Economics Commons^™

The Economic Impacts Of Forest Pathogens In Washington State: A Hedonic Approach, Logan Blair

All Master's Theses

An increase in the incidence of forest pathogens in the Western US has created new resource management issues. In this research I employ a dataset of 170,141 housing transactions in twelve Western Washington counties to quantify the impacts of parasitic forest damage on the proxy real estate market. Specifically, I estimate a set of hedonic fixed effects models to control for omitted variable bias and spatial autocorrelation. Results show statistically significant impacts on property values in the presence of species specific and aggregate defoliation, suggesting new information for forestry management and policy.

A Market-Based Approach To 3d Printing For Economic Development In Ghana, Wade Aitken-Palmer

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

The purpose of this report is to create the foundation for further study of a market-based approach to 3D printing as an instrument for economic development in Ghana. The delivery of improved products and services to the most underserved markets is needed to spur economic activity and improve standards of living. The relationship between economic development and the advancement of technology is considered within the context of Ghana. An opportunity for market entry exists within both the bottom of the economic pyramid and the mid-segment market. 3D printing (additive manufacturing) has proven to be a disruptive technology that has demonstrated …

Financial Statement Disclosure Of Carbon Footprint Costs In The Airline Industry, Carol Anne Tuck-Riggs

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Unaccountable corporate polluters profit short term at the expense of global economic sustainability. The purpose of the study was to determine if carbon dioxide (CO2) penalties on the airline emissions would result in financial statement disclosure and emission mitigation. Contributing to environmental accounting, the study was based in corporate social responsibility with a conceptual framework based on economically-centered CO2 studies. A random sample of 69 global airlines, taken from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) memberships, was stratified between EU bound and non-EU bound airlines. The research questions explored (a) the frequency mean …

Tourism And Crime: Evidence From The Philippines, Len Patrick Dominic M. Garces, Rosalina Palanca-Tan

Economics Department Faculty Publications

Using panel data gathered from 16 regions of the Philippines for the period 2009-11, this paper investigates the relationship between tourism and crime. The findings of the study show that the relation between tourism and crime may largely depend on the characteristics of visitors and the types of crime. For all types of crime and their aggregate, no significant correlation between the crime rate (defined as the number of crime cases divided by population) and total tourist arrivals is found. However, a statistically significant positive relation is found between foreign tourism and robbery and theft cases as well as between …

Global Governance And The Reduction Of Poverty And Inequality In The Post-Mdg Era: How Can The Asean-Japan Partnership Contribute?, Fernando T. Aldaba, Rafaelita M. Aldaba

Economics Department Faculty Publications

In 2000, the ASEAN member countries signed the UN Millennium Declaration to eradicate extreme poverty in the world by 2015 through the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The MDGs represented the global vision of reducing poverty in its various dimensions, and they were mainstreamed in the process of building the ASEAN Socio-cultural Community, which had a similar target date of 2015.1 The new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) framework approved in 2015 goes beyond the MDG agenda, which focused solely on poverty, to also include inequality. In recent years, inequality has been worsening amidst rapid economic growth and falling …

Coûts Et Avantages De L'Adaptation Fondée Sur Les Écosystèmes : Le Cas Des Philippines, Saima Pervaiz Baig, Ali Raza Rizvi, Maria Josella Pangilinan, Rosalina Palanca-Tan

Economics Department Faculty Publications

Les effets indéniables du changement climatique et la gestion non durable des écosystèmes augmentent la vulnérabilité des populations humaines et de la nature, en les affectant négativement. Selon la Banque mondiale, une hausse des températures de 4ºC est prévisible, étant donnée l'insuffisance actuelle des actions entreprises (Banque mondiale, 2013: Turn Down the Heat). Le Rapport sur les risques mondiaux (Global Risk Report) de 2013, du Forum économique mondial, identifie les gaz à effet de serre (GES) comme l'un des cinq risques majeurs auxquels l'économie mondiale est confrontée. Il souligne que les systèmes économiques et environnementaux mondiaux sont également sous pression …

Essays In Asset Bubbles And Financial Crises, Harlan Michael Holt

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

New Labor Market Realities Require New Workforce Development Policies, Carl E. Van Horn

Employment Research Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Exploring A Toll Auction Mechanism Enabled By Vehicle-To-Infrastructure Technology, Andrew J. Collins, Erika Frydenlund, R. Michael Robinson, Mecit Cetin

VMASC Publications

High-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes—an increasingly popular solution for congested roadway networks—give drivers the option to access express lanes. The cost of entry often varies with demand, although no standard method of optimizing these price points exists. Using the principles of a Vickrey auction that incentivizes true-value bids, this paper proposes a tolling system that uses vehicle-to-infrastructure technology to optimize toll operator revenue with HOT lane usage. In the scenario, a roadway network consists of a HOT lane and a general-purpose lane, each with identical physical properties. Drivers can access the HOT lane at the start of the facility or at …

Examining Industrial Interdependence Between Japan And South Korea: A Favar Approach, David D. Selover, Takeshi Yagihashi

Economics Faculty Publications

This paper investigates the economic relationship between Japan and South Korea by incorporating disaggregated output measures. Using a factor-augmented vector autoregression (FAVAR) model, we conduct several experiments to test the nature of the interdependence, both in the aggregate and by sector. We find that South Korean output shocks affect the Japanese economy in a significant manner, whereas Japanese output shocks have a limited effect on South Korea. By further examining the transmission mechanism of sectoral output shocks and comparing them with the direction of sectoral trade, we find evidence of cross-border production sharing, which explains the asymmetric results seen in …

Health Care Use, Out-Of-Pocket Expenditure, And Macroeconomic Conditions During The Great Recession, Juan Du, Takeshi Yagihashi

Economics Faculty Publications

We study how macroeconomic conditions during the Great Recession affected health care utilization and out-of-pocket expenditures of American households. We use two data sources: the Consumer Expenditure (CE) Survey and the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP); each has its own advantages. The CE contains quarterly frequency variables, and the SIPP provides panel data at the individual level. Consistent evidence across the two datasets shows that utilization of routine medical care was counter-cyclical, whereas hospital care was pro-cyclical during the Great Recession. When we examine the pre-recession period, the relationship between macroeconomic conditions and health care use was either …

Are Religion And Environmentalism Complements Or Substitutes?: A Club-Based Approach, Feler Bose, Timothy M. Komarek

Economics Faculty Publications

In this article, we analyze the causal link between membership in environmental groups and active participation and membership in religious groups. We use a club-based model and employ OLS and spatial econometrics with controls to test for whether membership and participation in a religious group is a substitute or complement for membership in environmental groups. Instrumental variables estimation was used as a robustness check. We found that religious participation and religious membership in evangelical groups are a substitute for environmental membership. Much of the work on environmental concerns has focused on answers to survey questions, not on membership. We used …

Unemployment And Economic Integration For Developing Countries, Haiwen Zhou

Economics Faculty Publications

While financial or trade integration between countries may increase the size of the market and aid the adoption of more advanced technologies, will it also increase the level of urban unemployment for a developing country? In this model, there is unemployment in the urban sector. Manufacturing firms engage in oligopolistic competition and choose increasing returns technologies to maximize profits. Financial firms provide capital to manufacturing firms and they also engage in oligopolistic competition. We show that an increase in the wage rate in the manufacturing sector changes neither the level of technology nor the level of employment in the manufacturing …

An Economic Analysis Of Mars Exploration And Colonization, Clayton Knappenberger 15

Honor Scholar Theses

No abstract provided.

Issues And Challenges In The Establishment Of Continuous Improvement In Vietnam, Phoung Anh Nguyen

School of Economics and Business Administration Faculty Works

A better understanding of Vietnamese management is important for both practitioners and academics because of the huge and continuing growth of business activity in Vietnam. In particular, information about the Vietnamese use of continuous improvement (CI) practices is valuable because these have underpinned the success of both western and Asian companies in recent decades. Using the case-study method based on over 60 in-depth interviews with executives, managers, supervisors, and employees of nine leading companies in Vietnam and information gathered from discussions with 440 business and non-business leaders, practitioners, and academics, this paper shows that Vietnamese organizations face numerous challenges when …

Stakeholder Perception Of The Ethics Of An Industry: The Case Of Organic Food In South India, Jubin Jacob-John, Navin Veerapa

School of Economics and Business Administration Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Long-Term Services Requiring Customer Participation And Compliance, Frances Turner, Mark Hager, Stephanie Dellande

School of Economics and Business Administration Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Copyrights And Creativity: The Affects Of Copyrights On Fairy Tales, Dina Arouri

Honors Program Theses

This work attempts to argue for a correlative relationship between copyright law and the evolution of literary works. It uses the laws and common practices of intellectual property to achieve this hypothesis.

Successfully Financing Classical Music Kickstarter Projects, Sarah Chung

Scripps Senior Theses

With the rise of technology and finance, crowdfunding has been uprising as a popular method of financing projects. Kickstarter provides an online platform in which anyone with Internet access can upload their own project “pitch” to gain funding for their idea on an all-or-nothing model. My thesis explores financial trends and factors that potentially contribute to a successful Kickstarter campaign within the classical music projects subcategory. I use a logistic regression and the Ordinary Least Squares model to examine a dataset of already successfully funded projects and a second dataset that contains both successfully and unsuccessfully funded projects that were …

America’S College Promise: An Economic Evaluation Of President Obama’S Free Community College Plan, Yue Guan

Scripps Senior Theses

In his 2015 State of the Union Address, President Obama announced “America’s College Promise,” a plan to make community college free for all American families making less than $200,000. In this thesis, I provide an analysis of the plan and provide an evaluation of its potential impact on the education attainment gap in the United States. I also evaluate the plan’s various components and assess its potential impact on community college student enrollment, completion, and transfer to four-year universities. Lastly, I offer recommendations for improvement.

It's The Economy, Stupid: Economic Voting And Gender Bias In U.S. Congressional Elections, Grace Lutz

Scripps Senior Theses

This study examines the relationship between the state of the U.S. economy and the outcome of general elections for incumbents in the U.S. House of Representatives. The analysis uses a unique data set compiled from a sample of U.S. Congressional Elections and state and economic indicators between the years 1999 and 2014. We find that economic indicators are consistently related to election outcomes, but have a larger and more significant effect when the time period examined is closer to a major economic event, such as the Great Recession. We also find that female incumbent candidates are more negatively affected by …

The Economic Impact Of Transportation Network Companies On The Taxi Industry, Alice Wang

Scripps Senior Theses

Transportation Network Companies (TNC) are companies that use online-enabled platforms to connect passengers with drivers. In recent years, they have sparked controversy with the taxi industry, which accuses TNCs of operating unfairly. In my study, I look at taxi regulation, consumer transportation preferences, and costs and benefits of TNCs. I analyze data comparing three of these companies, Uber, Lyft, and Sidecar, with a traditional taxicab, and evaluate trends in taxi employment from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. I find that Transportation Network Companies generally have shorter wait times, cheaper prices, and increased convenience, aspects that appeal to consumer preferences. I …

An Economic Analysis Of High-Intensity, Short-Duration Grazing Systems In South Dakota And Nebraska, Larry Janssen, Bronc Mcmurtry, Matthew Stockton, Alexander Smart, Sharon A. Clay

Agronomy, Horticulture and Plant Science Faculty Publications

Four different grazing systems: two rotational systems, a continuous grazing system, and a modified high-intensity, short-duration (mob) system were evaluated from an economic return and risk perspective. Stocking rates and average daily gains (ADG) were obtained from 2011 – 2014 from university ranch experiments in northern Nebraska. Simulation models were used to examine net returns and risk in each system and rank systems according to risk preferences. A twice through rotational grazing system was most profitable. Mob grazing was the least preferred, although when risk aversion increased, it rose in preference. Mob grazing could be profitable if adjustments increased animal …

The New Dynamics Of El Paso's Post Industrial Development: An Analysis Of The El Paso Chihuahua's Ballpark Controversy, Alan Matthew Serna

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This Thesis has sought to highlight a controversial event that occurred in El Paso, Texas when a wealthy group of local business interests, entered into a public/ private agreement with the City of El Paso to bring Triple-A baseball to the city. In doing so, the partnership drew large amounts opposition to their plan, when it was revealed that the city hall building would be demolished to make way for a new stadium, and that the issue would not be put to a vote. After analyzing all of the behaviors utilized by both opponents and proponents of the ballpark during …

Recession Prediction For Us Border Economies. Can Probit Models Predict Recessions At An Msa Level Including Bi-National Variables?, Elias Daniel Saenz

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Economic recession prediction has received substantial attention in recent years. The topic is important. Unemployment, business bankruptcies, and personal bankruptcies all increase during business cycles downturns.

Identifying appropriate indicators for recessions is a difficult task. Other variables have been used in prior studies. These variables have included the term structure of the yield curve (Fama 1984; Mishkin 1988a) and the difference between the yields of long-run treasury bonds and short run treasury bills (yield curve) (Estrella and Mishkin 1996; Dueker 1997; Kauppi and Saikkonen 2008; Nyberg 2010).

Estrella and Mishkin (1998) compare the effectiveness of different economic variables that are …

Predicting Recessions Using The Yield Spread: The Mexican Northern Border Case, Laura Mariel Saenz

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Business cycle analysis is a difficult endeavor. Policymakers are justifiably concerned over recessionary prospects for their respective economies. Being able to predict an incoming recession allows implementing measures to ameliorate the effects of downturns. The yield spread has been extensively used to analyze business cycles in high income economies. The probit model, the most widely utilized model for this type of analysis, enables estimation of the probability (between 0 and 1) that a recession will occur. This study evaluates the predictive power of the Mexico yield spread, the United States yield spread and the real exchange index to anticipate the …

Forecasting Water Demand In Phoenix, Juan Pedro Cardenas

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Water utility planning efforts are supported by short-term water demand forecasts. This study applies a Linear Transfer Function (LTF) approach in order to model and forecast water demand for single-family residential, multi-family residential, and nonresidential customer categories in Phoenix, Arizona. Out-of-sample simulations of water demand, with a monthly frequency, are generated for periods when actual demand is known. Descriptive measures and two formal tests are utilized to analyze the accuracy of LTF projections against two random walk benchmarks. The price elasticities for the single-family residential, multi-family residential, and nonresidential usage categories are -0.36, -0.31, and -0.75, respectively. The descriptive accuracy …

Short-Term Forecasting Analysis Of Municipal Water Demand In El Paso, Texas, Alejandro Ceballos

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Short-term water demand forecasts inform decisions regarding budgeting, rate design, water supply system operations, and effective implementation of conservation policies. This study develops a Linear Transfer Function (LTF) forecasting model for El Paso, Texas, a growing city located in the desert Southwest region of the United States. The model is used to generate monthly-frequency out-of-sample simulations of water demand for periods when actual demand is known. To measure the accuracy of the LTF projections against viable alternatives, a set of benchmark forecasts is also developed. Both descriptive accuracy metrics and formal statistical tests are used to analyze predictive performance. The …

The Balloon Analogue Risk Task And Behavioral Correlates In Pigeons, Aaron P. Smith

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

Individuals experience risk ubiquitously, but measuring risk taking is difficult. The balloon analogue risk task (BART) was developed in order to assess risk taking through having subjects press a key that accrues reward but also risk losing all reward with each press. In humans, greater responding in this task is associated with other maladaptive risk taking behaviors. The present research modeled this relationship in pigeons due to their previously shown propensity towards risk taking behavior. Experiment 1 used an unsignaled balloon task in which losing could only occur after 5 pecks. Results showed below optimal performance with greater pecks associated …

Marbles: The Application Of Input-Output Concepts To Safety Management Systems, Tim Brady, A. Stolzer, Anthony Brickhouse, Antonio Cortes, Dan Mccune, Jayathi Raghavan, David Freiwald

Publications

The goal of this research was to apply the economic concept titled Input-Output Analysis to an aviation safety concept titled Safety Management Systems (SMS). Input-Output (IO) is based upon the interrelationships of various components of an economic system and what happens to the system when one or more of those components changes. Since SMS is, by definition, a system with definable components, the research sought to determine if the interrelationships between those components could be determined and quantified. The term ‘‘marbles’’ was used to describe the activities that led to the IO-SMS matrix. Marbles was used as a metaphor for …