Department of Economics

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A diﬀerences-in-diﬀerences approach to the UPP policy and crime displacement in the city neighborhoods and metropolitan area of Rio de Janeiro.
(2020-04-27) Rodrigues, Hugo S., 1988-; Cunningham, Scott, 1975-
This thesis uses differences-in-differences causal inference method to study the impact of the UPP policy in the surrounding neighborhoods of the city of Rio and also the spillover effects potentially caused by it. Five types of crimes were taken into account: Violent death, rape, robbery, drug related and death caused by police intervention, each of them with a certain degree of relationship with the "drug trading cycle" Rio suffers. The model reveals statistically significant results for all types of crime, with the exception of rape, potentially revealing how UPP in fact only swept crime to other cities and the reduction of it perceived along the years was a general trend. An event study using leads was also used to increase robustness of the research, showing parallel trends assumption cannot be discarded for UPP regions.
A multi-level analysis of the spread of COVID-19.
(2021-04-23) Hickok, Bennet E., 1993-; West, James E., 1965-
This paper uses extensions of the traditional methods for evaluating panel data to evaluate the effect of Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions (NPI) on the spread of COVID-19. I utilize data from weather conditions, policy interventions, past outcomes, and political landscapes at the county level. These components allow me to navigate confounding issues with traditional models such as heterogeneity, endogeneity, and measurement error. The results of this model support the efficacy of policy interventions. I also find that poor weather conditions contribute to the spread of the disease, which indicates that the disease spreads less effectively outdoors. Finally, I find that the share of GOP voters in the previous election is positively associated with the spread of the disease. The ability to combine time variant and invariant components with minimal assumption, makes this model a helpful foundation for further research.
A reassesment of minimum wage impacts with pooled synthetic control.
(2018-04-30) Martin, Walker, 1993-; Cunningham, Scott, 1975-
I analyze state minimum wage increases with pooled synthetic control. State minimum wages are deferentially binding depending on the level of the federal minimum wage. These results are consistent with but more robust than those of ordinary least squares regression and the existing literature. My results are consistent across both unemployment and employment and are robust to variations in model specification. I find that the minimum wage increases unemployment by 0.86% four years after the minimum wage is raised in a state and this effect is similar in following years.
A social networks framework to study the influence of language on international trade in services.
(2021-04-23) Bikoi, Barthelemy Pierre Njiki, 1995-; Pham, Van Hoang.
Social network theory has been overlooked as a tool to examine relationships in economics whereas all economic interactions create networks, some more complex than others. Specifically, attempts to estimate drivers of bilateral trade fall in this category. A significant number of studies explaining trade focus on the gravity model and estimate varieties of transformations. The literature widely measures the effect of language in gravity models using a dummy variable indicating the presence of common language between trading countries, and recently developed measures of linguistic distance. However, there has not been an attempt to estimate the effect of language as a factor that connects countries and allows one country to influence other countries in the network. This thesis constructs a network of countries whose interconnections are the similarities of the languages of the countries. I first estimate the linear effects of eigenvector centrality on per capita income, and then on exports. The results reveal that there is a positive relationship between linguistic influence and exports.
An assessment of methods in "Assessing the impact of the size and scope of government on human well-being."
(2016-07-01) Barnes, Alyssa M., 1994-; West, James E., 1965-
This thesis applies statistical methods used by economists to a recent paper in the political science literature. As a basis for suggesting more robust methods to be employed in future research, I will replicate and extend the analysis of Assessing the Impact of the Size and Scope of Government on Human Well-Being, which tests the impact of four measures of government intervention on citizen life satisfaction (Flavin et al, 2014). Despite my suggested method changes, my results do not differ substantially from those in Size of Government on Well-Being in sign and significance, with the exception that I no longer find a relationship between welfare spending and satisfaction. I conclude that further research should be done on the effect of more specific government policies on satisfaction, with the use of the more robust methods described in this paper.
Antidumping tariff : the case of certain frozen fish fillets from Vietnam.
(2010-06-23T12:32:28Z) Hoang, Tram N.; Pham, Van Hoang.; Economics.; Baylor University. Dept. of Economics.
In 2003, certain catfish fillets from Vietnam were claimed as having been dumped into the United States market, causing material injuries to domestic producers, and were assessed antidumping duties in the range of 37 to 64 percent. This study analyzes the effect of antidumping duties on imports of catfish from Vietnam in terms of volume, value and price at country and firm level. Data is compiled from the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers, the United States Department of Agriculture, and the United States International Trade Commission. Difference-in-Difference estimation is employed and made robust to different group/time variances. The result of estimation is statistically significant in largely decreasing prices of Vietnamese catfish and volume/value of exports at firm level, but not statistically significant at country level.
Are religious schools following their principles of generosity?
(2022-04-19) Badger, William Walter, 1999-; West, James E., 1965-
One of the most pressing issues for institutions involves practicing what they preach. This is seen abundantly within religious institutions. For example, generosity is a core tenet of Christianity. This is seen in both the Old and New testaments of the Bible. Proverbs 11:25 in the Bible says that “A generous person will prosper; whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.”; and Paul says in 2 Corinthians 9:7 that “Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” Generosity is a trait that Christians encourage in practices such as tithing as well, giving back to the church as the church gives to the poor and serves the needy. But in the question of religious universities, are they as giving as the organizations they represent? Do religious universities practice what their founders and affiliates preach?
A baseline admissions prediction model with textual analysis and confidence interval estimations.
(2014-09-05) Beckham, Stephen Ryan.; Pham, Van Hoang.; Economics.; Baylor University. Dept. of Economics.
Essays submitted out individuals applying to Baylor University may contain hidden information that would assist the admissions department in their decision to accept the appicant. Through textual analysis, this paper attempted to reveal signals of a student's intent to attend Baylor if accepted as well as offering an additional platform to judge a student's ability. Both results are independent of other information gathered from the application process. The models created were found not to be strong enough to act as a stand-alone decision rule. However, the new variables created can be used in Baylor's admission model to increase its effectiveness. The groups of words in commitment, Baylor and admissions groups all prove to be influential, which can be used in other parts of the enrollment process, such as phone interviews. This paper also simulates a confidence range around yield estimates generated from the current model being used at Baylor.
Baumol’s cost disease and physician shortages: an analysis of rising healthcare expenditures from the supply side.
(2019-04-09) Wu, Qian, 1994-; Kelly, Mark C.
Over the last two decades, the U.S. experienced a stagnant supply of physicians, as well as rapidly rising healthcare expenditures. Based on a novel version of Baumol’s unbalanced growth model, this paper addresses the relationship between physician supply and healthcare expenditures. Applying a fixed-effect estimation on a panel data set consisting of 50 U.S. states over 2008-2016, we confirm the existence of Baumol’s cost disease in the healthcare sector. Besides, a negative correlation between the growth of relative physician supply and unit healthcare cost is found, which according to the theory model, implies a less-than-one substitution elasticity between physicians and non-physicians. Followingly, a translog production function is estimated using seemingly unrelated regression, obtaining a magnitude of the elasticity of substitution which is roughly 0.23. Our study shows that due to the weak substitution between two groups of healthcare workers, the physician shortage can harm healthcare productivity substantially, which further cause the healthcare price to rise dramatically.
Chasing Flutie : a closer look into the impact of collegiate athletics on admissions.
(2017-04-20) Woo, Kimberly G., 1995-; North, Charles Mark, 1964-
As the cost of maintaining a competitive athletic program continues to rise, many are questioning the true benefit of these programs. For some universities, athletic expenditures have increased at a higher rate than its academic expenditures. This study examines the impact of athletic success on enrollment measures. Using admissions and sports data for a group of 355 universities over a span of 10 years, the study revealed that athletic success plays a marginal role in influencing admission measures. The advertising effect of athletic success is most pronounced in an increase in application with 4.8% increase in applications in the year following a football conference title. Despite a larger applicant pool, the quality of applications, measured by standardized test scores, experiences little change. Additionally, athletic success encourages local students to remain in their home state, but it does little expand the reach of the university.
Could sub-debts of banks be potential tools for supervision? Empirical study with data set 1999-2007.
(2008-06-11T12:21:33Z) Zhang, Lin, 1983-; VanHoose, David D.; Economics.; Baylor University. Dept. of Economics.
Most previous research has discussed how spreads of sub-debts could be tools to signal the risks of banks. However, studies have focused on data preceding 1999, when the Financial Modernization Act (FMA) has not yet been implemented. In this thesis, I will concentrate on evaluating if the spreads of sub-debts could still serve as signals for the risks of banks after the implementation of FMA. From the results of regression I find that the spreads of sub-debts could still signal risks of banks in the post-FMA period. Compared to previous studies, I got different results about the effects of market leverage and logarithm of total assets on sub-debts spreads. Profitability of banks, ROA and ROE, has opposite influences on the spreads, and capital ratios have insignificant effects. Further, sub-debt spreads achieve their highest values before the 2001 recession and decreased after that. The information content of sub-debt yield spreads changes in the non-preferred economic conditions, such as recessions.
The determinants of Chinese housing price inflation.
(2013-05-15) Lin, Fangshi, 1988-; Gardner, H. Stephen.; Economics.; Baylor University. Dept. of Economics.
Housing prices in major Chinese cities have been soaring since 2003. Some economists believe that this represents a dangerous speculative bubble while others argue that Chinese housing price inflation is a normal consequence of supply and demand adjustments in a rapidly-developing economy. This study attempts to explain the movement of housing prices in 35 large and medium-sized Chinese cities between 2002 and 2010. Here, we review many of the causal relationships that have been explored in previous research, but we uncover some interesting evidence on the financial side of the Chinese housing market that has received little attention in previous studies. We find, for example, a reciprocal relationship between local housing prices and the revenues of local governments. A strong housing market provides rising revenues for a local government, and rising revenues, along with personal saving, seem to feed back into the financial base of the local housing market.
Determinants of faculty salaries at elite liberal arts colleges.
(2011-01-05T19:40:17Z) Konsor, Kellie J.; Green, Steven L.; Economics.; Baylor University. Dept. of Economics.
In this paper we focus on the determinants of faculty salary levels at elite liberal arts colleges for specific years over the past decade. We address the role regional personal income per capita and endowment play in average salary determination. Other variables we consider include ranking, enrollment, tuition, discipline concentration, the professor to student ratio, the concentration of female professors among faculty and the ratio of research to instructional expenses. We find that regional personal income and endowment have a positive effect on average salaries, while ranking has a negative effect. Research has a positive effect on salaries in the later years, and tuition is not a consistent determinant of salary. Results also seem to be stable over time for most years and professor rankings.
Does Medicare increase opioid drug usage? A regression discontinuity study.
(2018-04-22) Law, Alexander J., 1996-; Henderson, James W.; Cunningham, Scott, 1975-
Recently, the overuse of opioid medications in the United States has garnered national attention, spurring many leaders to declare it a national epidemic. Medicare Part D provides prescription drug coverage for various medications including opioid drugs. The problem of moral hazard in insurance predicts that services the insurance covers will be overused because of the covered risk and financial burden. With Medicare, I find no statistically significant increase in opioid usage from the age threshold for Medicare eligibility. Because insurance choice is endogeneous, I use age as the running variable for a sharp regression discontinuity design, where a dummy variable for the eligibility threshold is used to indicate Medicare eligibility. Any statistically significant results from various combinations of covariates disappear when the age bandwidths are narrowed, and similarly, there is no effect with individual drug dosage.
Dollarization and growth : a synthetic control approach to Ecuador and El Salvador’s cases.
(2016-04-21) Yepes, Juan P., 1991-; Cunningham, Scott, 1975-
This thesis examines the impact of full dollarization on economic growth in Ecuador and El Salvador by employing the synthetic control method. We find that, relative to the counterfactual built, these currency substitutions had no effect on real income per capita. We use placebo exercises to explore the statistical significance of our results. We intend to determine the validity of the method to monetary substitution questions. The paper concludes that there is no causal relationship between dollarization and economic growth, but that better insight into a country’s growth parameters can result in more robust findings.
Economic impact of Ebola virus disease in Western African countries.
(2020-05-05) Tsai, Terry, 1995-; Pham, Van Hoang.
The Ebola outbreak in Western Africa from 2014 to 2016 infected 28600 people and claimed lives of 11325 people. It is the worst and the longest Ebola outbreak since the first recorded Ebola outbreak in 1976. The World bank estimated the cost of this outbreak is approximately $4 billion. In this thesis, I estimate the impact of the spread of ebola on economic activity in Western African countries. Economic activity is measured with nighttime light intensity from satellite measurements. The use night time lights allows higher frequency more geographically disaggregated measure. Using distance to ground zero as an instrument for my empirical analysis, I find that the GDP for Sierra Leone decreases by 3.26 percent, GDP for Guinea decreases by 5.1 percent, and the GDP for Liberia decreases by 51.82 percent. I also employ a dif-in-dif model and find that Ebola outbreak has no long-term effect on GDP.
Effects of debt relief under the enhanced HIPC Initiative and the MDRI on developing countries using a time-shifted difference-in differences strategy.
(2017-06-28) Gamel, Kelsey, 1990-; Pham, Van Hoang.
The IMF and World Bank launched the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative in 1996 to alleviate the debt overhang problem in developing countries. They amended the program to the Enhanced HIPC Initiative in 1999 and added an extension, the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI), in 2005. The initiatives included a decision point, in which countries began receiving debt relief conditional on reform, and a completion point, in which countries received debt relief in full. Each HIPC reached the decision point and completion point at different times. I exploited this variation in treatment dates by applying a time-shifted difference-in-differences strategy to determine the effect of the Enhanced HIPC Initiative and the MDRI. I found that debt relief under these initiatives increased capital investment, enrollment rates, male employment rates, and GDP per capita. Household consumption increased, but mainly in the short run. Foreign direct investment and female employment rates were unaffected.
Effects of recessions on price bubbles within experimental asset markets.
(May 2023) Shuda, Ryan, 2001-; Aimone, Jason A.
This paper looks at the effects of real-world recessions on price bubbles in asset market experiments with data from Palan (2013). In both non-parametric and random effects tests, recessions are found to increase the size and length of bubbles within these markets. This effect holds across the three recessions that occur in the period that the database covers.
Essays on factors affecting physician treatment decisions and treatment access.
(2023-08) Shriver, Rachel L., 1994-; Richards, Michael R.
Policies and market changes can affect physician treatment decisions and treatment access which ultimately can affect patient outcomes. Using statewide hospital data from North Carolina and Florida, we analyze the impact of three exogenous shocks on physician treatment decisions and treatment access. Across all analyses, a difference-in-difference or triple difference framework is utilized to assess these impacts. This analysis provides insight into the types of policies that can provide improved physician treatment decisions and improved patient outcomes, including some key and vulnerable patient populations.
Examining health care provider case and setting allocation shifts.
(2022-04-13) Seward, Jonathan A., 1986-; Richards, Michael R.
Health care delivery is trending more and more towards outpatient care, and hospitals are beginning to embrace this shift because it is expected to benefit patients through lower costs and better convenience relative to inpatient treatment options. We exploit a dataset comprised of the near universe of hospitalizations in Florida to explore the provider distortions in setting allocations, competitive hospital-physician consolidation, and unemployment shocks. We examined the changes in case mix trends in hospital outpatient surgery due to reclassifying total knee arthroplasty (TKA) coverage by the Centers for Medicare/Medicaid Studies (CMS) to remove the outpatient ban of TKAs. Physicians shifted Medicare TKA cases abruptly to the outpatient care and similarly shifted under-60 privately insured TKAs as well. We show some evidence of selection against the potentially riskiest Medicare TKA patients for outpatient delivery. Interestingly, these changes are primarily driven by independent or horizontally integrated physicians. Additionally, hospital ownership of physicians (i.e., vertical integration) is becoming more common as is the rise of ambulatory surgical centers (ASCs). The increase in ASC market concentration has weakened the consumer demand and profitability for hospitals. We investigate the presence and extent of anticompetitive effects from formal hospital-physician tie-ups in contested outpatient procedure markets. We find that following hospital acquisition, physicians shift their Medicare and commercially insured cases away from ASCs to hospital outpatient departments and are less likely to use an ASC at all. This distortion of physician decisions over treatment setting can lead to allocative inefficiencies and even forgo state and federal tax revenue. Another distortion of provider behavior frequently discussed in the literature is physician-induced demand. One theory is that in a poor economy, physicians would shift their case mix to more secure patients (Medicare) or increase the numbers of procedures per patient. We use the Great Recession of 2008 to assess the presence and extent that physicians are inducing demand due to an abrupt and severe economic downturn by comparing physicians in Florida counties which were least impacted to those in counties which were most impacted as measured by the county-level unemployment rate. We find no evidence of physician-induced demand, but rather a slight shift from privately insured utilization to other payers (e.g., self-pay) among those who were in the counties more affected by the recession. Additionally, we find evidence of a general long-term depression of health care utilization among privately insured beneficiaries across the treated and control groups.

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