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
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
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
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
Analysis of the Impact of Gender and Age of Protagonists in Top-Grossing Films from 2000-2019 on Film Success
By Daniella Welton
Abstract
The gender wage gap is prominent in many fields of work, but it is especially prevalent among actors in the film industry. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, as of 2019 female annual workers were earning about 82.3% of their male counterparts. In a study of feature films released from 1980 to 2015, females were making only 56% of their male counterparts on average; this gap also has been shown to increase as female actors get older (Blau & Kahn, 2017; De Pater et al., 2014; Izquierdo Sanchez & Navarro Paniagua, 2017). In this paper I investigate the relationship between the gender and age of protagonists in the film industry and film success through a series of three regressions with film success defined as film total gross, critic reviews, and audience reviews. My data set is composed of 100 top-grossing films from each year 2000-2019. Through my statistical analysis I did not find any evidence that the gender or age of the protagonist influences film success. Thus my results do not show any evidence that the gender wage gap could be related to differences in film success.
Professor Genna Miller, Faculty Advisor
Professor Kent Kimbrough, Seminar Advisor
JEL Codes: J16, J30, J70, J71
The Effect of Workforce Participation and Household Income Contribution on Women’s Healthcare Empowerment in Rural Bangladesh
By Hannah Wang
Abstract
Women in Bangladesh have gained increased access to paid work in the past decade yet still experience limited choices and access to resources, which threatens their ability to exercise control over healthcare for themselves and their children. Several collective household bargaining theories hypothesize a link between women’s workforce participation and empowerment. This paper uses a cross-sectional approach and survey data collected at the end of a randomized trial field experiment in rural Bangladesh from 2007 to 2017 to examine health empowerment outcomes for 7,151 young women ages 14 to 32. The results show that women who work for income are expected to be more health empowered, specifically due to an increased ability to make their own health decisions. As a woman contributes more income to her household, her health empowerment is expected to increase, through increased abilities to make her own health decisions, purchase medicine for herself, and seek medical treatment independently. Greater mobility and stronger female-positive attitudes towards gender norms are potential mechanisms through which paid work and household income contribution can translate into health empowerment. Furthermore, higher total household income, having children, and being more educated than her husband are expected to increase a woman’s health empowerment. These results are significant while controlling for the effects of various individual and household characteristics.
Professor Erica M. Field, Faculty Advisor
Professor Michelle P. Connolly, Faculty Advisor
JEL Codes: J1; J16; I15
Peer Effects & Differential Attrition: Evidence from Tennessee’s Project STAR
by Sanjay Satish
Abstract
This paper explores the effects of attrition on student development in early education. It aims to provide evidence that student departure in elementary schools has educational impacts on the students they leave behind. Utilizing data from Tennessee’s Project STAR experiment, this paper aims to expand upon the literature of peer effects, as well as attrition, in public elementary schools. It departs from previous papers by utilizing survival analysis to determine which characteristics of students prolonged participation in the experiment. Clustering analysis is subsequently employed to group departed students to better understand the various channels of attrition present in STAR. It finds that students who left Project STAR were more likely to be of lower income and lower ability than their peers. This paper then uses these findings to estimate the peer effects of attrition on students who remained in the experiment and undertakes a discussion of potential sources of bias in this estimation and their effects on the explanatory power of peer effects estimates.
Professor Robert Garlick, Faculty Advisor
Professor Michelle Connolly, Faculty Advisor
JEL Codes: I, I21, I26, H4, J13
The Case for Clemency: Differential Impacts of Pretrial Detention on Case and Crime Outcomes
by George Rateb
Abstract
About half-million of individuals in US jails are detained pretrial while legally presumed innocent. Using data on quasi-randomly assigned bail judges in the third-largest court system in the U.S., we study the impact of pretrial detention on defendants’ court and crime outcomes between 2008 and 2012. We supplement our primary analysis to document patterns on bail amounts and how they differentially impact Black defendants relative to their white and Hispanic counterparts. Instrumental variable estimates suggest that pretrial detention increases the likelihood of being found guilty, mainly driven by the uptake of guilty pleas, especially for minorities. By linking court and jail data, we provide mechanistic evidence that jail time is positively correlated with the uptake of these guilty pleas. To the best of our knowledge, these findings have not been empirically documented due to a lack of previous data availability.
Professor Bocar Ba, Faculty Advisor
Professor Michelle Connolly, Faculty Advisor
JEL Codes: C26; J15; K14
