Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Social Security Reform: What Are The Options?, Greg Shaw, Susan Swanlund, Tari Renner

Roundtables

Recorded in 2005, this Roundtable set the social security issue in the context of public opinion, strategies of the political parties, and changes in the Medicare program. The goal of the discussion was to help citizens understand the political and economic challenges confronting the efforts to reform social security.

A transcript of this discussion is available at the download link above and to the right of this page.

Tax Reform: What Are The Options?, James Simeone, Ruth Ann Friedberg, Diego Mendez-Carbajo

Roundtables

This roundtable used the claim-objection-rejoinder format to address the strengths and weaknesses of tax policy reforms brought before the public in 2005. Using a liberal arts format, the discussion aimed to help citizens understand the principles, values and tradeoffs at stake in the tax policy debate.

Predicting Olympic Medal Counts: The Effects Of Economic Development On Olympic Performance, Xun Bian '05

Honors Projects

This paper investigates the relationship between a country's Olympic performance and its overall economic condition, including population, economic resources, and political structures. A panel data set comprising the yearly data of 1996, 2000, and 2004 are estimated by using a fixed-effect Tobit regression model. Following previous studies on this topic, population size and economic resources are measured by using population and per capita GDP. One major focus of this research is the influence of political structure on national Olympic performance. Instead of using a socialist and non-socialist dummy variable like most previous studies, I used continuous variables, political freedom (PF) …

The Effect Of Monopsony Power In Major League Baseball On The Salaries Of Players With Less Than Six Years In The Majors, Andrew Tarman '05

Honors Projects

This research attempts to measure the impact of monopsony power on baseball players with less than six years of experience. Past research indicates that players with less than six years of experience have lower salaries than players with the same productivity and more than six years of experience. To try and combat monopsonistic behavior, baseball player's formed the Players' Union and instituted an arbitration process. Through this process, a third party arbitrator listens to cases from both a player and owner and then chooses either the player's or the owner's salary bid. While this process is intended to help players …

Comparative Study: Factors That Affect Foreign Currency Reserves In China And India, Ana Maria Romero '05

Honors Projects

This paper empirically studies the accumulation of foreign exchange reserves by the countries of India and China. Particularly, it focuses on the determinants of this policy and on the role that the choice of exchange rate regime plays in driving it. Annual data points for the years between 1980 and 2003 were collected and their frequency increased to quarterly through a quadratic match process. The accumulation of foreign exchange reserves in India is best explained as a function of exchange rate volatility and the degree of openness of the economy. The impact of one-time shocks, such as currency devaluations, and …

Language Deficiency And The Occupational Attainment Of Mexican Immigrants, Elizabeth Planas '05

Honors Projects

The number of Mexican immigrants that have entered the U.S. has greatly increased over the past decade. The occupational attainment of these immigrants provides insight into how successful they are in the host country and language deficiency has an effect on this occupational attainment. By controlling for language proficiency, human capital characteristics and other variables from the IPUMS database, this project uses probit analysis to predict the probability that an immigrant will be employed in a favorable occupation in the u.s. Results show that language deficiency reduces the probability of attaining a favorable occupation, but having no English language skills …

Perceived Quality Of Asian Brands In The Automobile Industry, Adrien Gatesman '05

Honors Projects

I use a hedonic pricing model to analyze which characteristics consumers are willing to pay more for, and to determine whether consumers are willing to pay more for one specific brand name when all other factors are held constant. Section II of this paper reviews previous research on demand for automobiles. Section III develops the theory, Section IV explains the empirical model, including the data set, Section V discusses the results, and Section VI concludes with suggestions for future research.