Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Trashy Americans, Megan Bayer

Honors Theses

The production and treatment of municipal solid waste is a growing issue in the industrialized world. This paper takes a look at how the U.S. became the leading per capita producer of municipal solid waste worldwide. It also examines how another industrialized nation, Sweden, has addressed this problem. It is the author's hope that this work will inspire others to take steps to help reduce our national and global impact on the environment.

The Resident View In Nursing Homes, Diana L. White, Ozcan Tunalilar, Serena Hasworth, Jaclyn Winfree

Institute on Aging Publications

This article presents the Resident VIEW (Voicing Importance, Experience, and Well-Being), a measure designed to learn directly from long-term care residents the extent to which they experience support that matters most to them. The Resident VIEW contains 63 items across eight domains developed through cognitive interviews with residents in different types of residential settings (e.g., nursing homes, assisted living, and adult foster care). Residents rate items on both importance and their experience. In total, 258 nursing home residents living in 32 Oregon nursing homes were selected through a two-stage random sampling design and participated in the study. Results demonstrate that …

Social Equity In Transit Service: Toward Social And Environmental Justice In Transportation, Torrey Lyons

TREC Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores social equity as it applies to public transportation. Transit has long been considered a tool to alleviate inequity by limiting the effects of spatial mismatch and providing access to opportunity to disadvantaged populations. This theory, however, has not been adequately proven empirically. The first chapter of this dissertation tests the theory that spatial mismatch is moderated by quality transit service. We do this by taking a cross section of the largest urban areas in the United States and applying structural equation modeling to identify relationships between exogenous and endogenous factors. We find that higher quality transit service …

Índice De Estigma En Personas Que Viven Con Vih: República Dominicana, Red Dominicana De Personas Que Viven Con Vih/Sida, Alianza Solidaria Para La Lucha Contra El Vih Y Sida, Population Council

HIV and AIDS

El Índice de Estigma de las personas que viven con el VIH, desarrollado en 2008, es una encuesta utilizada para identificar el estigma y la discriminación que enfrentan las PVVIH. Desarrollado y administrado por y para las PVVIH, el Índice de Estigma es más que un simple instrumento de medición, e espera que su ejecución empodere a PVVIH. En 2016-17, el consorcio de investigación liderado por el Population Council, el Proyecto SOAR, actualizó el Índice de Estigma a modo de reflejar los cambios en la respuesta mundial ante el VIH durante la última década. La nueva versión (Stigma Index 2.0) …

Reducing Barriers To Accessing Fistula Repair: Implementation Research In Uganda, Justus Barageine, Charity Ndwiga, Hassan Kanakulya, Pooja Sripad

Reproductive Health

The Population Council, in collaboration with Fistula Care Plus and EngenderHealth, conducted implementation research to understand whether a comprehensive information, screening, and referral intervention reduces transportation, communication, and financial barriers to accessing fistula screening, diagnosis, and treatment in Uganda. Following a baseline assessment, researchers implemented a multi-pronged intervention utilizing a mobile hotline, transport voucher, and mass media tools to increase community awareness. This brief provides key messages and recommendations for overcoming barriers hindering access to fistula care services. Health systems and external stakeholder support are essential for sustaining trends.

Reference Guide: Factorial Focus Group Analysis Methods For Studying Social Norm Change, Bettina Shell-Duncan, Amadou Moreau, Katherine Wander, Sarah Smith

Reproductive Health

The factorial focus group methodology described in this guide provides a powerful means of illuminating the social norms that uphold female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C), and the ways in which meanings have at times become contested or rejected. The methods described here can be applied to the study of a wide range of behaviors influenced by social norms, such as early marriage, adoption of contraception, and more.

Is Antitrust's Consumer Welfare Principle Imperiled?, Herbert J. Hovenkamp

All Faculty Scholarship

Antitrust’s consumer welfare principle stands for the proposition that antitrust policy should encourage markets to produce output as high as is consistent with sustainable competition, and prices that are accordingly as low. Such a policy does not protect every interest group. For example, it opposes the interests of cartels or other competition-limiting associations who profit from lower output and higher prices. It also runs counter to the interest of less competitive firms that need higher prices in order to survive. Market structure is relevant to antitrust policy, but its importance is contingent rather than absolute – that is, market structure …

Making Consumer Finance Work, Natasha Sarin

All Faculty Scholarship

The financial crisis exposed major faultlines in banking and financial markets more broadly. Policymakers responded with far-reaching regulation that created a new agency—the CFPB—and changed the structure and function of these markets.

Consumer advocates cheered reforms as welfare-enhancing, while the financial sector declared that consumers would be harmed by interventions. With a decade of data now available, this Article presents the first empirical examination of the successes and failures of the consumer finance reform agenda. Specifically, I marshal data from every zip code and bank in the United States to test the efficacy of three of the most significant post-crisis …

Measuring Norms And Normative Contestation: The Case Of International Criminal Law, Beth A. Simmons, Hyeran Jo

All Faculty Scholarship

One way to tell if an international norm is robust is to assess the breadth of its support from a wide variety of important actors. We argue that to assess norm robustness, we should look at the general beliefs, rhetorical support, and actions of both primary and secondary norm addressees (states and non-state actors) at various levels: international, regional, domestic and local. By way of example, we evaluate the robustness of international criminal law (ICL) norms by looking at the rhetoric and actions of a diverse set of international actors, including not only states and intergovernmental organizations but also ordinary …

Platforms And The Rule Of Reason: The American Express Case, Herbert J. Hovenkamp

All Faculty Scholarship

In Ohio v. American Express Co., the Supreme Court applied antitrust’s rule of reason to a two-sided platform. The challenge was to an “anti-steering” rule, a vertical restraint preventing merchants from shifting customers who offered an AmEx card from to a less costly alternative such as Visa or Mastercard.

A two-sided platform is a business that depends on relationships between two different, noncompeting groups of transaction partners. For example, a printed periodical such as a newspaper earns revenue by selling both advertising and subscriptions to the paper itself. Success depends on a platform’s ability to maintain the appropriate balance …

Shooting The Messenger, Leslie K. John, Hayley Blunden, Heidi H. Liu

All Faculty Scholarship

Eleven experiments provide evidence that people have a tendency to ‘shoot the messenger,’ deeming innocent bearers of bad news unlikeable. In a pre-registered lab experiment, participants rated messengers who delivered bad news from a random drawing as relatively unlikeable (Study 1). A second set of studies points to the specificity of the effect: Study 2A shows that it is unique to the (innocent) messenger, and not mere bystanders. Study 2B shows that it is distinct from merely receiving information that one disagrees with. We suggest that people’s tendency to deem bearers of bad news as unlikeable stems in part from …

The Benefits Of A Grant For Police Worn Body Cameras, Tanner Castro

Student Research

Police monitoring and accountability are important moral and economic issues within our nation. The problems that surround police accountability serve as the cause of issues regarding high rates of court cases having to deal with police misconduct, the issue of a nature of hostility surrounding police officers, and the social issue of police brutality. In order to help mitigate several of these problems, policy must be constructed in order to increase the rates at which we monitor police officers and hold them accountable.

Monetarily, the courts have a problem of having to deal with cases involving police misconduct. Due to …

Multistate Revenue Study, Soumanou Sabi Goura

Georgia Municipal Association Practicum

No abstract provided.

Times Taxes And Voting Queues: The Voting Rights Act After Shelby County, Alabama V. Holder (2013), Donald Davison, Michael Krassa

Faculty Publications

The United States Supreme Court effectively dismantled the pre-clearance provision of the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County, AL v. Holder (2013). The majority asserts that “times have changed” and the relevant provisions of the VRA are now obsolete. This paper examines whether dismantling preclearance adversely affects how long racial and ethnic voters must wait to vote. The results show that the VRA reduces the time minority voters waited in line by one-half in the covered jurisdictions. After preclearance is dismantled, however, that benefit vanishes. Further, minority voters in covered jurisdictions continue to wait longer to vote compared to white …

What Impact Does Education And Undergraduate Degree Field Have On Earnings?, Sonja Bernhofen

Economics Student Theses and Capstone Projects

My paper analyzes the impact that different levels of education and undergraduate degree fields have on earnings. I use Census data from the 2017 American Community Survey and employ OLS regression specifications that include control variables such as gender, age and industry of job. Overall, I find that a professional degree and an undergraduate degree in a STEM field have the highest returns on earnings. My research can be used to better understand the returns from the different levels of education and degree fields from a comparative perspective. This is especially important at a time when the costs of higher …

No Child Left Behind: The Education Policy’S Impact On The Incidence On Crime In The Unites States, Julia Budsey

Economics Student Theses and Capstone Projects

This paper utilizes state level education data measuring public schools’ Adequate Yearly Progress to estimate the impact of the federal education policy, No Child Left Behind (NCLB), on crime rates in the Unites States. The study employs a fixed effects model and a lagged fixed effects model to evaluate the effectiveness of the implementation of NCLB on decreasing crime through improving the quality and number of educational years completed across the country. The main findings indicate that the policy was effective in decreasing overall property crime and motor vehicle theft. For property crime, the impact of school improvement takes the …

Examining The Impact Of Consolidated Ownership On Ticket Pricing In The Ski Industry: A Hedonic Price Model, Ari Caplan

Economics Student Theses and Capstone Projects

This paper examines the impact of recent consolidation within the North American ski industry on day ticket and season pass prices. It utilizes a unique cross-sectional data set consisting of 120 ski areas in the US and Canada for the 2018/19 ski season. Using an OLS hedonic price model, I find that conglomerate owned ski areas price day tickets and season passes well above those of independent ski areas. However, for ski areas that are included on multi-area season passes such as the Epic or Ikon Pass, consumers actually pay a far lower price for their season passes. This is …

Labor Migration In China: How Families Affect Migrant Workers, Xiyu Cai

Economics Student Theses and Capstone Projects

China’s huge economic growth over the past four decades has been observed by the world and oftentimes acknowledged as an economic miracle. One of the main factors of this extraordinary growth is the large labor population and comparatively cheap labor cost. With the introduction of the Economic Reform and Opening-Up in the late 1970s, a large proportion of the Chinese citizens started to seek better work opportunities outside their permanent residencies, which was not restricted prior to the reform. These people, commonly quoted as the migrant workers and consist more than 20% of the Chinese labor force, is being studied …

The Number 80: A Simple Score Or A Reference Point For Diii College Golfers, Damian Hammond

Economics Student Theses and Capstone Projects

There is an abundance of existing literature which shows the presence of behavioral biases in professional sports. Researchers have used reference dependent preferences and loss aversion, to explain athlete the behavior of professional golfers. Existing literature showed that par of the hole (Elmore and Urbaczewski, 2019), par of the round (Pope and Schweitzer, 2011) and par of the tournament (Stone and Arkes, 2016) have all been identified as reference points for professional golfers on the PGA tour. In this paper, I analyze a new sample of golfers: DIII college golfers. I use a 4 part analysis to examine whether the …

Different Or The Same? The Spillover Effects Of U.S. Monetary Policy And Determinants Of Portfolio Capital Inflows To Emerging And Frontier Economies: Evidence From Emerging Europe, Dennis Maier

Economics Student Theses and Capstone Projects

This paper studies the determinants of portfolio capital flows to emerging Europe along with the spillover effects of U.S. monetary policy on the region’s portfolio investment inflows. Using a sample of eleven emerging European countries over the period from 2000Q1 to 2018Q3, this paper employs five fixed-effects regressions that include combinations of exogenous push and domestic structural pull factors as explanatory variables for portfolio flows to emerging Europe. My results suggest that U.S. monetary policy is only a secondary driver of portfolio equity flows to the region and rather domestic factors including capital inflow restrictions, institutional quality, and Eurozone membership …

The Impact Of Universal Motorcycle Helmet Regulation On Deceased Organ Donors, Carissa Jaehnert

Economics Student Theses and Capstone Projects

As of today, only one study (Dickert-Conlin et al., 2011) has analyzed the impact of a universal motorcycle helmet law on the number of donors who died from motor vehicle accidents (MVAs) and found that a universal law was associated with a significant decrease in MVA donors of approximately 10%. I update this study by using a difference-in-differences (DID) estimation procedure based on the methodological approach of Cheng & Hoekstra (2016) and by extending the time period analyzed to include the years 1994-2018. My estimations reveal that a universal law is associated with a decrease in MVA donors of roughly …

What Is The Impact Of Pricing Gun Violence On Support For Gun Control Organizations?, Hatoon Mushasha

Economics Student Theses and Capstone Projects

This paper investigated the impact of economic valuation of gun control on views, attitudes, and behaviors towards gun control legislation in an experimental setting. The data for this study was collected through the use of a survey administered on MTurk in March 2019. The sample consists of 810 participants evenly disturbed between a treatment group and a control group. Both groups received a narrative regarding gun violence in the United States, however the treatment group received economic valuation information in addition to the qualitative description. Participants were then given the opportunity to donate a part of their compensation to a …

Compliment Or Substitute? Impact Of Marijuana Legalization On Alcohol Consumption, Edvinas Rupkus

Economics Student Theses and Capstone Projects

This paper uses a state-level alcohol sales dataset to analyze how marijuana legalization affects alcohol consumption. I employ a difference-in-differences model to investigate the relationship between alcohol and marijuana in the short-term and long-term. In addition, marijuana legalization effects are estimated for different alcohol types – beer, wine and spirits. Overall, the results indicate a negative, yet insignificant relationship between the two narcotic drugs. There is not enough evidence to firmly conclude substitutability or complementarity of the two goods, therefore, leaving the debate unsolved.

Is Projection Bias Present Within A General Manager’S Decision-Making Process Within Major League Baseball (Mlb)?, Jacob Berish

Economics Student Theses and Capstone Projects

Throughout my research I seek to understand the role projection bias plays within Major League Baseball (MLB). Projection bias stems from the field of behavioral economics, which as a whole seeks to understand the psychological side of the individual’s economic decision-making process. MLB teams have contuinally seeked ways to better analyze the performance of players prior to signing them. By limiting projection bias, teams will be able to better allocate their funds to players who are most likely to remain consistent or even increase in performance folowing the contract. White and Sheldon (2014) show through empirical evidence that MLB players …

The Effect Of An Increase In Minimum Wages On Gender, Prachee Arora

Economics Student Theses and Capstone Projects

To estimate the effect of an increase in minimum wages on gender, this paper utilizes a natural experiment opportunity, arising from increases in 21 states of the U.S. and the District of Columbia in 2015. In my study, I implement a difference-in-differences (DID) methodology to evaluate the impact of the increase in minimum wages implemented in 2015 on gender in the Production industry, the Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports and Media industry and the Transportation and Material Moving industry. Through my research, instead of focusing on the employment effects of minimum wages, I shed light on the effectiveness of minimum wages …

The Effect Of California's Open Carry Ban On Gun-Related Homicides, Patrick Geiger

Economics Student Theses and Capstone Projects

This study examines the effectiveness of the ban on the open carry of firearms in California (implemented in January, 2012). Data was taken from the U.S. Vital Statistics website on a monthly basis from January, 2006 to December, 2017, and it incorporated gun-related murder totals as well as totals for African Americans and Caucasians. RDD and DID regressions were run (using Texas as a control state) in order to determine the impact of the law. The RDD turned out insignificant results. The DID showed that the law had a significant negative impact on total homicides (decreasing them by about 1 …

Market Manipulation And A Case For The Further Regulation Of Social Media And The Finance Industry, Ross Powell

Economics Student Theses and Capstone Projects

This paper intends to investigate the potential of market manipulation in under regulated markets that does not exist in regulated ones. I do this by looking at the previous literature discovered on ambiguity aversion, and how it is linked to the increase of social media’s effect on price changes in markets. I investigate two different markets that are regulated and unregulated. These markets are the US stock exchange and the cryptocurrency market. I then see what the effect that twitter has on the two over the same periods of time using the most up-to-date models. Finally, I recommend policy changes …

Aquaculture As A Method To Insulate Fishery Markets From Oil Spill Shocks, Owen Kula

Economics Student Theses and Capstone Projects

Resource extraction from wild fisheries is and continues to be a behemoth of an industry both in the US and worldwide. Indeed, wars have been fought over such resources, and many communities have become dependent upon the oceans to provide their primary industry. Oil spills are an ecological disaster that serve to uproot these quintessential pillars of these communities, and lead to externalities that are difficult to quantify. As oil spills occur, fishery harvests cease as toxic chemicals infect the water surrounding these communities, effectively leaving them in deep recessions. In this paper, aquaculture is examined as a potential alternative …

The Effect Of Chinese Foreign Direct Investment On Economic Growth In The Asian Region, Chase Ta

Economics Student Theses and Capstone Projects

This paper examines the effect of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) on economic growth. Following a theoretical model of endogenous growth to analyze this relationship, I use a log linear regression with country and time fixed effects. I focus specifically on Chinese FDI in 6 Asian countries: Hong Kong, South Korea, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, and the Philippines. I reach the conclusion that FDI does not have a significant impact in this particular case. I further conclude that the growth rate of the population and the level of human capital have a significant effect on economic growth.

Universal Basic Income And Its Effect On The Capital To Labor Ratio, William Blauvelt

Economics Student Theses and Capstone Projects

This paper examines the possibility of a Universal Basic Income (UBI) implementation in the United States. Theory and past experiments suggest a reduction in work hours, but both say little regarding the capital to labor ratio. Existing literature on the topic is also underwhelming, therefore this paper will go on to examine their relationship. It also reviews healthcare’s role in this relationship as it is related to worker productivity as well as nearly one fifth of GDP for the US.