Economic Theory Commons^™

The People's Ledger: Reform Or Revolution?, Kostantinos R. Grigoras

Applied Economics Theses

The ramifications of the 2007-08 financial crisis, the later Covid-19 pandemic, and the technological developments surrounding cryptocurrencies and digital ledgers have led to increasingly explicit political views on banking apart from dominant mainstream economic narratives. As such, a widening range of authors from varying perspectives have sought to contribute a “programmatic vision” to the set of changes they assert as necessary in the current financial system. Saule T. Omarova’s (2021) controversial article, “The People’s Ledger: How to Democratize Money and Finance the Economy,” and the resulting political reaction to its goal of advancing such a programmatic vision in order to …

The Influence Rural Leaders Have On Local Population Change: A Two-Part Study, Nichole T. Reiner

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

This two-part research study aims to understand factors that influence a rural community population and how local leaders believe they can influence those factors to impact population changes. The first study focuses identifying factors that predict population change using a linear regression model. The second study is a multiple case study focused on three communities, where a mix of secondary data and community leader interviews provided an in-depth understanding of how local leaders perceive their capacity to influence factors influencing population change in their communities.

Advisor: LJ McElravy

Three Essays On Robust Mechanism Design, Kexin Wang

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

This dissertation consists of three chapters that study the mechanism design problems when the designer does not completely know the economic environments. In the first chapter, we study the design of contracts when the principal has limited statistical information about the output distributions induced by the agent’s actions. In the baseline model, we consider a principal who only knows the mean of the output distribution for each action. The mean restrictions allow for a large set of profiles of output distributions, including some extreme output distributions that can be used to establish the robust optimality of increasing affine contracts. Motivated …

Analisis Kepemilikan Sertifikat Tanah Terhadap Akses Pinjaman Rumah Tangga, Abdul Azzis Azzis, Chaikal Nuryakin

Jurnal Kebijakan Ekonomi

This study aims to examine the impact of land certificate ownership on access to loans from formal financial institutions. Utilizing data from Indonesia in 2018, we employ logistic regression analysis to investigate the relationship between land certificate ownership and loan access in the country. The examination of land certification in relation to loan access, by distinguishing types of land ownership evidence and loan types, is deemed essential. The findings indicate that the impact of land certification is less effective for low-income households. Beyond ensuring accessible and affordable land certification processes, the government should formulate policies for innovative loan schemes, such …

Microfinance In Latin America: Sustainability, Growth, And Efficiency, Katelyn M. Hoidal

Global Tides

The subsequent research addresses the question: Within populous Latin American countries (Ecuador, Mexico, Panama, Argentina, Chile, and Peru), are microfinance institutions associated with differences in GDP and household consumption equally between 2010 and 2018? Which do they have a stronger correlation with? The essence of this question seeks to answer whether the correlation between MFIs and wealth indicators carries over to a national level or merely persists at an individual level. This research has been informed and influenced by literature and studies conducted across South Asia, Africa, and Latin America focusing on the research of Abdelkader, Naveeda, Annim, Campbell, Armendáriz, …

What About The Buyers? Deriving Factors Of Demand In The U.S. Black Market, Eric S. Schneider

Undergraduate Theses

The vast majority of econometric research regarding black markets focuses on the supply. Relatively little information is definitively shown in academic literature regarding the drivers of demand for black markets. This project seeks to identify factors of demand for black market goods and services. First, this paper gives a brief definition of the broad definition of black markets, before specifically defining the scope of individual markets which will be included in this project. Next, there is a brief review of recent literature on the U.S. black market in order to determine prime candidates for factors of demand. Then, a robust …

2nd Place Contest Entry: Aquí Y Ahora: The Role Of Us Spanish-Language Tv News In Financial Vulnerability, Cintya Felix

Kevin and Tam Ross Undergraduate Research Prize

This is Cintya Felix's submission for the 2025 Kevin and Tam Ross Undergraduate Research Prize, which won second place. It contains their essay on using library resources, their bibliography, and a summary of their research project on Spanish-language media’s impact on financial attitudes.

Cintya is a third-year student at Chapman University, majoring in Political Science and Spanish. Their faculty mentor is Dr. Ann Gordon.

2nd Place Research Paper: Aquí Y Ahora: The Role Of Us Spanish-Language Tv News In Financial Vulnerability, Cintya Felix

Kevin and Tam Ross Undergraduate Research Prize

In today’s world, the news we watch often does more than inform us; it shapes our perceptions of security and the future. In this paper, I examine the extent to which an individual’s consumption of particular Spanish-speaking TV news channels contribute to their sense of financial vulnerability. Using an original data set of responses to the questions in the 2020 American National Election Studies (ANES), I find a moderately strong relationship between the television news channel Aquí y Ahora, and the degree to which they are worried about their financial situation. While it is true that various factors such …

A Beautiful Mind Meets Harsh Reality: Practical Tips For Negotiators When Bargaining Strays From Ideal Conditions, Christopher C. Douglas, Ellen Grachek, Allyson Strickland, Marie Waung

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

Bilateral bargaining theory developed by mathematician and Nobel Laureate John Nash predicts that when both parties have full information, a deal is quickly reached without a strike. Such a situation represents ideal conditions, which the real world does not match. However, Nash Bargaining presents a useful baseline for bargaining teams. We discuss deviations from ideal conditions that bargaining teams are likely to face and tactics for overcoming them with the goal of reaching an agreement while avoiding a strike. This paper’s focus draws from our experience negotiating a contract for non-tenure track faculty across the three University of Michigan campuses, …

Gambaran Manejemen Capaian Target Pendidikan Dan Pelatihan Pegawai Non-Klinis Unit Keuangan Rumah Sakit Abc, Virgiawan Agung, Angestika Wilandari

Jurnal Administrasi Bisnis Terapan

Education and training for non-clinical employees in hospitals is an important element in improving employee competence and performance to support optimal health services. This study aims to provide an overview of the achievement of education and training targets for non-clinical employees in the financial unit of ABC Hospital. The research method used is a qualitative approach with data collection through interviews with non-clinical employees of the finance unit and secondary data analysis of training records in 2023. The results showed that the training achievements of non-clinical employees still did not meet the set target of 150 hours per year. The …

Ruchir Sharma: What Went Wrong With Capitalism, Vernon L. Smith

ESI Publications

A review of Ruchir Sharma's What Went Wrong With Capitalism.

Undominated Monopoly Regulation, Debasis Mishra, Sanket Patil

Working Papers

We study undominated mechanisms with transfers for regulating a monopolist who privately observes the marginal cost of production. A mechanism is undominated if no other mechanism gives the regulator a strictly higher payoff at some marginal cost of the monopolist without lowering the regulator’s payoff at other costs. We show that an undominated mechanism has a quantity floor: whenever the monopolist is allowed to operate, it produces above a threshold quantity. Moreover, the regulator’s operation decision is stochastic only if the monopolist produces at the quantity floor. We provide a near-complete characterization of the set of undominated mechanisms and use …

Religion And Economic Development: Past, Present, And Future, Sascha O. Becker, Amma Panin, Steven J. Pfaff, Jared Rubin

ESI Working Papers

This chapter examines the role of religion in economic development, both historically and today. Religion's influence varies globally, with high religiosity in countries like Pakistan and low rates in China. Despite declines in some Western countries, religion remains influential worldwide, with projected growth in Muslim populations due to higher fertility rates. Religion continues to shape societal norms and institutions, such as education and politics, even after its direct influence fades. The chapter explores how religious institutions and norms have impacted economic outcomes, focusing on both persistence and decline. It also examines cultural transmission, institutional entrenchment, networks, and religious competition as …

Religion, Culture, And Politics, Jared Rubin

ESI Working Papers

This chapter presents a conceptual framework for understanding the interaction of religion, ideology, and politics. The framework’s key insights are: i) culture and ideology provide a shared mental framework for interpreting the world; ii) ideology is malleable, and it can be used to justify a wide set of empirical realities in a manner that is consistent with the prevailing mental framework; iii) religion is particularly adept at shaping this mental framework because it attempts to explain the unknown; iv) because co-religionists share a mental framework that depends on a (religious) interpretation of events, religions are particularly likely to be co-opted …

On Strategy-Proofness And The Salience Of Single-Peakedness In A Private Goods Allotment Problem, Shurojit Chatterji, Jordi Masso, Shigehiro Serizawa

Research Collection School Of Economics

We consider strategy-proof rules operating on a rich domain of preference profiles in a set up where multiple private goods have to be assigned to a set of agents with entitlements and where preferences display satiation. We show that if the rule is in addition tops-only, same-sided and individually rational with respect to the entitlements, then the preferences in the domain have to satisfy a variant of single-peakedness (referred to as multi-dimensional single-peakedness relative to the entitlements). We also provide a converse of this main finding. It turns out that this domain coincides with the one already identified in a …

Does Climate Change Impacts Output? An Empirical Evidence From Asia Pacific Countries., Chinmaya Behera Dr., Ranjan Kumar Mohanty Dr., Biswashree Tanaya Priyadarsini Ms., Debasis Patnaik

Bulletin of Monetary Economics and Banking

The study examines the nexus between output, Gross Domestic Product (GDP), renewable energy, trade openness, carbon emission, and foreign direct investment in Asia Pacific countries Using the autoregressive distributed lag model and yearly data from 1990 to 2021, we find (a) a long-run relationship among the variables under consideration, (b) that GDP positively impacts output in most countries, (c) that CO2 and renewable energy display varied effects, and (d) in the short run, GDP and trade openness generally exert a positive influence, but GDP demonstrates a mix of positive and negative impacts. Policymakers need to provide stable policies for environmental …

From Home To Abroad: The Intergenerational Impact Of Household Member Migration On Women’S Economic & Social Empowerment In Egypt, Menna Elgohary

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates to what extent the migration of a household member to an Arab country leads to increased social and economic empowerment among Egyptian women of two age categories (15-35 and +35) over two waves. Determined through Principle Component Analysis (PCA) of panel data from Egypt Labor Market Panel Surveys in 2018 and 2023, composite indices of social and economic empowerment serve as dependent variables in an IV 2SLS regression model. The model assesses whether household member migration, proxied by migration prevalence on the district (qism) level as an IV, causes a significant increase in social and economic empowerment …

Essays In Industrial Organization, Nilesh Kumar Jain

Doctoral Theses

This thesis contains three chapters on industrial organization, covering two distinct topics. Chapters 1 and 2 examine the impact of firm owner's corruption on the organization, while Chapter 3 analyzes the market dynamics of a two-sided newspaper market.\medskip The first chapter investigates the agency conflict that arises when the principal (the owner) of a firm is involved in corruption. A corruptible principal has an incentive to conceal his or her illegal activities, while the agent (CEO or manager), due to their information advantage, is in a position to monitor this corruption, thus creating an agency conflict. We show that such …

Ecological Influences On Informal Property Rights: Experimental Evidence, Erik O. Kimbrough

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

This paper explores the possibility that informal property right systems evolve unique features as a function of the characteristics of the resources over which they are established. We develop an experimental environment that allows us to test this hypothesis by comparing the emergence of property in (virtual) land when resource yields are either high- or low-variance and renewable or non-renewable. Previous research suggests that high-variance resources may lead to relatively insecure claims to property. Intuition suggests that this may be amplified when those resources are renewable. The experiments confirm that informal property rights adapt to resource characteristics in a manner …

When The Rich Do (Not) Trust The (Newly) Rich: Experimental Evidence On The Effects Of Positive Random Shocks In The Trust Game, Hernán Bejarano, Joris Gillet, Ismael Rodriguez-Lara

ESI Publications

We study behavior in a trust game where first-movers initially have a higher endowment than second-movers but the occurrence of a positive random shock can eliminate this inequality by increasing the endowment of the second-mover before the decision of the first-mover. We find that second-movers return less (i.e., they are less trustworthy) when they have a lower endowment than first-movers, compared with the case in which first and second-movers have the same endowment. In addition, second-movers who experience the positive shock return more than second-movers who have the same endowment as the first-mover from the outset. First-movers do not seem …

An Analysis Of Mental Health And Workplace Absenteeism, Kristin Marie Vrona

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation examines the effect of mental health on own health-related absenteeism among employed adults in the United States, using data from the 2010–2014 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS). The MEPS uniquely differentiates between absences due to one’s own health and those due to another person’s health, enabling causal estimation of individual-level factors influencing absence decisions.

The analysis incorporates both mental and physical health measures, including diagnostic indicators and self-reported general well being, which are used as proxies for severity that may affect both diagnosed and undiagnosed individuals. Results reveal a consistent pattern: individuals experiencing high psychological distress but lacking …

China’S Economic Slowdown: How Does It Affect New Zealand’S Economy?, Haven Qin

CMC Senior Theses

This paper examines the impact of China’s economic slowdown on New Zealand’s economy, focusing on sector-specific linkages across real estate, the stock market, exports, and import prices. As a small open economy, New Zealand’s deep integration with global markets makes it particularly vulnerable to external shocks from its largest trading partner. Employing OLS regression models and monthly economic data, this study reveals the nuanced pathways through which China’s economic conditions influence New Zealand. Key findings include the sensitivity of New Zealand’s housing market to Chinese property investments and Chinese stock market performance, the influence of Chinese financial market performance on …

The Game Of Going Public: Market Timing, Information Asymmetry, And The Signaling Effects Of Initial Public Offerings (Ipos) In The Technology Industry, Kiana Seva

Scripps Senior Theses

My thesis explores the game of going public in the technology industry, specifically the strategic decision-making process of issuing an initial public offering (IPO), the advantages a company may gain from its market timing, and the signaling effects of its IPO. Existing research on this subject is vast but fragmented into areas that focus on the decision to go public, game theoretical analysis of the advantages, analysis of the advantages using quantitative data, and signaling effects. To address this gap, I developed and analyzed three game theoretic models which account for all these factors that affect the success of an …

Electric Commuter Rail Access In Residential Communities: A Hedonic Analysis Case Study Of Nonmarket Value Creation, Catherine A. Sunding

Scripps Senior Theses

This study quantifies the price impact on houses of a new electric commuter rail line outside of Denver, Colorado. I find a negative price impact corresponding to increased accessibility and proximity of homes to the rail stations due to the negative externalities associated with the track. I also discover an even larger negative price impact of the rail stations in the years before the stations opened to the public, indicating possible endogeneity in the location of the rail line. I attempt to account for this endogeneity using instrumental variable analysis due to a limitation of house pricing data before 2016.

The International Transracial Adoption Effect: Measuring The Well-Being Of Korean Adoptees Vs. Non-Adopted Korean Americans, Grace H. Jones

Honors Theses

In this study, I examine the differences in well-being and long-term outcomes between adopted and non-adopted Korean Americans. The vast majority of adopted Korean Americans are placed with white, heterosexual couples, positioning them in a unique position in American society. While they are raised in white families and often disconnected from Korean culture, they are still perceived and treated as Asian by society. Scholars refer to this tension as the transracial adoptee paradox. This study explores how that paradox affects both economic and non-economic outcomes. The analysis finds that adopted Koreans tend to earn higher incomes than their non-adopted peers, …

Digital Platform Transitions In The Finance Industry: Three Essays, Cheryll-Ann Wilson

2025

This three-paper dissertation is motivated by an emerging dichotomy in the financial sector: an increasing use of an open-source digital platform—the Python platform—in an industry that historically has been wedded to proprietary systems.

Chapter 1 is a qualitative pilot study to ascertain which factors are likely to motivate investment professionals to select Python versus other tools and/or technologies. I find that efficiency and access to industry-specific libraries—notably Pandas and NumPy—are significant motivators in their selection of Python over Excel. Chapters 2 and 3 examine the issues through a sequential, exploratory mixed methods approach.

Chapter 2—the qualitative field study—investigates how and …

The Paradox Of Value, David Enrique Guarnizo

Theses and Dissertations

The present thesis project examines how, in the United States, and especially in the state of Virginia, archetypes of "wealth," "value," and "identity" have been constructed in relation to land and territory. This analysis explores the tension between the inherent value of life on the land and the economic value that can be derived from it. This tension is exemplified by a theory known as the "paradox of value", also referred to as the "paradox of water and diamonds", which was developed by the renowned Scottish economist and philosopher, Adam Smith. This theoretical framework serves as a fundamental axis for …

Essays On Technological Change And Scientific Research, Max Mayca

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

The primary objective of economic science has long been to understand and promote growth, as it contributes to a more prosperous civilization and improves individual well-being. The core drivers of growth—capital accumulation, human capital development, and technological progress—are well-established. While capital deepening enables scaling of production, and human capital enhances labor productivity, technological and scientific advancements remain the most critical, as they continually redefine the efficiency frontier. Given this centrality, it is essential to understand how technological progress affects labor markets, how research resources should be allocated, and how technology relates to human capital formation.

The first part of this …

Three Essays On Sustainability Economics, Hélène Flore Nguemgaing

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

As global economies face increasing resource dependencies and supply chain challenges, it becomes essential to understand the vulnerabilities that threaten economic stability. This dissertation investigates three empirical issues in agribusiness and critical minerals using econometric models to estimate the following: 1) the impact of supply chain disruptions on stock market returns during COVID-19; 2) the extraction of rare earth elements from acid mine drainage treatment by investigating the impacts of ownership and legislation in West Virginia and Pennsylvania; 3) China-to�FOBb (Free-on-Board) price transmission in rare earth elements markets: a copula-based dynamic tail dependence analysis.

The first essay evaluates how events …

Perlakuan Akuntansi Terhadap Pendapatan Dari Kontrak Dengan Pelanggan Pada Pt Svt Berdasarkan Psak 115, Michelle A. Ronauli, Arthaingan H. Mutiha

Jurnal Administrasi Bisnis Terapan

This study aims to discuss the application of PSAK 115 in recognizing revenue from customer contracts at PT SVT, a company operating in the oil and gas industry. PT SVT's revenue is derived from contracts with customers, requiring the implementation of PSAK 115 in the preparation of its financial statements. PSAK 115 establishes five (5) steps in revenue recognition from contracts, including contract identification, performance obligation determination, transaction price allocation, allocation of price to performance obligations, and revenue recognition upon fulfillment of obligations. This research employs a qualitative method with a field study and literature review approach, using the 2023 …