Increased Foreign Revenue Shares in the United States Film Industry: 2000 – 2014
By Victoria Lim The American film industry, which has historically been driven by the domestic market, now receives an increasing proportion of its revenue from abroad (foreign share). To determine the factors influencing this trend, this paper analyzed data from 11 countries of 2,337 American films released during 2000 – 2014. Both film and country attributes were analyzed to determine each attribute’s effect on foreign share, whether its effect size has changed over time and whether each attribute […]
Predicting Transfer Values in the English Premier League
By Dylan Newman This paper examines factors that affect the transfer value of players transferred into the English Premier League from 2009–2015. The analysis begins by examining what factors are significant in determining a player’s projected transfer fee based on the website Transfermarkt.com as well as the actual fee that the player was sold for. The paper […]
The Effect of Social, Cultural, and Political Values on Entrepreneurial Perceptions and Venture Creation: A Global Investigation
By Repton Salisbury The effect of entrepreneurial activity on economic development has been researched thoroughly. New firm creation spurs economic growth by creating employment opportunities, cultivating innovation, and encouraging competition. Globally, there are countless areas that could benefit from a livelier entrepreneurial ecosystem. So how does a government or population first spur entrepreneurial activity? An […]
Deterring Ineffcient Gambling in Risk-Taking Agents
By Ryan Westphal This paper proposes a model describing the incentive issues faced by principals and agents when the agent has limited liability and is capable of undertaking unidentifiable, inefficient risky behavior. We propose a contract structure by which the principal deters risk by deferring payment to the agent until she reaches an absorbing steady-state […]
How does being a Serial Creator affect Probability of Campaign Success on Kickstarter?
By Minn Khine This paper seeks to address the issue of how being a serial creator impacts campaign success on Kickstarter. My hypothesis is that being a serial creator – someone who has created 2 or more projects on Kickstarter – has a positive effect on probability of campaign success but there are diminishing marginal […]
Resource Adequacy and Energy-Only Market Design: Assessing The Impact of ERCOT’s Operating Reserve Demand Curve1
By Max Lipscomb I examine the effect of an Operating Reserve Demand Curve (ORDC) which was recently implemented in Texas to assist power producers in recovering their fixed investment costs. I characterize and employ an economic plant dispatch model to examine the ORDC’s effects on representative natural gas plants in Texas, allowing me to determine […]
Competition from Incumbent Firms During Mergers: Estimating the Effect of Low-Cost Carriers on Post-Merger Prices
By Jonathan Gao In an evaluation of a merger, the type of existing competitors in the market should play a role in constraining market power following the merger. In the airline industry, heterogeneity between low-cost carriers (LCCs) and legacy carriers suggest that the types of airline competitors could affect the price effects of a merger. […]
Optimizing the Electricity Bill Creating a two-part electricity tariffs to induce a targeted level of rooftop solar adoption while meeting utility operating expenses
By Hoel Weisner Renewable energy technologies are a much needed, clean alternative to the conventional fossil fuel electricity power plants of the last century. The market for installing solar panels on rooftops is a highly promising avenue for expanding the use of these technologies, but its profitability depends significantly on the electricity prices offered by […]
Understanding SME Finance: Determinants of Relationship Lending
By Sean Suk Hyun Choi Much of the existing literature in small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) finance surveys the impact of borrower and lender characteristics on firms’ credit availability, and it has already been established that there is a link between strong firm-bank relationship and higher level of credit availability. In this paper, I focus […]
A Franchise Education: The Impact of High School Quality on the Operations of Quick Service Restaurant Franchises in Texas
By Joseph Yetter While the franchise business model provides customers with a certain level of consistency, there is still considerable variation in service quality across locations. Among other factors, a franchise’s quality of human capital (i.e., its workers) contributes to the quality of its operations, one of the strongest determinants of its revenue. Assuming that […]
