Economics Commons^™

On The Shoulders Of Giants: Happiness And The Good Economy In Catholic Social Teaching, Erin C. Wingerter

Honors Theses

The economic discipline, in studying humans, relies on economic philosophers’ theories and understanding of the human person. One of Adam Smith’s most basic tenants was that man is self-interested. This thesis explores the profound implications this has had on those who study economics and what research in behavioral economics implies about its effect on life satisfaction. Catholic Social Teaching is the Roman Catholic Church’s collection of criticisms for practicing the neo-scholastic virtue ethic in social life. If self-interest is emphasized above man’s social nature, which was Smith’s second tenant, economics ignores a non-trivial portion of man’s motivation. Because irrational behaviors …

Averaged Instrumental Variables Estimators, Yoonseok Lee, Yu Zhou

Center for Policy Research

We develop averaged instrumental variables estimators as a way to deal with many weak instruments. We propose a weighted average of the preliminary k-class estimators, where each estimator is obtained using different subsets of the available instrumental variables. The averaged estimators are shown to be consistent and to satisfy asymptotic normality. Furthermore, its approximate mean squared error reveals that using a small number of instruments for each preliminary k-class estimator reduces the finite sample bias, while averaging prevents the variance from inflating. Monte Carlo simulations find that the averaged estimators compare favorably with alternative instrumental-variable-selection approaches when the strength levels …

A Cost-Benefit Analysis Of Amazon Prime Air, Adrienne Welch

Honors Theses

This paper analyzes the costs and benefits of the newly proposed Amazon Prime Air delivery system that uses drone technology to deliver packages to customers’ doorsteps. The paper sets forth a benefit-cost analytical framework to examine the technology for the benefits of labor-saving technology, faster delivery, and the advantage of being first versus the costs of operating the drone system. This analysis is conducted by modeling the Prime Air system for Chattanooga, TN. The model addresses FAA regulations, drone design, logistics, and related factors to predict how Amazon might set up and operate the drone system. Amazon’s goal is to …

Less Is More: Information And Priming In Charitable Donations, Juliann Tucker

Economics Undergraduate Honors Theses

Dictator Game, Religious Identity, Social Distance

The Conundrum Of The Disparity Of Growth Between Indian States, Alexa Cicely Shannon

Economics Undergraduate Honors Theses

How is it that Indian states that seemingly have similar advantages can perform so differently? The objective is to study the relationship between government involvement, and the impact of these factors on economic growth. The goal of this research paper is to determine if there is a correlation between state resources or party affiliation and the outlay from the central government and also to determine if there is a correlation between government outlay and the eventual number of state enterprises and in turn if those state enterprises had an effect on the current GDP Per Capita.

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 …

An Analysis Of The Effects Of Financial Education On Financial Literacy And Financial Behaviors, Jamie Wagner

College of Business: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This study estimates how financial education affects a person’s financial literacy score, short-term financial behaviors, and long-term financial behaviors using data from the 2012 National Financial Capability Study (NFCS). There are seven categories of financial education—high school, college, employer, high school and college, high school and employer, college and employer, and combinations of all three courses—to estimate the effectiveness of financial education. This course detail has not been studied in previous literature about financial education.

Financial education has a positive relationship with a person’s financial literacy score. Splitting the sample into groups based on education and income results show that …

Behind The Gate Experiment: Evidence On Effects Of And Rationales For Subsidized Entrepreneurship Training, Robert W. Fairlie, Dean Karlan, Jonathan Zinman

Dartmouth Scholarship

Theories of market failures and targeting motivate the promotion of entrepreneurship training programs and generate testable predictions regarding heterogeneous treatment effects from such programs. Using a large randomized evaluation in the United States, we find no strong or lasting effects on those most likely to face credit or human capital constraints, or labor market discrimination. We do find a short-run effect on business ownership for those unemployed at baseline, but this dissipates at longer horizons. Treatment effects on the full sample are also short-term and limited in scope: we do not find effects on business sales, earnings, or employees. (JEL …

Informal Employment In A Growing And Globalizing Low-Income Country, Brian Mccaig, Nina Pavcnik

Dartmouth Scholarship

We document several facts about workforce transitions from the informal to the formal sector in Vietnam, a fast growing, industrializing, and low-income country. First, younger workers, particularly migrants, are more likely to work in the formal sector and stay there permanently. Second, the decline in the aggregate share of informal employment occurs through changes between and within birth cohorts. Third, younger, educated, male, and urban workers are more likely to switch to the formal sector than other workers initially in the informal sector. Poorly educated, older, female, rural workers face little prospect of formalization. Fourth, formalization coincides with occupational upgrading.

Asean: Growth In The Fast Lane, Edward Lee

Asian Management Insights

ASEAN’s political, economic and demographic factors suggest a giant is awakening.

Resistance, Acquiescence Or Incorporation? An Introduction To Land Grabbing And Political Reactions ‘From Below’, Marc Edelman, Ruth Hall, Saturnino M. Borras Jr., Ian Scoones, Ben White, Wendy Wolford

Publications and Research

Political reactions ‘from below’ to global land grabbing have been vastly more varied and complex than is usually assumed. This essay introduces a collection of ground- breaking studies that discuss responses that range from various types of organized and everyday resistance to demands for incorporation or for better terms of incorporation into land deals. Initiatives ‘from below’ in response to land deals have involved local and transnational alliances and the use of legal and extra-legal methods, and have brought victories and defeats. The relevance of political reactions to land grabbing is discussed in light of theories of social movements and …

Downtown Parking Meter Demand In El Paso, Thomas M. Fullerton Jr., E. Pallarez, Adam G. Walke

Border Region Modeling Project

Prior research establishes that the price of parking in the city centre often impacts the decision to travel downtown and the mode of transportation utilized. Other factors that influence the decision to drive and park downtown have received less attention. This study uses time series data to analyse the demand for metered parking spaces in El Paso, Texas, USA. In addition to meter rates, the determinants of demand include personal income, gasoline prices, and the price of a substitute good, parking garage spaces. Because international bridges connect downtown El Paso to neighbouring Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico, the impacts of trans-boundary …

Role And Impact Of Energy In The Business Cycle, Bao Tan Huynh

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Given the fundamental role of energy in the economy, the macroeconomic literature contains a large body of work on the impact of oil/energy on the business cycle, with much of the attention focusing on energy supply shocks, mostly modeled as exogenous oil/energy price increases. And yet, the oil price hikes pre-2008 suggest that other shocks to the energy market may be the source of such instance of price disturbances, so that their effects on the economy are no longer predicted by exogenous energy supply shocks. In such scenario, it is no longer valid to treat energy price disturbances as exogenous …

How Does Untimely Death Of An Executive Affect Stock Prices And Company Performance?, Yu Zhang

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

The main purpose of this project is to investigate if the sudden death of an executive will affect the company’s stock price and/or performance, and to examine any other impacts of an executive’s untimely death. Are executives the most important person in a company? If so, how much is an executive worth in comparison to the company’s overall value? Is a CEO’s pay actually worth what the company is getting in return? Many researchers believe that the CEO and executives are the soul of a company, however, there is limited evidence to prove that hypothesis (Fama and Jesnsen, 1983). There …

Decimalization And Illiquidity Premiums: An Extended Analysis, Seth E. Williams

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

In this study I compare the illiquidity premium related to the bid–ask spread before and after the 2001 change to decimal pricing for New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and Nasdaq stock exchanges. Theory predicts a contraction of the bid-ask spread with a move to more precise pricing, and this association is shown. A disparity between the NYSE and Nasdaq exchanges due to decimalization is shown. A portfolio analysis based on the relationship between the bid-ask spread and next month returns is back-tested, revealing a significant and positive risk-adjusted return for holding the portfolio of stocks with the highest bid-ask spreads. …

Discussing Economic Factors' Effects On Personal Saving Rate, Zhong Wang

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Business capital and investment are increasingly moving abroad as globalization occurs, and worldwide economic integration is accordingly strengthened. The extremely low personal saving rate in the United States and the extremely high personal saving rate in China are always a concern for economists. This project uses data from the United States and economic and econometric methodologies to analyze and discuss several economic factors that affect the U.S. personal saving rate. The result shows that the housing and stock market booms, an increasing interest rate, and a decrease in the ratio of workers to retirees cause the decrease in personal saving …

An Empirical Analysis Of Customer Satisfaction In Short Selling, Brian Ramaeker

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Using an event study along with basic linear regressions, this paper sets out to find if customer satisfaction factors into asset pricing, and if short sellers predict or react to the announcement, then capitalize on the mispricing. By using customer satisfaction data from the ACSI index and security pricing data from WRDS it is possible to test whether the absolute level of customer satisfaction factors into a short selling investor’s actions within the market, or if an increase or decrease in satisfaction from the previous year is recognized by short sellers.

Essays On The Financial Crisis, Financial Regulation, And Banks, Danielle Zanzalari

All Dissertations

The conventional wisdom was that the Capital Purchase Program (CPP), under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), would benefit large banks over small sized banks, magnifying the claim that banks were 'Too Big to Fail'. In my first chapter, I examine whether investors react differently to important news regarding the CPP, depending on the asset size of banks. Using returns to common stock shareholders, I analyze the CPP announcement, bank capital infusions, and repayments and find that large banks, regardless of whether or not they entered into the CPP program and received capital, had large and significant returns at the …

Estimation Of Procurement Auctions With Secret Reserve Prices, Di Wu

All Dissertations

The first two chapters of my dissertation are essays on estimation of procurement auctions with secret reserve prices. In the last chapter, I develop a test on strong disposability versus weak disposability for non-parametric data envelopment analysis (DEA) estimators. In auctions with secret reserve prices, the possibility that the item goes unsold in the first round generates a particular form of multi-round auction in which information on bids is revealed after each round. If bidders have an imperfect estimate of project costs, the information revealed by observing the bids of others in the previous round can mitigate the classic winner's …

Three Essays On Corruption And Government Finance, Yukun Sun

All Dissertations

There are three chapters in my dissertation. In chapter one I study the impact of government corruption on tax avoidance by corporations with tax liability in China. I begin by developing a model of a firm's choice of tax avoidance based on the level of corruption in the firm's province. I show that a higher level of government corruption and a higher tax rate are predicted to increase a firm's tax avoidance. My empirical estimates show that a one-standard-deviation increase in government corruption corresponds to a 6% increase in tax avoidance by firms, based on data from nearly 600,000 firms …

An Analysis Of The Effects Of Financial Education On Financial Literacy And Financial Behaviors, Jamie Frances Wagner

Student Work

This study estimates how financial education affects a person’s financial literacy score, short-term financial behaviors, and long-term financial behaviors using data from the 2012 National Financial Capability Study (NFCS). There are seven categories of financial education—high school, college, employer, high school and college, high school and employer, college and employer, and combinations of all three courses—to estimate the effectiveness of financial education. This course detail has not been studied in previous literature about financial education.

Financial education has a positive relationship with a person’s financial literacy score. Splitting the sample into groups based on education and income results show that …

Exploring The Relationship Between Utah's Wages And Utah's Real Estate Values, S. Scott Laneri

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

This paper uses a variety of multiple regression analysis techniques to attempt to answer whether a direct relationship exists between Utah's employee wages and Utah's residential real estate values. Unexpected declines in real estate values can have seriously negative impacts on businesses, individuals, and local governments in Utah. Conversely, unexpected increases represent missed opportunities. Researchers have used various statistical and mathematical methods to explain or predict changes in real estate values, but no method has consistently predicted values for a long period of time or across multiple geographical areas. This paper focuses on exploring the relationship between variables in Utah …

The Affordable Care Act: Five Years Later, Andrew Dana Izatt

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

The challenges facing the American health care system are well known and manifold. The United States pays substantially more for its health care than any other developed, industrialized nation. Per capita health care spending in 2012 was $8,745, up from $356 in 1970 without marked improvements in life expectancy, quality of life, or outcomes. But despite all of our health spending, large portions of our population go without health insurance. Being uninsured carries real consequences. A report published in the American Journal of Public Health, by researchers at Harvard Medical School, using statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and …

The Poverty Of Prefectures: A Reevaluation Of The Memoir Of Zhang Daye, Joshua Defriez

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Everything today's readers know about the man Zhang Daye comes from his memoir, The World of a Tiny Insect (Wei Chong Shijie, 微蟲世界). The manuscript was distributed locally after its completion in 1894, though it never achieved wide-scale circulation. Wang Yongyuan of Zhejiang Normal University donated the only complete copy to the Chinese Academy of Sciences in the early 1950s where Harvard scholar Xiaofei Tian later discovered the manuscript. Since Tian's publication of an English translation in 2013, Zhang's writings have reached a wider audience than he likely ever imagined. As we read The World, Zhang's words …

Job Displacement’S Long-Run Effect On Access To Employer-Provided Health Insurance And Other Fringe Benefits, Nicholas A. Jolly, Brian J. Phelan

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

This paper investigates the effect of job displacement on access to employer-provided fringe benefits. We find that displacement is associated with lost access to all seven employer-provided benefits investigated. These losses increase the cost of displacement by 10% per year.

Rational Speculative Bubbles In The Us Stock Market And Political Cycles, Miao Grace Wang, Sunny Wong

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

This paper tests the existence of rational speculative bubbles during Democratic and Republican presidential terms, which has not been systematically researched in existing studies. With monthly real returns on equally-weighted and value-weighted portfolios in the U.S. from January 1927 to December 2012, we find that there are rational speculative bubbles under Republican Presidents but not under Democratic Presidents. Our results are robust to different specifications.

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 …

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 …

Visigothic Retinues: Roving Bandits That Succeeded Rome, Andrew T. Young

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

I employ a case study of the Visigoths in the fourth and fifth centuries to analyze the collective action problems faced by roving versus stationary bandits. A roving bandit provides exclusive collective goods to its members. A stationary bandit also provides exclusive goods to its members, but it also provides inclusive collective goods to out-group individuals in its domain. The inclusive goods provided to the out-group are an input to the production of the exclusive goods enjoyed by the in-group members. I describe how the transition from the former to the latter likely involves redefinition of the relevant group, its …