Other Economics Commons^™

Typhoons And Lower Birth Weight In The Philippines, Sarah Morrow

Master's Theses

Do typhoons impact birth weights of infants exposed to a typhoon while in utero? This research exploits the exogeneity and randomness of typhoons in the Philippines to estimate the impact of typhoon exposure as determined by wind speed on birth weights. Using four waves of the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data from the Philippines combined with temperature, precipitation, and rainfall data from the Philippines, I can empirically estimate the impact of a 1 m/s increase in wind speed on birth weights. I find that for certain subgroups of the population, specifically children born to mothers with primary education or …

Implementing Green Roofs On Movie Theaters And Shopping Centers: Business Cases In Profitable Sustainability, Ryan J. Miller

Pomona Senior Theses

This thesis presents the business case for installing green roofs on movie theaters and shopping centers. These businesses can then derive increased profits from the environmental benefits of reduced energy use and increased stormwater retention. After presenting the basic design and benefits of a green roof, the thesis develops stand-alone business plans for a movie theater and shopping center. The author finds that green roofs are a profitable sustainability solution for the commercial enterprise.

Economic Effects Of Successful Sports Franchises On Local Economies, Joshua Goodrich

Honors Theses and Capstones

No abstract provided.

Terrorism And Illicit Drug Prices: Does A Drug-Terror Nexus Exist? A Regression Analysis Of The Relationship Between Illicit Drug Prices And Terrorist Events, Abigail Burnette

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

Since the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, global counterterrorism policies have increasingly targeted terrorist financing sources. These increased financial counterterrorism regulations have diverted the traditional sources and methods of terrorist funding, including illicit drug revenue streams. The purpose of this paper is to measure the relationship between terrorist events (both domestic and transnational) and the prices of cocaine and heroin. Using regression analysis, I find that the annual U.S. illicit drug prices of heroin are statistically significant with domestic and transnational terrorist events. These results suggest that future counterterrorism policies should continue to be used in …

Idaho Land Use/Regulation & Off Road Highway Vehicle Use, Johnny Whittemore, Raul Ramirez, Kellen Hill, David Welsh, Jeff Dee

College of Business and Economics Poster Presentations

In the last twenty-five years, Idaho has noticed a dramatic increase in the usage of motorized vehicles in Idaho’s backcountry. This land has mass appeal for its remote wilderness qualities that include hiking, fishing, hunting, and other recreational activities. To accommodate the increased amount of off-road vehicles, Idaho’s government agencies have found it difficult to designate cohesive usages of the land. With the expansion of ATV use in Idaho backcountry, ecological damages have progressively gotten worse. In order to address these damages, in 2005 travel management plans were implemented for future ATV usage. Because these restrictions were put in place, …

Conditional Cash Transfers And Child Health: The Case Of Malawi, Ryan F. Boone

CMC Senior Theses

This paper analyzes the impacts of the Malawi Social Cash Transfer Scheme. The goal of this paper is to help improve the design of cash transfers. First of all, I analyze whether the cash transfer positively affects child health variables despite occurring in a region with poor supply side health institutions. I find significant results for many child level variables, such as frequency of illnesses, but insignificant improvements in anthropometric measurements. Secondly, I examine whether female-headed households invest more in child health than male-headed households. The results show that the impacts of the cash transfer did not depend on the …

Religious Identity And The Provision Of Public Goods: Evidence From The Indian Princely States, Latika Chaudhary, Jared Rubin

ESI Working Papers

Religious identity affects preferences and can consequently affect policy. We propose two mechanisms through which a ruler's religious identity can affect public good provision: i) greater provision of goods in regions where more subjects are the ruler's co-religionists, and ii) lower provision of goods where private markets provide a substitute to the ruler's co-religionists. Empirically, identifying the causal effect of religious identity on policy is often impossible, since the religious identity of rulers rarely changes over time and place. We address this problem by exploiting the variation in the religion of rulers in the Indian Princely States in the early …

Managerial Turnover In The English Premier League And The Subsequent Results, Jarrod Connally

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Efficient productivity often relies upon the matching of managerial skills and the resources available for production. Often, poor production outcomes can be attributed to those not directly involved in the production: the managers. Similarly, poor results in professional sports are often attributed to the men and women who never play a minute of a game: the managers/coaches. Managers are routinely blamed for performance and are often the first change an owner or a club will make to improve results. This paper will attempt to determine the performance effects of changing a club’s manager in soccer’s English Premier League (EPL). Further, …

(Review) A Short History Of Ethics And Economics: The Greeks, Spencer J. Pack

Economics Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Microeconomic Study Of A Labor Union: An Econometrics Analysis Of How The Nhl Salary Cap Has Affected The Competitive Balance Of The Nhl And Determinants Of Team Revenue, Lauren Grossman

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

This thesis is a microeconomic study of labor unions and a business analysis of a professional sports industry. It will examine the effects of the salary cap in the National Hockey League. The 2004-05 NHL season was cancelled due to a lockout because the National Hockey League Players' Association and the team owners could not come to an agreement on salaries. As a result, the Players' Association and the owners came to an agreement that included the implementation of a salary cap and revenue sharing. The purpose of this thesis is to determine whether or not the implementation of the …

Determinants Of Housing Prices In Pittsylvania County, Jason Hall

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

The purpose of this research is to determine the implicit factors influencing housing prices in Pittsylvania County, a rural county in Southside Virginia. Currently in Pittsylvania County there is a debate over whether or not to mine what is believed to be the largest deposit of uranium in the United States, containing approximately 119 million pounds of uranium ore at an estimated value of $7 billion to $10 billion. The Virginia Coal and Energy Commission issued its final approval for the National Academy of Sciences to study the debate from a socio-economic standpoint. The $1.2 million study is currently taking …

Microeconomic Analysis Of Hours Of Informal Care Per Week For Alzheimer's Disease Patients, Elizabeth Eckert

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

As more Americans are diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, the demand for treatment and care has been increasing. One of the most critical issues of caring for an Alzheimer's disease patient is the number of unpaid hours that many Americans are contributing to the care for Alzheimer's disease patient Providing unpaid care can cause issues for the caregivers such as high stress levels, financial problems, and difficulties at work, and thus can result in the patient not receiving the best possible care. Based on previously collected survey data, this econometric study evaluates the determinants of the average number of hours of …

A Model Of Voluntary Turnover For New Hires In State Government, Reese M. Thompson

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

Why do new hires have a tendency to voluntarily quit their jobs more than tenured employees? This question has important implications for organizations and human resource managers who have to develop and implement human resource management (HRM) strategies that are designed to recruit and retain the best employees. An underlying theme of turnover research is that voluntary turnover is a negative outcome for an organization. While it has been suggested and established that job tenure affects turnover (Lewis, 1991; Cohen, 1993), very little research has been undertaken regarding the specific factors that drive retention of new hires (Shipp, Payne, & …

Some Professionals Play Minimax: A Reexamination Of The Minimax Theory In Major League Baseball, Jeffrey Park

CMC Senior Theses

This paper explores the behavior of Major League Baseball pitchers. We analyze the pitching data from 2007-2010 in order to determine whether their actions follow minimax play. We also examine what the OPS statistic tells us about a pitcher's value.

If They Just Weren't So Rich!, Anja Mihr

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The deadliest war on earth-as it is called-in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) will only end when the country's richness fades or is kept under surveillance. Human rights and peace might have a chance if Congo's lucrative diamond, gold or coltan mines were under shared control by non-profit agencies or international organizations with the intention to spread the mines' benefits and wealth among the Congolese people. Wishful thinking? Most likely it is, but what other alternative is there? The country's extraordinary wealth in natural resources is the main reason for the immense corruption, the extermination of entire villages, the …

Natural Resources And Wealth Of The Democratic Republic Of Congo (Drc): Of Benefit To Whom?, Nicola Colbran

Human Rights & Human Welfare

When asked to discuss the humanitarian tragedy in the DRC, the question really is where to start? The article by Adam Hochschild discusses some of the most horrific events and experiences imaginable: widespread killings of unarmed civilians, rape, torture and looting, the recruitment of child soldiers, and the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people. The immediate human response is who is to blame, how did it happen and how can the world apparently do nothing?

Human Rights Law On Trial In The Drc, William Paul Simmons

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The ongoing tragedy in Eastern Congo contains so many tragic lessons that it should shake to their very foundations all comfortable ideologies about human rights and politics. The atrocities in the DRC should implicate all but have so far resulted in almost limitless impunity. Here, I briefly put human rights law on trial for its role in perpetuating this tragedy.

Does Unemployment Decrease Cancer Mortality?, Benjamin Torres Galick

Economics Honors Projects

Recent research indicates that healthier lifestyles during recessions decrease the most common U.S. mortalities, but not cancer. However, they combine specific cancer mortalities with different progressions into one, possibly obscuring cancer’s link to unemployment. This paper estimates a fixed-effects regression model on unemployment and the nine most prevalent cancers between 1988 and 2002 using state-level panel data. Five cancers and total cancer are procyclical, and suggest that unemployment affects both incidence and gestation for some cancers. Consistent with the medical literature, this paper contradicts previous economic research and suggests that behavioral factors significantly impact cancer mortality.

Radio Spectrum And The Disruptive Clarity Of Ronald Coase, Thomas W. Hazlett, David Porter, Vernon Smith

ESI Working Papers

In the Federal Communications Commission, Ronald Coase exposed deep foundations via normative argument buttressed by astute historical observation. The government controlled scarce frequencies, issuing sharply limited use rights. Spillovers were said to be otherwise endemic. Coase saw that Government limited conflicts by restricting uses; property owners perform an analogous function via the “price system.” The government solution was inefficient unless the net benefits of the alternative property regime were lower. Coase augured that the price system would outperform. His spectrum auction proposal was mocked by communications policy experts, opposed by industry interests, and ridiculed by policy makers. Hence, it took …

The Role Of Economics In Achieving Welfare Gains For Animals, Jennifer Fearing, Gaverick Matheny

State of the Animals 2007

The demand for animal products and services is a powerful economic force in society, and multibillion-dollar industries are organized around this demand. These industries often face increased costs by improving animal welfare and are quick to use economic arguments against proposed welfare reforms (see sidebar on page 169). These arguments, while often specious, can influence consumers, voters, and policy makers. Citizens are less likely to support animal welfare reforms they’ve been told will double their shopping bill or impoverish family farmers.

Animal welfare advocates cannot respond to these economic arguments with moral rhetoric alone. Instead, non-governmental observers (NGOs) must challenge …

Rationality In Economics: Constructivist And Ecological Forms, Vernon L. Smith

ESI Publications

Chapter 1: Rediscovering the Scottish Philosophers

(Review) Self-Interest Before Adam Smith: A Genealogy Of Economic Science, Spencer J. Pack

Economics Faculty Publications

Pierre Force, Self-Interest Before Adam Smith: A Genealogy of Economic Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. ix, 279, $65.00. ISBN 0-521 83060-5.

Trends. Common Currency On Currency Interventions In A Global Economy: Psychological Considerations, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This article discusses government interventions in economies in the context of a global economy. While economists usually assume actors to be rational, the author notes that this may not be the case with human belief systems and actions.

Trends. Money Talks, Nobody Walks I: The International Monetary Fund And The World Bank, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This article discusses the economic activities of the World Bank, the IMF, and a United States Congressional commission that critiqued their operations.

Adam Smith On The Virtues: A Partial Resolution Of The Adam Smith Problem, Spencer J. Pack

Economics Faculty Publications

Adam Smith's definition of justice as a moral virtue based on the "passion" of resentment in 'The Theory of Moral Sentiments' (1759), despite seeming contradictions, supports his analysis of an acquisitive, commercial society in 'The Wealth of Nations' (1774) partly by precluding the concept of a just price.

Slavery, Adam Smith’S Economic Vision And The Invisible Hand, Spencer J. Pack

Economics Faculty Publications

Smith was against slavery on moral and economic grounds. The "invisible hand" in societies which allow slavery, operates in such a way that increases in the wealth of the rich, leads to increased misery for the poor free citizens as well as for the slaves themselves. It seems that the beneficial workings of the "invisible hand" are dependent upon commercial societies which arc not based upon the institution of slavery.

An Economic Evaluation Of The Product Sugar With Special Emphasis On The Abnormal Sugar Market Of 1963-1964, Merlin J. Olsen

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The product sugar is studied in detail with special emphasis on supply and demand factors, in an attempt to better understand the abnormal sugar market of 1963-1964.

The unusual market fluctuations of that period appear to have been initiated by a statistical imbalance in world supply and demand of sugar.

The extent of price fluctuations in the United States during 1963-1964 were accentuated by the inability of current sugar legislation to shield the U. S. market from the world market, and by the openly aggressive purchasing policies followed by the U. S. Department of Agriculture which further aggravated an already …

The Raisin Industry Of California, John W. Farrar

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

This thesis has been prepared as a partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of faster of Arts, prescribed by the College of the Pacific, Stockton, California. It is sincerely hoped that it will be found useful to all of those who are at all interested in the great industry of raisin making, which has played no small part in the building up of the great San Joaquin Valley and has been responsible for bringing the much needed irrigation system to the valley.

Various types of data are here available, including personal opinions from the foremost leaders of the …