Department: Economics ![[clear]](close-x.png "Remove this limiter")
50 matches in the database.
These are records: 1 - 30.
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1.
Adelman, Dan.
Preference reversal and the independence axiom.
Degree: BA, Economics, 1992, Oberlin College Honors Theses
► In his article "Dynamic Consistency and Non-Expected Utility Models of Choice Under…
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▼ In his article "Dynamic Consistency and Non-Expected Utility Models of Choice Under Uncertainty," (Journal of Economic Literature, Dec. 1989), Mark Machina asserted that preference reversal (PR) is caused by a violation of the independence axiom. Amos Tversky, Paul Slovic, and Daniel Kahneman submit, however, that "Observed preference reversal ... cannot be adequately explained by violations of independence...." This paper tests these claims by breaking the independence axiom into its two component parts: mixture and replacement separability. Part one of this paper will give some background of the preference reversal field and identify the core questions that this paper will try to answer. Part two will detail experimental design. Part three will present the results and draw conclusions from them. Part four will summarize the most important findings of the paper.
Advisors/Committee Members: Piron, Robert.
Subjects: Economics; Economic Theory
Keywords: preference; reversal; field; independence; axiom; mixture; replacement; separability; gambling
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2.
Adler, Kevin.
An empirical study of property tax capitalization in the Cleveland area.
Degree: BA, Economics, 1984, Oberlin College Honors Theses
► Economists have long criticized the property tax on two counts: inherent assessment…
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▼ Economists have long criticized the property tax on two counts: inherent assessment inaccuracies and regressivity with respect to income. The first problem is somewhat bureaucratic in nature, being the responsibility of the assessors. The second, however, looks into the heart of the property tax because it charges that the tax is fundamentally flawed. This paper will present evidence that rejects the regressivity notion.
Advisors/Committee Members: Kasper, Hirschel.
Subjects: Economic History; Economics
Keywords: Cleveland; Ohio; property; tax
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3.
Angrist, Joshua David.
Sample selection bias and the nature of unemployment.
Degree: BA, Economics, 1982, Oberlin College Honors Theses
► The most disturbing and difficult empirical problems of labor economics revolve around…
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▼ The most disturbing and difficult empirical problems of labor economics revolve around the absence of crucial information; the wage an unemployed person would receive if he or she were working. The most controversial policy problem of labor economics is embodied in the question; when is unemployment a problem? The goal of this paper is to propose a methodology for studying the first problem that sheds some light on the second.
Advisors/Committee Members: Fernandez, Luis.
Subjects: Economics; Economic Theory; Labor Economics
Keywords: labor; economics; unemployment; wages
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4.
Aronow, Emily.
Environmental clean-up and property price change.
Degree: BA, Economics, 1999, Oberlin College Honors Theses
► In my experiment, I am trying to find the value, to Lorain…
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▼ In my experiment, I am trying to find the value, to Lorain County property owners, of cleaning up the Black River which runs through Lorain County. This study involves a number of property variables, a number of neighborhood variables, and the environmental variables. The hedonic price function takes this general form: Property Price = c + β1Property Characteristics + β2Neighborhood Characteristics + β3Environmentai Characteristics + u. This equation says that the price of a piece of property is a function of several things: the characteristics of the property, the characteristics of the neighborhood it's in, and the characteristics of the environment. The slope coefficients β1, β2, and β3 are the hedonic prices of the property, neighborhood, and environmental characteristics, respectively. u represents the combined effect of all the housing characteristics about which I have no information. I hypothesize that the environmental health of the Black River is a commodity (or source of pleasure) in the housing bundle. At first, one might suspect that the health of a nearby stream is not considered when purchasing a house. However, recall that water moves in a hydrologic cycle. The Ohio EPA says, "the populations of fish in a river reflect the overall state of environmental health of the watershed as a whole. This is because fish live in water which has previously fallen on the cities, fields, strip mines, grasslands, and forests of the watershed." The water and other solutes in the river are products of the land around a river. A river near an urban center that sends off sulfur and carbon monoxide will have elevated acidity because the rain washes the airborne pollutants into the river. The fish and insects will reflect this increased acidity. Therefore, the river is a good approximation of the health of the surrounding area. In order to test this hypothesis, I determine the implicit price of the health of the Black River. In regression Property Price = c + β1Property Characteristics + β2Neighborhood Characteristics + β3IBI+ u. β3 is the implicit price of health of the Black River. If β3 is statistically significantly different from zero, the health of the Black River has an effect of β3 on local property prices. I also evaluate the welfare consequences of changes in environmental quality.
Keywords: Lorain County; Black River; clean-up; environmental; property; values; Ohio
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5.
Baker, Todd M. R.
All work : an evaluation of worker's attitudes, worker's behavior and productivity in the U.S. automobile industry.
Degree: BA, Economics, 1990, Oberlin College Honors Theses
► The American automobile industry has become extremely sensitive to the increased number…
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▼ The American automobile industry has become extremely sensitive to the increased number of Japanese cars and plants in the United States. Some parties believe that in order to operate competitively in the future labor and management must continue to find ways to work together and improve relations. Irving Bluestone, a former labor leader, believes that humanistic relations between the two parties are essential to the welfare of everyone involved. Joint efforts between the workers and management need to be continued and expanded. Both sides can benefit from such cooperation.
Advisors/Committee Members: Kasper, Hirschel.
Subjects: Economics; Labor Economics
Keywords: American; automobile; industry; attitudes; behavior; workers; productivity; United States
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6.
Brown, Alexander L.
Devaluation, short-run supply response, and the J-curve.
Degree: BA, Economics, 1987, Oberlin College Honors Theses
► This paper will attempt to empirically illustrate the contribution of short-run supply…
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▼ This paper will attempt to empirically illustrate the contribution of short-run supply adjustment to the U.S. J-curve. I plan to study, on the major industry division level (2 digit SIC), 15 manufacturing sectors of the united states. Their supply movements will be calculated in terms of total short-run adjustment. These statistics will then be compared to the trade balance (J-curve) for the u.S. to see if the supply movements of U.S. manufacturers can explain the continued drop in U.S. international trade. If the theory is supported few industries will adjust quickly in the short-run, reflecting the slow adjustment of aggregate trade variables. Studies relating to the subject of supply response generally deal with movements in aggregate variables. To the best of my knowledge supply response relating' to the J-curve has never been measured on such a disaggregated level. The final results of this paper indicate that following devaluation of the dollar the short-run supply response of U.S. industries is negligible. This finding lends itself to previous studies which have indicated that demand is highly inelastic over the same period. The poor performance of U.S. international trade and the length of the U.S. J-curve are in agreement with this finding. The remainder of this paper is organized as follows: section II contains a selective review of the relevant literature. Section III develops the theory which is to be tested. Section IV describes the model which is used and how it is measured. Section V describes the data used in this study. Section VI presents the results. Section VII analyzes and explains the results. Section VIII describes some of the econometric difficulties encountered while measuring the model. Finally, Section IX concludes the paper with an agenda for future research.
Advisors/Committee Members: Zinser, James.
Subjects: Economics; Economic Theory
Keywords: J-curve; United States; dollar; devaluation; manufacturing; manufacturers
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7.
Call, Isabel.
Small-scale biodiesel production: a feasibility study.
Degree: BA, Economics, 2005, Oberlin College Honors Theses
► The objective of the research presented in this paper is the development…
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▼ The objective of the research presented in this paper is the development of cost curves for small-scale biodiesel production and a comparison of relevant technologies. The three technologies considered are the biodiesel pilot plant at the Iowa Energy Center's Biomass Energy Conversion Center, the commercially-sold Fuelmeister, and the bicycle-powered machine currently under development by students at Oberlin College. The price of biodiesel at which production via these technologies becomes profitable and the relative profitability of each will be determined through the use of a linear program. The importance of resource recovery and energy efficiency and the use of recycled feedstocks will be considered.
Subjects: Alternative Energy; Economics; Environmental Engineering
Keywords: biodiesel; cost; curves; price
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8.
Cecil, Noah.
Income inequality and the probability of violent revolt.
Degree: BA, Economics, 2007, Oberlin College Honors Theses
► This paper examines the effect of income inequality on the impetus of…
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▼ This paper examines the effect of income inequality on the impetus of an organized dissident group to initiate a "revolt" in an attempt to wrest power from the government regionally or countrywide. After suggesting alterations and extensions of a mathematical framework developed by Blomberg, Hess, and Weerapana (2004) income inequality, economic growth, urbanization, and political rights data from 102 countries from 1972-1999 are used to determine their respective influences on the likelihood of a revolt being initiated in a given year. Income inequality as measured by the Gini coefficient is found to be statistically significant in determining the likelihood of the start of politically motivated conflict, as is political openness, and economic growth while the overall predictive power of the model is found to be weak.
Advisors/Committee Members: Craig, Barbara.
Subjects: Economic History; Economics
Keywords: inequality; income inequality; revolution; distribution; resource allocation; revolt
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9.
Chew, Yen Shern.
Do exchange rate regimes affect countries' economic growth and inflation?.
Degree: BA, Economics, 2002, Oberlin College Honors Theses
► The main focus of this paper is to answer the question of…
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▼ The main focus of this paper is to answer the question of whether the exchange rate regime adopted by a country affects its economic growth (the measurement of output growth used is real per capita GDP growth) and inflation. There has been previous work done which looked at the same question; however, different authors have drawn different conclusions. As Levy-Yeyati and Sturzenegger (2002) point out, previous studies trying to relate exchange rate regimes to macroeconomic performance have only had relatively weak empirical findings. They attribute this to the possibility that the IMF's de jure classification, based on what regime countries claim to be running, that was used by those studies might have significant misclassifications. This paper will address the difference in classification regimes by comparing the studies done by two different sets of authors, each using completely different regime classification methods.
Advisors/Committee Members: Craig, Barbara.
Subjects: Economics; Economic Theory; Finance
Keywords: exchange rate; economic growth; inflation
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10.
Coffina, Matthew.
Premium risk and healthcare policy.
Degree: BA, Economics, 2007, Oberlin College Honors Theses
► In this paper, I analyze four alternative policies that address "premium risk":…
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▼ In this paper, I analyze four alternative policies that address "premium risk": the risk that health insurance premiums will increase if an individual acquires a chronic condition. They are: premium risk insurance, community rating, anti-discrimination laws for large firms, and government subsidies. I show that community rating and anti-discrimination laws provide incomplete protection, and have the potential to create welfare-reducing distortions in incentives, while subsidies can be designed that mimic the efficiency of premium risk insurance. While the economic concepts behind these conclusions are well-documented and well-understood, I believe my own model adds value in the form of simplicity and ease of comparison. There is also an unambiguous policy implication: if we are concerned with premium risk, the complex legislation that has been introduced so far should be abandoned in favor of a new subsidy program.
Advisors/Committee Members: Kuttner, Kenneth.
Subjects: Economics; Economic Theory; Health Care
Keywords: healthcare; insurance; policies; risk; premiums; legislation; discrimination; chronic
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11.
Cohen, Gary Richard.
Strategic competition over school inputs and outputs.
Degree: BA, Economics, 2011, Oberlin College Honors Theses
► Although public schools are not generally subject to direct competition for students,…
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▼ Although public schools are not generally subject to direct competition for students, it is commonly thought that they nonetheless face competition through parents' residential choice. Such competitive effects are likely to depend on the relative proximity of school districts if it is less costly to move short distances than long, or if parents are able to more easily send their children to nearby districts through open enrollment policies. Using panel data for 607 Ohio school districts from 1998 to 2007, I test for strategic interaction over teacher salaries and standardized test scores. I present evidence that Ohio public school districts act to 'follow their neighbors'- that is, that they attempt to exactly mirror changes in the inputs and outputs of nearby school districts and I show that this result is robust to different definitions of 'neighbor.' I further show that conventional estimation of spatial autoregressive models via Maximum Likelihood or via poorly-instrumented General Method of Moments may create large biases in the estimated spatial autocorrelation coefficient. I suggest that this statistical phenomenon may explain some of the differences in estimated magnitudes of school competition across the spatial literature.
Advisors/Committee Members: Kasper, Hirschel.
Subjects: Economic Theory; Education; Educational Evaluation; Educational Sociology; Education Policy
Keywords: school district; open enrollment; public education; parents; Ohio; spatial autoregressive models
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12.
Dighe, Ranjit S.
The presidential business cycle in the U.S.: A theoretical and empirical examination.
Degree: BA, Economics, 1987, Oberlin College Honors Theses
► The idea of a politically-motivated business cycle is basically a conspiracy theory:…
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▼ The idea of a politically-motivated business cycle is basically a conspiracy theory: "office-motivated" politicians, seeking to exploit the well-documented relationship between favorable economic news and votes for the incumbent president and his party, manipulate the timing of business cycles for their own electoral gain. This manipulation, theorists maintain, is effected through the use of any of several policy instruments including discretionary federal spending, government transfer payments, and the average tax rate, as well as pressure on the central bank to pursue a more accommodating monetary policy. Theories of such a cycle seem to fall in and out of favor with each passing presidential election. William Nordhaus's pioneering paper, "The Political Business Cycle" (1975), emerged in the aftermath of Richard Nixon's 1972 re-election campaign, which even a former Nixon speechwriter described as a case of "open[ing] the sluices and letting the dollars flow." Edward Tufte, author of Political Control of the Economy, an in-depth analysis of the interdependence of economics and elections, has. acknowledged that Nixon's re-election was the inspiration for his book as well. Currently, after the supply shocks of the mid- and late-1970s, which in 1980 resulted in a (presidential) election-year recession for the first time since 1960, "there has been relatively little theoretical work on the 'political business cycle' for several years." With the re-election of Ronald Reagan in 1984, however, after which some observers claimed they detected a political cycle behind the economic growth patterns of the 1981-84 period , the next few years may well see a resurgence of political business cycle (PBC) literature. In keeping with the present lull in new PBC theories, many economists, in reviews of PBC literature and elsewhere, have been sharply critical of the previous empirical work in this area. James Alt and K. Alec Crystal, in their 1983 book Political Economics. conclude a chapter on PBC' s by noting, "No one could read the political business cycle literature without being struck by the lack of supporting evidence." Several other studies, including those of McCallum (197B), Hibbs (1977 and 1978), Golden - Poterba (1980) and Beck (1982 and 1984), reject the notion of a PBC. Joseph Sulock recently conducted replications of several PBC models, all of whose original authors found evidence of a PBC, and reported that most of these models, when updated into the 1970s or even when truncated into a timeframe when political manipulation appeared most likely, performed poorly. Sulock admits, however, that the poor performance of these models may have been due to flaws in the models themselves rather than in the idea behind them. Although much of the criticism of past empirical work on the PBC is well deserved – indeed, some of these models are shockingly inept a review of both the theoretical and empirical literature on this subject will be necessary before moving on.
Advisors/Committee Members: Gamber, Edward.
Subjects: Economic History; Economics; Economic Theory; Political Science
Keywords: political; business; cycle; PBC; politics; presidential; election; United States
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13.
Engelhardt, Bryan Eldon.
Marital happiness and family economics.
Degree: BA, Economics, 2002, Oberlin College Honors Theses
► Economics has long been the study of maximizing production, minimizing cost, and…
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▼ Economics has long been the study of maximizing production, minimizing cost, and analyzing distributions, but it was not until recently that the field of economics added the social institution of the family and subjective well being to its list. What is being expounded upon within this discussion is how marital happiness affects family economics. The question begins with how marriage affects the basic micro model of economics: utility, and in turn how marital happiness affects economic decisions made by the family, such as the amount of leisure and goods to consume. Economic issues already analyzed within the family include joint and independent utility functions, the joint production function, distribution of economic resources, exiting constraints and more. The addition to the economic community that this discussion will be making hinges on a closer look at marriages shared goods; a good that can only be consumed within marriage, either produced by one spouse and consumed by the other or shared by both. From the shared good, we can analyze if happiness within marriage changes choices between shared goods, leisure, and private consumption, which in turn affects the personal or joint utility function when married. The purpose of studying happiness within marriage for an economist when looking at it from the bigger picture is that it adds insights into the complex economic institution that would not otherwise be observable. The insights include how the complicated interplay of the resources allocated to shared goods and the leisure to consume them, is exchanged between private consumption. So, marital happiness, as it affects utility produced within marriage, can influence a variety of decisions. These broad definitions of goods once analyzed generically can define more specific issues such as economies of scale, income transfers, labor force participation decisions, human capital investments, and large ticket items such as a house or arguably children. In effect a happy marriage is not just interesting to sociologists and those who are married but gives insights into economic issues as well. The layout of this paper will be as follows. In the second section there will be a literature review to highlight important points from which to construct the model and add to the discussion. In the third section the model will be developed and used to express how marital happiness changes family economics. In section four I will look at the data and its econometric results to support the model and then conclude. Appendix B will outline the idea of happiness as an endogenous decision.
Subjects: Economics; Economic Theory; Families and Family Life
Keywords: family; economics; marital
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14.
Fitchett, Christian.
Asset price inflation- theory, history, and an alternative model.
Degree: BA, Economics, 2000, Oberlin College Honors Theses
► This paper takes a different approach by developing a model based on…
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▼ This paper takes a different approach by developing a model based on the boom and bust cycle of Japan during the mid to late 1980's, using currently accepted theory. In section II, I review the general characteristics of asset bubbles to familiarize the reader and offer some historical examples. Section III offers a review of many of the theoretical papers on asset bubbles, as well as empirical papers, which involve similar phenomena in order to gain some insight in building the model. In section IV, I build a theoretical model. Section V begins preliminary testing to examine this theory and reviews the results. Finally, in section VI, I provide concluding remarks and discuss areas that I plan to explore in future research.
Advisors/Committee Members: Fernandez, Luis.
Subjects: Economic History; Economics; Economic Theory
Keywords: asset; bubbles; Japan; monetary; policy; inflation; prices
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15.
Flores, Saul Domingo.
Cost benefit analysis of wind turbine investment in Oberlin, Ohio.
Degree: BA, Economics, 2008, Oberlin College Honors Theses
► As concern over global climate change and fears of rising energy costs…
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▼ As concern over global climate change and fears of rising energy costs permeate our collective and individual decision making, more and more private institutions are seeking out innovative and feasible solutions to meet these issues. Many colleges and universities throughout the United States have been among the first private and public institutions to dedicate themselves to positions of climate neutrality and have begun to incorporate the ethics of conservation and commitment to environmental sustainability into their primary objectives. To date nearly five hundred institutions of higher education have signed the American College and Universities Climate Change Commitment, pledging to take immediate and prolonged action to reduce their foot print of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions. Undoubtedly many of these schools will be able to implement extensive and inexpensive improvements in the efficiency of current facilities and practices in order to meet their objectives. However for those that have committed to complete climate neutrality, such as Oberlin College, additional measures extending beyond the traditional endeavors of an educational institution may also become necessary. One such option that has received attention from the Oberlin community is the construction of a utility scale wind turbine. Although there are many other alternatives that the College may investigate, the choice to be considered here is between investing in a wind turbine or purchasing carbon offsets commercially. Naturally the college faces tradeoffs as it allocates its budget between turbines, offsets, and its myriad other operational activities, so a cost benefit analysis is particularly useful in comparing the advantages and disadvantages of investment in various turbine models. This paper addresses several primary objectives. First, the analysis conducted here will update previous research on the topic of the viability of wind power in Oberlin by incorporating spot market electricity prices into the calculations of net benefits and by utilizing a more conservative model of the cost schedule. This paper will also address many of the economic issues inherent in the college's desire to minimize expenditures while decreasing its footprint assuming that it will choose the option with the least cost per unit of emissions offset. Using a standard cost benefit analysis, and exploring the sensitivity of the results to a range of parameters, the results show that a wind turbine in Oberlin will under extremely conservative conditions reduce the carbon emissions footprint at a cost comparable to many commercially available carbon offsets, and that as these conditions are relaxed positive net present values emerge. The rest of the paper will be organized as follows. The next section reviews relevant literature and focuses the motivation of this study. Section 3 is a statistical summary of the electricity price and wind speed data is presented. Following that a description of the procedures used in calculating generation, revenue, cost, and net present value figures is outlined. In section 4 the results are presented in the subsequent section, and discussion of their sensitivity to various parameters as well as various interpretations follow.
Advisors/Committee Members: Suter, Jordan.
Subjects: Alternative Energy; Economics; Economic Theory
Keywords: Oberlin; Oberlin College
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16.
Greenberg, Daniel G.
An Analysis of the Effect of Airline Deregulation upon the Demand for Intercity Bus Service.
Degree: BA, Economics, 1987, Oberlin College Honors Theses
► This brief excerpt, although not particularly fascinating in its revelation, is exemplary…
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▼ This brief excerpt, although not particularly fascinating in its revelation, is exemplary of a far more complex aspect of modern American economic policy. During the 1930's, American regulatory fervor was at its peak. Fear of a repeated economic upheaval, like that of 1929, compounded with the exorbitant profits earned by the robber barons spawned government intervention. Consequently, regulation was imposed upon numerous industries, including air and bus transport. Four decades later restrictions have been lifted not only in the airline industry but in the intercity bus industry as well. These changes are part of the new laissez faire govermnent of the late 1970's and, thus far, the 1980's. By allowing the owners of industry and business to essentially go 'head to head', the government has introduced very powerful market forces which threaten to shake the stability of some of this nation's more steadfast corporations. Those companies that first came to mind within the transportation sector are Greyhound and Trailways, clearly the market leaders for the bus industry. This paper is founded on the contention that the government, in deregulating the airline industry, failed to take into account the 'spillover' effects for other industries. The industry of particular interest within this context is the intercity bus industry. The intercity bus industry has received very little notoriety with respect to airline deregulation. In fact, it has received very little attention altogether from both media and academia. There are, for instance, no definitive texts on the industry, nor has there been a proliferation of studies conducted with regard to industrial analysis. This is only partially explained by the bus companies themselves, which inhibit the degree of industrial analysis through protective proprietary policies. It is, therefore, the purpose of this paper to analyze the effect that airline deregulation has had on the intercity bus industry. The paper begins with a brief historical sketch for the intercity bus industry, including a description of the conditions under regulation. This is followed by a discussion of the Bus Regulatory Reform Act and its effects upon the industry. In section III, I analyze the structure of the bus industry, placing particular emphasis on market concentration, demand, and profitability. This is followed by an analysis of the. factors responsible for the industry's financial decline. In section IV, I introduce evidence that suggests that the air and bus industries are linked, which is followed by a brief historical sketch of the airline industry. Section VI offers a comparison of the demand demographics between bus and air travel. Finally, I conclude the paper with an empirical analysis of the effect of airline deregulation on the demand for bus service. This end is achieved in two parts. First, I demonstrate that airline deregulation has led to a drop in the level of fares. Secondly, I estimate the supply and demand equations for the bus industry and demonstrate that the quantity demanded of bus travel is, in part, dependent upon the price of air travel.
Advisors/Committee Members: Piron, Robert.
Subjects: Economics; Transportation
Keywords: airline; bus; industry; regulation; deregulation; travel
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17.
Hanley, Margot.
The Impact of a Tuition Fee Policy in Scotland; Evidence from a Natural Experiment.
Degree: BA, Economics, 2010, Oberlin College Honors Theses
► In this paper I investigate the relationship between tuition fees and enrollment…
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▼ In this paper I investigate the relationship between tuition fees and enrollment in higher education; in particular, the effect that the abolishment of upfront tuition fees (which were replaced by a graduate payment scheme) in Scotland for Scottish students had on their enrollment rate into universities in England. Several explanations have been offered as to why tuition response might be relatively large. Tuition is the most visible college price, and it is the one that is most inescapable. College tuitions are conspicuous, and students are unusually conscious of them. Annual increases generally are well publicized and often debated publicly. In this study, I look at two reasons why Scottish students may switch to Scottish universities after the up-front tuition was abolished. The first is that those who would have gone to university in England would switch to Scottish university as a result of the lower price. The second is that some who would not have participated prior to the reforms now do. This latter reason addresses the barriers to entry for students on the margin, which tuition fees create. I hypothesize that the abolishment of upfront fees in Scotland will increase participation of both the students and the possible students in Scottish universities in Scotland. I find that the tuition change had a small but significant effect on the switching students, a larger effect on the marginal student, and that both effects were strongly influenced by distance from Scottish border.
Advisors/Committee Members: Craig, Barbara.
Subjects: Economics; Education; Education Policy
Keywords: tuition; UK; England; Scotland; education; tuition change; education policy; higher education
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18.
Hasan, Kazi Zhain S.
Capital flight and exchange restrictions.
Degree: BA, Economics, 1993, Oberlin College Honors Theses
► Many less-industrialized countries (LIC's) maintain exchange restrictions in order to ration foreign…
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▼ Many less-industrialized countries (LIC's) maintain exchange restrictions in order to ration foreign exchange. This is the only way to support an overvalued domestic currency without exhausting foreign exchange reserves. Such rationing allows authorities to restrict unwanted imports (generally speaking, any imports which compete with domestic industries), and also to monitor foreign investments. But some investment flows can be hidden from this monitoring system, just as the trade in smuggled goods is hidden. Foreign investments can be purchased with foreign currency acquired without the knowledge of domestic monetary authorities- for example, foreign currency purchased on a black market, or export receipts hidden by underinvoicing. In this paper, capital flows which are undeclared in their country of origin will be referred to as capital flight. As capital flight is not recorded, it is difficult to measure. Governments of LIC's generally view capital flight as income accruing to residents which is secretly being spirited abroad in order to escape domestic taxes, and try to curtail it by imposing "capital controls"- exchange restrictions which hamper all outward capital flows. This paper will analyze the effects of some common capital controls on capital flight. In this paper, capital flight is defined as the sum of all unrecorded capital outflows from a country which are financed by its private residents. However, past researchers have not agreed on the definition of this term; hence, it has been used very loosely.
Advisors/Committee Members: Craig, Barbara.
Subjects: Economics
Keywords: capital flight; foreign exchange; capital outflows
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19.
Hasan, Zeeshan.
Foreign debt rescheduling and private investment in LDCs.
Degree: BA, Economics, 1993, Oberlin College Honors Theses
► This paper attempts to investigate the relationship between foreign debt and repayment…
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▼ This paper attempts to investigate the relationship between foreign debt and repayment problems on investment behavior in Less Developed Countries (LDCs). It is primarily motivated by earlier studies which have found empirical evidence of such a relationship, but did not attempt to incorporate it into a theoretical model which could shed light on the functioning of developing macroeconomies. An effort will be made to address this possibility by modeling the determinants of private investment in LDCs in a way that will allow an examination of the effects of high external debt and repayment problems on private investment. This will be achieved by assuming a parallel informal market for savings which operates by means of a simultaneous equations model of supply and demand. Conceptually, such a model is just an extension of previous attempts to understand the parallel capital markets that arise in the context of interest rate controls and credit rationing common in LDCs. The equations of the resultant private investment model will consider external debt and repayment problems explicitly in terms of their effects on credit ceilings, which are likely to be applicable due to the possibility of countries defaulting on their foreign debt. Savings will be assumed to clear through arbitrage in the informal capital market by means of an unobserved interest rate. This will provide a means of analyzing investment while avoiding some of the problems which commonly arise while looking at investment in developing countries. Substitution for the unobserved market clearing interest rate will allow the formulation of a reduced form equation, the signs of whose coefficients may be predicted from the original supply and demand equations. Since the reduced form equation contains only observable variables, its coefficients may be empirically determined.
Subjects: Economics; Economic Theory; Finance
Keywords: debt; foreign; investment; repayment; countries; foreign debt
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20.
Hatkoff, Daniel.
Production cost structure and commercial success in the new film industry.
Degree: BA, Economics, 2005, Oberlin College Honors Theses
► In a country that thrives on commercialism and image, the motion picture…
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▼ In a country that thrives on commercialism and image, the motion picture industry is an engine of social commentary, celebrity, and enormous cash flows. From the development of the first kinetoscope to our current star-studded event-movie culture, the industry has evolved and grown to become one of the largest and most influential cultural forces in the world today. Substantial critical analysis and literature exist discussing aesthetic qualities in film production. This paper does not follow that particular line of inquiry. Instead, we examine film as an industry focused on profitability, in which all decisions are based on the ultimate bottom-line. More specifically, the purpose of this paper is to relate temporal cost decisions and profitability by reconciling the contrasting qualities of high upfront costs with a high degree of uncertainty of reward at the outset of a film project. Since the genesis of the industry, the structure of film financing and the nature of revenue accrual have undergone profound change, wrought both by external forces and competition from within. In this paper we try to provide an overview of how the industry actually operates, and an understanding of the seemingly irrational ways in which decisions are often made. This paper is organized as follows. It will first explain the political, legal, and economic forces that led to a shift in contract and cost structure in the feature film industry. It will then present an economic model explaining how, based on economic intuition, we should expect costs of feature film production to be structured once equilibrium is attained. Next, it will give an overview of the current body of academic literature on forecasting box office receipts, revenues, and other measures of profitability in the film industry. It will then present an econometric model that attempts to provide empirical evidence for the conclusions of the earlier economic model. Next will be a discussion of the data compiled, econometric analysis of said data, and an interpretation of the results. Finally, possible extensions and further research will be presented, followed by a conclusion.
Advisors/Committee Members: Kuttner, Kenneth.
Subjects: Economic History; Economics; Economic Theory; Film Studies
Keywords: film industry; profitability; cost; operation
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21.
Hill, Elaine Lawren.
Does the type of legal representation affect sentencing outcomes?.
Degree: BA, Economics, 2005, Oberlin College Honors Theses
► This paper examines the potential differences in sentencing outcomes for public defenders…
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▼ This paper examines the potential differences in sentencing outcomes for public defenders compared with private attorneys. I explore the economic literature for explanations, implications, and results. There is a need for extensive research within the field of economics to provide empirical results to offset the mostly game-theoretically dominated discussion of the criminal justice system. The results are inconclusive due to a lack of statistical significance and potential selection bias in the data. Future research relating to this study is also discussed.
Advisors/Committee Members: Craig, Barbara.
Subjects: Criminology; Economics; Law; Legal Studies
Keywords: discrimination; criminal; justice; system; representation; sentencing; public; defender; lawyer; attorney
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22.
Husain, Asim.
Financial intermediation and growth in developing countries.
Degree: BA, Economics, 1995, Oberlin College Honors Theses
► Two main relationships between finance and growth are often emphasized: i) the…
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▼ Two main relationships between finance and growth are often emphasized: i) the role that financial markets have in channeling savings towards investment and ii) the informational problems that financial markets are able to solve that would otherwise lead to inefficient outcomes. This paper emphasizes a model where prospective entrepreneurs are evaluated in turn by financial markets on their ability to come up with a successful innovation which determines the level of productivity in the economy. With efficient financial markets loans are made to those who are the most likely to come up with marketable innovations. Because marketable innovations lead to higher growth rates, countries that have more developed financial systems will have higher growth rates. My work differs from previous work in this area in that it differentiates the effects of the domestic financial markets from those of the foreign fmancial markets in allowing for the impact of an increasingly global financial system on an economy.
Advisors/Committee Members: Montiel, Peter.
Subjects: Economics; Economic Theory
Keywords: financial; markets; global; economy; marketable
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23.
Jahns, Claire M.
The effects of regulatory threats and strategic bargaining on firms' voluntary participation in pollution reduction programs.
Degree: BA, Economics, 2003, Oberlin College Honors Theses
► After years of intense debate, global climate change has finally been acknowledged…
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▼ After years of intense debate, global climate change has finally been acknowledged as a serious threat to global biological, political and economic systems. There is overwhelming evidence that the atmospheric warming observed over the course of the past 50 years, as well as the increasing incidence of extreme weather events and floods, is being caused by the acceleration of the rate in which greenhouse gases (GHGs) produced by the burning of fossil fuels are being released into the atmosphere. The extreme weather and weather-related events associated with climate change, such as landslides and flooding, totaled roughly $40 billion in the 1990s. It is not surprising, then, that the governments of many developed and developing nations, as well as intergovernmental bodies like the United Nations and the World Bank, have adopted a variety of measures to reduce GHG emissions and mitigate the potential impacts of climatic change. The government of Slovakia sold credits for 200,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents to a Japanese trading house at an undisclosed price on December 6, 2002, making history by signing the first deal to be officially credited within the international Kyoto Protocol, a global agreement to reduce the GHG emissions of participating countries seven percent relative to their 1990 levels by 2010. Nor is it surprising that environmental interest groups and active citizens in the United States and elsewhere are pressing their elected leaders to pass stricter regulations on the emission of GHGs. What is somewhat baffling, though, is the number of privately owned companies that have taken it upon themselves to voluntarily reduce GHG emissions as a way to address climate change in recent years. Dozens of companies are voluntarily participating in the design and implementation of GHG emission reductions programs. For example, the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA) lists 47 international members including Gaz de France, British Petroleum, Shell International Limited, Norsk Hydro and Unocal. Private for-profit groups like the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), a pilot emissions reduction credit (ERC) trading program, and C02e.com, Cantor Fitzgerald's online emission trading market, are forming partnerships with private companies to devise strategies for reducing emissions in the quickest and most cost-effective manner. Government programs like the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction Trading Pilot (GERT) in Canada and other programs in France and the United Kingdom are forming similar partnerships. Nonprofit environmental groups like Environmental Defense and the World Wildlife Fund have their own, similar pilot projects. Most of these voluntary programs are centered around emissions trading, a policy tool commonly utilized for its cost effectiveness and ability to yield abatement results.
Advisors/Committee Members: Kasper, Hirschel.
Subjects: Economics; Economic Theory; Environmental Economics; Environmental Management; Environmental Studies
Keywords: greenhouse; gases; GHG; climate; change; World Bank; global; government; industrial management; environmental policy
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24.
Johnson, Graham Mathieu.
The Impact of Colleges on House Prices in Ohio.
Degree: BA, Economics, 2008, Oberlin College Honors Theses
► Using a hedonic pricing model, I estimated the effects of changes in…
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▼ Using a hedonic pricing model, I estimated the effects of changes in college and university characteristics on house prices in three regions of Ohio. I used cross-sectional housing and census data for the year 2000, compiled by David M. Brasington of Louisiana State University, and college data from Barron’s Profiles of American Colleges 2001. I measured college and university impact within radii ranging from one to two miles around a campus admissions office, allowing for an investigation of how the impact of academic institutions changes with distance. I found that changes in campus size, undergraduate student population, graduate student population, on-campus student housing, college competitiveness, the presence of a Bachelor of Music program, number of college sports, the presence of fraternities and sororities, and the presence of other college characteristics that are not specifically controlled for have statistically significant effects on house prices within about a 1.5-mile radius of a college admissions office. Bachelor of Music programs, increases in graduate student population, and increases in campus size have no effect or a positive effect on house prices in all three regions; increases in full-time undergraduate population have no effect or a negative effect on house prices in all three regions.
Advisors/Committee Members: Kasper, Hirschel.
Subjects: Area planning and development; Economic theory; Economics; Higher education; Music education; Statistics; Urban planning
Keywords: house price; college; university; ohio; hedonic; property value; house sale; local impact
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25.
Kerr, Jonathan Austin.
Foreign direct investment in Eastern Europe: applying traditional models of FDI to the transitional countries of Eastern Europe.
Degree: BA, Economics, 1996, Oberlin College Honors Theses
► An empirical analysis is used to determine whether the factors that normally…
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▼ An empirical analysis is used to determine whether the factors that normally explain FDI flows to developing countries are also suitable to explain FDI flows to the developing countries of Eastern Europe for the years 1988-1992. It was found that a typical set of explanatory variables which explain FDI flows to non Eastern Europe developing countries very well, is not a useful set of determinants for FDI flows to Eastern Europe. Conclusions are drawn concerning the extent to which these results reflect the current state of political and economic transition taking place in Eastern Europe.
Advisors/Committee Members: Zinser, James.
Subjects: Economics; Economic Theory; Finance
Keywords: Eastern Europe; FDI; developing countries; politics; economics
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26.
Klebanoff, Benjamin Armand Greenberg.
Increasing the efficiency and efficacy of the war on drugs: Utilizing the STRIDE database to analyze cocaine seizures.
Degree: BA, Economics, 2009, Oberlin College Honors Theses
► This paper analyzes the structure of the illicit cocaine market, and develops…
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▼ This paper analyzes the structure of the illicit cocaine market, and develops a theoretical model analyzing cocaine seizures made by the Drug Enforcement Agency inside the United States. I would like to thank Professor Jonathan Lipow for inspiring me to take on this particular research topic. Professors Barbara Craig, Hirshel Kasper, and Alberto Ortiz also provided needed guidance and assistance as I undertook this project. Special thanks also to Professor Luis Fernandez for chairing the honors seminar meetings, and Congressman John Hall and his staff for working with me to secure data. Most importantly, I would like to recognize my fellow honors students: Lucas Brown, Helen Hare, James Hepp, John Linder, Max Roessler, and Woan Foong Wong, for their input and assistance as I prepared this paper. Finally, I hope I will eventually be able to thank the Freedom of Information Office of the Drug Enforcement Administration for providing me with data essential to the focus of this project.
Advisors/Committee Members: Fernandez, Luis.
Subjects: Economics
Keywords: STRIDE, cocaine seizures, drug seizures, illegal drug market
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27.
Lalani, Imran.
On the relation between pay and performance: presidents of liberal arts colleges.
Degree: BA, Economics, 2007, Oberlin College Honors Theses
► This paper uses panel data on the salaries and benefits of liberal…
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▼ This paper uses panel data on the salaries and benefits of liberal arts college presidents during the period 2001-02 to 2003-04 to understand what presidents are rewarded for. We try and develop a basic framework in which to understand the president's role in the institution, and attempt to explain what some claim is a combination of high wages and relatively weak pay for performance. The rising income inequality in America has been the subject of much heated debate in the recent past. 'Excessive' executive pay has been a recurrent theme during 2007 so far, with the Senate gearing up to address this imbalance by trying to pass measures such as limiting income tax deductions companies can claim for executives leaving the firm during the year. President Bush also singled out record levels of executive compensation as a major issue in his 'State of the Economy' speech in January. A similar story emerges when we examine the executive compensation at universities and colleges across America. While the paychecks that executives in higher education receive are not as stunning as those in the corporate world, they are hefty in their own right, especially when compared with the salaries that faculty at their institutes command. This rise in pay has been especially great in public institutions, with the number of presidents making half a million dollars or more almost doubling between 2003-04 and 2004-05. Moreover, schools with smaller budgets or less willingness to pay often lose their presidents to other universities that pay significantly more; the case in point being three major state universities in Iowa that between them have lost 8 presidents in the last 18 years to institutions that paid significantly more.
Advisors/Committee Members: Kuttner, Kenneth.
Subjects: Economics; Economic Theory
Keywords: college; presidents; liberal arts; pay; compensation
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28.
Leslie, Robyn.
When it Pays More to Earn Less.
Degree: BA, Economics, 2010, Oberlin College Honors Theses
► The poorest individuals in the United States face some of the highest…
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▼ The poorest individuals in the United States face some of the highest marginal tax rates on additional earned income. These tax rates arise from the benefit reduction rates of cash and in-kind transfer programs, and are often above 100%. Tax rates over 100% create a situation for low-income individuals where earning more leaves them with less after tax income. These implicit tax rates caused by welfare programs have an additive effect. If an individual participates in multiple welfare programs he or she will face a higher tax rate on his or her earned income. This study reveals that the structures of the federal welfare programs SNAP and HUD, cause participants who have a high cost of housing to experience higher marginal tax rates. In addition to federal programs, this study analyzes the TANF and Medicaid programs across five states. Within my five state sample, TANF programs that have a graduated system of work programs and relatively high per capita spending on TANF job assistance are more successful in encouraging participant self-sufficiency.
Advisors/Committee Members: Craig, Barbara.
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29.
Liu, Aileen.
Determining the Consumption Effects of Announced Permanent and Temporary Tax Cuts in Accordance with the Permanent Income Hypothesis.
Degree: BA, Economics, 1984, Oberlin College Honors Theses
► For several years, economists have been debating how well Federal tax policy…
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▼ For several years, economists have been debating how well Federal tax policy changes have performed in readjusting the economy. Tax change policies have been instituted periodically since World War II up to the very present. The goals sought by the legislators have varied. The tax cut policy in the Kennedy administration was set up to invigorate a recessionary economy. Under the Reagan administration, tax cuts are a tool to increase savings and investment. Part of the reason for the inconsistency in policy aims is due to the lack of consensus on how a tax cut will perform in a given period . Most predictive models ignore the state of the economy at the time, the degree of consumer optimism, and lags in the adjustment of consumer expectations. These variables are vital in determining the consumers' reactions to a given tax cut during a given economic phase . Moreover, whether consumers can even distinguish the windfalls from a tax cut apart from increases in take home pay from a wage hike, is a matter of debate. Recent discussions have been focused on the temporal nature of the tax cuts. The significance of the issue seems real enough such that cuts are determined and categorized according to their permanent or transitory nature of consumer spending after a tax reduction that is permanent or one that is temporary (either a one-shot rebate or a cut specified to last for one or two years) , can be measured to see whether each has a distinctive effect on consumer spending. The widely accepted Permanent Income Hypothesis (PIH) states that transitory changes have their main impact on saving and not on consumption. Permanent Income on which consumer spending is based, is a weighted average of consumers' past incomes, for consumption patterns take time to readjust to increments in today's income. Given this view, a temporary tax cut will barely have an effect on permanent income , since the change is known to be temporary. Consumption will then proceed in the same direction as if there had been no tax change at all . Macroeconomists argue that a rise in income stimulates consumer spending. A tax cut is easily associated with the growth of consumer spending, if one agrees with the premise that consumers have treated the increase in take-horne pay from the tax cut in the same way they treat increases in their take-home pay from other sources (Okun, 1971). Given the supposition that consumers plan their spending patterns over a horizon, the consumers would calculate a larger spending increase today, knowing that they will attain the same tax cut in each future period.
Advisors/Committee Members: Babcock, Jarvis.
Subjects: Economic History; Economics; Economic Theory
Keywords: Permanent Income Hypothesis; tax cuts; income; consumer spending; source
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30.
Lou, Xinchen Sofia.
Viability of traditional banking services: evidence from the regional level U.S. banking industry.
Degree: BA, Economics, 1996, Oberlin College Honors Theses
► My study focuses on testing the conduct of banks in their traditional…
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▼ My study focuses on testing the conduct of banks in their traditional activities, loans and demand deposits provision. The twenty-one year period runs from 1972 to 1992. A relatively recent econometric model is employed. The model takes a set of two-equation system that contains one demand function and one reduced-form supply equation. A parameter that references the deviation in the conduct of banks from the competitive equilibrium level can be estimated using the model. When the parameter has a value that is not significantly different from 0, banks' conduct is said to be competitive. A positive value indicates market power possessed by banks. Market power in the banking industry is not necessarily a bad thing, especially when we are concerned about banks' ability to sustain economic shocks. Banks will have an added level of protection with some market power. A negative value of the parameter is linked to disequilibrium where production level is beyond the competitive equilibrium level which has price equal marginal cost of production. This type of equilibrium is given the name "excess capacity" in a number of banking studies. There is, however, another definition of "excess capacity" that says firms have excess capacity if they operate on the downward sloping portion of their average cost curve. This second definition is difficult to test using my model. Therefore, I will use the phrase excess capacity with its first definition unless otherwise noted in the paper. My regression results suggest that the industry as a whole is capable of providing loans in a competitive manner. The provision of demand deposits shows more diversity across the country, but there is reason to believe that banks are quite well prepared for competitions and shocks in that area of operation. The next section gives some background information of the U.S. banking industry. The third section is a brief survey of the literature on banking. The fourth section elaborates on the theoretical aspects of the study. The fifth section introduces the model and the equations involved. The sixth section lists the sources of data and describes the data. The seventh section discusses regression results. The eighth section concludes the study and makes suggestions for future studies. The ninth section is a collection of exhibits, including charts, description of data and regression outputs.
Advisors/Committee Members: Zinser, James.
Subjects: Banking; Economic History; Economics; Finance
Keywords: United States; bank; banking industry
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