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Category Archives: J

Financial Inclusion and Women’s Economic Empowerment in India

By Nehal Jain

Abstract
On August 14th, 2014 India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi implemented the largest ever
financial inclusion scheme to date known as Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY). The
program aimed to bank all of India’s unbanked population. Prior to the program, India had one of
the highest rates of unbanked citizens. The program also included measures that prioritized women’s
access to these financial institutions given the gender gap in financial inclusivity. This paper aims
both to understand the effectiveness of PMJDY on granting women equal access as men to financial
institutions and whether financial inclusion results in increased economic empowerment, I find that
PMJDY was successful in increasing access to bank accounts and separately, that access to bank
accounts economically empowers women.

Pengpeng Xiao, Faculty Advisor
Michelle Connolly, Faculty Advisor

JEL classification: J1; G28; I31

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The Russian Maternity Capital Policy: Two Models

By Jackson Cooksey

Abstract
Between 1991 and 2007 the Russian Federation experienced a decrease in population
and a drop in total fertility rate below population replacement levels. In 2007 the
government, citing the importance of forestalling this decline, implemented the Russian
Maternity Capital Policy, a one-time subsidy to those families who have a second or
higher order birth. Study aims to analyze the impact of this policy on the total fertility
rate of the Russian Federation to better understand post-Soviet trends in fertility and
gain insight into how effective similar policies will be in the future if implemented
elsewhere. This study uses two models to assess the policy. First, a novel difference-indifference-
in-difference model is developed to add to existing literature on the policy.
Second, a synthetic control model is developed generate a counterfactual to measure
causal effects of the policy on total fertility rate in Russia. Difference-in-difference-indifference
estimations show the policy having a 0% to 3.5% positive effect on fertility,
and the synthetic control model results show that the policy had a large impact on
fertility in the mid-2010s but this change has declined since 2019.

Professor Charles Becker, Faculty Advisor

JEL Classification: J, J1, J11, J12, J13

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Labor Market Effects of the Minimum Wage in South Korea

by Alec Ashforth

This paper analyzes survey data from businesses regarding individual worker earnings, hours, and characteristics from 1971 to 1998 in order to estimate the labor market effects of the minimum wage in South Korea. Since the minimum wage was only implemented in manufacturing, construction, and mining industries, we are able to compare earnings and hours of workers in these industries with workers in other industries using both a difference-in-differences and a synthetic control approach. Additionally, we test to see if the minimum wage had heterogeneous effects based on an individual worker’s gender, level of education, experience, and payment period.

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Advisors: Professor Arnaud Maurel, Professor Kent Kimbrough | JEL Codes: J31, J38, O15

Where You Live and Where You Move: A Cross-City Comparison of the Effects of Gentrification and How these Effects Are Tied to Racial History

By Divya Juneja   

This thesis compares the effects of gentrification on school and air quality in ten cities to see whether cities with larger amounts of white flight post-World War II exhibited worse gentrification effects on renters. I find that renters in high white flight cities more consistently experience school quality downgrades—likely attributed to moving from gentrifying neighborhoods to worse neighborhoods. High white flight meant widespread de-investment across neighborhoods which could have lowered the school quality experienced by displaced renters. Gentrification did not consistently affect air quality in any way related to white flight, meaning confounding variables could have influence.

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Advisors: Professor Christopher Timmins, Professor Alison Hagy | JEL Codes: R2, R3, J11

Hedonic Pricing in the Sneaker Resale Market

By Kevin Ma and Matthew Treiber

This paper explores the secondary resale market for high-end and limited-edition sneakers, specifically analyzing the determinants that affect what value sneakers trade for in the secondary market. While it is common knowledge that the sneaker resale market is a thriving and active secondary market, there is little to no empirical research about what exactly causes such sneakers to sell for exorbitant prices in the resale market. The study utilizes a hedonic pricing approach to investigate the determinants of sneaker resale price. We use a dataset of sneaker resale transactions from the online marketplace StockX between the years of 2016 and 2020 as the basis for our research. After analyzing the results, we have determined that the amount of “hype” that surrounds a sneaker as well as supply scarcity are statistically significant factors when determining the resale price premium a particular sneaker commands in the secondary market. This work adds to the sparse literature on the sneaker resale industry and brings an econometrics-approach to determining the price a given pair of sneakers commands in the resale market.

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Advisors: Professor Kyle Jurado, Professor Michelle Connolly, Professor Grace Kim| JEL Codes: C2, C20, J19

An Unequal Dream: The Mortgage Rate Premium Paid by Black Communities

By Michael Nicholson   

This paper analyzes loan pricing discrimination against predominantly black communities in U.S. mortgage markets. Building on previous literature, this paper posits that ceteris paribus predominantly black communities continue to face economically significant discrimination in mortgage pricing. Ultimately, this paper concludes that predominantly black communities face 10-14 basis points of pricing discrimination in mortgage loans which corresponds to 12.6-17.6% higher rate spreads. This estimation comes after accounting for geographic and lender effects, borrower quality, tract-level characteristics, and loan type. These results confirm past findings of pricing discrimination and illustrate yet another financial barrier for black households in this country.

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Advisors: Professor Emma Rasiel, Professor Kent Kimbrough | JEL Codes: R2, J15, G21

For Love of the Game: A Study of Tournament Theory and Intrinsic Motivation in Dota 2

By YAO Shengjie

This paper studies the effect of intrinsic motivation on the extrinsic incentives specified by tournament structure in tournament theory in the context of e-sports. It incorporates tournament theory and motivation crowding theory in the same framework, something that past literature have hinted towards but never formally done so. It also uses an e-sports dataset, a type of dataset that few academics in the past have dealt with, but one that offers many interesting potentials. Results weakly show that crowding-in occurs in e-sports, but the effects of tournament structure on performance are inconclusive in the context of this paper. Implications of this paper lie mainly in the possibility for future academics to utilise e-sports data for research.

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Advisors: Professor Grace Kim | JEL Codes: J31, J33, J41, M51, M52, Z20

Female Labor Force Participation in Turkic Countries: A Study of Azerbaijan and Turkey

By Natasha Jo Torrens

Encouraging female labor force participation (FLFP) should be a goal of any country attempting to increase their productive capacity. Understanding the determinants and motivations of labor force participation requires isolating the factors that influence a woman’s decision to enter or leave formal employment. In this thesis, I utilize data from the Demographics and Health Surveys to explain the role of social conservatism in promoting or limiting participation in the labor force. I focus on ever-married women in Azerbaijan and Turkey to provide a lens through which to explain the unexpectedly low FLFP of Turkey. Though most prior research attempts to explain Turkey’s low FLFP rate by comparisons to other OECD countries, my study looks at Turkey through the context of other Turkic cultures to explore cultural factors driving labor force participation for ever-married women. This study finds a negative correlation between conservatism and the likelihood of participating in the labor force for ever married women in Azerbaijan, and a larger, positive relationship in Turkey.

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Advisors: Professor Charles Becker, Professor Didem Havlioğlu, Professor Kent Kimrbough | JEL Codes: C50, J16, N95

The Effect of Marriage on the Wages of Americans: Gender and Generational Differences

By William Song and Theresa Tong

A substantial body of literature on the wage effects of marriage finds that married American men earn anywhere from 10% to 40% higher wages than unmarried men on average, while married American women earn up to 7% less than unmarried women, even after controlling for traits such as background, education, and number of children. Because this literature focuses heavily on men born in a single time period, we study both men and women in two different generational cohorts of Americans (Baby Boomers and Millennials) from the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth to examine how the wage effects of marriage differ between genders and across time. Using a fixed effects approach, we find that Millennial women—but not Baby Boomer women—experience an increase in wages after marriage, and we replicate the finding from the literature that men experience an increase in wages after marriage as well. However, after controlling for wage trajectory-based selection into marriage by using a modified fixed effects approach that allows wage trajectories to vary by individual, we find that the wage effects of marriage are no longer statistically significant for any group in our data, suggesting that the wage differences between married and unmarried individuals found in previous studies are primarily a result of selection.

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Advisors: Professor Marjorie McElroy, Professor Michelle Connolly | JEL Codes: C33; D13; J12; J13; J22; J30

Asylum Determination within the European Union (EU): Whether Capacity and Social Constraints Impact the Likelihood of Refugee Status Determination

By Louden Paul Richason

This paper analyzes whether capacity and social constraints impact acceptance rates for asylum seekers in the European Union from 2000-2016. Theoretically people should receive asylum based on the criteria outlined in international law – a well founded fear of persecution – but the influx and distribution of applicants in the European Union suggests that this may not hold in practice. For a group of pre identified “legitimate” asylum cases, this paper finds that surges in applications in a country (i.e. capacity constraints) have a positive and statistically significant correlation with acceptance rates, while the percentage of migrants in a country (i.e.  social constraints) has a negative and statistically significant correlation with acceptance rates. This suggests that the burden of proof becomes easier during a surge in total applications in a country. However, as the international migrant stock in that country increases, it is more difficult for that same group of applicants to receive asylum.

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Advisors: Professor Suzanne Shanahan, Professor Michelle Connolly | JEL Codes: D73, D78, F22, H12, J11, J15, K37, O52

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