms. I identify an information spillover effect on peer firms surrounding credit rating downgrades. Further, I find that the post-announcement spillover effects are indicative of an overreaction in the market’s response to the downgrade announcement. Peer firms exhibit predictability in their post-announcement returns as a function of their relative …

Three Essays On The Economics Of Foreign Aid, Hongwei Song

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Recent years have seen a burgeoning interest in the issue of foreign aid especially in the context of developmental economics. As foreign aid is designed to help those less-privileged nations with developmental objectives such as poverty reduction and/or economic growth, fundamental questions include whether aid has been effective and what motivates donors to provide aid. This dissertation is composed of three essays that examine different issues concerning foreign aid. First, I focus on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and its impact on aid allocation among sectors. If specification of the MDGs affected aid flows, it should be observed that more …

Environmental Reliability Of Thin Film Sealing On Thick Film Ltcc, Charles R. Bourland

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As electronic components and systems become more intricate and expand into new realms of use case scenarios, new materials systems must be explored. With new systems comes the balancing acts of cost and reliability. Presented here is a thesis that explores a new hybrid-electronics packaging system using low temperature co-fired ceramics, referred to as LTCC. An LTCC system was designed to explore the environmental reliability of numerous thick film LTCC features and parameters. A key element was to explore how a thin film metallization stack up used to cap or seal underlying thick film structures would decrease environmental susceptibility while …

Failure To Launch? Understanding Variations In Emerging Adult Flight Patterns, Christina Ashley Williams

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

What does the transition to adulthood look like for emerging adults? This study proposes that popular cultural ideas like "failure to launch" imply an oversimplified dichotomy that does not account for the multiple "flight patterns" into adulthood. Focusing on the narratives of six interview cases selected from the larger sample of interviewees from Wave 4 of the National Study of Youth and Religion and drawing on the quantitative data from the broader survey sample, this mixed-methods approach examines in-depth, narrative experiences and the ways structural barriers vary between upper-middle, lower-middle, and working class emerging adults. We find that emerging adulthood …

An Exploratory Study Of Spending Patterns, Obstacles And Traditions Among Same-Sex Marriage Vs Heterosexual Marriage: Who's The Bigger Spender?, Lydia Perritt

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated if there was a significant difference in the amount of money spent on same-sex weddings versus heterosexual weddings. The results of this study would assist both the wedding and hospitality industry by providing much needed financial and planning information.

A descriptive, four-section survey was distributed online via Qualtrics utilizing snowball sampling. A total of 152 respondents participated in the study; 84 heterosexual and 68 LGBTQ. The respondents completed the questionnaire that measured wedding traditions, wedding spending, obstacles and challenges faced during their wedding and wedding planning, and demographic information.

The results of this study indicated that same-sex …

Ex Ante Analysis Of Price And Trade Effects For The Rice Sector In The Transatlantic Trade And Investment Partnership, William Lawrence Jacobs

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In 2013, trade negotiations began between the United States and the European Union to create a free trade agreement with the goal of phasing out tariffs for all but the most sensitive products. To aid negotiators in analyzing potential agriculture agreements, the objective of this study is to quantify policy impacts of a potential trade liberalization of rice. This study will also be a useful analysis for various participants in the rice market to make educated business decisions.

This study utilizes the spatial partial equilibrium model RICEFLOW to project the differences in market prices, production volumes, trade volumes, and consumption …