Economics Commons^™

Time To Play: The Relationship Between Time Spent Playing And Educational Outcomes In Peru, Jasmine Davidson

Economics Honors Projects

Every day, children around the world are playing. There has been plenty of research on the importance of different kinds of play, but very little on the importance of the quantity of play. Understanding the relationship between educational outcomes and the amount of time spent playing would allow parents to better structure their children’s time and would settle the debate between psychologists and economists on whether play has inherent value for a child’s future outcomes. I focus on Peru because conducting this research in a developing country context broadens the current research mostly focused on high-income countries. Using child-level, longitudinal …

Hunting As Conservation In The United States – Sustaining Suitable Habitat, James Olderham

Student Papers in Local and Global Regional Economies

In aggregating the increasing information being collected on the value of goods and services that natural and semi-natural ecosystems provide, de Groot, Wilson, and Boumans attempted to create a standardized view to assess the economic valuation of ecosystem functions (2002). One of the ecosystem functions mentioned in their system is the Nursery function, which is associated with the process of reproducing suitable habitats (de Groot et al, 2002). The authors list the hunting of game, fishing, and the gathering of fruits and vegetation as examples of goods and services that play a role in fulfilling this function of nature (2002). …

Call Center Jobs To Mitigate Unemployment And Isolation Problems Amid Coronavirus Crisis In The United States, Pepin Kazadi

Student Papers in Local and Global Regional Economies

The global economy is undoubtfully under threats of the novel coronavirus. Government and local authorities have taken precaution measures to mitigate the spread of the virus. Shutdowns and social distancing restrictions, taken in the context of fighting the spread of the virus, have prompted an unpredicted slowdown of the global economy. In the United States, the economic disruptions due to the pandemic have terribly increased the unemployment level. About 22.034 million of Americans have filed for unemployment benefits since March 21, 2020 (Mutikani, 2020). In addition, working hours have been reduced. Small businesses, such as food and beverage services, hotels, …

Environmental Regulations And Foreign Direct Investment, Valri Nesbit

Student Papers in Local and Global Regional Economies

I am writing a literature review of whether stronger environmental regulations affects foreign direct investment (FDI). Logic would tell you that the FDI would go to those countries that have lower environmental regulations because this results in lower costs to the corporation overall. I am a firm believer that corporations meet the definition of a sociopath: “a person…whose behavior is antisocial and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience.”¹ Therefore, my belief is that these sociopathic corporations, which are deemed to be people pursuant to Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company,² will continue …

Productivity And Automation In Automotive Manufacturing: The Impact On Ohio Employment, James Olderham

Student Papers in Local and Global Regional Economies

The supposed decline of the United States manufacturing industry has been a central topic of political concerns and research for decades. The classic story is that America’s might in this sector was seen as the backbone of the economy and a central factor in the nation’s economic dominance relative to the rest of the world. In light of this, it’s easy to see how a decline in the manufacturing base has become such an important issue. In recent years, two main theories have emerged as to what is to blame for the loss American manufacturing jobs over the last two …

Planting The Future: A Green Jobs Remediation For The Greater Dayton Area, Jason R. Utz

Student Papers in Local and Global Regional Economies

Situated in southwest Ohio, Dayton has been a vibrant hub of manufacturing for much of its past. As a host for the corporate headquarters of the National Cash Register (NCR) company and Premier Health Network, a major production facility for General Motors (GM), and Wright Patterson Air Force Base (WPAFB), Dayton has been a hotbed of opportunity. But now, with the departure of NCR and GM, Dayton has faced many of the same problems as other semi major cities scattered throughout the Midwest in what is now termed the “rust belt”. Although the city has a modest February unemployment of …

An Analysis Of The Secondary Market For Live Music And Complementary Goods, Trevor Wangsness

Major Themes in Economics

Ticket scalpers exist because ticket prices in the primary market are often set below the market equilibrium price. The question is why are prices consistently set too low? One theory says that the desire to sell complementary goods such as concert memorabilia explains why ticket price are set below equilibrium. Technological improvements, however, have rendered that theory obsolete. Economic theory still does not explain why ticket prices are frequently set too low. Perhaps the reason is simply that artists do not want to gouge their fans.

Measuring Earnings Through Performance: A Replication Of The Return To Skill Of Pga Tour Golfers, Chase A. Collins

Major Themes in Economics

The golfers on the Professional Golfers Association (PGA) Tour provide an opportunity to examine the relationship between performance and earnings. Using PGA Tour data from 2010 and the 2018-2019 season, this paper replicates previous studies exploring the returns to skill and changes in return to skill over time of PGA golfers. Average driving distance, average driving accuracy, greens in regulation (GIR), putts per GIR, sand saves, number of events competed in, and two interaction terms are found to be statistically significant. The idea that returns to skills for PGA golfers are changing over time is supported in this paper.

Using The Home-Underdog Theory To Test The Efficiency Of The Nfl Sports Gambling Market, Dj Loutsch

Major Themes in Economics

NFL sports gambling markets are efficient if one strategy is not consistently profitable year after year. The analysis in this paper examines the efficient market hypothesis using the home-underdog theory. The data were collected for home-underdogs for the last 10 NFL seasons. Important filters were applied to examine potential variations of the home-underdog theory that may be profitable. There was no variation of the home-underdog theory that was consistently profitable year after year. There were 5 different variations that were profitable in the 10 years, but they were not profitable every year. The results provide evidence that the NFL sports …

Can Doing Good Reduce Risk? Corporate Social Responsibility And Risk For Firms In Controversial Industries, Emily Iehl

Major Themes in Economics

A firm’s main goal is to add firm value. There are many ways to do this: increase sales, advertise, change management, and, possibly, doing good for the environment, employees, and others. The latter approach is often called corporate social responsibility. This paper tests to see if corporate social responsibility will reduce risk for a firm. There are two hypotheses created by Jo and Na (2012): the risk reduction hypothesis and the window-dressing hypothesis. Jo and Na conclude that corporate social responsibility in controversial firms can help reduce firm risk. However, my results do not show that.

Did Social-Distancing Measures In Kentucky Help To Flatten The Covid-19 Curve?, Charles J. Courtemanche, Joseph Garuccio, Anh Le, Joshua C. Pinkston, Aaron Yelowitz

Institute for the Study of Free Enterprise Working Papers

In the absence of a vaccine or more effective treatment options, containing the spread of novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) must rely on non-pharmaceutical interventions. All U.S. states adopted social-distancing measures in March and April of 2020, though they varied in both timing and scope. Kentucky began by closing public schools and restaurant dining rooms on March 16th before progressing to closing other non-essential businesses and eventually issuing a “Healthy at Home” order with restrictions similar to the shelter-in-place (SIPO) orders adopted by other states. We aim to quantify the impact of these measures on COVID-19 case growth in the …

Why Is Las Vegas Busy Everyday? A Behavioural Analysis Of Impact Investors’ Attitude And Decision-Making Process, Isha Shah

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Remarking a discrepancy in the statistics of a growing influence of impact investment and yet its restrictive inclusion in the financial market has encouraged this inductive research to take an alternative approach to address the impact investment market. In an emic perspective, this study aims to assess the factors motivating individuals and institutions to pursue impact investment. Further, it also investigates some elements that guide the decision making of the investors in this field. The qualitative nature of the research demands exceptional secondary sources and it is rendered more credible with the inclusion of three relevant primary sources. The analysis …

El Ingreso Familiar De Emergencia En Argentina: Una Exploración Cualitativa Preliminar De La Suficiencia Relativa Y El Acceso / Emergency Family Income In Argentina: A Qualitative And Preliminary Exploration Of Relative Sufficiency And Access, Seamus Mcwilliams

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

El gobierno argentino ha promulgado docenas de nuevas protecciones sociales y varios de apoyo financiero para limitar la devastación económica causada por la pandemia del coronavirus. Una de estas medidas es el Ingreso Familiar de Emergencia (IFE), un estímulo de 10.000 pesos dirigido a familias del sector informal. Esta población tiene poca capacidad para resistir un período indefinido sin ingreso, y simultáneamente es difícil de alcanzar con los otros programas de ingresos debido a la naturaleza de la informalidad. A través de un análisis del ecosistema de apoyo gubernamental y dos entrevistas con profesionales familiarizadas con el sector informal, este …

La Importancia De Los Espacios: Conociendo Los Espacios En Línea Creado Por Los Haitianos Y Organizaciones Haitianas En Chile, Juan Avilez

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The state of Haitian migrants in Chile has often been studied through a lens of understanding the reasons for migratory flows and their effects on labor markets within the context of the Chilean state. Notable studies such as that of Pedemonte in 2015 studying the matrixes of exclusion of Haitian migrants in Chilean culture and that of Tijoux in 2015 studying the effects of racism and a neoliberal system on migrants, have adopted to explore the adoption of Haitian migrants to Chilean culture and detail the challenges and ways of community building that the Haitian population in Chile has adapted. …

¿Buscando Estabilidad Y Encontrando Crisis? Jóvenes Venezolanos En El Estallido Social Chileno, Carmen Rio Vescia

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Chile has long been recognized in Latin America as an island of political and economic stability, but in October of 2019, a student-led mass evasion of the Santiago metro sparked what has since been coined the ‘estallido social,’ or ‘social explosion.’ Protestors across the country representing a wide range of social movements are demanding myriad reforms to what they deem a broken neoliberal system rooted in policies created during Pinochet’s dictatorship. Current president Sebastián Piñera’s government first responded by declaring a state of emergency. The state leveraged the power of a militarized police force (los Carabineros de Chile) to quell …

Un Análisis Histórico De La Respuesta De Organizaciones Sindicales A La Pandemia De Covid-19, Rachel Hodes

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

La historia social de los últimos ciento cincuenta años de Ecuador ha contribuido únicamente a las acciones de organizaciones sindicales durante la pandemia del COVID-19. Un análisis de los medios sociales de varios sindicatos durante la pandemia y las protestas del 1 de mayo 2020 revela desarrollos claves en cuatro áreas: la afiliación política, la construcción de solidaridad con el movimiento indígena, el enfoque en la educación, y la lucha contra la corrupción gubernamental. Patrones mayores incluyen la priorización continua de la educación por obreras incluso cuando enfrentan nuevos desafíos, la unidad de centrales sindicales contra el neoliberalismo y la …

The Right To Housing In Spain: Community Action And Alternative Housing Models, Georgia Sparks

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The right to housing is guaranteed by Spain's constitution, the principles of the European Union, and U.N. human rights treaties to which Spain is signatory, yet Spain scarcely provides affordable housing and leaves its citizens struggling with poverty and unable to find a place to live. Unlike much of the rest of Europe, Spain’s social rented sector represents less than 1% of its total housing stock. Through policies that favor homeownership, promote the real estate market, and privatize social housing, Spain has left its citizens reliant on the private market for their fundamental need for housing. Social movements and nonprofit …

Room To Grow: A Comparative Analysis Of Cannabis Regulation Models In Europe, Amanda H. Cronin

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Debilitated by years of economic instability, the Spanish economy has not fully rebounded to its once strong place in the European market. And now, in the aftermath of a devastating pandemic, the nation will be searching for new sources of wealth. The lucrative market potential of controlled cannabis in medicinal and recreational settings is an attractive industry gaining popularity across Europe. This paper explores the various policy models and legal systems in Portugal, Germany, and the Netherlands. Combining a variety of sources, I seek to ascertain the best plan for Spain. Ultimately, analysis shows that a multi-pronged approach is the …

Renegotiation Of Joint Venture Contracts: The Influence Of Boards Of Directors And Prior Ties As Alternative Governance Mechanisms, Valérie Duplat, Elko Klijn, Jeffrey Reuer, Henri Dekker

Management Faculty Publications

Research on alliance governance has pointed out that joint ventures (JVs) are particularly complex forms of collaboration. Partnering firms therefore often face difficulties in anticipating contingencies and collaborative behaviors at the contract negotiation stage. When initial JV contracts are incomplete, renegotiation represents a key strategic opportunity for enhancing contractual safeguards or coordination guidelines over the course of the joint venture. Costs and risks entailed by renegotiating JV arrangements at a later stage are far from trivial, however. Existing research on alliances suggests that practitioners have alternative relational and formal governance solutions at their disposal for handling possible inefficiencies caused by …

Reforming Unemployment Insurance, Christopher J. O'Leary

Upjohn Institute Policy and Research Briefs

No abstract provided.

Adaptive Rationality In Strategic Interaction: Do Emotions Regulate Thinking About Others?, Timo Ehrig, Jaison Manjaly, Aditya Singh, Shyam Sunder

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

Forming beliefs or expectations about others’ behavior is fundamental to strategy, as it co-determines the outcomes of interactions in and across organizations. In the game theoretic conception of rationality, agents reason iteratively about each other to form expectations about behavior. According to prior scholarship, actual strategists fall short of this ideal, and attempts to understand the underlying cognitive processes of forming expectations about others are in their infancy. We propose that emotions help regulate iterative reasoning, that is, their tendency to not only reflect on what others think, but also on what others think about their thinking. Drawing on a …

Examining The Role Of The Crop Insurance Selling Agent, Nathan Delay, Hayley Chouinard, Cory Walters, Philip Wandschneider

Cornhusker Economics

The United States Department of Agriculture, Risk Management Agency (RMA) partners with private insurance companies to deliver the federal crop insurance program through agents who sell policies directly to producers. The government subsidizes producers in the form of premium discounts and reimburses private insurance companies for administrative and operating (A&O) costs. The government provides further assistance to the industry by offering a cooperative reinsurance agreement that reduces loss exposure for insurance companies (Appel and Borba, 2009).

Subsidization of private market players may facilitate rent-seeking behavior—efforts to capture larger shares of tax dollars devoted to the program— especially in the settings …

Optimal Control Of An Epidemic Through Social Distancing, Thomas Kruse, Philipp Strack

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We analyze how to optimally engage in social distancing in order to minimize the spread of an infectious disease. We identify conditions under which any optimal policy is single-peaked, i.e., first engages in increasingly more social distancing and subsequently decreases its intensity. We show that an optimal policy might delay measures that decrease the transmission rate substantially to create herd-immunity and that engaging in social distancing sub-optimally early can increase the number of fatalities. Finally, we find that optimal social distancing can be an effective measure and can substantially reduce the death rate of a disease.

The Evolving Impacts Of Covid-19 On Small Businesses Since The Cares Act, John Eric Humphries, Christopher Neilson, Gabriel Ulyssea

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

This note provides new evidence on how small business owners have been impacted by COVID-19, and how these effects have evolved since the passage of the CARES Act. As part of a broader and ongoing project, we collected survey data from more than 8,000 small business owners in the U.S. from March 28th, one day after the CARES Act was passed, through April 20th. The data include information on firm size, layoffs, beliefs about the future prospects of their businesses, as well as awareness of existing government relief programs. We provide three main findings. First, by the time the CARES …

It Takes A Village: The Economics Of Parenting With Neighborhood And Peer Effects, Francesco Agostinelli, Matthias Doepke, Giuseppe Sorrenti, Fabrizio Zilibotti

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

As children reach adolescence, peer interactions become increasingly central to their development, whereas the direct influence of parents wanes. Nevertheless, parents may continue to exert leverage by shaping their children’s peer groups. We study interactions of parenting style and peer effects in a model where children’s skill accumulation depends on both parental inputs and peers, and where parents can affect the peer group by restricting who their children can interact with. We estimate the model and show that it can capture empirical patterns regarding the interaction of peer characteristics, parental behavior, and skill accumulation among US high school students. We …

Earning, Taxing, Spending, Saving: Tracking South Dakota Incomes, Matthew Berg

Schultz-Werth Award Papers

When tracking the flow of personal incomes, four groupings of expenditures emerge: taxes, fixed expenses, saving, and consumption. This cross-sectional study of 2016 data highlights the differences in these areas across the sixty-six South Dakota counties and between various levels of income to illustrate the income flows among South Dakota residents. Using data primarily from the Internal Revenue Service, several important patterns and statistics arise. In South Dakota, the average statewide income per capita was about $32,127. Individuals in metropolitan counties received the highest average incomes per capita, and individuals in counties with the lowest population densities had the lowest. …

How Long Can Neoliberalism Withstand Climate Crisis?, Julius Mcgee, Patrick Greiner

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

The climate crisis is proving to be antithetical to the neoliberal machines that define current forms of social organization. On the one hand, reducing fossil fuel consumption, the largest contributor to climate change, requires collaborative efforts. These efforts must take into consideration the foundational role of fossil fuels in modern economies. We must acknowledge, for instance, that most peoples’ livelihoods are tethered to fossil fuels, which recent studies have demonstrated is not the result of random historical development but deliberate policy.1 Fossil fuels continue to be used as a form of social domination—a means to expropriate productive and reproductive …

Racialized Tax Inequity: Wealth, Racism, And The U.S. System Of Taxation, Palma Joy Strand, Nicholas A. Mirkay

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

This Article describes the connection between wealth inequality and the increasing structural racism in the U.S. tax system since the 1980s. A long-term sociological view (the why) reveals the historical racialization of wealth and a shift in the tax system overall beginning around 1980 to protect and exacerbate wealth inequality, which has been fueled by racial animus and anxiety. A critical tax view (the how) highlights a shift over the same time period at both federal and state levels from taxes on wealth, to taxes on income, and then to taxes on consumption—from greater to less progressivity. Both of these …

Debt Bondage: How Private Collection Agencies Keep The Formerly Incarcerated Tethered To The Criminal Justice System, Bryan L. Adamson

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

This Article examines the constitutionality of statutes which allow courts to transfer outstanding legal financial obligations to private debt collection agencies. In Washington State, the clerk of courts can transfer the legal financial obligation of a formerly incarcerated person if he or she is only thirty days late making a payment. Upon transfer, the debt collection agencies can assess a “collection fee” of up to 50% of the first $100.000 of the unpaid legal financial obligation, and up to 35% of the unpaid debt over $100,000. This fee becomes part of the LFO debt imposed at sentencing, and like that …

The Out Migration From Illinois Cities And The Impact It Has On The People Left Behind, Evan Anderson

Honors Projects

The state of Illinois has had one of the highest rates of outbound migration in America. This paper evaluates the impact of out-migration on the communities these people leave behind, in particular the financial hub of Chicago and the small city of Bloomington. These cities are compared to the growth city of Phoenix, whose population has exploded in this decade and is one of the most popular destinations for those migrating out of Chicago and Bloomington. Human capital theory suggests that highly educated people with high wage potential are more likely to migrate than less educated people. This paper uses …