Presentation Abstracts, 16th Annual Economics Scholars Program Conference for Undergraduate Research
Presentation Abstracts
Alphabetical by author:
“Investigating Pay Discrimination through Gender and Family Involvement”
Dalton, Matthew
Drury University
This study investigates claims used to justify gendered wage outcomes by using time spent in childcare as a measure of family involvement. Leveraging data provided by the American Time Use Survey and linear regression, we estimate that an additional hour spent providing childcare is associated with a 1.6% wage increase for men, but an additional hour spent providing childcare is associated with a 0.9% wage increase for women. These results suggest that employers may reward individuals for additional time dedicated to providing childcare, as higher levels of childcare are associated with higher wages. Thus, a narrative used to explain gender-based pay discrimination is not reflected in the data. The dismissal of this justification warrants further investigation into the motivations of gender-based pay discrimination and offers that families may redistribute childcare responsibilities to maximize household wage.
“Returns to Education: A Regional Analysis of the United States Southeast”
Davidson, Katie
University of North Carolina Wilmington
Do coastal counties experience different returns to education than inland counties? What are these different returns in the southeast of the United States? This research paper utilizes data from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series to examine the relationship between education and income across inland and coastal counties in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. Using six different Ordinary Least Squares regression models, this research examines relationships between region, education level, income, and multiple controls. The results from these different models prove that the education wage gap is larger in coastal counties than in inland counties, and more especially, there are greater returns to graduate degrees in coastal counties.
“Agricultural Subsidies and Farm Bankruptcy”
Durocher, Dillon
University of Mary Washington
Farm subsidies are a topic of political and academic disagreement. Previous literature on the subject is divided on whether these programs are beneficial or detrimental to farmers and their business. This paper uses a fixed effects analysis to look at the relationship between farm subsidies and farm bankruptcies. The paper looks at data across 19 different states from 2000-2021. These 19 states were chosen because farm subsidies are reported under the Chapter 12 bankruptcy statistics which also encompasses fisheries. The 19 states chosen are all landlocked so that there can be no fisheries in these states. Thus Chapter 12 bankruptcies in these states are only farms. The regression was run with a one year lag and a two year lag to account for the time it takes to distribute and implement the funds from the subsidies. The research found that in both a one and two year lag subsidies had no significant correlation with bankruptcies.
“The Effect of Industry Job Prospects on Naturalization Rate in the United States”
Eremina, Kseniia
Drury University
This research study analyzes the effect of good job prospects in different states and industries on immigrants’ decision to naturalize. I analyze a sample of 313,940 employed immigrants, from 16 to 96 years old, who spent at least a year in the United States. The relationship between median state-industry salary and naturalization rate is quantified by running a linear regression analysis. State-industry job prospects affect naturalization decisions, but the effect sizes are small. A $10,000 increase in the median state-industry salary is associated with only 0.43 percentage point increase in the naturalization rate. The results are economically significant since they help us understand what factors affect immigrants’ decision to naturalize and what government needs to improve in their country to reduce the emigration rate.
“The Effect of Professional Development Programs on Teacher Retention”
Ervin, Philip; Mayen, Christian; Seibert, Trevor; Webster, Christopher
Texas State University
For decades, shortfalls in teacher retention and development have troubled the United States and other developed countries. (Ladd, 2007) This has become an increasingly difficult challenge for administrators during the COVID-19 pandemic and for the foreseeable future. (Rosenberg et al., 2021) To combat this, an analysis of professional development programs and their efficacies is needed to lower the incidence of teacher attrition as well as increase the productivity and skillsets of teachers and educators. These shortfalls have been met with a variety of state initiatives, from mandates to funding. In 2019, the Census Bureau reported that an estimated 752.3 billion dollars were spent on public schools and teaching. In the data from 1992 – 1998, school districts spent an estimated $200 per student on teacher development. (Killeen, Monk, et al., 2002) When a teacher chooses to change schools or careers, the returns on investment into the teacher’s human capital vanish. The expense of lost human capital can quickly accumulate and cost taxpayers billions of dollars. This excess expense is the most prominent economic consequence of poor teacher retention. Since teacher training, onboarding and other relevant skillset development investments are sunk costs, minimizing the incidences of teacher attrition altogether is an important objective for maximizing the quality of education to taxpaying constituents across school districts. This paper presents our methods, findings, and analysis of how professional development programs affect teacher attrition. We aim to describe the effects of professional development in minimizing attrition and the corresponding factors that affect its significance. To accomplish this, we primarily relied on the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) and the guiding perspectives of compelling works preceding ours.
“Monetary Policy's Effect on the Stock Market”
Felton, Luke
University of North Carolina at Wilmington
Every stock market in the world has a general set of factors that can cause the market to rise and fall throughout the trading day. In the United States there are many tools of monetary and fiscal policy that entities of the Federal Government manipulate to preserve a prosperous economy and one of these tools is the Federal Funds Rate. Previous research has examined the Federal Funds Rate with respect to different stock markets around the world. Data for this research came from Dartmouth Professor, Kenneth French, who broke the stock market into multiple sectors based on industry. The purpose of the research is to determine what industry of the stock market is most affected by changes in the Federal Funds Rate.
“The Effect of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Alcohol Consumption and Mental Health”
Fitzgerald, Tara
University of Mary Washington
The Covid-19 pandemic hit the world hard in early 2020 and sent us into a 2-year spiral of lockdowns, restrictions, and isolation. With the onslaught of quarantines came an increase in loneliness and fear nationwide. We saw anxiety and depression rates in adults spike from 6.16% and 4.73% to 21% and 27.8% in 2020 and further increase to 36.4% and 32.8% in 2021. Due to the 40% higher likelihood that people suffering from anxiety and depression to self-medicate with alcohol, I aimed to find the effect the increased anxiety and depression rates had on our at-home alcohol consumption. Using time series data from 1992-2021 of the average annual anxiety and depression rates for adults aged 20 and older from the CDC, average annual retail alcohol sales, average annual consumer price index of alcoholic beverages, and the average annual household income from the U.S Census Bureau. Using a 95% confidence level we are able to see that rates of anxiety and consumer price index have an insignificant effect on the amount people binge drink, while increased depression rates and average household income have a significant effect on our alcohol consumption.
“The Effect of Hurricanes on Seafood Revenue”
Harrington, Paige
University of Mary Washington]
Living in a coastal town means that people have access to beautiful miles of ocean and delicious seafood. It also means that these people are susceptible to hurricanes. Hurricanes kill thousands of fish and shellfish making them inedible and unsellable. This causes seafood revenue to decrease because there is less seafood to purchase. When seafood revenue goes down, it directly impacts the fishing industry in a negative way.
“Do State Unemployment Rates in the United States Affect the States’ Homelessness Rates?”
McGlynn, Matthew
University of Mary washington
Abstract: My project observes U.S. state homeless populations/ 10,000 people using 2020 data to determine which states have the highest to lowest homeless rates, and which factors have statistically significant effects, positive or negative, on the homeless rates. My independent variable was the state unemployment rate, which I initially suspected would have the strongest correlation for homelessness rates, expecting states with higher unemployment to have higher rates of homelessness. In terms of my explanatory factors, I measured the effect of rates of one-bedroom apartments by state, to determine which states have the highest barriers for the homeless to find a place of residence. Other factors I considered included veteran population as a percentage of overall state population, as well as state precipitation and minimum wage rates. Additionally, I considered mental health rank, which ranks states by their overall level of mental health rates and care available to those with mental health concerns.
“What is the Effect of Changing the Eligibility Age of Non-Contributory Pension Programs on Poverty and Labor Force Participation? Evidence from Mexico”
Mercado Garcia, Ximena
The University of Texas at Austin
In 2019, the Pension para el Bienestar de las Personas Adultas Mayores, a noncontributory pension program for the elderly and the second-largest ever-existing cash transfer program in Mexico, changed its policies regarding eligibility. The program was universalized as everyone was made eligible to apply, regardless of their income, if they met certain age. Besides, the eligibility threshold changed from age 65 to age 68 for non-indigenous people, making the 65-67 year-olds ineligible for the program if they were not already receiving it before the changes. Pooled cross-sectional data from Mexico’s National Household Income and Expenditure Survey from 2018 and 2020 is used to exploit exogenous variation around eligibility age. A difference-in-difference (DID) methodology is implemented to uncover the Intention-To-Treat (ITT) effects of this reduction in eligibility age on poverty, proxied by consumption, and labor force participation (LFP). 63 and 64-year-olds are used as the control group as they were not directly affected by the policy changes, while the 66 and 67-year-olds are used as the treatment group. Besides, an Instrumental Variables (IV) methodology is used to measure the Treatment-on the-Treated (TOT) effect of this policy change on the same variables to account for endogeneity. Statistically insignificant results are found for all variables for both methodologies, except for a statistically significant increase in employment for the treatment group for ITT, although the magnitude is extremely small to be considered informative. Further research must be done in order to understand whether the program is meeting its objective of reducing poverty among the elderly, as we might not see changes in consumption given that the program is not achieving its intended goal.
“The Effect of Medicaid Expansion on Rural Healthcare Service Provider Terminations in Virginia and North Carolina”
Mueller, Jason
University of Mary Washington
The United States healthcare system is complicated and dynamic. The healthcare market issues of high costs, poor outcomes, and poor accessibility captivate policy makers and academics alike. According to GoodRx, roughly 80% of U.S. citizens live in healthcare deserts. Academics in the field have through studies demonstrated the importance of Medicaid expansion. In 2018 Virginia passed Medicaid expansion. Using panel data from 2017-2020, this experiment conducts a difference of differences analysis comparing rural counties from North Carolina and Virginia. It was hypothesized that if a rural county existed in a state with Medicaid expansion, then there would be fewer terminations of service providers because a higher degree of coverage results in fewer cases of uncompensated care as a percentage of total sales thereby increasing the financial health of financial institutions. This hypothesis was challenged and not supported by the data collected and the multivariate regression analysis conducted.
“The Price of Pink: An Analysis of Gendered Markups in the Hygiene Market”
Schertzer, Kennady
Drury University
Gendered price markups are seen throughout various industries with different goods and services. The purpose of this study is to analyze those product markups based on the marketed gender of those goods. The study contained data from CVS, Walgreens, and Target stores, containing the prices of razors, deodorant, and body wash. Over four-hundred product prices were scraped for a one-month time period. The study found an average $0.29 statistically insignificant increase in the aggregate price of goods for women’s products when compared to men’s products. These results suggest that there is the possibility of a markup of women’s products when compared directly with men’s products, however there were no findings that conclude that this markup exists. This remains true when looking at products that are identical in all ways except aesthetic appearance or the marketed gender.
“Does the Abortion Rate in 1992-1995 Affect the Crime rate for 2012-2016?”
Shestakov, Egor
The University of Texas at Tyler
This paper provides an attempt to find the influence of abortions during 1992-1995 on the crime rate of Texas. The Texas data by county was used to conduct a multiple linear regression that explains the crime rate in Texas using variables such as income, population, age, unemployment, race, abortion rate, and the percentage of the single-parent family. According to the regression, the abortion rate does not affect the crime rate in Texas, which is consistent with other research that discovers that topic on the National level. However, the abortion rate is significantly correlated with the percentage of single-parent households, which is associated with higher crime rates.
“Voter Turnout and the Early Voting Period”
Smith, Dana
University of Mary Washington
Although formal voting has existed within the United States for nearly 250 years, changes in the makeup of the electorate, policy changes, and global events like the COVID-19 pandemic have changed turnout levels over time. The election of 2020 experienced the largest spike in turnout ever recorded and this begs the question of why? More specifically, is it related to the expansion of the early voting period in numerous states happening concurrently? Data collected at the state level for the election of 2020 was analyzed to pinpoint the extent to which a change in the number of days of the early voting period yielded a change in turnout percentage. In addition, data was collected from the 2016 election, when the early voting period was shorter in numerous states in order to provide a comparison. Research concluded that other variables of education, closeness of the election, race, and population density had a significant effect on turnout in 2020.
“NFL Winning Percentages and Average Ticket Price”
Smith, Peter
University of Mary Washington
National Football League attendance has been studied by economists since the league’s creation in 1920. Winning percentage, opponent quality, and stadium quality have all been deemed significant determinants of increasing attendance, but what deters people from going to National Football League games? I collected data from all thirty-two teams over the course of the six seasons to determine to what extent does previous seasons winning percentage determine the average attendance the following season. From my results capacity and ticket price were the most significant factors in affecting attendance.
“Unemployment and Marriage Rates: A Time Series Analysis”
Sutton, Shane
University of Mary Washington
This paper attempts to analyze the United States’ unemployment rate and its effect on marriage rates among United States citizens. Recent decades have shown substantial decreases in marriage rates which have proven to increase the levels of at-risk behaviors in adolescents such as alcohol and drug abuse. This analysis shows a significant negative relationship between marriage rates and unemployment rates.
“The Value of Environmental Mitigation: What Ecotourism Can Contribute to the Relationship between Environmental Responsibility and Financial Performance”
Vazquez, Carolina
Austin College
While there has been extensive work on social responsibility and financial performance, there is much to understand about the relationship between environmental responsibility and financial performance. As businesses begin to conceptualize the relationship through public perception, a gap remains, leaving many to not fully understand the economic impacts of climate change to best adapt. This paper observes how environmental mitigation strategies can affect GDP per capita by observing countries associated with ‘ecotourism’ as it aims to maximize profit and conservation. The study is conducted on a panel of 25 countries in the short and ultra-short term. The results show that ecotourism-related improved access to clean water increases GDP per capita whereas increased severity of outdoor air pollution lowers GDP per capita. Furthermore, while the results show that an increase in renewable energy decreases GDP per capita, the loss is minimal, and a net gain remains when accompanied by the financial impact of clean water and air.
“Time Use During the Pandemic: Differences from the Great Recession and Gender Gaps”
Verma, Himani
The University of Texas at Austin
This paper analyzes the impact of the pandemic on allocation of time across different working, home production, and leisure categories. The findings are compared against trends during the Great Recession. Additionally, differences among gender groups during the pandemic are evaluated from a time use perspective. Using the American Time Use Survey data from 2003 to 2020 and an instrumental variables approach, I find that about 34 percent of the foregone market work hours are substituted towards non- market work. Leisure absorbs hours from other categories like job search and childcare, and combined with market work, constitute about 126 percent of all foregone market hours during the pandemic period. There are significant decreases in time spent on job search, childcare, socializing, and other civic activities. Overall women spent more time towards childcare, and the difference is significantly higher for single women with younger children. I discuss the implications of my results for business cycle models studying substitution behavior among gender groups and non-separable preferences of people between leisure and market work.
“Hate Crime in Texas 1991 to 2020”
Worley, Kristen
Austin College
Hate crime has been a widespread problem across the globe over the centuries. This research problem seeks to find any correlation between economic conditions and the rate of religious hate crime. This study looks at whether or not economic variables will cause there to be a higher or lower incidence of religious hate crimes as opposed to ones with other motivations. The crime data is concentrated in Texas from the years 1991-2020 and it is placed alongside economic values such as the consumer price index, interest rates, household income, as well as a few others that will be discussed later.
“Seller’s Information Policy: Withhold or Reveal When Collusion is Possible“
Zhu, Jun
University of Wisconsin Madison
This paper introduces collusion to the classic common-value auction model by revisiting the idea of joint bids. Then it discusses incentives of the seller to withhold information as a failure of the linkage principle. As quality of information becomes more equalized when more information is announced public, the improved symmetry between bidders could also facilitate a collaborative joint bid of value zero, which would severely sabotage the seller income. Using the definition of sequential equilibrium with consistency, the paper refines the multiple Nash equilibria to only two, a cooperative one and a non-cooperative one. Assuming the seller has access to both bidders' signals, I analyze the consequences followed by different information policies, and concluded that revealing any old information is not optimal: either not maximizes the revenue in the competitive equilibrium, or give the bidders more incentives to collude.
Poster Abstracts
Alphabetical by author:
“An empirical analysis on income inequality determinants, The case of Hispanic and education”
Jose Gonzalez, Ariadna
University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
I examined income inequality determinants around the United States. Analyzing a sample of 3,214,539 Using cross sectional data downloaded from the IPUMS USA database, I analyzed a sample of 3,214,539 . A multiple linear regression model was implemented to study the determinants of income inequality with especial emphasis on the Hispanic population and education. A series of testing leads to the conclusion that Hispanic population tend to face lower income than their non-Hispanic counterparts.
“Democratic Transitions and Educational Attainment: An Empirical Analysis”
Kielt, Charles; Moon, Subin
Boston University
Educational attainment has long been recognized as a key component of human capital, critical to the development of robust institutions and long-term economic development. This paper examines more closely the determinants of educational outcomes, specifically concerning the impacts of democracy and democratization on medium and long-term attainment. We leveraged methodologies from political economy and education economics alongside econometric analysis to produce a statistical model estimating the effects of democracy and democratization on educational outcomes from 1960 to 2015. We constructed a robust dataset drawing from multiple sources of international educational and political data, including the Polity V Project and the Barro-Lee Education Attainment Dataset, compiling comprehensive statistics on 136 countries over the last 60 years. We conducted regression analysis using STATA, wherein preliminary regressions indicate a positive relationship between the presence of a democratic government and the educational attainment of its citizens. This project’s next phase will apply our robust dataset in exploring the nature of transitions to and away from democracy on both a global scale and in a potential smaller-scale case approach. As developing nations continue to grapple with both historical shocks and modern conflicts, our hope is that statistical applications concerning traditionally qualitative disciplines such as education will help policymakers guide regime transitions using rigorously tested quantitative methodologies.
“The Effect of Medical Marijuana Legalization and drug arrests”
Maduabum, Dilichukwu
University of Missouri
While it’s intuitive to think about, this study provides empirical evidence on the extent which medical marijuana laws (MMLs) have on overall drug arrests. I exploit the difference-in-difference estimator to determine the causal effects on drug arrests. Using UCR panel data from 1990-2020, I find that MML states experienced lower drug crime rates. These findings highlight the potential injustice faced by the estimated 40,000 Americans still in prison for marijuana-related crimes (MRCs).
“Examining the Relationship of Education on Female Representation in State Legislature”
Nguyen, Annie
The University of Texas at Austin
Gender disparities continue to be perpetuated in the political sphere, making it difficult to increase women’s representation in legislatures. The need for more information and research on women in politics could potentially promote better representation for women in state legislatures. This paper focuses on examining the effect of the percentage of the state population who completed higher education on the percentage of women in state legislature. We run a linear regression model to analyze these variables and find an insignificant effect of education on the percentage of women in state legislative bodies. However, the results draw attention to the effects of religion and diversity on the election of women to state congress.
“Monetary Policy Stance and Oil Prices: An Asymmetric Analysis”
Rai, Simran
Mercer University
Energy prices have been singled out as one of the primary drivers of inflation dynamics and real economic activities. Monetary policy decisions are associated with large asset prices, including commodities. In formulating effective trading and hedging strategies and portfolio allocation decisions, institutional investors need to understand the effect of monetary policy on asset prices. This paper investigates the impact of conventional monetary policy stance on energy prices using monthly data spanning from January 1996 through May 2022. The effective federal fund rate is decomposed to identify the monetary policy stance. After controlling for oil market sentiment driving price trends, demand, and supply for oil, the estimated results reveal that oil prices and monetary policy stances are asymmetrically cointegrated, sharing long-run stochastic trends. An increase and decrease in federal fund rates exert an asymmetric long-run impacts on oil prices. In the long-run, an expansionary monetary policy is associated with a 12.9% increase in oil price compared to a 15.2% decline associated with a contractionary monetary policy. Therefore, monetary policy stance news has economically significant short-term and long-term effects on oil price futures.
“Bus Rapid Transit: An In-depth Analysis on the Potential for Usage in DART’s Mass Transit System”
Sabre, Nicholas
University of North Texas
Cities are living beings, they breathe, flow and require a great deal of care to maintain their health. Transportation infrastructure takes a vital role in ensuring the stability of a thriving metropolitan area. Highways, light rail, mass transit, all provide cities with routes of access. Without proper circulation; traffic jams occur, time is lost and productivity is wasted. In the United States, many urbanized areas face this emerging challenge. Traffic congestion is the slow strangulation of a city. With COVID lockdown orders no longer in effect, traffic patterns across the United States have slowly been returning to pre COVID levels, increasing the amount of vehicles on roadways. The DFW metroplex is one such area which traffic congestion has increased dramatically since 2020. This however, is not a new challenge and one that has plagued the metroplex since before COVID. According to openly available data from Tom Tom, the average DFW commuter spends an extra 11 minutes driving in rush hour traffic, which results in an extra 67 hours spent on highways. That’s 67 extra hours lost to traffic, which could’ve been spent on more productive activities. Since 2015, DFW’s population increased over 600,000, by 2030, projections expect an additional 600,000 residents. With current transit infrastructure struggling to keep up with today’s demands, future increases will only place greater strain on these systems. One proven solution to help amend traffic congestion and high private vehicle travel is to provide alternative modes of transportation which can compete with private modes with the same or better travel times. Bus rapid transit systems may be a more cost-effective mode of mass transit than current DART plans for light rail.