A computational model of food choice: Utility optimization through external cuing and heuristic search
By Lucie Yang The field of economics tends to view decision-making through a lens of assumed rationality and utility maximization. Unfortunately, choices in reality tend to be more complicated than perfect conscious value assignment. One such type of decision-making is food choice, which incorporates not only many inherent values (health, taste, price, energy), but also […]
Video Game Sales: Does Diversity Pay?
By Hai Lin “Helena” Wu The video game industry has grown into a mature market in the past decade, surpassing the size of the U.S. film industry in 2009. As a result of the rise in popularity of video gaming amongst many demographic groups of the American population, the underrepresentation of female and ethnic minorities […]
Are the Chinese Altruistic? Explaining Motives behind Chinese Intergenerational Transfers using the Strategic Bequest Motive
By Lucy Yin Two main competing theories regarding intergenerational transfers from adult children to elderly parents exist: the altruism model and the exchange model. The strategic bequest motive supports the exchange model in claiming parents with bequeathable wealth will incentivize children to devote more resources to parents in order to receive a larger bequest. I […]
The Impact of Online Streaming on Primetime Viewership An Econometric Analysis of Technological Change, Network Practices and Audience Behavior
By Yeshwanth Kandimalla This study considers the impact of online streaming on the viewership of popular primetime programs aired on four major U.S broadcast networks: ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC. The time period considered will begin with the 2004-2005 TV season through the 2011-2012 season. Technological change, primarily with faster Internet speeds, spurred some growth […]
Faith in the Future and Social Conflict: Economic Growth as a Mechanism for Political Stabilization
By Alexander Bloedel This paper studies the mechanisms that link sociopolitical conflict and (expectations about) economic prosperity. Motivated by a large body of empirical and historical work on the correlation between economic development and democratization, I develop a game-theoretic model of economic growth with political economy constraints. In an economy where low income agents are […]
Determining the Effect of Personal and Familial Wealth on Congressional and State Legislative Election Outcomes
By Anisha Khemlani This paper seeks to further the debate on money and politics. Specifically, it focuses on the effect of wealth on election outcomes. The goal is to determine the relationship between personal wealth and voter margins of congressional elections and the effect of familial wealth on state legislative elections. A regression analysis of […]
The Rise of Mobile Money in Kenya: The Changing Landscape of M-PESA’s Impact on Financial Inclusion
By Hong Zhu M-PESA, the hugely popular mobile money system in Kenya, has been celebrated for its potential to “bank the unbanked” and increase access to financial services. This paper provides evidence to support this idea and explores mechanisms through which this might be the case. It specifically looks at the savings products held by […]
Marijuana Pricing Structure and State-Level Price Determinants
By Rebecca Li This study uses the PriceofWeed.com data set first examined in Thies (2012) to analyze the price-quantity relationship for marijuana transactions and to determine the effect of various state-level factors on marijuana prices. By applying the cost-based full fixed cost recovery pricing model developed by Britney, Kuzdrall, and Fartuch (1983), this paper finds […]
Incentives and Characteristics that Explain Generic Prescribing Practices
By Rahul Nayak This study uses the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (2006-2010) and Health Tracking Physician Survey (2008) to study the incentives and characteristics that explain physician generic prescribing habits. The findings can be characterized into four main categories: (1) financial/economic, (2) informational, (3) patient- dependent and (4) drug idiosyncratic effects. Physicians in practices […]
The Effects of Prevention and Treatment Interventions in a Microeconomic Model of HIV Transmission
By Allison Stashko A rational choice-based model for sexual transmission of HIV demonstrates the behavioral and epidemiological effects of public health interventions. Susceptible individuals choose to protect or expose, both responding to and determining HIV prevalence. Interventions are modeled as exogenous shocks to the cost of protection, treatment coverage, and treatment quality. A prevention intervention […]
