Econometrics Commons^™

The Impact Of Student Achievement On Economic Growth: A Pisa-Based Analysis Of Gdp Per Capita, Emma Rose Nasr

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

This study investigates the extent to which international student achievement, measured through PISA assessments in mathematics, reading, and science, explains cross-country differences in economic development. Using an unbalanced panel data set combining PISA results from 2015, 2018, and 2022 with macroeconomic indicators from the World Development Indicators, I estimate multiple regression models, including pooled OLS, country and time fixed effects, and subsample analyses for developed and developing countries. Results from the pooled model indicate strong positive associations between PISA scores and GDP per capita, consistent with human capital theory. However, these relationships diminish under fixed effects specifications, suggesting that cross-country …

Entropic Foundation Of Finance And Physics: Securities Price Dynamics And Quantum Theory, Mohammad Abedi

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

In many scientific and financial contexts, we must reason and make predictions under conditions of incomplete information. This dissertation develops Entropic Dynamics (ED) as a unified framework for deriving dynamical laws directly from principles of inference. Within this approach, probability distributions represent states of knowledge, and their evolution is determined through entropy maximization subject to relevant constraints. This leads to a novel concept of entropic time and a formulation of dynamics as an inferential process. In this talk, I will present how ED provides a common foundation across multiple domains. In physics, quantum dynamics for particles and scalar fields in …

Essays On Indian Inflation Targeting, Dipankar Biswas

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

This dissertation explores the efficacy and impact of inflation targeting as the monetary policy framework with a specific focus on India after its formal adoption of the inflation-targeting framework in 2016.

The first chapter focuses on the history of monetary policy framework in India. It discusses, in detail, the different monetary policy frameworks, namely Credit Planning, Flexible Monetary-Targeting, and Multiple-Indicator approaches, adopted by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) (i.e., the monetary authority of the country), before arriving at the adoption of the inflation-targeting framework. The monetary policy transmission process in India during the different global turmoil segments of the …

Essays On Financial Econometrics And Macro-Financial Forecasting, Zhendong A. Li

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

The first chapter proposes an innovative supervised learning technique for dimension reduction and forecasting financial and macroeconomic time series in the presence of weak factors that can undermine the effectiveness of traditional Principal Component Analysis (PCA). This approach employs double or multiple supervised learning procedures and is termed ``Supervised Scaled Principal Component Analysis'' (SsPCA). Initially, each predictor is scaled using its predictive slope on the target forecast variable, giving more weight to those with stronger predictive abilities and less to those with weaker ones. Subsequently, utilizing the scaled predictors, we intelligently identify the most informative subset for prediction. This involves …

Uncovering Mild Drift In Asset Prices With Intraday High-Frequency Data, Shuping Shi, Peter C. B. Phillips

Research Collection School Of Economics

Asset prices are commonly represented as a drift-diffusion process, wherein the drift component denotes the anticipated return of the asset within some time frame, while the diffusion component accommodates random shocks. The drift component has substantial practical significance but accurate estimation is typically challenging and has met with limited success in the existing literature except over large time spans. This paper explores a comprehensive range of drift-diffusion models that include constant, linear, trending, and bursting drift. Conditions are identified under which realized squared drift  is a reliable tool for gauging integrated squared drift when the time span Tn is large …

From Touchbacks To Touchdowns: Analyzing The Impact Of The Nfl's New Kickoff Rule Changes, Joshua A. Klatt

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

My proposal analyzes the impact of the NFL's new dynamic kickoff rule changes that were implemented in the Fall of 2024. I use a two-way fixed effects differences-in-differences model using FBS collegiate Division 1 football teams as the control group, and NFL teams as the treatment group. Three of the most important outcome variables I analyze are touchdowns per kickoff return, average yards per kickoff return, and the number of kickoff returns per game.

From Financial Education To Financial Decisions: Evidence On College Financing, Personal Finance Behavior, And Student Attitudes, Dongwei Shi

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

I examine how financial education shapes students’ financial knowledge, college financing decisions, and longer-term financial behavior.

The first chapter studies whether taking high school financial education in Kentucky affects students’ college financing decisions using linked administrative records on high school course-taking and postsecondary financial aid. Using school-level financial education course availability as an instrument, the chapter evaluates whether exposure to financial education is associated with differences in student loan borrowing and receipt of need-based aid.

The second chapter examines whether exposure to state high school financial education mandates improves financial literacy and longer-term personal finance behavior among U.S. adults. Using …

From Rocks To Rockets: How Mineral Wealth Fuels The Arms Trade, Samuel G. Majka

Theses and Dissertations

This study addresses a critical gap in the resource curse literature by examining how strategic mineral wealth, central to the global clean energy transition, influences international arms transfers. While the relationship between oil rents, militarization, and conflict is well-established, the role of non-hydrocarbon resources and conflict-related variables remains underexplored. This paper posits that mineral rents provide governments with unearned, discretionary income, relaxing fiscal constraints and creating powerful incentives for both resource-rich states and major power suppliers to increase arms flows to secure political control, suppress internal dissent, and maintain access to valuable deposits. Using a country-year panel dataset spanning 1990-2023 …

Multivariate Quantile Autoregression-Mixed Data Sampling (Mvqar-Midas) Modeling Of Cost Of Living And Supply Chain Dynamics In Canada., Patrick Gbolonyo

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

In recent years, the rising cost of living as a result of persistent inflationary pressures, disruptions in the global supply chains, and changes in the macroeconomic landscape has become a critical topic of discussion. To address this, we move beyond a mean-based framework and employ a quantile regression approach. This allows the persistence of each series and the transmis- sion of shocks between the Consumer Price Index (CPI) (the total CPI which is a percentage change over the past 12 months), the Interest Rate (IR)(the target for the overnight rate), the New Housing Price Index (NHPI), and high-frequency supply chain …

The Problem With The Mode Of External Debt Servicing: The Case Of Nigeria, Shehu Tijjani Muhammed

Bullion

This study empirically tested the hypothesis that external debt servicing leads to debt accumulation using Nigeria as case study. The method employed combines logic and debt stock variation analysis. Results indicate that Nigeria has served interest on its external debt only to see its external debt stock increasing confirming the hypothesis. A reform is needed to enable the country retain the domestic income lost to international speculative capital to boost government revenue. A sovereign agency to intermediate between the indebted residents, exporters, and the banking system can be created to solve the problem.

The Conditional Nature Of The Value Premium: Interaction And Cross-Sectional Evidence Across Market Regimes, Samuel L. Klein

Honors Thesis

This thesis examines why value-based investment strategies generate strong returns in some environments yet weaken or collapse in others. Regressions test whether the performance of the book-to-market ratio depends on the investor’s perception of financial health as defined by F-Score and accruals. Across additive regressions, interaction models, cross-sectionals, and heatmap visualizations, a consistent mechanism emerges. The book-to-market effect is strongest when financial information is neither highly reliable nor severely distressed. In these “moderate-quality” environments, investors struggle to fully distinguish the transitory components of earnings from their persistent counterparts. This makes valuation ratios particularly influential. Accrual intensity and financial strength jointly …

Effects Of External Debt On Inflation In The West African Monetary Zone (Wamz), Collins Anosike

Journal of Global Awareness

This research examined the effect of external public debt on inflation in the West African Monetary Zone (WAMZ) using annual data from 1960 to 2022. The study selected the six member countries of WAMZ, namely: Gambia, Guinea, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Ghana, to examine their economic well-being, growth performance, external debt, and inflation over a 63-year period. This study is unique because it examines three periods, namely: pre-WAMZ (1960 to 2000); during WAMZ (2001 to 2022); and the entire period (1960 to 2022), extends previous studies by using updated data, and then shows the long-run positive effect of external …

Housing Burden And Insurance Expenditures, Melanie M. Lytell

Honors Capstones

Housing costs shape the way families spend on protection and security. This study looks at how the share of income devoted to housing, the housing burden, influences household spending on four types of insurance: vehicle, life, personal, and health. Using data from nearly 92,000 households and regression models that account for state differences, I find that even small increases in housing burden shift insurance choices in meaningful ways. A one‑percentage‑point rise in housing burden is linked to a 2.1% increase in vehicle insurance spending and a 0.5% increase in life insurance, but a 0.7% decrease in personal insurance and a …

Contests With Ambiguous Prizes, Cary Deck, Aidan Hathaway, Emma Kate Henry, Tigran Melkonyan, Samuel Redinger

ESI Working Papers

This paper examines behavior in contests where the prize value is ambiguous. We develop a theoretical model of bidding in a Tullock contest with an ambiguous prize where contestants account for the ambiguity attitude of their rival. Ambiguity affects optimal behavior via two countervailing channels - a direct effect arising from contestants’ ambiguity about the value of the prize and an indirect effect corresponding to the effect of ambiguity on the opponent’s behavior. Using a controlled laboratory experiment, we elicit individual risk and ambiguity attitudes and compare predicted and observed behavior in contests with an ambiguous prize, a risky prize …

An Empirical Investigation Of The Effects Of Gunshot Detection Technology In Detroit, Joe Davis

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

This paper evaluates the impact of acoustic gunshot detection technology (GDT) on crime and policing outcomes in Detroit, Michigan. Leveraging the implementation of ShotSpotter across high-crime neighborhoods, I analyze outcomes including crime rates, emergency calls, police response times, and case clearance. My findings indicate that ShotSpotter installation is associated with a 6% reduction in violent crime but a modest increase in nonviolent crime. The technology also produces a large increase in the reporting of gunfire incidents—over 300% more gunshot-related calls for service—yet police respond 7% slower to ShotSpotter alerts than to citizen-reported gunshots. Consistent with prior research, I find no …

Strategic Interactions And Gender Cues: Evidence From Social Preference Games, Hernán Bejarano, Matias Busso, Juan Francisco Santos

ESI Working Papers

This paper studies trust, reciprocity, and bargaining using a large-scale online experiment conducted in six Latin American countries. Participants played trust and ultimatum games under randomly assigned conditions in which the gender of their counterpart was either disclosed or withheld. On average, disclosing counterpart gender does not yield statistically detectable effects in either game. However, statistically significant differences emerge by participants' own gender: on average men exhibit higher levels of trust, reciprocity, and generosity in bargaining than women. When disaggregating by participant-counterpart gender pairings, point estimates differ in sign across groups but are generally imprecisely estimated, and differences between interacting …

The Moderating Effect Of Income Inequality On The Income–Emissions Relationship In G20 Countries, Zahra Rizky Fadilah, Budiasih Budiasih

Economics and Finance in Indonesia

This study analyzes the moderating effect of income inequality on the income–emissions relationship in the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) framework. Findings indicate that the relationship is inverted U-shaped in middle-income G20 countries, but monotonically increasing in high-income G20 countries. Interestingly, income inequality moderates this relationship only in the latter group. These findings suggest that middle-income G20 countries should focus on raising income per capita to mitigate environmental degradation, while their high-income counterparts need to prioritize reducing income inequality to effectively decouple income from emissions.

The Bandwagon Model, Dean A. Williams

All Dissertations

Professional sports teams are in the entertainment market where owners of teams invest in players with the hopes of converting their talents into wins, and in turn, added revenues for their team. To gain an understanding of the incentives that shape these team talent investment decisions, prior economists have created theoretical models of professional sports leagues that give predictions regarding the cost to acquire talent, and the winning percentage of teams from different market sizes. These models are then used to show how team talent investment decisions change once professional sports leagues implement policies such as first-year player drafts, salary …

Trade Dependency And Resilience: An Analysis Of Egypt’S Wheat Import Dynamics During The Russia-Ukraine War, Maha Elhini, Jomana M. Eiisa, Rasha Hammam

Economics

Purpose

Provided that Egypt is the world’s largest wheat importer, the conflict between its primary suppliers presents significant challenges to its trade stability and food security. This paper aims to investigate the impacts of the Russia–Ukraine (RU) war on Egypt’s trade dynamics, with a particular focus on wheat imports over the period 1995–2023.

Design/methodology/approach

The study uses the Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares (FMOLS) model to estimate the relationship between macroeconomic variables and Egypt’s trade performance, as well as agricultural determinants and wheat import dynamics.

Findings

The empirical results show that Egypt’s GDP growth rate and its exchange rate have …

Dictators And Lying Dictators: An Experimental Investigation Of Preference Based-Group Biases In Chinese And American Interactions, Aaron S. Berman, Saika Cer Askin, Shapeng Jiang, David Porter, Jason Shachat

ESI Working Papers

This study examines group-conditional generosity and behavior using students from Chapman University in the United States and Wuhan University in China. Participants make allocation decisions in either a standard Dictator Game (DG) or a Lying Dictator Game (LDG), where a privately reported die roll determines the allocation. We vary whether participants interact with members of their own or the other university community. The LDG game, through the possibility of plausible deniability, allows for the moderation of image concerns that potentially influence DG behavior. We complement these tasks with individual decision benchmarks that exclude the Receiver to control for group differences …