Economics Commons^™

Bitcoin Options Risk-Reversal Predictability, Meng Hwee Neo

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

This dissertation examines whether Bitcoin options risk-reversal (RR) spreads predict future Bitcoin returns, using daily Deribit data from April 2021 to December 2025 (1,723 observations).

In the primary 25-delta, 90-day specification, the RR coefficient is significant at the 1% level in a thirteen-variable baseline regression with Newey–West standard errors. Robustness tests across all available delta–tenor specifications show statistically significant RR coefficients in the majority of configurations, concentrating in the 30–180-day maturity band.

The butterfly spread (BF) also predicts returns. Both remain significant after controls are added: the RR t-statistic increases from 1.91 (univariate) to 3.73 (full baseline), and the BF …

Essays On High-Frequency Dynamics Of Asset Prices, Yuhong Zhu

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

This dissertation studies econometric inference for high-frequency financial data, with a focus on detecting nonstandard drift and volatility dynamics in continuous-time models.

The first chapter proposes a new framework for uniform inference on explosive drift in high-frequency data, where conventional Gaussian approximations can fail due to the non-Gaussian behavior of short-window spot statistics. Under fixed-window asymptotics, these statistics are coupled with dependent t variables, and their maximum converges to a Fréchet distribution. We establish an anti-clustering condition for dependent t-statistics under overlapping windows and develop a feasible coupling-based test. Simulation results demonstrate better size control, and the empirical findings suggest …

Essays On Money Search Models, Fangfang Gong

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

This dissertation comprises three papers that use money search models to revisit the distributional welfare costs of inflation, study the optimal design of a central bank digital currency (CBDC), and investigate the role of liquidity and monetary policy in initial investment and capital reallocation in secondary markets.

The second chapter develops a micro-founded general equilibrium model of payments to revisit the distributional welfare costs of inflation. We consider different cost structures incurred by merchants when accepting cash and deposits. In equilibrium, there exists a cutoff for buyers’ money holdings, above which card payments are accepted by merchants. We calibrate the …

Uncertainty, Information, And Major Choice: Evidence From Chinese Gaokao, Sikun Dou

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

An unresolved background risk makes people more averse to other, independent  risks—most of all when a high-stakes, irreversible choice must be made under that risk. College major choice is such a setting. In China, students are admitted directly into a major they cannot easily change, and in the early 2000s they had to commit before learning their exam scores, bearing a field’s academic risk on top of an unresolved admission risk. Because STEM fields carry more academic risk and women are on average more risk-averse, this burden falls hardest on women’s entry into STEM. Exploiting a reform that moved application …

Financial Technology And Household Wealth, Rongbo Zhou

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

With the spread of mobile payment platforms in China, the micro-foundations of household financial behaviour have been reshaped, and this change is increasingly reflected in household property income. Based on microdata from the China Household Finance Survey (CHFS) for 2015, 2017, 2019, and 2021, this dissertation examines how mobile payment use affects household property income, through which channels this effect is transmitted, and how its impact differs across household groups, regional conditions, and macro-financial environments.

The empirical results show a positive association between the use of mobile payment platforms and household property income. This conclusion remains robust after controlling for …

Long Run Effect Of Industrial Place-Based Policy On County Level Complexity, An Investigation Of The Tennessee Valley Authority, Anita Ifeyinwa Umunnah

Master's Theses

This paper studies the long-term effects of large federal investments in place-based industrial policies on regional economic development, contributing new evidence on how industrial policies shape regional local productive capabilities over time. While extensive research show that industrial policies impact regional development by advancing productive technology (capabilities), the fundamental question remains how to measure this technological transformation. The study employs the use of Economic Complexity Index (ECI) as a measure of “technological advancements” resulting from large federal investments in place-based industrial policies. Previous evaluations of such investment were based on livelihood, employment and income outcomes, with productive capability of receiving …

Analyzing Social Implications Of The Gender Wage Gap, Jessie A. Clarke

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The researcher seeks to understand the gender wage gap in the United States. The research question studied is “Why do women in the United States on average earn less income than men?” Women gain less power and resources as they earn less income than men. The researcher explores the phenomenon in this paper. This research proposal utilizes qualitative methods via interviews, and analysis through coding. In previous research, there is a lack of inclusion on the gender wage gap regarding various identities such as sexual orientation, other gender identities, and race/ethnicity. The researcher hopes to fill in these gaps in …

Trump Opportunity Zones In Louisville, Kentucky: A Look At The Results So Far., Thomas E. Lambert

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

In 2017 the US Congress passes and President Donald J. Trump signs the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Part of the legislation allows states to create opportunity zones (OZs), census tracts which will be targeted for business investment and economic development through federal tax incentives. In Louisville, Kentucky, as in other jurisdictions throughout the US over the last several decades, special district “zones” have been used by local, state, and/or the federal government(s) to try to revive low-income, deteriorated, and blighted areas. These have been typically urban areas but sometimes have included semi-rural and rural areas. Whether named enterprise …

(Wp 2026-02) Behavioral Macroeconomics, Kaleckian Post-Keynesian Economics, And Stratification Economics: Incorporating Social Identity, John B. Davis

Economics Working Papers

Behavioral Macroeconomics draws on cognitive psychology’s errors and biases approach to argue that psychological factors acting on individual choice affect how the economy functions. Keynes drew on psychology in his ‘beauty contest’ account of convention to explain individual investor expectations in terms of the average expectation of all investors. This assumes individual investors identify with the group of all investors, anticipating social psychology social identity analysis. Kaleckian Post-Keynesian Economics focuses on distributional conflict between capital and labor. This also assumes individual capitalists and laborers identify with groups of capitalists and laborers. Stratification Economics makes social group identity the basis on …

On The Trail, In The Towns: Visitor Use And Community Perspectives Along Montana’S Continental Divide Trail, Ava Worbets, Kika Bradford, Melissa Weddell

Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research Publications

As outdoor recreation participation has steadily increased nationwide over the past decade, reaching record levels in 2024 amid long‑term growth trends (OIA, 2025), the Continental Divide Trail (CDT) is drawing rising numbers of hikers traveling through Montana’s gateway communities. Yet little is known about who these hikers are or how their presence affects the towns that support them. This report examines CDT hikers and their relationships with Montana gateway communities from two complementary perspectives. First, understanding hikers’ demographics, spending patterns, and trail behaviors using data from 507 respondents who completed Montana’s CDT sections between 2022 and 2024. Second, exploring how …

Determinants Of Virtual Power Plant Enrollment: The Role Of Distributed Energy Resource Ownership Models, Emiliano Torlasco

Economics

The American electrical grid is one of the oldest, most complex, and most important systems in the country. For the first 100 years following its inception in 1883, the grid had primarily functioned as a one-way power provider, meaning that electrons flowed strictly from power plants to transmission lines to distribution lines and eventually to consumers. This system—often described as “unidirectional”—was built on the idea that electricity could not be stored in large quantities and that it therefore had to be produced as soon as it was demanded (Alliance for Innovation and Infrastructure, 2017). Although it was the primary method …

Credit Accessibility In Diverse Urban Communities And The Dynamics Of Their Lending Markets: The Case Of Minority Depository Institutions, Noara Razzak

All Dissertations

In my dissertation, I study credit access in diverse urban communities, the role of the financial institutions that serve them, such as Minority Depository Institutions (MDIs) and non-MDIs. The first chapter studies the effect of bank branch closures (both MDIs and non-MDIs) on credit access in these diverse urban communities. MDIs are US community banks that are owned and operated by minority populations, such as Black-owned, Asian-owned, Hispanic-owned banks or Native-owned banks. The second chapter studies the proximity of Black-owned banks to historically segregated urban neighborhoods. More specifically I study whether surviving Black-owned banks are more likely to be present …

Geography, Income, And The Incidence Of A Massachusetts Carbon Tax, Susan Stratton Sayre

Economics: Faculty Publications

I use spatial microsimulation to estimate the geographic incidence of the consumer-facing portion of various revenue-neutral carbon tax designs in Massachusetts. I identify a substantial urban-rural disparity in impacts that is reduced, but not eliminated, by proposed revenue-targeting mechanisms. I further demonstrate that seemingly small variations in the definition of rural households can have substantial impacts on urban-rural equity and the distribution of gains and losses. Proposed policies are highly progressive in the aggregate with most low-income households receiving more in rebates than they pay in taxes, but notable numbers of low-income households are likely to experience significant losses. Methodologically, …

Housing Markets In The American West: A Dynamic Time Warping Analysis Of Inter-City Relationships, Daniel Johnson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Housing markets revolve around perhaps the most consequential good to the average person, yet the relationships between local housing markets remain understudied. While major American cities appear to follow similar patterns, the nature of these connections is not fully understood. This project looks at housing markets across the western United States, using Dynamic Time Warping (DTW) to identify which cities tend to lead or lag others in price movements, and look at the overall similarity of their market movements. We also explore whether geographic distance, population growth, and income growth help explain why some markets are more similar than others. …

Supply Constraints And Domestic Migration As Drivers Of U.S. Housing Price Appreciation, Vasu Patel

Economics

When the Federal Reserve raised rates from near zero to 525 basis points between 2022 and 2023, standard theory predicted a broad correction in U.S. housing market. In most metropolitan areas, that correction did not arrive. This paper examines why housing price appreciation persisted across cities with fundamentally different structural characteristics, and which factors best explain the cross-city variation in appreciation rates observed across the nation. Using a panel of 83 Metropolitan Statistical Areas across four symmetric 24-month periods from December 2017 through December 2025, each aligned with a distinct Federal Reserve rate period, the study estimates OLS models with …

Rationalizable Incentives: Interim Rationalizable Implementation Of Correspondences, Takashi Kunimoto, Rene Saran, Roberto Serrano

Research Collection School Of Economics

Are there ways to enforce incentives free of equilibrium considerations? When the normative goals for a set of agents can be summarized in a set-valued rule and agents take actions that are rationalizable, a new theory of incentives emerges in which standard Bayesian incentive compatibility (BIC) is relaxed significantly. The paper studies the interim rationalizable implementation of social choice sets with a Cartesian product structure, a leading example thereof being ex-post efficiency. Setwise incentive compatibility (setwise IC), much weaker than BIC, is shown to be necessary for implementation. Setwise IC enforces incentives flexibly within the entire correspondence, instead of the …

Using Satellite-Observed Geospatial Inundation Data To Identify The Impacts Of Floods On Firm-Level Performance: The Case Of China During 2000–2009, Pao-Li Chang, Fan Zheng

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper compiles high-resolution geospatial inundation areas of China for the period 2000–2009 based on satellite imagery repositories filtered by the Global Flood Database (GFD). In parallel, we geocode a comprehensive firm-level dataset of China and combine these two sets of geospatial data to identify the set of inundated firms in each year of flood events, as well as the distances of all non-inundated firms from the inundated areas. Given the high-resolution inundation data, we adopt a generalized dynamic-panel specification to estimate dynamic and spatial spillover effects of floods on firm-level production activities (including outputs, capital and labor inputs, and …

Improving Estimation Efficiency Via Regression-Adjustment In Covariate-Adaptive Randomizations With Imperfect Compliance, Liang Jiang, Oliver B. Linton, Haihan Tang, Yichong Zhang

Research Collection School Of Economics

We study how to improve efficiency via regression adjustments with additional covariates under covariate-adaptive randomizations (CARs) when subject compliance is imperfect. We first establish the semiparametric efficiency bound for the local average treatment effect (LATE) under CARs. Second, we develop a general regression-adjusted LATE estimator which allows for parametric, nonparametric, and regularized adjustments. Even when the adjustments are misspecified, our proposed estimator is still consistent and asymptotically normal, and their inference method still achieves the exact asymptotic size under the null. When the adjustments are correctly specified, our estimator achieves the semiparametric efficiency bound. Third, we derive the optimal linear …

Hkc04 - How Do Risk Perceptions Change With New Information? Evidence From A Survey Of Flood-Prone Counties, Caroline Hopkins, Timothy Hyde

Oberlin College Kasper Economics and Business Working Paper Series

Prior research has documented a tendency for insurance demand to rise abruptly in the aftermath of natural disasters. This may be attributable in part to the information shock that a disaster represents. Understanding how beliefs about risk evolve is of first-order importance for projecting climate adaptation in coming decades. Using a three-wave survey of 815 residents of flood-prone coastal counties in the southeastern United States, including 436 for whom we have longitudinal data, we study how individuals’ beliefs evolve after two very different types of informational shocks about future local flooding risk: viewing flood maps, and experiencing a local flooding …

Exploring Self-Sufficiency And Economic Behavior In Economic Education Students, Rizza Megasari, Sheerad Sahid

International Conference on Business and Management Research (ICBMR)

This study investigates the self-sufficiency and economic behaviors of economics education students, focusing on how independent living shapes their financial management, consumption habits, and overall approach to life. Data was collected through in-depth interviews, using a question list informed by literature on 21st-century skills, sustainable development, and self-sufficiency. The interview explored the student's understanding and practice of self-sufficiency, examining their experiences with financial management (budgeting, saving, spending), living arrangements (boarding house choices, facilities, and habits), consumption patterns (food, clothing, transportation), and engagement in self-reliant activities (cooking, minor repairs). The study highlights the interplay between economic knowledge, personal values, and practical …