Behavioral Economics Commons^™

The End Of Unmeasured Exploitation: How A.S.M., C.A.S., And S.I.A. Challenge Digital Attention Capitalism, Delante Clark

Graduate Scholarship and Creative Works

Digital attention capitalism generates value through the capture and monetization of human attention, yet it has historically lacked standardized mechanisms for measuring attention-related harm. This paper argues that the Attention Safeguard Models (A.S.M.), Cognitive Attentional Standards (C.A.S.), and Sociological Impact Assessment (S.I.A.) collectively challenge this system by introducing an integrated framework for classifying, measuring, and evaluating digital attention harm and its societal consequences. C.A.S. provides standardized measurement of digital attention harm, A.S.M. identifies and classifies patterns of attentional disruption and manipulation, and S.I.A. evaluates broader impacts on institutions, communities, civic engagement, education, social cohesion, and inequality. Together, these systems transform …

Refereed Research - Indispensable Yet Not Fully Legitimate: Street Markets As Invisible Subsistence Infrastructure, Raji Srinivasan, Maria C. Merino

Subsistence Marketplaces

Street markets are key provisioning systems across the Global South, supplying fresh food, employment, and retail access absent formal infrastructure. Yet despite street markets’ functional indispensability to millions of low-income consumers, their legitimacy is chronically contested, affirmed by vendors and communities yet challenged by planners, developers, and state authorities who apply formal-economy criteria in evaluating them. We theorize this as a legitimacy paradox and ask what structural mechanisms sustain it? Using composite vignettes grounded in fieldwork, we theorize three mechanisms. First, visibility without recognition: street markets are hyper-visible yet excluded from cognitive templates of legitimate, formal retail. Second, asymmetric essentiality: …

Do Nonprofit Ratings Help Donors Make Better Decisions?, Ashraf Haque

Center for Policy Research

Nonprofit organizations depend on donations to fulfill their missions, but donors choosing among 1.8 million U.S. public charities often lack the time or capacity to evaluate which organizations are actually performing well. This brief summarizes findings from a study that used a five-year panel dataset of over one million nonprofit-year records from GuideStar (2014–2018) to examine how transparency seal ratings affect donation behavior. The author finds that having any GuideStar seal increases donations by about 7% compared to having no seal, and that platinum-rated nonprofits receive 34% more in donations than unrated organizations, regardless of actual organizational quality. Donors do …

Connecting Families Through Cash Transfers And An Enabling Environment In Colombia, Mexico, And The Philippines: A Qualitative Study, Johanna K P Greeson, John Gyourko, Sarah Wasch, Kristin Mallory, Lory Fehlig, Cesar Jácome, Nestor David Lara Yanes, Fátima Areli Ruiz Gutiérrez, Dennis Guamos, Adele R. Lehman

Faculty Scholarship

Nearly 700 million people worldwide live in extreme poverty, and almost half of the world’s population lives below the poverty line. Cash transfer programs are increasingly used to address poverty’s effects on family well-being, yet less is known about how families experience programs that combine cash transfers with peer-driven mutual aid. Children International’s (CI) Community Independence Initiative (CII) provides conditional cash transfers and promotes family-led goal setting, mutual support, and shared learning. This qualitative study explored how families in Colombia, Mexico, and the Philippines experienced CII and made meaning of its material and relational components. We conducted focus groups with …

Governing Algorithmic Attention: Attention Safeguard Models And The Cognitive Attentional Standard As System Level Interventions In Human Computer Interaction, Behavioral Economics, And Artificial Intelligence, Delante Clark

Graduate Scholarship and Creative Works

Algorithmic recommendation systems and interface designs shape attention by combining visually salient cues with uncertain reward timing and low friction interaction. These conditions can sustain anticipatory checking, extend time on task, and reduce natural disengagement points through patterns such as infinite scrolling and autoplay. This paper synthesizes research across neuroscience, human computer interaction, behavioral economics, and artificial intelligence to argue that attention capture is a predictable outcome of incentive driven design rather than an individual failure of self regulation. It advances the Attention Safeguard Models and the Cognitive Attentional Standard as system level interventions that regulate exposure conditions, pacing, and …

Determinants Of Corporal Punishment And Severe Physical Punishment In Egypt: A Mixed-Methods Analysis For Child Protection Policy, Marwa Moustafa Nassef

Theses and Dissertations

Corporal punishment (CP) and severe physical punishment (SPP) remain a major public health, child rights, and child protection policy concern. In Egypt, despite legislative reforms, survey-weighted analysis of the 2021 Egypt Family Health Survey (EFHS) 2021 (CAPMAS, 2022) reveals prevalence rates of 60.5% for CP and 27.4% for SPP among children aged 1–14 (author’s calculations using EFHS-2021, n=7623), yet evidence distinguishing the determinants of routine corporal punishment from escalation to severe physical punishment remains limited in low- and middle-income contexts. Guided by Bronfenbrenner’s ecological framework, this mixed-methods study identifies key drivers of CP and its escalation to SPP among Egyptian …

The Disconnect In Female Labour Force Participation Policy In Egypt: Design And Implementation Gaps, Miral Mohamed Omran

Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates the disconnect between Egypt's ambitious female labor force participation (FLFP) policy goals in the National Strategy for the Empowerment of Egyptian Women 2030 and the declining indicators since its launch. Applying Van Meter and Van Horn's implementation framework, it analyzes the full policy process using qualitative interviews across government, civil society, and private sector actors involved in the national policy’s design and execution. Findings reveal structural failures, resource shortages, coordination gaps, leadership turnover, and donor-driven fragmentation, intensified by cultural norms and frontline resistance. Recommendations prioritize short-term administrative tweaks leveraging public sector downsizing for harmonization and rethinking the …

Welcome Tilly Norwood: Forecasting Hollywood’S Ai Policy Futures, Samuel P. Rooker

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

In late 2025, weekly trade publication Variety Magazine reported on the announcement of a new acting talent in Hollywood: Tilly Norwood. Norwood is an industry outsider and the pet project of Eline Van der Velden, who unveiled the actress’ existence to the world at the Zurich Film Festival. The announcement quickly gained media coverage while Van der Velden has since faced cyclical backlash from Hollywood trade unions, which does not seem entirely without reason. Tilly Norwood is a digital persona, a generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) program, designed by Van der Velden’s novel AI talent studio, Xicoia, to become the next …

The Hypocrisy Of The Wizards—A Proposal To Correct Incentives In Higher Education Loan Financing, Caden Benedict

School of Public Policy Capstones

This paper explores the origins of the student loan debt crisis and proposes tying university incentives to graduates' repayment plans and disclosing median earnings for degrees before students apply. Specifically, while there are numerous factors explaining why the price of education has increased dramatically since the 1970s, this paper proposes solutions that will specifically target university moral hazards by requiring universities fund: (1) the current subsidies to federal student loan repayments under income-driven plans as the House of Representatives intended before the Senate removed "risk-sharing," and (2) bankruptcy law discharge amounts. Moreover, requiring universities to disclose the median earnings of …

Airbnb And The End Of The Local, Nadia Beyersdorf

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines how second-home ownership and self-catered tourism reshape community life in Tenby, Wales. While gentrification research often focuses on permanent displacement, less attention has been given to the movement of temporary residents that erodes local culture, social ties, and transforms everyday relationships in coastal towns.

The Economics Of Accountability: Learning From German Holocaust Reparations, Grace I. Gates

Scripps Senior Theses

Drawing on microdata from the Survey of Health, Aging, and Retirement in Europe, this study compares European Holocaust survivors who received reparations with similar Europeans who did not. It finds that, decades on, recipients are not systematically better or worse off on core outcomes like life satisfaction, savings, and debt. This is consistent with the argument that reparations restore parity rather than create new advantages. Where differences emerge, they point to stabilization in more vulnerable settings (e.g., lower likelihood of high debt in parts of Eastern Europe). The main takeaway from effective reparations is applicable to the United States debate: …

C.A.S. Full Assessment Report: State Of Florida Government Portal, Delante Clark

Graduate Scholarship and Creative Works

The purpose of this assessment is to evaluate the cognitive overhead, transparency, and attentional integrity of

official State of Florida digital interfaces using the Cognitive Attentional Standards (C.A.S.) platform.

While the Florida Digital Bill of Rights (FDBR) establishes strict regulatory guardrails for consumer data

transparency, tracking opt-outs, and attentional safeguards, the State of Florida explicitly exempts its own

government agencies, public universities, and non-profit entities from complying with these rules.

This assessment serves to investigate the tension between legislative intent and government execution. By

analyzing public sector websites through the C.A.S. platform, this project will establish a “state-enforced vs.

state-executed” …

Investigating The Relationship Between Noun Classes And Plant Folk Taxonomy In Chasu Language Of Kilimanjaro Region In Tanzania, Peter Rabson Mziray

Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

The current study investigates the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu (G 22). The study focuses on two objectives: the first objective is to describe the plant folk taxonomy in Chasu and the second objective is to determine the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu. Data were collected from rural villages in Same and Mwanga districts by using free listing, field interviews (jungle-walk-and-identify), and written texts containing Chasu plant names. The findings reveal that Chasu folk taxonomy reflects different ethnobotanical categories; including a unique beginner which is mmea/mimea ‘plant(s)’, and three life …

Mymoney: A Program That Leverages Digital And Artificial Intelligence Tools For Improving The Financial Wellbeing Of Hispanic Families, Luisa Blanco, Kamila Campos, Jessica Gonzalez, Jorge Macias

School of Public Policy Working Papers

Abstract: Our Community-Based Digital Intervention (CBDI) MyMoney was designed to meet the informational needs and promote behavioral change among Hispanic adults. We leverage Digital and Artificial Intelligence (DAI) tools to provide participants access to content that is linguistically and culturally tailored and structured to be delivered in short, accessible modules. MyMoney program provided an introductory experience to financial education with a mobilephone based approach, offering a four-week experience for improving money management skills. We conducted an extensive quantitative and qualitative data analysis of participants’ and stakeholders’ program experience and perspectives, which provides important insights for the design, evaluation, and implementation …

Benefits Of Extended Unemployment Insurance On Post-Unemployment Outcomes, Alyssa Roche

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates how unemployment insurance (UI) affects individuals during and after unemployment. Drawing on historical evidence from recent recessions in the United States, publicly available data, behavioral insights, and mathematical modeling, it argues that the benefits of extending UI outweigh the potential costs. The analysis incorporates a wide range of sources, including empirical economic studies using regression models and psychology and business research that highlight behavioral responses to financial stress and job insecurity. By combining quantitative data with behavioral context, the thesis offers a more comprehensive understanding of how extended UI influences job search decisions, wage outcomes, and overall …

How Can Public Sector Employers Improve The Effectiveness Of Email Recruitment?, Leonard M. Lopoo, Robert Bifulco, Hannah Patnaik, Ashraf Haque, Christine Ashby, George Theoharis

Center for Policy Research

With the constant deluge of listservs, email advertisements, and phishing scams, many email recipients have become accustomed to deleting emails from unknown sources without ever reading them. Knowing what can increase the likelihood of email engagement may improve the effectiveness of email communications in job recruitment. This brief summarizes findings from a study that reports results from a randomized controlled trial (RCT) of a mass email campaign to recruit applicants for a training program for K-12 teaching jobs. The authors compared email open rates between emails that contained a letter with university logos signed by a university official versus emails …

Expectations Versus Reality In New Cairo's Gated Communities: An Interdisciplinary Analysis Of Socio-Spatial Features, Ala'a Marwan

Theses and Dissertations

This research aims to introduce a new framework to identify the disparities between gated community residents’ experiences and real estate developers' visions towards the development. As New Cairo experiences significant growth, many residents are increasingly relocating to gated communities. It has become crucial to assess users’ expectations before moving and their lived experience post-moving to allocate the gaps between their expectations and reality, otherwise, the GC developments will grow apart from users’ updated preferences. The research focuses on the socio-spatial qualities such as accessibility to services and facilities, community interaction, and vast green areas between buildings for privacy, all of …

Should The X-Minute City Include Commutes? An Evaluation Using Commute And Well-Being Data From The Singapore Life Panel®, Sock Yong Phang, Yen Cong Wong, Stephen Hoskins

Research Collection School Of Economics

Over the past decade, the x-minute city — or “chrono-urbanism” — has gained traction intransport planning, emphasizing residents’ ability to access essential destinations within15-min travel time from their homes. Some cities, including Sydney and Singapore, haveextended this concept to commuting, with Singapore’s Land Transport Authority targetinga “45-min city” for daily commutes by 2040. While well-intentioned, applying time-basedgoals to commuting remains controversial. This study evaluates the validity of thex-minute commute city as a transport planning objective by examining the link betweencommuting duration and well-being. Using high-frequency panel data from 2,535Singapore residents aged 55 to 75, we analyze how commuting affects life …

Refereed Research - Religiosity And Sociality As Sources Of Resilience For Women Subsistence Entrepreneurs During The Pandemic, Rozina Akther

Subsistence Marketplaces

This study examines challenges faced by subsistence women entrepreneurs during COVID-19, the crisis of 2020, and their resilience in addressing the circumstances. The results of qualitative interviews with 13 subsistence marketplace women entrepreneurs in Bangladesh are presented in this article. In the current study, two themes are found to best capture the experiences and resilience of women business owners in the subsistence marketplaces. Furthermore, the study provides important insights from informant interviews, showing how women business owners navigate their operations during a pandemic. It highlights attributes such as relational strength and faith in a higher power that contribute to their …

Federal Election Commission And Indiana Secretary Of State Campaign Finance Information Resoures, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

This presentation covers campaign finance information resources produced by the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and Indiana Secretary of State. It describes how these agencies began, details how they oversee and regulate U.S. federal and Indiana state elections, and documents contributions made by individuals, organizations, political parties, and political action committees to individual candidates and organizations. Reporting documentation on these election races is also included.

The Effect Of Stimulus Payments On College Students: Ex-Ante Perceptions And Reality, Rohan Angadi, Vidhura Sbw Tennekoon

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

In this paper, we use a natural experiment to measure the impact of a transitory positive income shock on college education. On March 11, 2021, the American Rescue Plan Act was signed into law. This act made provisions for the third round of Economic Impact Payment for eligible US residents. Each person in an eligible family received up to $1,400. This stimulus payment was an exogenous positive income shock on US college students if they received the payment. Using primary data collected through a survey, we first investigate how US college students were affected by and responded to this income …

The Effect Of Crime On Tourism In Indonesia, Muhammad Farhan, Hera Susanti

Journal of Strategic and Global Studies

Tourism sector is widely known as one of economic sectors that can be the engine of economic growth in an effort to reduce poverty in a country. However, growth in the tourism sector can be influenced by safety factors. Tourists tend to avoid tourism destination areas with high crime rates in order to avoid becoming victims of crime. This study aims to analyze the effect of crime on the number of tourist arrivals in Indonesia by using four proxies of crime, which are total crime rate, property crime rate, violent crime rate, and fraud crime rate. This study utilizes a …

The New China Model: Combating Economic And Political Order, Jack R. Swords

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

Contemporary world politics centers around the actions of the two largest powers on Earth, the United States and China. They are both each other’s greatest adversary yet at the same time are each other’s largest trading partners. This thesis explores the nature of China’s economic climate that has seen it grow to one of the world’s foremost powers. However, the East Asian Nation faces economic challenges centered around the three D’s: Debt, Deflation, and Demographics. This thesis analyses what the nature of these challenges are and how China is responding to them within the ever-advancing world of economic and political …

Climate Change And Environmental Crises In Coastal Cities: Charleston Vs New York City, Nolan Rodriguez

Student Theses 2015-Present

This paper addresses the increasing vulnerability that coastal communities face regarding climate crises and rising sea levels. Specifically, this paper investigates the environmental crises facing Charleston, South Carolina, and New York City. The geographical location of these cities places a more severe threat upon their environment, as opposed to urban collectives removed from the immediate effect of rising sea levels. A cross-examination of politics and economics is discussed in order to determine the causal relationship of each city’s engagement with its surrounding environment. This paper examines how each city is affected by climate change, what measures are in place to …

De-Escalating The United States-China Trade War Using A Global Conflict Resolution Methodology Framework, Angelina Kapp

Undergraduate Honors Theses

How can the United States and China collaboratively de-escalate their current trade relationship using a conflict resolution methodology to foster economic growth and foreign investor confidence in the evolving landscape of global trade? This paper will serve as a guide to those wanting to gain a comprehensive understanding of the macroeconomic causes and impacts of the contentious trade war between the U.S. and China. The year 2018 can be attributed to the start of the war when then-President Donald Trump implemented tariffs on Chinese goods and products. These back-and-forth financial and economic measures have been continually imposed to this day …

Allocating Vehicle Registration Permits, Massimiliano Landi, Domenico Menicucci

Research Collection School Of Economics

We compare social welfare, consumer surplus and profits in two different institutional settings in which an item whose quantity is fixed and controlled (vehicle registration permit) is allocated to the buyers of a complementary good (car). In the first setting, which resembles the way in which vehicle registration permits are allocated in Singapore, the central planner runs a uniform price auction for permits in which the consumers who bid the highest receive the permits and pay the highest losing bid. Then each winning consumer purchases a car from a seller. In the alternative setting, the central planner first allocates the …

U.S. Government Agency Podcasts, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

Presents podcasts from U.S. Government agencies which can be discovered through the U.S. Government Publishing Office's Catalog of Government Publications. Agencies whose podcasts are presented include the National Institutes of Health, U.S. Peace Corps, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Government Accountability Office (GAO), National Park Service, Department of Justice, Federal Reserve System, and U.S. Naval War College.

Employment And Self-Rated Depression Among Older Persons In Thailand, Seung Chun Paek, Ning Jackie Zhang

Journal of Health Research

Background: Increasing attention has been paid to productive engagement as an important protective factor against depression in older persons. This study assessed the impact of employment on self-rated depression among older persons in Thailand using a matched sample obtained from a propensity score matching method.

Methods: This study involved a cross-sectional secondary data analysis using the 2019 Health and Welfare Survey dataset. Descriptive analysis and ordered logistic regressions were used.

Results: The effect of employment was negative for self-rated depression with an adjusted odds ratio (AOR) of 1.417. This indicates that employment could reduce self-rated depression among older …

Social Welfare Functions And Health Policy: A New Approach, Matthew D. Adler

Faculty Scholarship

The social welfare function (SWF) framework converts the possible outcomes of governmental policy choice into vectors (lists) of interpersonally comparable well-being numbers, measuring the lifetime well-being of each individual in the population of interest. The SWF proper is a rule for ranking these vectors. The utilitarian SWF adds up well-being numbers. A prioritarian SWF adds up well-being numbers plugged into a strictly increasing and strictly concave transformation function. Governmental policies are conceptualized as probability distributions over well-being vectors. A recent literature applies the SWF framework to health policy. This article first provides a brief overview of the SWF framework and …

A 3-Step, Open-Data, Ride-Hailing Ridership Model With Pricing Applications, Richard A. Mucci

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

Researchers and practitioners studied the effects ride-hailing had in cities before the covid-19 pandemic. Previous research found ride-hailing to produce negative externalities, such as reducing transit ridership and increasing congestion in various cities. Since the pandemic, ride-hailing ridership has nearly recovered to pre-pandemic levels in Chicago. Ride-hailing ridership has grown steadily since the pandemic while a rider’s willingness to share their trip stagnated. Ride-hailing ridership nearly recovering to pre-covid levels in Chicago suggests that transportation planners, and policy makers, will need to continue assessing the impacts ride-hailing trips have in their cities.

Pickup and drop off locations in the Chicago …