Economics Commons^™

How Has Covid-19 Affected Financial Gains Of Big-Tech Companies?, Erin Flanigen

Finance Undergraduate Honors Theses

This study investigates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the financial returns received by Big-Tech companies in order to predict future financial returns and related business activities. The main objectives of this paper are to delineate business models and financial statements of Big-Tech companies prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic, present ample, relevant economic information regarding COVID-19, and encompass the effects of COVID-19 on global economies. This study then predicts the future economic effects of COVID-19 on Big-Tech companies. The selected Big-Tech companies included in this study are Facebook, Alphabet (Google), Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon; each company saw …

Jr. And Sr. High At-Risk Students Within Poverty: Formation Of The Mentor-Mentee Program In Addressing Their Needs, John J. Noggle

Doctor of Ministry Projects and Theses

In the Spring of 2015, I was driving toward Southwest Arkansas to my new appointment at Stamps First United Methodist Church. As I was driving further south on Highway 71, I began to notice how poverty-stricken South Arkansas was. Towns that were once the commercial service centers to their communities contained empty store buildings and little economic life. It was then that I knew that the majority of children in South Arkansas were At-Risk children in poverty. I felt a call in my Spirit to help those in need by developing a plan of action to help them in meeting …

Economic And Cost-Effectiveness Analysis Of The Community-Level Interventions For Pre-Eclampsia (Clip) Trials In India, Pakistan And Mozambique, Jeffrey N. Bone, Asif R. Khowaja, Marianne Vidler, Beth A. Payne, Mrutyunjaya B. Bellad, Shivaprasad S. Goudar, Ashalata A. Mallapur, Khatia Munguambe, Rahat Qureshi, Zulfiqar Ahmed Bhutta

Woman and Child Health

Background: The Community-Level Interventions for Pre-eclampsia (CLIP) trials (NCT01911494) in India, Pakistan and Mozambique (February 2014-2017) involved community engagement and task sharing with community health workers for triage and initial treatment of pregnancy hypertension. Maternal and perinatal mortality was less frequent among women who received ≥8 CLIP contacts. The aim of this analysis was to assess the incremental costs and cost-effectiveness of the CLIP intervention overall in comparison to standard of care, and by PIERS (Pre-eclampsia Integrated Estimate of RiSk) On the Move (POM) mobile health application visit frequency.
Methods: Included were all women enrolled in the three …

The Impact Of Covid 19 On The Selected Turkish Financial Indicators: Empirical Evidence From Toda Yamamoto Causality Test, Sabri Burak Arzova, Bertaç Şakir Şahin

Topics in Middle Eastern and North African Economies

Humanity has suffered from COVID 19 since December 2019. A global pandemic was declared by World Health Organization on 11 March 2021 (WHO, 2019). Pandemics such as bleeding fever, cholera, SARS, MERS, and swine flu have affected humanity throughout history. During pandemic periods, the measures, panic, decline in labor power, and consumption cause economic crises. Like other pandemics, COVID 19 has negative effects on countries, businesses, and households economically (Eichenbaum, Rebelo, and Trabandt, 2020: 1). Many studies have found a statistically significant relationship between public health variables (life expectancy, maternal mortality, etc.) and the economy (Bloom and Sachs, 1998; Robalino …

Divorce And Suicide: A Subnational Analysis In Turkey, Tolga Aksoy, Burak Yerlikaya

Topics in Middle Eastern and North African Economies

This paper investigates the relationship between divorce and suicide in Turkey. To this end, we employ province-level data between 2008-2017 and estimate two-way fixed-effect models. We find that divorce is positively correlated with suicide, with greater effects for males than females. However, the coefficient estimate of divorce on suicide is smaller for the prime working-age group. Divorce also has an indirect impact on suicide through income and unemployment. Accordingly, low income and high unemployment exacerbate the effect of divorce on suicide. Finally, results indicate that divorce increases the skilled male suicide rate and unskilled female suicide rate. These results are …

(Wp 2021-03) Social Economics, John B. Davis

Economics Working Papers

This chapter explores the evolution and contribution of social economics to modern political economic analysis. It reviews the origins and early history of social economics, discusses more fully recent postwar social economics, and then identifies new themes in social economics’ current research agenda. Social economics is distinguished from classical political economy and contemporary neoclassical and mainstream economics – and, indeed, from most other political economic approaches – by its goal of explaining and premising the concept of ‘social’ in economics. Its main organising principle is that the economy is embedded in human society rather than vice versa. Second, the chapter …

An Exploration Of The Impact Of Economic Recessions On The S&P 500 And Its Sectors, Weston Sizemore

Finance Undergraduate Honors Theses

The Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) is a method of predicting future stock prices based on past returns. Specific areas of CAPM analysis utilize regression analysis to accomplish this goal. Historic prices and returns for a specific stock in a company, or even whole sectors of the economy, are compared with the corresponding returns for the market. There have been several historical recessions in United States history, as well as a current, ongoing recession. These recessions, along with their causes and effects, will be discussed extensively in this paper. This paper utilizes an analysis of the Capital Asset Pricing Model …

Can Small-Scale Poultry Initiatives Alleviate Food Insecurity And Increase Empowerment For Women In Economically Disadvantaged Areas?, Patrick Daniels

Accounting Undergraduate Honors Theses

In the summer of 2019, I, along with 8 other students from the University of Arkansas departed the United States for the Central American country of Belize. Despite our limited knowledge of what Belize held in store for us, we were enthusiastic about the coming months. While we had different projects, we all set out with the same universal question in mind. How can we use the knowledge we have gained through education to make a positive impact on the lives of people living in an impoverished town? Some of the members of our team worked alongside local businesses to …

Effects Of Covid: Non-Essential V Essential Industries, William Shipley

Accounting Undergraduate Honors Theses

As the year 2020 has finally come to an end and the end of Covid is in near sight, it is important for us to look back at how it has shaped the world from an economic perspective. Ever since the closure of most of the U.S. and global economy in March 2020 it has made us deem which companies we consider essential and non-essential. This major decision came as all governments across the world had to close the operations of as many companies they could to limit the spread of the covid-19 virus. This major choice of determining what …

Exploiting A Grading Policy Shift As An Instrument To Estimate Impact Of Grading On Teacher Evaluations, Gavin Johnson

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

Professors at a university plausibly have an incentive to give higher grades to students, and these higher grades will be reflected in student evaluations, which are used to assess teaching quality, which could have career impacts. This paper takes advantage of a policy shift at the business school at Utah State University that introduced suggested caps on the average course grades that teachers gave. This allowed instrumental variable analysis to correct for bias in OLS estimations of these impacts. The correlation between grades and students' evaluations of teachers was found to be positive suggesting that student evaluations of teachers are …

How Responsive Is Saudi New Vehicle Fleet Fuel Economy To Fuel-And Vehicle-Price Policy Levers?, Tamara L. Sheldon, Rubal Dua

Faculty Publications

This paper investigates the drivers of recent improvements in Saudi Arabia's fleet fuel economy for new vehicles including passenger cars and light-duty trucks. Vehicle choice models are estimated using both aggregate new vehicle sales data and disaggregate new vehicle buyer survey data. The estimated models are used to simulate counterfactual policy scenarios. Simulation results suggest that the Saudi gasoline price elasticity of demand for new vehicle fuel economy decreased slightly over recent years, but it is still more elastic than that of the United States. Moreover, the increase in domestic gasoline prices between 2014 and 2016 accounted for 42% of …

Are Small Businesses The Framework For A Successful U.S. Economy?, Carson Clevenger

Accounting Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis will investigate the impact of small businesses on the United States’ economy. I will be assessing several impact areas including gross domestic product, employment, and local economy contribution. This thesis will cover a study from the time periods of 1998-2014 of the gross domestic product and employment levels and will use numbers from the years of 2018- present for other impact areas. Furthermore, I will be analyzing certain sectors of the economy, comparing small businesses contribution to corporate contribution, in order to discuss if small businesses are necessary for our country’s successful economy.

Deconstructing Urban Sprawl: Differing Perspectives On A Pervasive Problem, Angela Simonetti

Honors Scholar Theses

Urban sprawl, broadly defined, describes the uncontrolled geographic expansion of cities and towns, oftentimes resulting in haphazard developments with relatively low-density land use and heavy dependence upon automobiles. This is, however, only one of many definitions, as urban sprawl, while an increasingly popular term in many disciplines, does not seem to have a standard definition. This poses numerous problems for those who wish to delve deeper into understanding it and its implications. Consequently, this project offers a discussion and analysis of the various conceptions of urban sprawl throughout an array of different academic disciplines with an emphasis on the environmental, …

The East Texas Housing Market In 2021 – May 2021, Manuel Reyes-Loya, Marilyn Young

Hibbs Newsletter

This issue of the Hibbs Newsletter complements the past issue of the Hibbs Brief, The Housing Market: Will It Crash or Boom in 2021?, with recent figures related to the U.S. mortgage rates and some of the most relevant housing market indicators for the East Texas area.

The Cost Of Crime: A Study On Human Trafficking, Kirsten Krug

Applied Economics Theses

Human trafficking is a billion dollar industry that impacts hundreds of thousands of individuals each year. Each year the United States alone spends millions of dollars on law enforcement programs designated to combat human trafficking.

This thesis examines the impact of those programs as deterrents for individuals who are willing to commit this type of violent crime, as well as why they might commit crime in the first place. In addition to providing an economic analysis of the impact of arrest and jail as deterrents on trafficking, the thesis will also look into what may cause an individual to fall …

Asians And The Study Habits Of Non-Asians In The United States, Sabrina Tang

Honors Scholar Theses

In the United States, Asian American students spend an hour more per day studying than non-Asians (Hofferth et al. 2020). Chen and Stevenson (1995) attribute this to parents and peers who hold higher standards for Asian students. Compared to other races, Asian Americans tend to place a high value on education as a marker of achievement. This thesis explores whether Asian culture impacts non-Asian work ethic by examining whether non-Asians study more in geographic areas with larger Asian populations. I find statistically significant, but small increases in the study time of non-Asians where there is a greater population of Asians.

The Impact Of Socioeconomic Status On Single Women, Catherine Martens

Marketing Undergraduate Honors Theses

Since its formation in the 1700’s, America has been home to varying degrees of discrepancies between social classes, which include assumptions inherently held within these differences. Considering the fact that America was largely built by the hands of human slaves ruled by those with political influence often landowners, social hierarchy has been intricately woven into the fabric of America’s story from the beginning. Despite the progress that has been made to create and advance equal economic opportunity, there is still a considerable lack of social mobility available for those in lower socioeconomic statuses. More specifically, the impact of poverty is …

Mental Illness Economics In The United States: A Comparison With Foreign Countries, Christopher Odum

Economics Undergraduate Honors Theses

In 2018, suicide was the tenth leading cause of death in the United States, claiming the lives of over forty-eight thousand people.1 Globally, eight-hundred thousand people die from suicide every year, which is twice the number from homicide.2 For years, there has been a stigma around mental illness causing it to be a taboo topic, but recently there has been more of a focus and acceptance in our society. Along with the stigma, throughout most of history there has not been a focus on innovating and curing mental health diseases. In many cases, these diseases left unchecked lead to irrational …

The Effects Of Religiosity On Gender-Differentiated Household Decision-Making In Indonesia, Juliann Phillips

Economics Undergraduate Honors Theses

Religion is a dominant influence in household decision-making and is an important factor in understanding intra-household bargaining power, especially within developing countries. It is important to understand the extent to which religious beliefs affect decisions made within the household when designing interventions to improve women’s agency. This paper examines the fourth wave of the Indonesia Family Life Survey using the difference-in-differences method to analyze the impact of Islamic religiosity on the likelihood of allowing women within the household to make certain decisions in eight critical categories. While stereotypical beliefs may negatively correlate women’s bargaining power and high levels of religiosity …

Employment And Drug-Related Mortality, Trung Minh Pham

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

In the last two decades, there has been a downturn in labor force participation. One research approach to explain the downturn is death by despair—a recent topic in economics on pain and preventable deaths caused by alcohol, drugs and suicide. This thesis hopes to add to the death by despair literature by exploring the effect of employment on drug-related mortality through empirical investigation across 17 demographic groups—accounting for age, education, gender, and race—from 2011 to 2018, and covering all 50 US states along with the District of Columbia. Different estimations of population (demographic groups, gender and state total) are used …

Addressing Food Insecurity In The United States During And After The Covid-19 Pandemic: The Role Of The Federal Nutrition Safety Net, Sheila Fleischhacker, Sara N. Bleich

Journal of Food Law & Policy

Food insecurity has been a direct and almost immediate consequence of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and its associated ramifications on unemployment, poverty and food supply disruptions. As a social determinant of health, food insecurity is associated with poor health outcomes including diet related chronic diseases, which are associated with worst COVID-19 outcomes (e.g., COVID-19 patients of all ages with obesity face higher risk of complications, death). In the United States (US), the federal nutrition safety net is predominantly made up of the suite of 15 federal nutrition assistance programs that the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) administers and …

An Analysis Of The Factors That Influence Success Rates Of Honors College Students, Braden Bateman

Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness Undergraduate Honors Theses

University honors programs provide students with challenging yet rewarding opportunities. Pursuing honors often offers students opportunities (such as access to uique coursework or specialized mentorship) that are not available to the general student popultion. However, honors programs also hold students to more or higher educational milestones in order to graduate with honors. Data from the University of Araksas Fayetteville (UAF) suggest students who start in honors as new freshmen typically graduate at rates much higher than students who were not honors freshmen. However, the percentage of those honors freshmen who complete their honors requirements is much lower than those who …

The World’S Largest Airline: How Aeroflot Learned To Stop Worrying And Became A Corporation, Steven E. Harris

History and American Studies Articles

Similar to sex, the Soviet Union did not have corporations. The famous utterance from the Gorbachev era about a sexless Soviet existence suggests how we might approach what happened to the corporation in Soviet history. Like explicit sex in Soviet culture, the workers’ state formally eradicated the dreaded incorporated bodies of capitalism and gave them no quarter in subsequent ideological battles. But just like sex, the behaviors and practices of corporations kept cropping up in the oddest places to help sustain the Soviet economy, while the West remained a source of inspiration for new ways to do it. To examine …

The Impact Of Graduate School Ranking On An Economics Professor’S Annual Earnings, Shailee Manandhar

Honors Theses

What are the economic returns to attending a more selective college? This thesis adds to the growing literature on college choices and economic returns by analyzing the effects of graduate school ranking on the annual earnings of economics professors in the United States. In order to answer this question, the author collected an original data set using publicly available salary information from a number of US-based institutions. The data in this paper uses McPherson’s ranking of US Economics Departments, h-index, and other factors collected from the individuals’ CVs to estimate the economic returns. The results from Ordinary Least Squares regression …

Consumer Motivations And Perceived Value In Online Second-Hand Luxury Fashion Shopping, Murphy Brianne Aycock

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The second-hand luxury fashion market is growing four times faster than the primary luxury fashion market and already represents a $24 billion market today (Beauloye, 2019; Siwak, 2020). Younger generations such as millennials and Gen Z are buying and selling preowned luxury products almost three times faster than any other age group (Beauloye, 2019). Digital selling platforms such as The RealReal and Vestiaire Collective are fueling the growth of the second-hand luxury fashion market (Beauloye, 2019). Despite the increased consumer interests and sales growth in the second-hand luxury fashion market, existing research has not concentrated on the underlying motivations of …

Economic Experiments On Conflict, Information Acquisition, And Public Goods, Jeffrey Braxton Gately

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation contains essays on economic experiments. The first chapter, “Well, at Least I Tried: Partial Willful Ignorance, Information Acquisition, and Social Preferences,” focuses on the effects of information acquisition on social decision-making. The second chapter, “Paved With Good Intentions: Partial Willful Ignorance and Group Identity in Public Goods Games,” focuses on the effect of information acquisition on contributions to public goods. I also explore human conflict in the third chapter, “Risk Preferences and Reform Paths: Experimental Evidence.”

In my first chapter, “Well, at Least I Tried: Partial Willful Ignorance, Information Acquisition, and Social Preferences”, I investigate whether remaining partially …

Does Affordability Guarantee Accessibility? Analyzing The Effect Of Subsidized Tuition On Diversity In University Demographics, Matthew Cole

Economics Undergraduate Honors Theses

During the 2020 presidential election, Democratic Party candidate Joe Biden announced his initiative to make higher education free for any individual whose parents earn less than $125,000. This proposal was inspired by progressive representatives, such as Bernie Sanders, who have made a larger issue of American higher education costs (Berger). Although this initiative garnered little focus during the election – Biden has not addressed it since being elected and the proposal was even removed from his campaign website – his endorsement shows just how much the notion of “free” college has grown amongst Americans in recent years. This growing sentiment …

Brain Drain In Mississippi, Clifford Adam Conner

Honors Theses

Brain drain is the out-migration of educated individuals from an area. It is a problem with which Mississippi is overly familiar. This thesis uses data gathered from a survey of 965 respondents to identify who is leaving the state and for what reasons. The data gathered suggest confirmation that brain drain is an issue for the state, with roughly two-thirds of respondents having left the state or seriously considering doing so. The impetus for this varies with each individual, but respondents underscore economic and societal factors within Mississippi as pushing them away from the state. Quality of life factors are …

Environmental Policy And Employment: The Effect Of The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative On The Labor Market, Kelly-Anne Moffa

Honors Scholar Theses

This paper estimates the impacts that the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, implemented in 2009, has had on labor market outcomes within the policy region. The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative is a carbon cap-and-trade program that consists of ten states in the Northeast. Using a difference-in-difference framework, I found that, overall, there was no significant impact on the annual employment growth rate because of RGGI. When broken down into industry-specific effects, most industries still had no significant employment effects, although the mining industry did see a weakly significant 0.09 percentage point decrease in its annual employment growth rate. These estimates are …

Taxes And The Incentive To Work Under Flat And Progressive Tax Systems In Slovakia, Orkhan Nadirov, Bruce Dehning, Drahomira Pavelkova

Accounting Faculty Articles and Research

This study examines the impact of taxes on the incentive to work under flat and progressive tax systems. Of particular interest are the changes from progressive-to-flat and flat-to-progressive tax conditions. To measure the impact of taxes on the incentive to work under both scenarios, we relate hours worked with the effective marginal tax rates. Using national accounts data and the Prescott’s (2004) labor market model, Slovakian work hours were examined at points in time around the adoption of a flat tax system in 2004 and a progressive tax system in 2013. In Slovakia, there was a transition from a progressive …