Behavioral Economics Commons^™

Infant Mortality: Cross Section Study Of The United State, With Emphasis On Education, Daniel C. Sheets-Poling

Student Research – Stevenson Center

On the surface infant mortality is usually thought of as just a unfortunate part of life in what can happen to an individual family, but infant mortality is part of the factors that affect social capital, which can lead back to overall trust in a community. When that trust starts to wither within a community, economic activity will be affected as community members will not behave as they usually do within their given economic boundaries. While social capital is not solely affected by infant mortality, it does show what type of health status an area has. As a community, state, …

Financial Literacy And Financial Inclusion Of Women In Rural Rajasthan, Emily Levi-D'Ancona

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Financial inclusion is an important step in development, as access to finances can help the poor build money and lift themselves out of poverty. In many parts of the developing world, and especially in India, microfinance is seen as a new approach to fighting poverty by bringing financial services, including low-interest loans, to the poor so that they can afford to start a business or invest and eventually gain self-sufficiency – in other words, a method of financial inclusion for the poor. However, microfinance in India cannot sufficiently reach the poor populations, especially those in rural India, and many of …

Three Essays On Gender Differences On Risk Preferences And Credit Market Constraints, Jyoti Rai

Dissertations

The disadvantages that women face in the financial market hamper their social and economic well-being. These disadvantages may arise from their own risk preferences or from financial market. The aim of this dissertation is to examine different aspects of the disadvantages that women face in the U.S Financial Market. In that light, I present three essays that analyze gender differences in risk preferences and credit market constraints. I use the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) data for all my empirical analysis.

In the first essay, I examine whether women exhibit greater financial risk aversion than men using attitudinal and behavioral …

El Recuperador Urbano Reconstruido: Una Perspectiva Crítica Sobre La Gestión De Residuos Urbanos En Buenos Aires Y La Nuevas Políticas Públicas De "Ciudad Verde" / The Urban Recycler, Reconstructed: A Critical Perspective On The Waste Managementprocesses Of Buenos Aires, And The New Public Policies Known As “Green City”, Mira Korber

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Historically, a survival method for the most impoverished populations of developing countries has been the collection, accumulation, and sale of recycled materials accessible in the urban waste generated by large metropolitan areas. After Argentina’s economic crisis of 2001, the number of people who participate in this informal sector of work in Greater Buenos Aires boomed due to the financial recession that devastated the country. In the last fourteen years, the population of urban recyclers, colloquially called cartoneros or cirujas, has not diminished. Various advances have been made towards the legitimation of their work as environmental protection and recycling through their …

Unleashing Asean's Potential Through Aec, Michael Zink

Asian Management Insights

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has set an ambitious goal to integrate the economies of its ten members by 2015, a move that is aimed at boosting the bloc’s competitiveness and creating development across the region that is more equitable. With the target date for Southeast Asia's countries to create a single economic market just months away, increasing attention is being paid to the region's vast economic potential. If successful, the formation of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) will not only create one of the world’s largest integrated economic spheres, but will add vastly to the appeal of …

Optimal City Hierarchy: A Dynamic Programming Approach To Central Place Theory, Wen-Tai Hsu, Thomas J. Holmes, Frank Morgan

Research Collection School Of Economics

Central place theory is a key building block of economic geography and an empirically plausible description of city systems. This paper provides a rationale for central place theory via a dynamic programming formulation of the social planner's problem of city hierarchy. We show that there must be one and only one immediate smaller city between two neighboring larger-sized cities in any optimal solution. If the fixed cost of setting up a city is a power function, then the immediate smaller city will be located in the middle, confirming the locational pattern suggested by Christaller. We also show that the solution …

Economic Impact Of The Arkansas Research And Technology Park, Katherine A. Deck, Mervin Jebaraj

Publications and Presentations

Construction of the Arkansas Research and Technology Park (ARTP) began in 2003 and operations commenced in 2004. For ten years, the ARTP has been impacting the economy of the state of Arkansas in two primary ways. First, the operation of the ARTP enabled the business expenditures of its tenants. Second, there were direct expenditures on one-time construction activities in building the infrastructure of the ARTP. This report considers the overall impact of the ARTP from the beginning of construction to 2014. Over that period, the ARTP impact has been more than a half billion dollars in the Arkansas economy.

Do Hitters Boost Their Performance During Their Contract Years?, Heather M. O'Neill

Business and Economics Faculty Publications

Each season, baseball fans and journalists alike identify which players are in the final years of their contracts because a lot rides on how the players produce in their “contract year.” Will a player boost his effort and performance in an effort to improve his value and bargaining power? Or will he crumble under the pressure? Or are players’ performances uncorrelated with where they stand in their contract cycles?

Is Urban Food Demand In The Philippines Different From China?, Tomoki Fujii

Research Collection School Of Economics

It is essential to understand the consumption pattern of food and how it changes over time to formulate sound economic policies as well as marketing and pricing strategies. In this study, we estimate the Quadratic Almost Ideal Demand System with six rounds of the Family Income Expenditure Survey exploiting the conditional linearity of the demand system. We find that the Filipino diet has become westernized and that the changes in urban food demand elasticities are qualitatively similar to those in urban China, especially for meat, fruits, and vegetables.We also offer some policy and business implications.

Does Market Competition Lead To Customization?, Wen-Tai Hsu, Yi Lu, Travis Ng

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper proposes a theory of competition and customization. When firms allocate their production to both custom-made and standardized products, the fraction of sales from the former will increase in the face of increased competition. Recent surveys conducted by the World Bank on Chinese firms provide a rare direct measure of customization that allows us to test the above-mentioned prediction. We find empirical results consistent with the prediction.

Salvaging Print: Letterhead In Post-Industrial Urban America, Nancy Sharon Collins

The Mid-America Print Council Conference

This panel will explore the link between today’s small press movement and the formal aspects of commercial printing during the American 20th century. Panelists include Christine Medley , Philip Gattuso, and Nancy Bernardo.

Using as its primary example letterhead from defunct companies in Detroit, and secondarily, specimens of business and legal letterhead from other urban centers of the industrial United States, this panel will examine and discuss: What did letterhead represent to 20th century printers in local markets such as Detroit? What is the significance of printed letterhead, and stationery, to the art of small press printing in post-industrial cities …

Does Retirement Make You Happy? A Simultaneous Equations Approach, Raquel Fonseca, Arie Kapteyn, Jinkook Lee, Gema Zamarro

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

Continued improvements in life expectancy and fiscal insolvency of public pensions have led to an increase in pension entitlement ages in several countries, but its consequences for subjective well-being are largely unknown. Financial consequences of retirement complicate the estimation of effects of retirement on subjective well-being as financial circumstances may influence subjective well-being, and therefore, the effects of retirement are likely to be confounded by the change in income. At the same time, unobservable determinants of income are probably related with unobservable determinants of subjective wellbeing, making income possibly endogenous if used as control in subjective wellbeing regressions. To address …

Perceptions Of Climate Change, Cole T. Kleinberg

Journal of Environmental and Resource Economics at Colby

With the help of students from Environmental & Natural Resource Economics course (EC 231), a survey was distributed to hundreds of respondents across the nation with the intention to study beliefs about climate change. More than 70 students from EC231 conducted 5-10 surveys while traveling for Spring Break. The questions included in the survey address each respondent’s knowledge of climate change as well as the various influences that may alter ones beliefs as to how they are affected by climate change. This paper investigates all variables and looks for potential patterns in the survey data in the hope of finding …

The Political Economy Of Oil Spill Damage Assessment: Nrda And Deepwater Horizon, Matt Nichols, Judith T. Kildow Dr

Working Papers

The federal effort to quantify and capture non-market damages to coastal ecosystems from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Phase II of United States of America v. BP Exploration and Production, centers on the Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) process. This paper makes the case that the current NRDA process has done a poor job protecting the public interest and resolving the issues surrounding oil spills from deep water drilling activities. After 5 years, the findings of the NRDA still remain sealed from both affected maritime communities and academic researchers until litigation is settled with civil and criminal fines …

Risk Preferences And Prenatal Exposure To Sex Hormones For Ladinos, Diego Aycinena, Rimvydas Baltaduonis, Lucas Rentschler

Economics Faculty Publications

Risk preferences drive much of human decision making including investment, career and health choices and many more. Thus, understanding the determinants of risk preferences refines our understanding of choice in a broad array of environments. We assess the relationship between risk preferences, prenatal exposure to sex hormones and gender for a sample of Ladinos, which is an ethnic group comprising 62.86% of the population of Guatemala. Prenatal exposure to sex hormones has organizational effects on brain development, and has been shown to partially explain risk preferences for Caucasians. We measure prenatal exposure to sex hormones using the ratio of the …

Effects Of Health Expenditures On Population Age Distribution And Labor Force Participation Rates: Empirical And Comparative Analysis, Jassim M. H. Al-Jebory

Masters Theses

Baby boom and population aging are the main features of the world population that are leading to child and elderly people in the labor force. Categorizing the world into low and high-income countries, the baby boom and child labor can be found in low-income countries, while population aging and elderly people in the labor force can be found in high-income countries. The cause of these features is declining rates of population and labor force ages 15-64, which is the most productive and active proportion. Health expenditures is one of the main factors that is associated with undesired trends of population …

Essays In Pro-Social Behavior, Joshua R. Foster

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines individuals' actions to improve social outcomes when unrecoverable investments are necessary. Situations involving non-pecuniary and pecuniary investments are considered. In the former, the prerequisite of real effort - a non-pecuniary, unrecoverable investment - is examined when said effort determines an individual's ability to procure their preferred social outcome. Theoretical predictions over an individual's effort provision are based on their revealed preferences for the social distribution of wealth according to the general axiom of revealed preference (GARP). Laboratory experiments reveal that individuals' effort provisions do not support the assumption of stable preferences (transitivity) of wealth distribution. Specifically, individuals …

The Impact On Consumer Behavior Of Energy Demand Side Management Programs Measurement Techniques And Methods, Jeffrey L. Pursley

College of Business: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Much effort has gone into measuring the impact of Demand Side Management (DSM) programs on energy usage, particularly in regards to electric usage. However, there are potential biases in such measurements. This paper explores one of these potential biases, the rebound effect. This effect is caused by changes in consumer behavior as a result of DSM programs. The work of Steven Braithwaite and Douglas Caves provide the starting point for this analysis, although the rebound effect is referenced in many other works in this field.

In an effort the estimate this effect, data from the Nebraska Energy Office’s DSM programs …

An Examination Of South Carolina’S Institutions Of Reform And Their Impact On The Self-Narratives Of African American Men, Ashley E. Krejci-Shaw

Capstone Collection

In the State of South Carolina (SC), African American male adolescents disproportionately face disciplinary action in public schools and other institutions. In 2013, South Carolina’s Department of Juvenile Justice (SCDJJ) released data that listed Black male children comprising 57% of all juvenile referrals in the state. This disproportionate trend is also present in South Carolina’s correctional system. In 2013, South Carolina’s Department of Corrections (SCDOC) reported that out of 20,777 male prisoners, 13,631 were Black. For adolescents or young adults looking to continue their education, alternative programs are available. One program that captures educationally displaced children in South Carolina is …

How Effective Can Ex Post Destruction Alleviate The Hold-Up Problem?, Huan Wang, Juyuan Zhang, Yi Zhang

Research Collection School Of Economics

We first investigate whether or not ex post destruction can possibly alleviate the hold-up problem in a one-shot game between a supplier and a buyer. The answer is yes but only when the buyer believes that the supplier might be a Homo reciprocans agent with sufficiently strong propensity for reciprocity. Under incomplete information with informed supplier, investment is made feasible by the “mismatch” between the buyer’s belief of stronger supplier reciprocal propensity and a de facto weaker one. Under incomplete information with uninformed supplier, the “mismatch” between the buyer’s belief of weaker supplier reciprocal propensity and a stronger ex post …

The Business Of Coupons-Do Coupons Lead To Repeat Purchases?, Margaret P. Ross

Pursuit - The Journal of Undergraduate Research at The University of Tennessee

In recent years, couponing has emerged as a pop culture phenomenon. Businesses of all types are taking advantage of this resource by revamping their out-dated programs and turning them into something fresh to excite customers. Many questions remain unanswered concerning the viability, profitability, and usefulness of coupons. This study is an analysis of the effectiveness of coupons in enticing return purchases in the soft-drink category and the effectiveness of price discriminating at this grocery store chain. The dataset is comprised of household level grocery store transactions compiled by dunnhumby USA for 2,500 households over a period of two years. An …

A Backward Bending Supply Of Loanable Funds: An Examination Of The Interest Rate Elasticity Of Saving, Rachel M. Doehr Ms.

Undergraduate Economic Review

The market for loanable funds is presented as either a market with an upward sloping supply curve, or as one with a perfectly inelastic supply. This paper relates the supply of loanable funds to the supply curve in the labor market: backward bending. Once interest rates are high enough, people start to save less, creating the "backward bend.” This explains the discrepancies in previous literature that attempted to put a single value on the interest rate elasticity saving. The reason for the variation in values could be because the elasticity actually depends on the point on the curve.

How Portable Is Level-0 Behavior? A Test Of Level-K Theory In Games With Non-Neutral Frames, Shaun Hargreaves Heap, David Rojo Arjona, Robert Sugden

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

We test the portability of level‐0 assumptions in level‐k theory in an experimental investigation of behavior in Coordination, Discoordination, and Hide and Seek games with common, non‐neutral frames. Assuming that level‐0 behavior depends only on the frame, we derive hypotheses that are independent of prior assumptions about salience. Those hypotheses are not confirmed. Our findings contrast with previous research which has fitted parameterized level‐k models to Hide and Seek data. We show that, as a criterion of successful explanation, the existence of a plausible model that replicates the main patterns in these data has a high probability of …

Economic Impact Of Legalizing Retail Alcohol Sales In Craighead, Faulkner, And Saline Counties, Katherine A. Deck, Mervin Jebaraj

Publications and Presentations

Converting from dry county to wet county status would have a number of tangible and intangible economic benefits for Craighead, Faulkner, and Saline counties. Legal retail alcohol sales are a signal of a contemporary economic development environment. Quantifying the value of that perception is quite difficult, but it is entirely possible to estimate sales effects, tax collections, and other economic impacts of becoming a wet county. This study was conducted by the Center for Business and Economic Research to assess the magnitude of those economic effects.

Musical Missteps: The Severity Of The Sophomore Slump In The Music Industry, Shane M. Zackery

Scripps Senior Theses

This study looks at alternative models of follow-up album success in order to determine if there is a relationship between the decrease in Metascore ratings (assigned by Metacritic.com) between the first and second album for a musician or band and the 1) music genre or 2) the number of years between the first and second album release. The results support the dominant thought, which suggests that neither belonging to a certain genre of music nor waiting more or less time to drop the second album makes an artist more susceptible to the Sophomore Slump. This finding is important because it …

Crime In Game Theoretic Models: An Exploration Of The Rational Criminal In A Variety Of Frameworks, Benjamin A. Chalmers

Student Scholarship

There is as much contention over the cause of crime as there is about how to solve it, and the two issues are inextricable from one another. While the idea of studying such a deeply social and humanistic issue through the ‘cold lens’ of mathematics may seem unorthodox or even unproductive to the layperson, the practice has become commonplace since Gary Becker’s introduction of the ‘rational criminal’ model in his paper Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach in 1968. The rational criminal model is a method of explaining the actions of a criminal not by attributing them to an inherent …

Impact Of Natural Disaster Exposure On Prosocial Preferences And Public Goods Provision: Evidence From The Solomon Islands, Heather Belfor

Master's Theses

Natural disaster exposure can impact prosocial preferences, which indicate the level of social capital, as well as create a shift in investments from public to private goods. Both are important mechanisms to study in order to create optimal climate change adaptation policies. This study evaluates the impact of natural disaster exposure on prosocial preferences and public goods provision in the evaluated communities. The data used in this research comes from a process evaluation that was carried out in the Solomon Islands on the Rural Development Program (RDP) and a Structured Community Activity (SCA) experiment, which took place in 80 villages …

Handling Risk: Testosterone And Risk Preference, Evidence From Dhaka, Bangladesh, Tobias Sytsma

Master's Theses

The relationship between testosterone and risk aversion is of increasing interest in the experimental economics. Using the ratio of the second digit to the fourth digit (2D:4D) as a rough indicator of level of prenatal testosterone exposure, this study attempts to replicate recent results from Garbarino et al., (2011), which found that individuals with digit ratios above the sample average were significantly more risk averse, and individuals with digit ratios one standard deviation below the sample average were significantly more risk seeking in a subject pool of male and female Caucasian students. Here, a subject pool from Dhaka, Bangladesh, is …

Experimental Evidence For Heterogeneous Expectations In A Simple New Keynesian Framework, Atticus David Holm Graven

Business and Economics Honors Papers

This paper is a two-dimensional analysis of agent behavior in a standard New Keynesian (NK) Macroeconomic model. On the dimension of pure mathematics, we analyze the parameters of the NK model and of possible prediction rules. On the other dimension we continue a practice of empirical study of heterogeneous expectations with an experiment. The experiment will ask participants to make predictions of future output and inflation. Their responses will create a data-set upon which analysis will be performed to illuminate and corroborate current theories of economic decision making. The literature has shown that most agents' forecasting rules can be modeled …

Moving Ahead By Thinking Backwards, Conner Lewis, Amanda Wiener

Undergraduate Research Symposium 2014

Although some research exists regarding collegiate GPAs, little is known about which individual student characteristics predict college graduation. We study 100 students from the University of Minnesota Morris. Information collected includes demographics, standard personality traits (known in Psychology as the “Big Five”), two economic preferences (risk aversion and patience), and three cognitive skills (numeracy, non-verbal IQ, “Hit15”).“Hit 15” is a game played against the computer in which each player must add 1, 2, or 3 on each turn. Winning is exactly hitting fifteen first; players take turns going first and the starting point total varies (game theory calls solving this …