Economics Commons^™

Justice Begins Before Trial: How To Nudge Inaccurate Pretrial Rulings Using Behavioral Law And Economic Theory And Uniform Commercial Laws, Michael Gentithes

William & Mary Law Review

Injustice in criminal cases often takes root before trial begins. Overworked criminal judges must resolve difficult pretrial evidentiary issues that determine the charges the State will take to trial and the range of sentences the defendant will face. Wrong decisions on these issues often lead to wrongful convictions. As behavioral law and economic theory suggests, judges who are cognitively busy and receive little feedback on these topics from appellate courts rely upon intuition, rather than deliberative reasoning, to resolve these questions. This leads to inconsistent rulings, which prosecutors exploit to expand the scope of evidentiary exceptions that almost always disfavor …

Frames, Fallacies, And The Market For Lemons, Adam Field

Honors Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to illustrate the impact of an “endowment frame” on risk behavior in games of asymmetric information. Akerlof’s (1970) description of a “market for lemons” led to the creation of a modified screening game into which the endowment frame could be placed. The game was subsequently computerized and administered to 18 test subjects in the Mississippi Experimental Research Laboratory. At the beginning of the experiment, test subjects were randomly assigned to either a control or treatment group. Each participant played 20 rounds of the game and was compensated based on his or her performance. The …

Essays On Econometrics And Rational Choice, Junnan He

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Decision and choice theory is a topic of interest in both econometrics and microeconomic theory. We contribute to the theory of decision under both contexts, that is, the theory of model selection in econometrics, and the theory of rational decision in microeconomics.There is a long-lasting theoretical interest in model selection. More recently, research on sparse estimators, a class of estimation methods that select and estimate important parameters simultaneously, has been the central focus on model selection. The methods become especially relevant when the problem is of high-dimensional nature. Theoretically, sparse methods can perform well when the true data generating process …

Essays On Microeconomic Theory, Geyu Yang

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation consists of three chapters on topics in microeconomic theory. In Chapter 1, I study reputation effects under uncertain monitoring. I examine a repeated gamebetween a long-run player and a series of short-run opponents. The long-run playercan either be a strategic type or a commitment type that plays the same action inevery period. The modeling innovation is that the short-run player is unsure aboutthe monitoring structure. The uncertainty about the monitoring structure introducesnew challenges to reputation building because there may not be a direct relationshipbetween the distribution of signals and the long-run player’s strategy. Thus the long-runplayer may not …

Essays On The Chinese Economy, Fan Duan

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation includes three essays which contribute to the literature on economic growth, innovation, and international trade in China. Chapter 2 examines the implication of early economic prosperity, measured by the city-level population density in 1776, for modern day China. It shows that uneven economic performance across cities in the modern-day China can be traced to variation in living standards in 1776. Chapter 3 investigates the effects of innovation and human capital on firms’ export decisions over the 2003-2011 period, and it shows that more innovative and skill-intensive firms are more likely to export and stay in the export market. …

The National-Level Economic Impact Of The Manufacturing Extension Partnership (Mep): Estimates For Fiscal Year 2018, Jim Robey, Randall W. Eberts, Brian Pittelko, Claudette Robey

Reports

No abstract provided.

Economic Impact Of Pace University's Construction, Rebecca Tekula, Adrian Rivero

Wilson Center for Social Entrepreneurship

No abstract provided.

Economic Impact Of Pace University's New York City Campus, Rebecca Tekula, Adrian Rivero

Wilson Center for Social Entrepreneurship

No abstract provided.

How Will I Afford It? Financial Aid And Its Impact On Higher Education: Evidence From The State Of Mississippi, Daria Herasymova

Honors Theses

The cost of higher education, in real terms, doubled in the last twenty years, increasing faster than medical costs, the consumer price index and housing. In 1987, U.S. Secretary of Education, William J. Bennett, in the New York Times article, raised the concern that financial aid has unintended consequences of enabling higher education institution to increase tuition. In this paper, through collection of data and literature review, I examine the drivers behind the rising cost of higher education and test whether the postsecondary institutions in the state of Mississippi exhibit behavior, consistent with the Bennett Hypothesis. Using fixed-effects regression model, …

A Fishy Problem: Effects Of Atlantic Salmon Farming In The Pacific Ocean, Madeleine A. Griffith

Student Theses 2015-Present

In this report, I explore the historical, climatological, economic, and ethical issues created by the contemporary industrial salmon farming practices off Pacific coast of the United States and Canada. Chapter 1 utilizes a variety of sources from Stephen Hume’s A Stain upon the Sea to Miller’s Living in the Environment, to examine the integral part salmon plays in both freshwater and marine ecosystems, the ecosystem services salmon contribute in wild and farmed settings, and the trends in salmon consumption around the world. Chapter 2 examines the historically relevant role salmon held among indigenous societies and how that role has changed …

A Successful Year For The Nebraska National Agri-Marketing Association, Austin Harthoorn, Kara Heideman, Rosalee A. Swartz

Cornhusker Economics

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln National Agri- Marketing Association (NAMA) chapter finished in second place at this year’s national marketing competition. The chapter also won the John Deere Signature Award. The John Deere award is given to student chapters based on business knowledge, academic excellence, leadership development and community citizenship. Chapter members Marydith Donnelly and Brent Miller earned scholarships and Allison Brockman made finals in the sales competition.

NAMA marketing team members presented their marketing plan for EnTotal, a dog food made from black soldier fly larvae. The students developed the product concept, which is modeled on insect-based dog foods available …

Estimating The Payoffs Of K-12 Arts Education, Joseph E. D'Alelio

Honors College Theses

Arts education has been in debate since the United States introduced formal education system. While some argue its lack of significance, others argue its crucial underpinnings to our society. This paper explores the significance of arts education using the Higher Order Thinking (HOT) program in Connecticut schools to measure students’ payoff on statewide standardized testing, namely Connecticut Academic Performance Test (CAPT). The sample includes 20 schools that have either been HOT or have become HOT within a five year period from the 2008-2009 to 2012- 2013 school year. We us a fixed effects Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression to estimate …

Comparing Tax Structures In Washington And Oregon: Tax Burden Impacts On Grocery Consumption, Devin Bales, Colin Gibson

Student Research Symposium

Washington and Oregon states rely on different tax systems. Washington collects sales tax but no personal income tax, while Oregon collects a personal income tax but no sales tax. These differences create an opportunity to measure the effects of tax policy on consumer spending. Previous literature has estimated the effect of border tax differences on aggregate spending patterns. This paper uses a hierarchical model to measure the effect of individual sales tax burden on individual-level spending. First, using data from the Consumer Expenditure survey, we estimate individual sales tax burden. Then, using these estimates in a second-stage regression simulation model, …

Establishing Cryptocurrency Equilibria Through Game Theory, Carey Caginalp, Gunduz Caginalp

ESI Publications

We utilize optimization methods to determine equilibria of cryptocurrencies. A core group, the wealthy, fears the loss of assets that can be seized by a government. Volatility may be influenced by speculators. The wealthy must divide their assets between the home currency and the cryptocurrency, while the government decides the probability of seizing a fraction the assets of this group. We establish conditions for existence and uniqueness of Nash equilibria. Also examined is the separate timescale problem in which the government policy cannot be reversed, while the wealthy can adjust their allocation in reaction to the government’s designation of probability.

Market And Non-Market Valuation Of Renewable Energy, Jamal Mamkhezri

Economics ETDs

This dissertation is an assessment of market and non-market valuation of renewable energy, specifically within the electricity sector. It contributes to the energy and economics literature through a battery of three chapters. This dissertation utilizes New Mexico as a case study, which is an economically poor and natural-resource rich state that produces and consumes electricity in the southwestern United States. It is also one of the four states that have adopted a policy for 100% clean energy by 2045.

The first chapter models state- and county-level economic (e.g., employment, economic output, etc.) and environmental (e.g., externality, health impact, water use, …

Twitter And Disasters: A Social Resilience Fingerprint, Benjamin A. Rachunok, Jackson B. Bennett, Roshanak Nateghi

Purdue University Libraries Open Access Publishing Fund

Understanding the resilience of a community facing a crisis event is critical to improving its adaptive capacity. Community resilience has been conceptualized as a function of the resilience of components of a community such as ecological, infrastructure, economic, and social systems, etc. In this paper, we introduce the concept of a “resilience fingerprint” and propose a multi-dimensional method for analyzing components of community resilience by leveraging existing definitions of community resilience with data from the social network Twitter. Twitter data from 14 events are analyzed and their resulting resilience fingerprints computed. We compare the fingerprints between events and show that …

Economic Development And Peace: To Be Pursued In Tandem, Allison Fisher

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Peace and economic development are often regarded as separate fields with little overlap. The association with the field of economics makes the latter seem more measurable, more tangible, and therefore more academic. However, a shift is taking place as peace practitioners and researchers discover ways to compare the level of peace within and between countries. Current research in peace studies shows a salient link between the level of economic development and the level of peace within societies. Researchers that work in these two fields must pursue them simultaneously and jointly. The purpose of this paper is to highlight evidence of …

Do Policy Frameworks Affect Microfinance Participation In Kenya?, Matthew Reed

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

The following paper explores the effectiveness of microfinance policy on the registered level of participation in Kenya. The research is conducted through the lens of Acemoglu and Robinson’s view of deep institutional issues restraining policy from its intended reform. Specifically, the paper looks at the effectiveness in increasing the total number of borrowers after Kenya’s National Microfinance Act of 2006 in regard to property right protection issues within the country. Ultimately, the research reinforces the idea that institutional issues, both political and economic, are a severe handicap to microfinance within a developing country.

Nebraska Business And Consumer Confidence Indexes: May 3, 2019, Eric Thompson

Leading Economic Indicator Reports

Consumer confidence dropped sharply in Nebraska during April 2019 while business confidence remained strong. The Consumer Confidence Index – Nebraska (CCI-N) stood at 95.6 in April, below the neutral value of 100 and well below the March value of 110.0. The Business Confidence Index – Nebraska (BCI-N) stood at 107.8 in April, well above the neutral level and down slightly from 108.9 in March. When asked about the most important issue facing their business, 29 percent of respondents chose customer demand while 27 mentioned the quality and availability of labor and 19 percent mentioned competition from other businesses. Fifty-three percent …

Nebraska Business And Consumer Confidence Indexes: May 3, 2019, Eric Thompson

Leading Economic Indicator Reports

Consumer confidence dropped sharply in Nebraska during April 2019 while business confidence remained strong. The Consumer Confidence Index – Nebraska (CCI-N) stood at 95.6 in April, below the neutral value of 100 and well below the March value of 110.0. The Business Confidence Index – Nebraska (BCI-N) stood at 107.8 in April, well above the neutral level and down slightly from 108.9 in March. When asked about the most important issue facing their business, 29 percent of respondents chose customer demand while 27 mentioned the quality and availability of labor and 19 percent mentioned competition from other businesses. Fifty-three percent …

The Introduction Of Bitcoin Futures: An Examination Of Volatility And Potential Spillover Effects, Benjamin M. Blau, Ryan J. Whitby

Economics and Finance Faculty Publications

Theory in Stein (1987) suggests that introducing derivative contracts, such as futures, can destabilize underlying asset prices if the contracts attract enough speculative traders. This paper examines how the introduction of Bitcoin futures influences the underlying Bitcoin market. Consistent with Stein (1987), we find that that Bitcoin's volatility increases significantly during the post-introduction period. Perhaps more importantly, however, we observe significant spillover effects into related markets. For instance, in other cryptocurrencies, the increase in volatility in these markets is greater than the post-introduction increase in Bitcoin.

Dependability Of Referees’ Decision Making On Discretionary Penalties In The Nfl, Anthony Stefanidis

Theses and Dissertations

This paper predicts the possibilities of specific penalty types occurring, using a logistic regression model, and evaluates whether there is any possible bias towards teams by referees' decision making. Using penalties that occurred from 2009 until 2018, there seems to be a bias towards teams which are part of larger markets. How successful the team is and how famous some of the players are can also possibly affect the odds of a referee making a penalty call. Due to how underdeveloped the area of research is, there are many ways to expand it to essentially bring further light to whether …

An Evaluation Of The Impact Of Leading Pedestrian Interval Signals In Nyc, Jeremy J. Sze

Theses and Dissertations

I evaluated the impact of the phased introduction of Leading Pedestrian Interval Signals (LPIs) on collision and injury outcomes at 12,987 signalized traffic intersections in New York City over the course of 25 quarters from 2012 to 2018. An intersection is treated when a LPIs is installed to give pedestrians lead time to cross the street before vehicles are allowed to move. Outcomes from NYPD’s Motor Vehicle Collisions data were matched to signalized intersections. I hypothesize that LPIs would reduce collisions and reduce injuries for pedestrians at intersections. A difference in difference fixed effects panel regression was used to identify …

The Effect Of The Fresh Program On Crime Rate In Nyc, Ashley M. Kraus

Theses and Dissertations

This research examines whether opening up grocery stores in underserved areas in New York City have an affect on the occurrence of crimes in those neighborhoods. Using data from the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) on the Food Retail Expansion to Support Health (FRESH) grocery stores and the New York City Police Department (NYPD) on crime statistics by precinct, regressions are run to determine how the different types of crime varies across precincts over time with the introduction of the FRESH program by employing a difference in difference regression with fixed effects. The primary data for my project …

The Effect Of Deferred Action For Childhood Arrivals (Daca) Attainment On Risky Health Behaviors: Alcohol Consumption And Smoking, Xiomara D. Camacho

Theses and Dissertations

This paper analyzes the effects of receiving Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) status on the recipients’ risky health behaviors. I explore the effect of obtaining DACA on the individual’s likelihood to consume alcohol and smoke in the past year using data from the US National Health Interview Survey.

The Impact Of Step Parenting On The Health, Behavior And Development Of School-Aged Children, Emmanuel Botwe

Theses and Dissertations

The American family structure has changed rapidly over the years, from the traditional two-biological-parent household to a variety of other family configurations, leading to a substantial number of children growing up in step-families. This paper examines the impact of step-parenting on child health outcomes among school-aged children.

The Quality Of Xbrl Structured Financial Statements: An Empirical Examination Of Custom Tags, Aidana Razhap Kyzy

Theses and Dissertations

In 2009 the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) adopted the eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) system to improve the process by which financial statements can be used. Interactive financial data filed with the SEC using XBRL provides easily readable and comparable financial data, thereby improving transparency and efficiency in the corporate market. SEC rules permit companies to use custom tags in their financial reports in cases when an appropriate element cannot be found in the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) standard XBRL taxonomy. The inordinate use of custom tags may result in a reduction of financial report quality by …

Utilizing Blockchain Trade Finance To Promote Financial Inclusion, Bryce Ciccaglione

Honors Scholar Theses

This paper examines the use of blockchain, or distributed ledger, technology for the potential supplantation of the antiquated process of international trade financing. Using the technology for this purpose has the potential to narrow the enormous gap in unmet demand for trade finance experienced by small-and medium-sized enterprises in the developing world. The current process of trade finance is still paper-based and relies heavily on manual labor. After the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, banks became restrictive in their lending, especially to small-and medium-sized enterprises in developing countries, leading to the aforementioned trade finance gap. Blockchain technology could narrow this gap …

The Quest For Replicability: A Review Of Research Data Policies In Economics Journals, Melody Chin, Danping Dong

Research Collection Library

Research data openness serves as best practice and plays a critical role in facilitating the replicability and reproducibility of published research. In the field of Economics, journal data policies have been instrumental in encouraging the sharing of data and code, especially when the requirements are strict and enforceable. It is also evident that in recent years, increasing number of journals now has some form of research data policy in place. This paper attempts to analyze the data policies of the 74 general and field-specific Economics journals listed in the ranking database as part of the Tilburg University Top 100 Worldwide …

Labor Market Policies And Women’S Labor Market Activity In The United States And Germany, Brianna Repke

Senior Honors Projects

In terms of per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and many other measures, the United States and Germany are both economic leaders in the global world. However, gender gaps persist in the labor markets of both countries. This paper examines these gender gaps and various labor market policies that are intended to reduce them. The policies examined include gender equality policies and family-oriented policies in the two countries. Over the last few decades, most of the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries have experienced low and decreasing birth rates. In response, several countries have introduced parental leave regulations …