Elder Financial Fraud: The Economic and Ethical Case for Instituting Mandatory Reporting Laws in Financial Institutions
by Lauren Tse
Abstract
This study examines the effectiveness of the 2016 NASAA Model Act, specifically if states that implemented its provisions see greater levels of elder fraud reporting. This legal reform introduces reporting requirements for broker-dealers and investment advisers to report suspected elder fraud to government authorities, granting explicit immunity to those who comply. To analyze both the immediate and longer-term effects of the Model Act’s staggered passage across states, I use a dynamic Difference-in-Difference model to analyze institutionally reported elder fraud cases from the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. Regression findings suggest that the Model Act has a positive enabling effect, increasing the number of elder fraud reports filed by financial professionals. Further, I quantify the monetary losses associated with these fraud cases using self-reported data from the Federal Trade Commission’s Consumer Sentinel Network. In line with this ‘placebo’ dataset, I find that the passage of the Model Act — targeted at financial professionals — has inconclusive impacts on the number of self-reported elder fraud and no effect on the financial losses incurred.
Professor Kate Bundorf, Faculty Advisor
Professor Michelle Connolly, Faculty Advisor
JEL Codes: G28; K42; J14
Keywords: Elder Financial Fraud; NASAA Model Act; Mandatory Reporting Requirements
In the Shadow of War: Assessing Conflict-Driven Disruptions in the Kyrgyzstan-Russia Labor Pipeline via a Gradient Boosting Approach to Nowcasting
by Michelle K. Schultze
Abstract
Kyrgyzstan, where remittances made up 30% of GDP before the Russo-Ukraine war, is central to understanding Russia–Central Asia labor migration. Wartime trends, however, are obscured by informality and limited Russian data. This study introduces a novel “nowcasting” method using XGBoost and Yandex Wordstat, a Russian search query database largely overlooked in English-language research. Results show a push effect linked to war intensity, alongside a labor substitution effect: Kyrgyz migrants increasingly fill roles vacated by Russian conscripts. This shift primarily affects blue-collar and informal travelers, with remittance flows responding after a two-month lag.
Professor Charles M. Becker, Faculty Advisor
JEL Codes: F24; J6; R23
Keywords: Immigrant Workers; Remittances; Regional Labor Markets
View Thesis
View Datasets: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Email for access to Inflow, outflow, and Netflow sets.
Reel Representation: The Economic Impact of Gender on Bollywood Box Office Revenue
by Sidharth Ravi
Abstract
The Hindi Film Industry, known as Bollywood, is seen as a gatekeeper of Indian culture.
Annually thousands of films are produced, half a million workers across India are
employed and millions in revenue is created. Although Bollywood has ensured increased
employment and wage opportunities for women on and off screen, the overall
representation of women remains severely low. Little is known about their impact on
Bollywood’s film revenue. This study uses a novel dataset to estimate the impact of
female representation on Bollywood revenue from 2009-2019. We apply a traditional
linear regression and use a ratio of female to male characters in a film’s cast as a proxy
for female representation. Results indicate there is not a significant relationship between
an increased female cast composition on box office performance. To check for the diverse
impact of star power, I analyzed the gender makeup of the movie star in a film, finding
this to have a significant impact on box office revenue. In addition, there is a significant
effect of production budgets and genre on box office performance.
Professor Genna Miller, Faculty Advisor
Professor Grace Kim, Seminar Advisor
JEL Codes: L820, F63, J16, Z11
Keywords: Film Economics, Bollywood, Gender, Female Representation
The Impact of Family Policies on Fertility in OECD Countries
by Timothy Lloyd O’Brien
Abstract
This study investigates the impact of family policies in addressing declining fertility rates across OECD countries between 1990 and 2019. Over the past six decades, fertility rates in these nations have dropped substantially, with most falling below replacement level. This study evaluates the influence of three core policy instruments: cash benefits, parental leave entitlements, and early childcare provisions. Using a fixed-effects panel model, this research accounts for country-specific characteristics and includes controls for various economic and social conditions. Leveraging recent data from persistently low fertility periods, the analysis incorporates previously underutilized variables such as contraception accessibility and disaggregates results by both regional and demographic contexts. The findings reveal significant heterogeneity in policy effectiveness. Cash transfers and early childcare expenditures exhibit consistent positive associations with fertility, particularly in Europe and the Americas. Paid maternal leave shows a positive effect primarily in low-fertility countries and European settings, while its impact is less robust elsewhere. Conversely, economic conditions, especially unemployment, emerge as strong and consistently negative predictors of fertility across all regions and fertility levels. These results underscore the importance of early, context-sensitive, and multidimensional policy interventions in shaping fertility outcomes.
Peter Arcidiacono, Faculty Advisor
Michelle Connolly, Faculty Advisor
JEL Codes: J13, J16, J17
Keywords: Fertility; Family Policy: Parenthood
The Impact of 2021 Advance Child Tax Credit Payments on Low-Income Households’ Labor Supply
by Zixin “Ellen” Zhang
Abstract
Studies have established that the Advance 2021 Child Tax Credit (CTC) payments substantially reduced poverty and food insecurity, but some claim that the CTC payments may create negative labor supply effects that could offset its hardship-reduction benefits. Researchers have used a variety of methods to measure how the monthly CTC payments affect the labor supply of households, but the results vary from significant decreases to no significant change to even increases in household labor supply. Using a method novel to this literature, I estimate the labor supply impacts of Advance 2021 CTC by analyzing labor supply changes in response to real amounts of CTC received, which varies by household depending on regional cost-of-livings. Through fixed effects linear regressions across many different combinations of household type and income level, I find that, on average, receiving Advance CTC caused a statistically significant decrease in household labor supply. However, for different household subgroups, I find both statistically significant and insignificant labor supply impacts as well as both increases, decreases, and no change in households’ labor supply due to monthly CTC payments. This suggests that the impacts of 2021 Advance CTC on household labor depend heavily on a household’s situation, specifically income level and household composition. These household-specific patterns align with prior research on the Advance 2021 CTC and how welfare payments are used by families.
Professor Thomas Nechyba, Faculty Advisor
JEL Codes: C31, H24, I38, J22
Intergenerational Economic Transfers and Wealth Inequality in the United States
by Parinay Gupta
Abstract
Using longitudinal data from Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) from 2007-2021, this paper investigates the role of economic transfers (inheritances and gifts) in asset accumulation processes of US households, in both short-term and long-term. Analysis is done through dimensions of race, wealth quartile, and age. Examining quartiles reveals significant wealth disparities, mirrored in income and education levels. Racially, White households consistently hold higher wealth, income, and educational levels compared to Black households, indicating systematic racial disparities. Multivariate analysis uncovers relationships between socio-economic factors and wealth. Past wealth positively influences future accumulation, except for the lowest quartile. Labor income negatively impacts wealth, particularly in lowest quartile, potentially indicating poverty traps and dissaving, while asset income positively affects quartiles except the lowest, in both short-term and long-term. Total expenditure initially reduces wealth but reverses in quartiles except the lowest in both time frames. Race is significantly associated with wealth, with young Black households consistently disadvantaged, though this reverses for the wealthiest quartile and in longerterm. Age correlates positively with wealth. Transfers’ (inheritances and gifts) impact varies across quartiles, showing diminishing returns and switching signs as wealth quartile increases, indicating differential returns for upper quartiles. Noteworthy is the positive association between transfers received 8-10 years ago and current wealth, irrespective of age and wealth quartile, highlighting their significant long-term role in wealth accumulation.
Professor William Darity, Faculty Advisor
Professor Michelle Connolly, Faculty Advisor
JEL Codes: D14, D31, J15
Arts Organizations and Community Socioeconomic Development
by Madeleine Reinhard
Abstract
This paper studies the effects of arts organizations on local socioeconomic development at the U.S. ZIP code tabulation area (ZCTA) level. While prior studies have qualitatively examined the impact of the arts industry or artistic individuals on their communities, few have approached this question econometrically, and even fewer have investigated the effects of arts organizations specifically. My analysis examines data from Southern Methodist University’s Cultural Data Profile, which contains financial and programmatic information through an online survey on nonprofit arts, culture, and humanities organizations, combined with American Community Survey 5-year estimates for a variety of ZCTA-level demographic and economic measures. First difference regressions estimate how the founding of arts organizations over recent five- and 10-year periods impacts gentrification, economic health, racial demographics, median home value, and resident displacement over the corresponding period. During 2012-2022, new arts organizations are estimated to affect all of these categories, most strongly in urban areas. This conclusion largely holds for both of the encompassed five-year periods as well. Specifically, when more arts organizations are founded, community gentrification levels, economic development, and home values all increase, but these socioeconomic improvements are accompanied by reduced racial diversity.
Professor Jeffrey DeSimone, Faculty Advisor
Professor Grace Kim, Faculty Advisor
Professor Michelle Connolly, Faculty Advisor
JEL Codes: J11, Z11
Technological Impacts on Return to Education in Brazil
by Yirui Zhao
Abstract
The wage return to education has been studied for a long time. Acemoglu and Autor (2010) connect the decrease of medium-level job opportunities in the U.S. with technological advances. Their theoretical model predicts that if technology replaces routine jobs, workers with medium-level skills will experience decreases in wages relative to both high-skill workers (who become more productive with the improved technology) and low-skill workers (who can less easily be replaced since their work is not routine). Moreover, their theoretical model predicts that if medium-skill workers are closer substitutes for low-skill workers than they are for high-skill workers, the relative return of high-skill workers to low-skill workers should increase. Using education as proxy of skill (Acemoglu & Autor, 2012), this paper checks if these three predictions about relative wage returns to education also hold in Brazil. This paper finds that the impact of technological change on the Brazilian formal labor market between 1986 and 2010 is consistent with predicted changes in the return to education for medium-skill workers relative to both low and high skill workers. The impact is consistent with predicted changes in the return to education for high-skill workers relative to low-skill workers when Lula’s presidency is considered in the model.
Michelle Connolly, Faculty Advisor
Rafael Dix-Carneiro, Faculty Advisor
Daniel Xu, Faculty Advisor
JEL Codes: J24; J31; O33
Price Determinants and Depreciation of Used Cars Post-COVID-19
by Ayaan Sundeep Patel
Abstract
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the price of used cars has fluctuated greatly due to
numerous factors. Inflation and supply chain issues have been at the forefront of the news and
have affected not only cars but most consumer goods. While the majority of society has
seemingly progressed past COVID-19, its effects still linger in the used car market, as prices rose
4.6% from January 2023 to February 2023. Therefore, in an effort to study this phenomenon, I
scraped data from autotrader.co.uk on February 23, 2023. This study aims to understand the
effect of various factors, including mileage, age, and engine size, on various classes of used cars.
The five classes being studied are compact cars, luxury sports sedans, luxury mid-size sedans,
luxury full-size sedans, and luxury SUVs. A log-linear model is used to model the price
determinants of the used cars. A linear model is incorporated to model the depreciation rate of
the cars in the dataset. Lastly, this model is used to predict the three-year depreciation rate for
each car model, which is then compared to the pre-COVID-19 three-year depreciation rate to see
the inflated prices in the UK used car market.
Professor Michelle Connolly, Faculty Advisor
Professor Andrea Lanteri, Faculty Advisor
JEL Codes: D12, J11, L62
An Analysis of the Labor Market Returns to Community College and Vocational Training
by Eli Levine
Abstract
Education and training are fundamentally linked with labor market performance. There is a significant body of work analyzing the role of education in wages with an emphasis on a comparison between a college degree and a high school diploma. However, as states have begun to shift their education policies to make community college and trade school more accessible, it is important to understand the expected labor market returns to these forms of education. In this paper, using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth’s cohort that began in 1997, the returns for different levels of education using the Mincer equation are found. While there was a data limitation surrounding trade school, it was possible to analyze the impact of adding a vocational license or a training certificate to a high school diploma. When controlling for experience in three different ways, specifically by age, time at highest training and labor market experience, it was found that returns to a training certificate relative to high school are between 18.7% and 36.3% higher than a high school diploma. Furthermore for community college, the wage returns are between 26.4% and 45.8% higher relative to a high school diploma. These findings highlight that additional training and certification can be an effective tool for increasing labor market returns for high school graduates even without a bachelor’s degree.
Professor V. Joseph Hotz, Faculty Advisor
JEL Codes: I2, I26, J31
