Behavioral Economics Commons^™

Objectively-Measured And Subjectively-Perceived Financial Literacy, Wenyi Lu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation consists of three chapters on financial literacy. The chapters examine the impact of financial literacy on households’ risk tolerance and financial planning behavior. Financial literacy was assessed in two dimensions: an objectively-measured financial literacy score, and a subjectively-perceived financial literacy level.

The first chapter reviews the literature measuring financial literacy, and raises concerns about the prevalent state of financial-literacy overconfidence, which can lead to underprepared financial planning and irrational financial behavior. This chapter uses the survey data from the Financial Regulatory Authority’s (FINRAs) 2009, 2012 and 2015 National Financial Capability Study (NFCS) to explore how individual and regional …

An Exploratory Study Of The Impact Of Acculturation On Fashion Consumption Among Hispanic Immigrants In The U.S., Laura Toloza

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

With a population of 58 million in 2016, the Hispanic immigrant population in the U.S. is expected to grow nearly 30% by 2060 (Hispanic influence, 2016). Immigrants are affected by acculturation and often have difficulty maintaining their culture of origin. Prior studies have revealed acculturation influences on consumer behaviors, but despite the increased population and purchasing power of Hispanic immigrants in the U.S., few studies have explored the ways in which acculturation influences shopping behaviors for fashion products among Hispanic consumers. The purpose of this study is to explore the general attitude related to shopping (i.e., shopping orientation) of Hispanic …

Limit Pricing Oligopoly Market Evidence From Tamilnadu Politics, Pazhani Samy

Economics Publications

Limit pricing oligopoly market is a hypothetical market explained with various hypotheses in the literature which has limited scope for the real world economic evidence and its application which leads the impact of the operation of such market is mostly unknown among the policymakers and academics. The available literature evidences are mostly neglected to explore the scope of such markets conditions and failed to direct appropriate policies.

In India among most of the national level parties and in the states levels there are two only have been surviving over the long periods. This trigger the intuition to inquire into answer …

Socioeconomic Influences On Property Crime Rates: A Study In Virginia's Counties, Mary Passley

Student Scholar Showcase

Most research on factors and causes of crime, whether property or violent crime, focuses on individuals’ behavior or their surrounding environment. In this research, I explore the idea of socioeconomic factors correlated to property crime. I conducted a retrospective design to fully explore United States Census data and crime data gathered by the Bureau of Justice Statistics to discover statistically significant variables connected to property crime. Significant findings were shown by average people per house and retail sales per capita in all counties. Additional significant findings were percent employment change and percent with high school degree or higher in low …

College Crime And Retention Rates, Abigail R. Hauer

Student Publications

Increased media attention on college crime has led to greater prioritization of campus safety when selecting a college to attend. This, coupled with society’s view of higher education as a necessity to succeed in the labor market, creates a potential tradeoff between safety on campus and future job success. To analyze such tradeoff, I examine whether college crime affects retention rates at four-year American institutions. While literature has focused on college crime and factors that affect the decision to begin attending a college, no study has solely focused on the college crime and the decision to continue attending a college. …

The Fire Rises: Refining The Pennsylvania Fireworks Law So That Fewer People Get Burned, Sean P. Kraus

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

On October 30, 2017, the General Assembly of Pennsylvania passed an act that repealed the state’s fireworks law, which had prohibited the sale of most fireworks to Pennsylvanian consumers for nearly 80 years. The law’s replacement generally permits Pennsylvanians over 18 years old to purchase, possess, and use “Consumer Fireworks.” Bottle rockets, firecrackers, Roman candles, and aerial shells are now available to amateur celebrants for holidays like Independence Day and New Year’s Eve. The law also regulates a category of larger “Display Fireworks,” sets standards for fireworks vendors, and introduces a 12-percent excise tax on fireworks sales that serves to …

Illusion Of Gender Parity In Education: Intrahousehold Resource Allocation In Bangladesh, Sijia Xu, Abu S. Shonchoy, Tomoki Fujii

Research Collection School Of Economics

A target in the Millennium Development Goals—gender parity in all levels of education—is widely considered to have been attained. However, measuring gender parity only through school enrollment is misleading, as girls may lag behind boys in other educational measures. We investigate this with four rounds of surveys from Bangladesh by decomposing households’ education decisions into enrollment, education expenditure, and share of the education expenditure allocated for the quality of education like private tutoring. We find a strong profemale bias in school enrollment but promale bias in the other two decisions. This contradirectional gender bias is unique to Bangladesh and partly …

Quality Over Quantity: A Comparative Analysis Of The Quality Measures And Performance Between Switzerland And The United States, Lexi Farina

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Even in the best health systems, poor quality of care continues to cause harm to patients and prevent them from receiving the best treatment possible. Thus, it is important to record and report quality of care measures because they can help inform policy changes and improve performance. In this paper, a comparative analysis between the United States and Switzerland is conducted to understand the process for defining and assessing quality indicators in each country as well as compare their quality of care performance results. The methods for this study include a literature review of relevant background information relating to quality …

Supplying Slaves: The Disguise Of Greener Pastures: An Exploratory Study Of Human Trafficking In Uganda, Kyla Johnson

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The purpose of this study was to evaluate labor migration in Uganda with a specific focus on the role labor recruitment agencies play in transporting people and how certain circumstances such as lack of knowledge of safe migration can leave people vulnerable to human trafficking. Labor externalization is beneficial specifically for developing countries because it provides jobs for the robust and available labor in these countries. Nonetheless, when reports appear that young girls are stranded abroad in the middle east after being taken there for work, labor recruitment agencies are first to receive the blame. Although Uganda issued a ban …

Transnational Sharing Economies & Neoliberal Urbanism: Airbnb In The City-Region Of Tangier, Jack Spector-Bishop

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Since the early 1980s, Morocco’s strategies of urban governance have been decidedly neoliberal, focusing on entrepreneurialism, market liberalization, and privatization in order to make Moroccan cities more competitive in a global capitalist market (Bogaert 2010; Kanai & Kutz 2011). Within this context of neoliberal urban restructuring, I examine the case of Airbnb in the rapidly globalising city-region of Tangier. Airbnb is an online “sharing economy” platform which allows property owners to rent out living spaces to short-term travellers, usually tourists. In the Moroccan urban context, Airbnb is part of a broader trend of entrepreneurial development, influx of international capital into …

Economic Cycles As A Source Of Social Influence On Individuals, Nina Sirola

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The current review summarizes emerging research in psychology and associated disciplines showing that the economic cycles exert social influence on individuals across a range of psychological domains. Most research on social influence focused on how factors in the proximal environment impact individuals, while influences emanating from the state of the economy as a whole received far less attention. I review the development of different intellectual traditions examining social influence to explain the relative lack of attention to economic cycles and position emerging work on the topic relative to past research. I then review research on how economic cycles influence individuals …

Central Place Theory And The Power Law For Cities, Wen-Tai Hsu, Zou Xin

Research Collection School Of Economics

This chapter provides a review of the link between central place theory and the power laws for cities. A theory of city size distribution is proposed via a central place hierarchy a la Christaller (1933) either as an equilibrium results or an optimal allocation. Under a central place hierarchy, it is shown that a power law for cities emerges if the underlying heterogeneity in economies of scale across good is regularly varying. Furthermore, we show that an optimal allocation of cities conforms with a central place hierarchy if the underlying heterogeneity in economies of scale across good is a power …

"Baby Factories": Exploitation Of Women In Southern Nigeria, Jacinta Chiamaka Nwaka, Akachi Odoemene

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

Despite the writings of feminist thinkers and efforts of other advocates of feminism to change the dominant narratives on women, exploitation of women is a fact that has remained endemic in various parts of the world, and particularly in Africa. Nigeria is one of those countries in Africa where women are largely exposed to varying degrees of exploitation. This paper examines the development and proliferation of baby-selling centers in southern Nigeria and its impacts on and implication for women in Nigeria. It demonstrates how an attempt to give protection to unwed pregnant girls has metamorphosed into “baby harvesting” and selling …

Why Are Americans So Divided On Refugee Policy?, Shilpa Madan, Shankha Basu, Aneeta Rattan, Krishna Savani

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The U.S. will resettle the lowest number of refugees in fiscal year 2019 since the Refugee Act was passed in 1980. After taking office, President Donald Trump reduced the admission limit from 110,000 in 2017 to 45,000 in 2018, and to 30,000 in 2019. The reduction is not a result of fewer refugees seeking resettlement. On the contrary, the number of people seeking resettlement is on the rise.

The Economic Impact Of The University Of Arkansas, Mervin Jebaraj, Brenna Frandson, Stephanie Galen

Publications and Presentations

As the state’s flagship institution of higher education, the University of Arkansas delivers a significant economic impact to Arkansas. In 2018, an impact in excess of $2.2 billion came from the University via operations, construction, technology transfer, student expenditures, and visitor spending. The University of Arkansas has a substantial influence on the direction of the state’s economy by fulfilling its land-grant mission of developing human capital, growing ideas, and transmitting knowledge to the public.

Optimal Climate Policy And The Future Of World Economic Development, Mark Budolfson, Francis Dennig, Marc Fleurbaey, Noah Scovronick, Asher Siebert, Dean Spears, Fabian Wagner

Journal Articles

How much should the present generations sacrifice to reduce emissions today, in order to reduce the future harms of climate change? Within climate economics, debate on this question has been focused on so-called "ethical parameters" of social time preference and inequality aversion. We show that optimal climate policy similarly importantly depends on the future of the developing world. In particular, although global poverty is falling and the economic lives of the poor are improving worldwide, leading models of climate economics may be too optimistic about two central predictions: future population growth in poor countries, and future convergence in total factor …

Stock Recommendations In China: Buyer Beware, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

Research analysts have incentives to issue positive recommendations; social ties with fund managers exert considerable influence

The Name Game: The Importance Of Resourcefulness, Ruses, And Recall In Stock Ticker Symbols, Gary N. Smith, Naomi Baer, Erica Barry

Pomona Economics

Previous research reported that a portfolio of stocks with clever ticker symbols outperformed the overall market by a significant margin during the years 1984 to 2005. This paper reports the performance of those stocks during the subsequent years 2006 to 2018, and also investigates the 2006-2008 performance of a new set of clever-ticker stocks. Both clever-ticker portfolios beat the market by a substantial margin, supporting the resiliency of the clever-ticker phenomenon.

One Step At A Time: Does Gradualism Build Coordination?, Maoliang Ye, Jie Zheng, Plamen Nikolov, Sam Asher

Economics Faculty Scholarship

This study investigates a potential mechanism to promote coordination. With theoretical guidance using a belief-based learning model, we conduct a multi-period, binary-choice, and weakest-link laboratory coordination experiment to study the effect of gradualism – increasing the required levels (stakes) of contributions slowly over time rather than requiring a high level of contribution immediately – on group coordination performance. We randomly assign subjects to three treatments: starting and continuing at a high stake, starting at a low stake but jumping to a high stake after a few periods, and starting at a low stake while gradually increasing the stakes over time …

Mass Atrocities And Their Prevention, Charles H. Anderton, Jurgen Brauer

Economics Department Working Papers

Counting conservatively, and ignoring physical injuries and mental trauma, data show about 100 million mass atrocity-related deaths since 1900. Occurring in war and in peacetime, and of enormous scale, severity, and brutality, they are geographically widespread, occur with surprising frequency, and can be long-lasting in their adverse effects on economic and human development, wellbeing, and wealth. As such, they are a major economic concern. This article synthesizes very diverse and widely dispersed theoretical and empirical literatures, addressing two gaps: a “mass atrocities gap” in the economics literature and an “economics gap” in mass atrocities scholarship. Our goals are, first, for …