Economics Commons^™

Variation In Las Vegas Tree Diversity Based On Socioeconomic Status, Fabrizio Ciccone

Calvert Undergraduate Research Awards

An increased level of plant biodiversity has been observed in urban communities of above average socioeconomic status. This phenomenon was previously termed the luxury effect. This study aimed to identify potential disparities in tree diversity of different communities across Las Vegas and Henderson. Communities were selected based on the zip code’s median income for 2023; this information was gathered from the Healthy Southern Nevada database. Public parks were chosen from a range of zip codes, with trees initially being identified with PictureThis, then cross-referenced with Southern Nevada Water Authority’s regional plant list for validity. Trees were counted, identified, and …

The Effects Of Bureaucratic Corruption On The Financial Constraints Of Nigerian Small Businesses, Obinna Franklin Ezeibekwe

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

In this paper, I conduct the first empirical analysis to examine the impact of bureaucratic corruption on small business financial constraints in Nigeria. This study is also the first to compare the average treatment effect (ATE) with the local average treatment effect (LATE) framework to account for potential variations in treatment effects for small Nigerian firms with less than 100 employees. Using the bivariate probit method and two binary instruments, I find that corruption significantly increases the likelihood of financial constraints for a typical micro, small, and medium enterprise (MSME) by approximately 64 to 68 percentage points. When I use …

Esop Shocks: Employee Ownership And Employment Stability In Public Firms During The Covid-19 Crisis, Richard Taylor Lennox

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Did employee ownership preserve jobs and firm-level skill retention during the COVID-19 pandemic? In the United States, employee ownership (EO) primarily takes the form of Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs). Using a longitudinal dataset composed of Department of Labor Form 5500 – CompuStat Fundamentals matched data from 2010-2022, this thesis examines the relationship between ESOPs and employment stability during the COVID pandemic for a large sample of public firms in the US. A fixed effects specification, controlling for a vector of firm characteristics and the national employment-to-population ratio, suggests that ESOPs had an employment-cushioning effect in public firms during the …

Legislative Redistricting And The Partisan Distribution Of Transportation Expenditure, Walter Melnik

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

I show that a state representative’s political party determines transportation expenditure in the area she represents. Previous studies of this topic consider party changes through election outcomes, which may be correlated with unobservable determinants of expenditure. To overcome this issue, I identify my estimates using Ohio’s 2012 state legislative redistricting, which moved many geographic areas into districts with opposite party incumbents. The Republican party controlled the state legislature and governorship over the period I study. I find that areas moving from governing party Republican to minority party Democratic districts received $3.4M (0.18 standard deviations) less annual highway construction funding than …

Bekerja Tetapi Tetap Miskin, Apakah Permasalahan Kemiskinan Multidimensi?, Abdus Salam, Endan Suwandana, Watekhi Watekhi

Jurnal Ekonomi dan Pembangunan Indonesia

Working but still in poverty, is one of the phenomena of poor workers where they continue to work but their work does not guarantee them a better life. This study uses the concept of poverty from a monetary and multidimensional perspective. This study uses data from the March 2018 National Socioeconomic Survey (Susenas) and 2018 Village Potential Survey (Podes), and uses logistic regression to analyze whether the phenomenon of the working poor is a multidimensional poverty problem. The results of the study stated that poor workers have a close relationship with low education, millennial/young workers, a single parent, employees, a …

The Simplified Additional Funds Needed Equation And Its Implications

Journal of Economics and Finance Education

As part of the corporate financial planning process, a firm must quantify the external funds required to achieve a specified growth rate. The additional funds needed (AFN) equation purportedly provides managers with a simple, first-cut way to do so. However, in its traditional specification, the AFN estimate appears to ignore financial feedback effects, potentially undermining its usefulness. This paper restates and simplifies the AFN equation. The new specification reveals that the estimated AFN is not distorted by financial feedback effects and can be used in its unadjusted form as an initial estimate of a firm’s financing needs.

Does Learning Economics Make You Less Susceptible To The Sunk Cost Fallacy?

Journal of Economics and Finance Education

The sunk cost fallacy is typically covered in introductory economics courses. It is among the most important biases that influence decision making. Ronayne et al. (2021a,b) find evidence of behavior consistent with the sunk cost effect and utilize eight questions that measure individuals’ susceptibility to the sunk cost fallacy. We extend their research by examining whether a “pop culture” teaching intervention in principles of microeconomics lowers students’ predisposition to the fallacy. We find that students become -14.95% less susceptible to the sunk cost fallacy after learning about it. We also observe that students who have taken economics previously exhibit lower …

Legacy Of Labour: The Impact Of Parental Occupations On Children’S Careers Choices And Income Inequality, Swapnil Landge

Publications and Research

This paper investigates how intergenerational occupational mobility and self-selection into occupations are influenced by the occupations of parents. The results demonstrate that children who pursue their parents’ occupations, particularly those in the lowest earnings percentiles, are more negatively self-selected compared to those whose parents are in the highest earning deciles. In particular, 65% of the children who pursue their parents’ occupation in Decile 1, 49% in Decile 2, 32% in Decile 3 and 26% in Decile 4 would have achieved higher productivity and earned higher earnings in high-income occupations (specifically in Decile 10 occupations). In contrast, children from high-income backgrounds …

The Influence Of Flavor On The Abuse Liability Of A Heated Tobacco Product And Its Feasibility As A Menthol Cigarette Substitute, Augustus White

Theses and Dissertations

Heated Tobacco Products (HTPs) purport to expose people that use cigarettes to fewer of the harmful or potentially harmful constituents of tobacco while still delivering reinforcing amounts of nicotine (Auer, Concha-Lozano et al., 2017). An exemplar of the HTP class, IQOS, and its three varieties of “HeatSticks” have been authorized by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as “Modified Risk Tobacco Products” (MRTP). However, as the FDA is planning to ban menthol as a characterizing flavor in cigarettes, questions remain regarding whether characterizing flavors should be permitted in HTPs (FDA, 2022e). New evidence regarding HTP abuse liability (i.e., the likelihood …

Essays On Institutions And Business Performance In A Less-Developed Economy, Obinna Franklin Ezeibekwe

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The dissertation comprises three essays that collectively contribute novel insights into the impact of institutional and regulatory factors on firm performance in Nigeria.

The first essay presents the first empirical assessment of the causal heterogeneous effects of competition from informal firms on the revenue of Nigerian formal firms using quantile regression, causal mediation analysis, and non-parametric preprocessing matching. The theoretical framework mathematically depicts how informality determines formal firm revenue by influencing prices.

In the second essay, I provide the first empirical assessment of the causal impact of bureaucratic corruption on firms' financial constraints in Nigeria by calculating treatment effects using …

Three Essays On The Impact Of Debt On Young American Adults’ Lives After Graduation, Sylvie Sanou

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation investigates the impact of financial constraints due to debt on three aspects of young American adults' lives after graduation. The first essay examines the impact of student loan debt on the mental health of US young adults using restricted-access and publicly available data from the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY97). Prior studies found that debt negatively affects mental health. However, few papers focused on educational debt. Unlike other debt, student loan debt is special because it funds human capital investment, and borrowers expect to receive a significant return on the investment. Using a two-stage estimation model, …

Univariate Extreme Value Analysis Of Quantitative Investment Management, George Agbenyega Zumanu

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The evolution of product development within the variable annuity (VA) business have sparked interest in quantitative investment management, particularly as most VA issuers have integrated volatility-controlled funds into their annuity portfolios. Despite the existence of empirical research on statistical analysis of extreme values in conventional investments, there has been a notable gap in research focus towards risk modeling in volatility-controlled funds.

This study contributes by analyzing and modeling the extreme values of investments in volatility-controlled funds, comparing them to conventional equity funds. The financial returns of S&P Dow Jones Indices (SPDJI) indices - SPXTR, risk control SPXT18UT, and managed risk …

Essays On Computational And Financial Economics, Mohammadreza Mahmoudi

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation comprises three essays centered on computational and financial economics, addressing the economic implications of the COVID-19 pandemic, the interplay between monetary policy and the cryptocurrency market, and the strategies for cryptocurrency portfolio optimization.

In the first essay, the spotlight is cast on the U.S. government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic and its subsequent economic ramifications. The study meticulously assesses the implemented uniform pandemic control policies and contrasts them with potential targeted measures. These targeted strategies take into account the differential effects of the virus on various age demographics. By employing the adjusted SEQIHR model as a tool for …

Impact Of Forest Plantations On Energy Poverty: An Assessment Of Reforestation Efforts In Uganda, Matilda Kabutey-Ongor

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This study investigates the socio-economic impacts of reforestation initiatives on energy poverty in three Ugandan districts—Hoima, Dokolo, and Nakasongola. Implemented by the Ugandan National Forest Authority, these efforts aim to mitigate the adverse effects of deforestation, exacerbated by a growing population and increased demand for forest products. We hypothesize that through sustainable afforestation, access to biomass and other renewable energy sources can be improved, thereby alleviating energy poverty. The study establishes a causal relationship between reforestation and reductions in energy poverty and general poverty using advanced econometric methods, such as Ordinary Least Squares regression, Weighting, and matching techniques including Propensity …

Aiming For The Goal: Contribution Dynamics Of Crowdfunding, Joyee Deb, Aniko Öry (Oery), Kevin R. Williams

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We study a dynamic contribution game where investors seek private benefits that are offered in exchange for contributions and a single, publicly-minded donor values project success. We show that donor contributions serve as costly signals that encour-age socially-productive contributions by investors who face a coordination problem. Investors and the donor prefer different equilibria but all benefit in expectation from the donor’s ability to dynamically signal his valuation. We explore various contexts in which our model can be applied and delve empirically into the case of Kickstarter. We calibrate our model and quantify the coordination benefits of dynamic signaling in counterfactuals.

Do Agricultural Commodity Price Spikes Always Stem From News?, Zhouxin Li

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study delves into the occurrence and differentiation of significant price jumps in agricultural commodity markets, challenging the conventional belief that such movements are solely driven by exogenous factors. Existing literature has primarily focused on the impact of news on agricultural commodity prices, neglecting the distinction between endogenous and exogenous price spikes. I aim to identify and categorize both types of price spikes in corn, soybean, and wheat futures markets. I propose a comprehensive methodology involving the collection of agricultural news, non-parametric price jump detection, and differentiation between exogenous (newsdriven) and endogenous (non-news related) price spikes. By utilizing intraday price …

Access To Banking : A South Asian Perspective, Aditi Poudel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the driving factors behind gender disparities in access to banking services in South Asia (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka) with a focus on legal indicators (assets, marriage, mobility, parenthood, pay, pension, workplace) and gross domestic product (GDP) per capita. The choice of South Asia is not just due to the sheer number of women affected by financial exclusion but also because of its economic significance and the opportunity for substantial impact through legal and economic reforms in the world economy. Employing logistic regression models, I examine the critical legal and economic determinants influencing …

Which Side (Of The Balance Sheet) Are You On? Household Financial Resources And Participation In The 2020 Protests, Selina Miller, Stephen Roll, C.Taylor Brown, Laura Brugger, Michal Grinstein-Weiss

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The summer of 2020 was marked by widespread protests. Though research has often examined the predictors of protest participation, there exists little work examining the relationship between different types of wealth and protesting. Drawing on resource-based theories of protest participation and asset-based theories of civic engagement, we constructed regression models disentangling relationships between income, liquid assets, investment assets, homeownership, and protesting. Using a national survey administered during the protests, we find that liquid assets are negatively associated, homeownership is positively associated, and investment assets exhibit a non-linear association with protesting. These relationships hold when controlling for income, demographics, and ideology, …

A Tale Of Two Working Landscapes, Sage C. Sutcliffe

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

The Geometry Of Dynamic Time-Dependent Best-Worst Choice Pairs, Sasanka Adikari, Norou Diawara, Haim Bar

Mathematics & Statistics Faculty Publications

There has been increasing interest in best–worst discrete choice experiments (BWDCEs) in health economics, transportation research, and other fields over the last few years. BWDCEs have distinct advantages compared to other measurement approaches in discrete choice experiments (DCEs). A systematic study of best–worst (BW) choice pairs can be traced back to the 1990s. Recently, new ideas have been introduced to the subject. Calculating utility helps measure the attractiveness of BW choices. The goal of this paper is twofold. First, we extend the idea of the BW choice pair to include dynamic, time-dependent transition probability and capture utility at each time …

Optimal Nonparametric Range-Based Volatility Estimation, Tim Bollerslev, Jia Li, Qiyuan Li

Research Collection School Of Economics

We present a general framework for optimal nonparametric spot volatility estimation based on intraday range data, comprised of the first, highest, lowest, and last price over a given time-interval. We rely on a decision-theoretic approach together with a coupling-type argument to directly tailor the form of the nonparametric estimator to the specific volatility measure of interest and relevant loss function. The resulting new optimal estimators offer substantial efficiency gains compared to existing commonly used range-based procedures.

Robust Testing For Explosive Behavior With Strongly Dependent Errors, Yui Lim Lui, Peter C. B. Phillips, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

A heteroskedasticity-autocorrelation robust (HAR) test statistic is proposed to test for the presence of explosive roots in financial or real asset prices when the equation errors are strongly dependent. Limit theory for the test statistic is developed and extended to heteroskedastic models. The new test has stable size properties unlike conventional test statistics that typically lead to size distortion and inconsistency in the presence of strongly dependent equation errors. The new procedure can be used to consistently time-stamp the origination and termination of an explosive episode under similar conditions of long memory errors. Simulations are conducted to assess the finite …

High-Dimensional Iv Cointegration Estimation And Inference, Peter C. B. Phillips, Igor L. Kheifets

Research Collection School Of Economics

A semiparametric triangular systems approach shows how multicointegrating linkages occur naturally in an I(1) cointegrated regression model when the long run error variance matrix in the system is singular. Under such singularity, cointegrated I(1) systems embody a multicointegrated structure that makes them useful in many empirical settings. Earlier work shows that such systems may be analyzed and estimated without appealing to the associated I(2) system but with suboptimal convergence rates and potential asymptotic bias. The present paper develops a robust approach to estimation and inference of such systems using high dimensional IV methods that have appealing asymptotic properties like those …

Childlessness And Sibling Positioning In Upward Intergenerational Support: Insights From Singapore, Dahye Kim, Christine Ho, Bussarawan Teerawichitchainan

Research Collection School Of Economics

Objective: This brief report aims to explore the role of child-lessness and its interaction with sibling positioning (i.e., birth order and gender) in upward intergenerational support within the context of Asian familial and patrilineal values. Background: Despite the increasing rates of childlessness in Asia, little is known about how childless individuals deviate from or adhere to the patrilineal gendered practices of supporting their older parents. Singapore, a rapidly aging nation that emphasises Confucian familism values and patrilineal practices in guiding its welfare policies, provides an ideal setting for this research investigation. Method: We analysed a sample of 475 Singaporeans aged …

Statistical Discrimination And Duration Dependence In A Semistructural Model, Ismail Baydur, Jianhuan Xu

Research Collection School Of Economics

This article develops a job-search model with unobserved worker heterogeneity and learning about worker types from unemployment duration. The model features negative duration dependence that stems from unobserved heterogeneity, skill depreciation, and statistical discrimination. We estimate job-finding rates implied by our model using microlevel data from the Current Population Survey. We find that removing interview costs counterfactually, thereby eliminating statistical discrimination, substantially increases the job-finding rates of the long-term unemployed. The performance of low-skill workers at the interview stage with discriminating firms plays a key role in explaining our counterfactual result.

Regulator Preferences And Underinvestment In Drinking Water Infrastructure, Chunyu Guo

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

The infrastructure of U.S. drinking water systems faces chronic issues of low quality and underinvestment. As the water utilities in the U.S. are typically managed and regulated at the local municipal level, investment levels depend on the municipal regulator's preferences. Drawing from a dynamic framework, I specify and estimate the local regulators' objective function over drinking water infrastructure investment. This framework highlights the tradeoff between profit and consumer surplus and reveals how regulator preferences can deviate from net surplus optimization, resulting in underinvestment. My findings provide significant evidence that the drinking water infrastructure is underinvested. I reveal that the regulator's …

An Analysis Of Post-War Economic Growth In The Balkans, Edina Tahirovic

Honors Program Theses

When examining the economies of several former Yugoslav countries, presently known as the Balkans, it is essential to consider the economic development that occurred in the aftermath of the region’s civil wars. This paper analyzes the factors influencing post-war economic development in the former Yugoslav countries using statistical regression analysis of panel data collected from 2002 to 2019. In this model, I selected variables based on previous research and theories that underscored their importance. To explain post-war economic development, I tested variables such as foreign direct investments, unemployment, migration, trade, corruption, the Gini index, personal remittances, and population. The results …

The Effect Of Gender-Based Occupational Segregation On Women's Earnings In The United States And Canada, Jadyn Grace Milius

Honors Program Theses

The gender wage gap continues to prove a contentious topic with some going as far as to question its existence. However, scholarly works continue to prove it is real and impactful. More fruitful debates have arisen about the source of this disparity in wages. This paper seeks to analyze one possible explanation for the pay gap: gender-based occupational segregation. I used OLS regressions based on women working full-time between the ages of sixteen and sixty-five to measure this. I find a negative effect of segregated occupations on women’s earnings across countries and years. On a similar note, the percentage of …

Displaced Worker Angst And Far Right Populism, Thomas E. Lambert

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Background

Nothing causes more anguish and frustration than downward social mobility such as that experienced by less-educated workers and especially by displaced workers. Those who lose economic status lose more than income because they become so socially isolated that they are further frustrated through loneliness (Case and Deaton 2020). Hanna Arendt points out that lonely men are susceptible to authoritarian influence (1973, p. 475).

There is yet another aspect to the downward social mobility of low skilled men, namely that they are losing ground not only relative to social norms but also relative to the wages of low-skilled women. In …

The Effects Of School Autonomy On Student Achievement, Frank P. Kastl

Honors College Theses

This paper presents new evidence on the effects of school autonomy over personnel, budgeting, and curriculum on student achievement. I use the 2022 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) data, a survey and assessment of students and schools in over 80 countries along with panel data methods. The empirical findings suggest that a greater degree of autonomy over schooling decisions improves achievement in math, science, and reading. However, these improvements are most pronounced in more developed countries.