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Understanding the Value of Amenities: A Study of the Land Value Determination Process in Hangzhou, China

By Ching-Ching Chen This paper seeks to investigate the determinants of land within Hangzhou China.  There are two main goals that the research paper will attempt to address. The first is to build upon existing research on land pricing in terms of the theories outlined by the monocentric city and hedonic pricing models. Second, the […]

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An Assessment of Teach for America Effectiveness and Spillover Effects in North Carolina

By Thomas Burr Teach for America, while a relatively small cog in the grand scheme of education reform in America, has become something of a flashpoint for debate between the educational establishment and a new generation of reformers. In the first part of this research, I add to a growing number of studies on the […]

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Identifying Supply and Demand Elasticities of Iron Ore

By Zhirui Zhu This paper utilizes instrumental variables and joint estimation to construct efficiently identified estimates of supply and demand equations for the world iron ore market under the assumption of perfect competition. With annual data spanning 1960-2010, I found an upward sloping supply curve and a downward sloping demand curve. Both of the supply […]

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Volatility and Correlation Modeling for Sector Allocation in International Equity Markets

By Melanie Fan and Kate Yuan Reliable estimates of volatility and correlation are crucial in asset allocation and risk management. This paper investigates Static, RiskMetrics, and Dynamic Conditional Correlation (DCC) models for estimating volatility and correlation by testing them in an asset allocation context. Optimal allocation weights for one year found using estimates from each […]

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Do Vanguard ETF Investors Make Good Decisions? – Testing the Bogle Hypothesis

By Meng Xie John Bogle, the founder of Vanguard, is a notable opponent of frequent ETF trading. We test his hypothesis that Vanguard investors are not trading ETFs intelligently. A comparison of dollarweighted and time-weighted returns is the typical method used for assessing investor timing. We instead employ Sharpe’s style analysis techniques to compare the […]

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Possibility of Cost Offset in Expanding Health Insurance Coverage: Using Medical Expenditure Panel Survey 2008

By Catherine Moon The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act aims to substantially reduce the number of the uninsured over time and asserts that the financial burden of extending insurance coverage to the previously uninsured will be offset by the benefit of the attendant improvement in their health. Motivated by this policy, I explore whether […]

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Auctions as an Alternative to Book Building in the IPO Process: An Examination of Underpricing for Large Firms in France

By John Mekjian A relevant factor in determining the quality of an initial public offering (IPO) mechanism is the level and variability of underpricing that occurs. The percentage difference between the IPO price and the closing price after one day of trading is a common way to define the “underpricing” of the stock. Although companies […]

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Game Theory and The World Marathon Majors

By Benjamin Jones The World Marathon Majors (WMM) Series Prize was enacted in 2006 as a million dollar prize handed out annually to the top man and woman competing at five of the most important marathons. This paper considers the motivations behind setting up this prize, as well as the theoretical rationale for its existence […]

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Job Choices, Flexibility and Maternal Labor Force Participation

By Samantha Cox While there are countless studies concerning the effects of various variables on female labor force participation, there are still many unexamined intricacies involved in a woman’s choice to enter, re-enter or leave the work force. This paper attempts to extend on previous research and examine how the flexibility of a woman’s job […]

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Capturing a College Education’s Impact on Industry Wages Across Time: An Analysis of Academic Factors that Affect Earnings

By Ian Low Studying how a college education can impact one’s wages has always been an area of interest amongst labor and education economists. While previous studies have stressed using single academic factors (i.e. college major choice, performance, or college prestige) to determine the effect on wages, there has not been a focus on predicting […]

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Undergraduate Program Assistant
Matthew Eggleston
dus_asst@econ.duke.edu

Director of the Honors Program
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