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Full-Text Articles in Econometrics

The Effect Of Income On Healthy Food Options, Hannah M. Doherty Apr 2022

The Effect Of Income On Healthy Food Options, Hannah M. Doherty

Undergraduate Economic Review

This paper explores the effect of income per capita on the number of grocery stores and fast-food franchises in an area. Using a panel dataset to allow for the inclusion of every county in the United States across a period of three years, the results suggest that the income per capita of a county significantly impacts the number of grocery stores and fast-food restaurants in the area. Other factors such as education, age, and attributes regarding time constraints also play an important role in determining the number of grocery stores and fast-food franchises in a location.


Infrastructure In India's Internal War: A District-Level Analysis Of The Naxalite-Maoist Conflict, Krunal Desai Jan 2022

Infrastructure In India's Internal War: A District-Level Analysis Of The Naxalite-Maoist Conflict, Krunal Desai

Undergraduate Economic Review

Since the last few decades of economic liberalization, India has been experiencing a civil conflict threat by communist insurgents known as Naxalites. Because this group desires to separate themselves from the state through violent means, they began occupying themselves in some of the least developed districts in India. Coincidentally, because of low human development, the Government of India created an infrastructure program known as the Backwards Regions Grant Fund (BRGF) that targets a selected set of districts that lack basic infrastructures such as roads, sanitation facilities, and electrical grids. This study aims to question the notion that government assistance should …


Modeling The Us Beef Industry’S Response To Covid-19, Owen Michael Fleming Apr 2021

Modeling The Us Beef Industry’S Response To Covid-19, Owen Michael Fleming

Undergraduate Economic Review

To understand the beef industry’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, I proposed a three-sector model of the beef supply-chain and estimated it econometrically. Based on their definitions, it is found that panic, stay-at-home procedures, and expectations are not significant explanatory variables. However, there is strong evidence that COVID-19 spread in a set of counties with large meatpacking plants has the effect of increasing wholesale beef prices, while country-wide spread has the effect of reducing wholesale prices. The results further imply differences in competition across the market levels, with wholesalers responding as if they face less competition than retailers and farmers.


Market Trends In Food Consumption Expenditures Away From Home Prior To The Covid-19 Pandemic, Rebecca Weir Nov 2020

Market Trends In Food Consumption Expenditures Away From Home Prior To The Covid-19 Pandemic, Rebecca Weir

Undergraduate Economic Review

U.S. food consumption expenditures away from home increased from 19 percent of total food expenditures in 1955 to 48 percent in 2015. Simultaneously, female participation in the labor force grew by 52.7 million women from 35 to 57 percent, signifying increased opportunity cost for women to prepare meals at home. This research uses an ordinary least squares regression to examine socioeconomic factors influencing the rise in U.S. food consumption expenditures away from home in 2018. Results inform food production and service industries’ marketing strategies, and set the stage for whether a new pattern emerges in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.


Sanctuary Cities And Their Respective Effect On Crime Rates, Adam R. Schutt May 2020

Sanctuary Cities And Their Respective Effect On Crime Rates, Adam R. Schutt

Undergraduate Economic Review

According to the U.S. Center for Immigration Studies (2017), cities or counties in twenty-four states declare themselves as a place of “sanctuary” for illegal immigrants. This study addresses the following question: Do sanctuary cities experience higher crime rates than those cities that are not? Using publicly available data, this regression analysis investigates the relationship between crime rates in selected cities and independent variables which the research literature or the media has linked to criminal activity. Results of this research reveal that sanctuary cities do not experience higher violent or property crime rates than those cities that are not sanctuary cities.


Wellbeing And Marriage: Does Marriage Improve Mental Health?, Maranda L. (Kahl) Joyce May 2020

Wellbeing And Marriage: Does Marriage Improve Mental Health?, Maranda L. (Kahl) Joyce

Undergraduate Economic Review

With the decline in marriage rates and the rise in mental health issues, understanding the potential correlation between marital status and overall mental health is of economic importance. This research explores the potential effects of marital status on mental health in the U.S., using microdata from the 2016 Behavior Risk Factor Surveillance System. The role of marital status is examined on three different dependent variables. My results suggest that marriage is associated with a decrease in number of days of poor mental health, a decrease in the likelihood of a depressive disorder diagnosis, and an increase in overall life satisfaction.


Recessions Or Partisanship: What Explains Climate Skepticism In The U.S.?, Abhishek S. Sambatur Dec 2019

Recessions Or Partisanship: What Explains Climate Skepticism In The U.S.?, Abhishek S. Sambatur

Undergraduate Economic Review

This paper investigates the variations in public mood pertaining to climate skepticism and attempts to empirically assess whether economic recessions or partisanship help explain aggregate-level trends and movements across a 16-year time horizon. Public survey data from the iPoll and Gallup Organization were used to construct the Climate Change Skeptic Index (CCSI) that served as a proxy to capture public opinion trends in skepticism across the U.S. A two-part vector autoregressive model suggests that while economic recessions might be causally linked to climate skepticism, partisanship plays a more influential role in explaining it over time. The key result is that …


Is Diamond A Resource Curse For Africa?, Karli Hamrick Dec 2019

Is Diamond A Resource Curse For Africa?, Karli Hamrick

Undergraduate Economic Review

This paper investigates the resource curse in diamond exporting industry in African countries. The empirical evidence about the “resource curse” is mixed in literature and almost none has been done regarding diamond. Our study aims to bridge that gap. The results suggest that diamond export is positively correlated with well-being in a group of African countries. In other words, the “resource curse” may not occur in diamond mining industry after the Kimberly Process (KP) was put in place in 2002. We argue that the KP serves as a good institution and has created good incentives for firms in the industry. …


Is Our Coal-Onial Era Ending Anytime Soon?, Hadiqa Faraz Dec 2019

Is Our Coal-Onial Era Ending Anytime Soon?, Hadiqa Faraz

Undergraduate Economic Review

In this paper, I estimate the long-run co-integrated relationship between energy demand and economic growth for 20 countries from the year 2000 to 2016. I use panel unit-root and heterogeneous panel co-integration tests to test for non-stationarity of the panels and to determine whether there is a long-run link between energy consumption and GDP per capita. The estimated model uses a first-difference OLS model to estimate income elasticity of energy demand; the empirical results of this model show that there is a long-run relationship between energy consumption per capita and GDP per capita. In the long-term, on average, with 1% …


Understanding The Characteristics Of Remittance Recipients In Venezuela: A Country In Economic Crisis, Nicole A. Degla Nov 2019

Understanding The Characteristics Of Remittance Recipients In Venezuela: A Country In Economic Crisis, Nicole A. Degla

Undergraduate Economic Review

This essay analyzes household surveys from the World Bank Global Financial Inclusion Database for the years 2011, 2014, and 2017, as a means to distinguish individual level characteristics of remittance recipients in Venezuela. Remittances are defined as “crossborder, person-to-person payments of relatively low value. The transfers are typically recurrent payments by migrant workers to their relatives in their home countries (World Bank, 2015). Through the use of a linear probability model and probit regressions, I examine the variables age, gender, education level, and income quintile. Results of the analysis find that age has a statistically significant negative effect on the …


How Do Interest Rates Affect Market Capitalization Growth Rates In The Us?, Philip Carolin Sep 2019

How Do Interest Rates Affect Market Capitalization Growth Rates In The Us?, Philip Carolin

Undergraduate Economic Review

This paper investigates how interest rates affect the market capitalization growth rate of individual companies in the US. The research will distinguish itself from previous literature as it analyzes company and macroeconomic data after the 2008 recession. This is particularly interesting as interest rates have been historically low in this time period. Previous research suggests that since the Great Recession the effects of interest rate changes have decreased. On the contrary I will argue that the effects of interest rates still appear to be significant and substantial when explaining the market capitalization growth rate.


A Statistical Analysis Of Economic Perceptions In The 2015 United Kingdom General Election, Amarvir Singh-Bal Mr. May 2019

A Statistical Analysis Of Economic Perceptions In The 2015 United Kingdom General Election, Amarvir Singh-Bal Mr.

Undergraduate Economic Review

This paper characterises the vote which took place in the United Kingdom's (U.K.) 2015 General Election as an ‘accountability instrument.’ In doing so, the research interrogates which sections of the electorate hold the incumbent government more accountable for economic outcomes between the 2010 and 2015 U.K. General Elections. The Rational Choice Theory and the Michigan Model are used in this study to present two interlinked, and yet distinct, hypotheses – that less politically informed and non-partisan voters are more likely to hold the government accountable for economic performances; compared to the politically informed and partisan voters within the electorate. Implementing …


The Effects Of Student-Teacher Ratio On Test Scores: Applying Ceteris Paribus To California And Massachusetts Schools, Laira Aggarwal Oct 2018

The Effects Of Student-Teacher Ratio On Test Scores: Applying Ceteris Paribus To California And Massachusetts Schools, Laira Aggarwal

Undergraduate Economic Review

This paper seeks to analyze the impact of student-teacher ratio on test scores in California and Massachusetts. Since student-teacher ratio is just one of the variables affecting students’ learning outcomes, other attributes were taken into account for a comprehensive analysis. These attributes included percent of English learners, average district income, percent of students on free or reduced lunch, and expenditures per student. The data sets for both states were assessed both inherently and with ceteris paribus approach. The results indicated that while student-teacher ratio does affect test scores, other classroom variables have a significantly greater influence on students’ learning outcomes.


The Economic Impacts Of A U.S. Withdrawal From Nafta: A Cge Analysis, Jonathan Liu May 2018

The Economic Impacts Of A U.S. Withdrawal From Nafta: A Cge Analysis, Jonathan Liu

Undergraduate Economic Review

The aim of this study is to examine the economic impacts of a U.S. withdrawal from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on Canada, Mexico and the United States. The shocks simulate scenarios in which the U.S instates penalizing tariff rates on NAFTA countries, a trade war between NAFTA members and a tariff reset to the WTO MFN rates. The effects of these tariff structures are analyzed under the framework of a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model with a focus on macroeconomic variables and welfare. The findings show that, in all iterations, Mexico’s economy takes a substantial hit, America’s …


Examining The Impact Of Education On Diabetes Rates, Mackenzie Bogiages May 2018

Examining The Impact Of Education On Diabetes Rates, Mackenzie Bogiages

Undergraduate Economic Review

Diabetes rates are a problem of growing concern in the U.S. Over 30 million people in the U.S. have been diagnosed with diabetes, and over 90 percent of that group has the largely preventable type 2 diabetes. In order to thwart the disease that costs the U.S. $245 billion a year, the populations most susceptible to diabetes need to be identified and educated. Using data from MEPS, education and several other factors have been identified and their relationships with diabetes have been analyzed to target at risk populations and outline tactics to educate those in dire need of preventative care.


Are Volatility Expectations In Different Countries Interdependent? A Data-Driven Solution To Structural Var Identification For Implied Equity Volatility Indices, Timothy De Silva Mar 2018

Are Volatility Expectations In Different Countries Interdependent? A Data-Driven Solution To Structural Var Identification For Implied Equity Volatility Indices, Timothy De Silva

Undergraduate Economic Review

Over the past couple of decades, the number of volatility indices has increased rapidly. Although the dynamics of realized volatility spillover have been studied extensively, very few studies exist that examine the spillover between these implied volatility indices. By using DAG-based structural vector autoregression, this paper provides evidence that implied volatility spillover differs from realized volatility spillover. Through solving the well-known VAR identification problem for these indices, this paper finds that Asia, more specifically Hong Kong, plays a central role in implied volatility spillover during and after the 2008 financial crisis.


Is There Really A Foreign Language Premium In Canada?: Evaluating The Foreign Language Effect On Canadian Wages, Peter C. Ki Feb 2018

Is There Really A Foreign Language Premium In Canada?: Evaluating The Foreign Language Effect On Canadian Wages, Peter C. Ki

Undergraduate Economic Review

Given the debates on whether knowing a foreign language has a positive or negative effect on wages, there is little or no research conducted on how it fares in Canada, despite extensive studies on French and English. Using the Public Use Microdata Files of the 2011 National Household Survey by Statistics Canada, I find a 2.84% wage penalty for Canadians who know a foreign language and an even greater penalty for Canadians who use these languages at work. I proceed to decompose the results by language and occupation to find varying results. I also attempt to use a religion proxy …


The Economic Efficacy Of Reintegration Assistance For Former Child Soldiers, Jonathan B. Kaufmann Nov 2016

The Economic Efficacy Of Reintegration Assistance For Former Child Soldiers, Jonathan B. Kaufmann

Undergraduate Economic Review

There is no consensus among scholars on the efficacy of reintegration assistance programs, including how their services affect reintegration outcomes. This research is the first statistical analysis of the economic impacts of reintegration assistance for former child soldiers. Several regression analyses were performed to determine the effect of reintegration assistance on earnings and social capital. The results indicate that no statistically significant relationship exists between reintegration assistance and earnings or social capital. Conversely, societal interventions such as increasing access to education and promoting traditional cleansing ceremonies were effective.


Determining Yuan Valuation- An Extension Of The Imf External Balance Assessment Approach, Shantanu A. Banerjee Nov 2016

Determining Yuan Valuation- An Extension Of The Imf External Balance Assessment Approach, Shantanu A. Banerjee

Undergraduate Economic Review

This paper applies the IMF EBA methodology to a China-specific time series analysis, using a 2SLS instrumented regression with Newey-West standard errors to determine the policy gap that results from PBOC intervention. We find the impact of reserve accumulation to be more significant in magnitude than indicated by the EBA, demonstrating a modest improvement in accuracy with the introduction of central bank liquidity swaps as a novel instrument. Evidence of a long term equilibrium relationship is also found between the real effective exchange rate and reserve accumulation, with the presence of medium level capital controls.


The Effects Of Borrowing Rates On Intra-Firm Disequilibria Between Equity Prices And Cds Premiums – Evidence From Dynamic Panel Analysis., Robert J. Brown Oct 2016

The Effects Of Borrowing Rates On Intra-Firm Disequilibria Between Equity Prices And Cds Premiums – Evidence From Dynamic Panel Analysis., Robert J. Brown

Undergraduate Economic Review

Cointegration techniques are used to estimate the long run equilibrium relationship between a firm’s CDS premium and its equity price, for a panel of large-cap US firms. From these results, the estimated disequilibrium in daily CDS premiums, with respect to equity prices, is constructed. Dynamic panel methods are employed to show the importance of lagged changes in libor rates as determinants of the estimated disequilibrium. Evidence is found that the extent to which the markets deviate from equilibrium will increase as one-month libor rates rise, but, counter-intuitively, will decrease (return towards equilibrium) as longer term libor rates rise.


The Effect Of New York City Sports Outcomes On The Stock Market, Nir Levy Oct 2015

The Effect Of New York City Sports Outcomes On The Stock Market, Nir Levy

Undergraduate Economic Review

This thesis investigates whether sports outcomes for New York City based teams affect the daily returns, volatility or trading volume of major stock indexes in the United States. I research whether events that affect local mood in a major financial center can influence national stock indexes by swaying the sentiment of workers in the financial sector. By performing an event study I found evidence that returns are abnormally high following championships won by New York City professional sports teams. Returns are abnormally low and volume is abnormally high following elimination from a championship round.


Art Arbitrage - Violations Of The Law Of One Price Created By Fine Art Auctions, Amy Liu Jun 2015

Art Arbitrage - Violations Of The Law Of One Price Created By Fine Art Auctions, Amy Liu

Undergraduate Economic Review

Although fine art is becoming increasingly popular as investment, its price determination is relatively opaque. This paper expands upon the work of Pesando (1993) and Pesando and Shum (2007) concerning the law of one price in the art auction industry. By examining the sale history of silkscreen prints from Andy Warhol’s 1970 series Flowers, this paper controls for the physical characteristics of particular artwork and seeks to determine the likelihood of sale and price differentials created by specific auction environments. This paper further examines the extent to which auction houses take into account these auction environments when setting presale …


Is All Foreign Aid The Same? : An Empirical Comparison Of The Effect Of Multilateral And Bilateral Aid On Growth, Scott B. Jeffrey May 2015

Is All Foreign Aid The Same? : An Empirical Comparison Of The Effect Of Multilateral And Bilateral Aid On Growth, Scott B. Jeffrey

Undergraduate Economic Review

Despite decades of research on foreign aid, there is little to no consensus on foreign aid’s effect on growth. While most in the field study recipient country characteristics, such as institutional quality, this paper also breaks down foreign aid by donor characteristics, specifically by bilateral and multilateral donors. Since about 75% of foreign aid is bilateral, my bilateral findings are in line with previous literature that finds high institutional quality key (Burnside and Dollar 2000; 2004), but I find that multilateral aid works best in low-income countries with poor policy environments, due, perhaps, to lacking political goals of donor countries.


A Different Approach To Jensen’S Alpha And Its Relationship With Returning Ranking, Tingyu Du Ms. Apr 2015

A Different Approach To Jensen’S Alpha And Its Relationship With Returning Ranking, Tingyu Du Ms.

Undergraduate Economic Review

Based on Michael C. Jensen’s CAPM model (1968), this paper refines it with dummy variables included. It examines if fund manager’s skill is contributing to fund’s performance within a five-year span from June 2009 to June 2014, and if high total return ranking is related to outstanding Jensen’s Alpha. The findings coincide with Jensen’s research results.


Analyzing Options Market Toxicity And The Black-Scholes Formula In The Presence Of Jump Diffusion As Simulated With Agent-Based Modeling, William D. Elliott Mar 2015

Analyzing Options Market Toxicity And The Black-Scholes Formula In The Presence Of Jump Diffusion As Simulated With Agent-Based Modeling, William D. Elliott

Undergraduate Economic Review

This paper presents new and significant research on the Black-Scholes Formula using the agent-based modeling software NetLogo. The software was used to simulate an options market subject to jump diffusion. Since the widely-used Black-Scholes Formula has at times proven unreliable, this research sought to understand circumstances that render the formula ineffective. It was hypothesized that markets would become difficult to trade in or “toxic” at low price volatility but high jump volatility. Further, it was predicted that kurtosis would alert the presence of toxic markets by accurately and consistently conveying whether jump diffusion was present.


A Closer Look At The Impact Of Quantitative Easing On The Capital Markets: Garch Analysis Of The Exchange Traded Funds Market, Nicholas R. Duafala Nov 2014

A Closer Look At The Impact Of Quantitative Easing On The Capital Markets: Garch Analysis Of The Exchange Traded Funds Market, Nicholas R. Duafala

Undergraduate Economic Review

This paper analyzes the effects of quantitative easing (QE) on the capital markets by modeling exchange traded funds (ETFs) returns using a generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) methodology. The results show that the 10-Year Treasury yields are significant in the returns of some sectors of the economy more so than others, and the Federal Funds Futures trading volume is significant in all ETFs return volatility. The implications of these results not only provide information about the reaction of the ETF market and QE, but also provide insight for developing investment strategies.


Top Of The Order: Modeling The Optimal Locations Of Minor League Baseball Teams, W. Coleman Conley Nov 2014

Top Of The Order: Modeling The Optimal Locations Of Minor League Baseball Teams, W. Coleman Conley

Undergraduate Economic Review

Over the last twenty-five years, minor league baseball franchises have defined firm mobility. Revisiting the work of Michael C. Davis (2006), I construct a logistic regression model to predict which cities house minor league baseball teams. Six variables are tested for inclusion in the model, including population, income level, the number of major-league professional sports teams in a city, five-year population change, and distance from the closest professional team. Based on the model's predicted probabilities, cities are ranked in order of highest probability of having a team at each of the different levels from Class A to Class AAA.


An Economic Analysis Of Housing Market Instability And Affordability In China, You Wang Sep 2014

An Economic Analysis Of Housing Market Instability And Affordability In China, You Wang

Undergraduate Economic Review

Applying an intertemporal optimization model proposed by Aizenman and Marion (1991), this research quantifies instability in the Chinese housing market. Although the Chinese government established numerous real estate policies to ensure the stability of the housing market, the regression analyses indicate that housing policies had no significant impact on the stabilization of the Chinese housing market. Alternatively, macroeconomic factors are identified as significant explanatory variables to the instability of housing prices. In addition, this research computes the median multiple for major cities in China and provides an alternative means of investigating the abnormal housing price situation in China.


Application Of Sgt Family Distributions In Quasi Maximum Likelihood Estimation, Samuel Dodini Oct 2013

Application Of Sgt Family Distributions In Quasi Maximum Likelihood Estimation, Samuel Dodini

Undergraduate Economic Review

In the classical normal linear regression model, ordinary least squares estimators (OLS) will be consistent and achieve the Cramer-Rao lower bound for any unbiased estimators. This paper examines the impact of several other error distributions on the properties of the OLS estimators. Several different types of example data commonly available to students and researchers in economics are used to illustrate the impact of nonnormality, because, in application, the assumption of normality may not hold in empirical testing. Using maximum likelihood, I demonstrate that flexible probability density functions better model the residual distribution of different types of data, which suggests improvements …


An Econometric Analysis Of Anti-Bullying Program Factors On Bullying In Public American Middle Schools And High Schools, Austin B. Beck Apr 2013

An Econometric Analysis Of Anti-Bullying Program Factors On Bullying In Public American Middle Schools And High Schools, Austin B. Beck

Undergraduate Economic Review

This paper seeks to answer the question: “Do typical factors of anti-bullying programs reduce the amount of bullying that takes place in American public middle schools and high schools?” An overview of the literature on bullying and anti-bullying programs is provided. Data from the School Survey on Crime and Safety is analyzed using a probit model. The model is tested for accuracy and the results are analyzed. Parental involvement and out-of-school suspension are found to be significant anti-bullying program factors. Other explanatory variables are also discussed and recommendations for further research are provided.