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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Behavioral Economics And Poverty [En Español] Behavioral Economics Y Pobreza, Daniel A. Monroy Oct 2015

Behavioral Economics And Poverty [En Español] Behavioral Economics Y Pobreza, Daniel A. Monroy

Daniel A Monroy C

No abstract provided.


Boom & Bust: The Perils Of Guaranteed Long Term Contracts. Evidence From Ops100 Performance Over The Contract Cycle, Heather M. O'Neill Jul 2015

Boom & Bust: The Perils Of Guaranteed Long Term Contracts. Evidence From Ops100 Performance Over The Contract Cycle, Heather M. O'Neill

Business and Economics Faculty Publications

This study focuses on panel data of 256 MLB free agent hitters under the 2006-2011 Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) to demonstrate that hitters, on average, increase their offensive production, measured by OPS100, during the last year of their contract and subsequently underperform the first year of the newly signed long term contract. The contract year phenomenon arises from the incentive to land a lucrative guaranteed contract for players not intending to retire. Signing a long term guaranteed contract creates an incentive to shirk (underperform) the first year of the new contract because performance and pay become unlinked and the need …


Innovation And Productivity: Evidence From China, Jingying Xu Apr 2015

Innovation And Productivity: Evidence From China, Jingying Xu

CLAS: Colby Liberal Arts Symposium

This paper investigates a lesser-known effect of innovation on the productivity of manufacturing firms in China. Innovation is a powerful vehicle for new firms to enter the market and compete with established firms. Innovation plays a key role in the productivity of firms and it matters for all types of firms, new as well as established. The ratio of new product output to the firms total outputs is used to measure innovation ability in this paper. A higher ratio is expected to have a positive impact on a firms productivity since new products are likely to be more differentiated than …


Optimal Land Conservation By State In Terms Of Gdp, Carolyn Fuwa, Robert Mccormick Apr 2015

Optimal Land Conservation By State In Terms Of Gdp, Carolyn Fuwa, Robert Mccormick

CLAS: Colby Liberal Arts Symposium

Our research analyzes and compares the different levels of conservation in terms of acres and invested dollars between states and how these different approaches to conservation effects each states production over time.


Competitive Balance And Attendance In Major League Baseball, Gary Koplik, Christopher Kennedy, Ryan Jann, Daniel Meyer Apr 2015

Competitive Balance And Attendance In Major League Baseball, Gary Koplik, Christopher Kennedy, Ryan Jann, Daniel Meyer

CLAS: Colby Liberal Arts Symposium

Competitive balance is an important issue for Major League Baseball (MLB). If there is too much separation between the best and worst teams it is believed that games become uninteresting because the season-end result is predictable. If there is too little separation fans may be uninterested because the regular season result appears to be simply luck based. The MLB offices have made strides to increase competitive balance by implementing a revenue sharing system and by adding additional playoff spots. The goal of this paper is to examine the effects of competitive balance in baseball on league wide attendance. Previous papers …


The Ecological And Economic Value Of Maine Golf Courses, Gregory Ladd, Jason Buco Apr 2015

The Ecological And Economic Value Of Maine Golf Courses, Gregory Ladd, Jason Buco

CLAS: Colby Liberal Arts Symposium

What is the housing premium and induced impacts of tourism attributed from Maine Golf Course?


Controls On Farmland Prices In The Midwestern United States, A Time-Series Econometric Analysis From 1970-2014, William Kearney, Paco Defrancis Apr 2015

Controls On Farmland Prices In The Midwestern United States, A Time-Series Econometric Analysis From 1970-2014, William Kearney, Paco Defrancis

CLAS: Colby Liberal Arts Symposium

Farmland prices in the American Midwest are finally starting to come off of a historic bull-market run that is seen in many counties that make up District 7 of the Federal Reserves Bank (the Chicago Fed) skyrocket to well in excess of ,000 per acre. In our analysis we look at how much control different variables had on the sharp uptick in farmland prices that was experience in the late-2000's. We have compiled data from 1970 through Q4 of 2014 that came from the Chicago Fed (county-level and regional average farmland prices and agricultural loan interest rates), the USDA (figures …


Effects Of War-Time Escalation On Immigration Attitudes In The United States, Dylan Smith, Anthony Ramirez Apr 2015

Effects Of War-Time Escalation On Immigration Attitudes In The United States, Dylan Smith, Anthony Ramirez

CLAS: Colby Liberal Arts Symposium

Immigration Policy is a highly divisive issue in the United States, most notably recently with the Obama Administrations executive order on immigration reform and subsequent injunction by Texas Judge Andrew S. Hansen. Major influences on immigration opinion and policy include international political conflict. For example, surrounding the tragic events of 9/11 there was a large increase in xenophobic attitudes according to polls taken in the beginning of 2001 and 2002: a Gallup poll demonstrated that those wanting less immigration increased from 36% in 2001 to 52% in the following year. The goal of this paper is to observe the effect …


Predicting Need-Based Financial Aid, Connor Whitley, Camden Regan, Daniel Hyszczak Apr 2015

Predicting Need-Based Financial Aid, Connor Whitley, Camden Regan, Daniel Hyszczak

CLAS: Colby Liberal Arts Symposium

to be added later.


The Economics Of The Audubon Society Sanctuary Program For Golf Courses, Daniel Hyszczak Apr 2015

The Economics Of The Audubon Society Sanctuary Program For Golf Courses, Daniel Hyszczak

CLAS: Colby Liberal Arts Symposium

To be added later.


Preferences For Coral Reef And Fishery Management In Okinawa, Nils Carlson Apr 2015

Preferences For Coral Reef And Fishery Management In Okinawa, Nils Carlson

CLAS: Colby Liberal Arts Symposium

The valuation and estimation of key characteristics of a coral reef are of importance to policy makers in order to secure the capacity of coral reefs to supply humanity with ecological goods and services. This study sets out to estimate the willingness-to-pay for certain attributes of a coral reef and to elicit preferences for individuals regarding the key characteristics provided by the marine environment in Okinawa, Japan.


Efficient Market Hypothesis And Environmental Stocks: Market Reactions To Capital Investment In Renewable Energy Projects And The Pricing Of Environmental Securities, John Crampton Apr 2015

Efficient Market Hypothesis And Environmental Stocks: Market Reactions To Capital Investment In Renewable Energy Projects And The Pricing Of Environmental Securities, John Crampton

CLAS: Colby Liberal Arts Symposium

The focus of this paper is on the efficient market hypothesis which states that securities are all efficiently priced based on all available information. Furthermore, once an announcement is made or there is new information available, the market reacts and adjusts prices. I hope to analyze this theory and test it against environmental stocks focused on renewable energy generation (solar fields, wind turbine fields, etc.). Then, the analysis of what characteristics of a security make up the pricing of that stock, such as the price of oil, dividend yield, time of the year (cyclical factors), types of capital investments (solar …


Cost Benefit Of Cafe Standards, Brian Levinson Apr 2015

Cost Benefit Of Cafe Standards, Brian Levinson

CLAS: Colby Liberal Arts Symposium

Cost and benefit analysis of Cafe (MPG) standards and ways to improve current techniques


Rethinking How To Efficiently Fund Public Goods: An Agent-Based Modelling Of A Group Funding System Accommodating Different Human Behaviors And Influences Affecting Decision-Making, Shama Ramos Apr 2015

Rethinking How To Efficiently Fund Public Goods: An Agent-Based Modelling Of A Group Funding System Accommodating Different Human Behaviors And Influences Affecting Decision-Making, Shama Ramos

CLAS: Colby Liberal Arts Symposium

In neoclassical economics, we assume individuals generally based their decisions on their own welfare maximizing their utility. Due to this assumption, we created a tax system in order to provide public goods so that no one will act as a free-rider. Nonetheless, this system only provides general optimal utility instead of optimal utility for each individual. Because of the set assumption that humans only seek self-interest, economists overlooked other significant factors affecting peoples decision-making processes. In this research, I applied an agent-based model in order to take in consideration other factors affecting human decision-making and propose a new system in …


Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Through Grassland Restoration In The Upper Midwest, United States: A Spatially-Controlled Cost-Benefit Analysis, Paco Defrancis Apr 2015

Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Through Grassland Restoration In The Upper Midwest, United States: A Spatially-Controlled Cost-Benefit Analysis, Paco Defrancis

CLAS: Colby Liberal Arts Symposium

The global agriculture sector is responsible for close 20% of gross anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions emitted since the start of the industrial age. Much of these emissions are attributed to the degradation of soils due to land use change when native ecosystems were converted to agricultural fields. Soil organic carbon (SOC) has been found to decrease in temperate soils when the native (such as a forest or grassland) ecosystem is replace by croplands. The aggregate amount of organic carbon stored in soils globally is estimated be 3.3x the size of the atmospheric carbon pool. Further soil degradation and reduction …


Wins And Revenues, Kenny Jacobson, Thomas Brewster, Grace Mcvey, Peter Mcauliffe Apr 2015

Wins And Revenues, Kenny Jacobson, Thomas Brewster, Grace Mcvey, Peter Mcauliffe

CLAS: Colby Liberal Arts Symposium

No abstract provided.


What Priorities And Strategy Should The G-20 Adopt For Inclusive And Sustainable Development, Sumru G. Altug Apr 2015

What Priorities And Strategy Should The G-20 Adopt For Inclusive And Sustainable Development, Sumru G. Altug

SUMRU G ALTUG

No abstract provided.


Economic Analysis Of Flight Delay, Nathan D. Boettcher Mar 2015

Economic Analysis Of Flight Delay, Nathan D. Boettcher

Seaver College Research And Scholarly Achievement Symposium

Our project began as an investigation into the phenomenon of flight delay. We approached this problem with two goals in mind. First, we used mathematical statistics and econometric methods to develop a predictive model of flight delay. An improved forecasting process has obvious benefits for customers, and would additionally shed light on the factors which airports and airlines should seek to change in order to reduce flight delay. Our secondary goal was to complement this predictive research with a theoretical analysis of the incentive structure that consumers and producers face. We limited the scope of this model to delayed flights …