Home » Uncategorized (Page 3)

Category Archives: Uncategorized

Testing the Relationship between Oil Equities and Oil Futures with High-Frequency Data: A Look at Returns, Jumps, and Volatility

By Brian Jansen This paper looks at simultaneous returns, jumps, and volatilities of oil futures, oil equities, and other equities in the S&P 100 using high-frequency data. Through this method, a market factor is found to affect the overall level of returns across the equities and the likelihood that two given equities to jump simultaneously. […]

Continue Reading →

Is Public Expenditure on Primary Education Effective? Evidence from Districts Across India

By Tara Iyer Against the background of international commitment to the Millennium Development Goal (MDGs) for the universalization of primary education, this paper investigates the effectiveness of public spending on primary education outcomes in 115 districts across three states in India – Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. Controlling for factors including per capita income, […]

Continue Reading →

The Miscommunications and Misunderstandings of Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen

By Samuel Iglesias If there is any takeaway from 1971’s The Entropy Law and the Economic Process, it’s this: beneath every intersection of the supply and demand curve, there’s a slow, but steady, process of environmental degradation. Try as you will to recycle waste materials, the book argues—this process cannot be reversed. A formulation of […]

Continue Reading →

Cell Phones and Cattle: The Impact of Mobile Telephony on Agricultural Productivity in Developing Nations

By Daniel Houghton This paper examines the impact of mobile telephony on productivity in developing nations. Previous studies have suggested that mobile phones have real impacts on economic outcomes in these countries. Using micro-data from Swaziland, Cambodia, and Honduras, this study looks to identify the effects of mobile phone ownership on household productive outcomes in […]

Continue Reading →

The Significance of Higher Education on the Racial Gap in Marriage Rates

By Kristin Hamb In this paper, I examine the effect higher education has on the age of marriage and how this differs between black and white women. Becker’s theory of positive assortative mating in marriage markets lead me to predict higher levels of education would decrease the probability of being married by 30 and 40 […]

Continue Reading →

Oil, Population Growth, and the Resource Curse

By Tim Gu I find indications that an increase in a country’s oil endowment results in an increase in its population growth rate, an increase in its fertility and birth rates, and a decrease in its mortality rate. To explain these results, I conjecture that an increase in oil endowment results in reduced female labor […]

Continue Reading →

Soft-Targets and Incentive Compensation in Non-Prot Organizations

By Helin Gai Monetary targets are highly prevalent in fundraising campaigns. Although some theoretical research has been conducted to explain why fundraising organizations set such targets when charities are raised to fulfill certain capital requirements, there has been no literature that can suitably answer why a target is still announced when such capital requirements are […]

Continue Reading →

The Effect of Exchange Rates on the Performance of Professional Sports Franchises in International Competition

By Nick Elliott Exchange rates are a very important factor for businesses that operate internationally, especially when franchises are in international competition for the same talent pool. As an international league, this paper seeks to analyze how teams’ performance in the NHL is affected vis-à-vis a fluctuating value of currency. This analysis is extended to […]

Continue Reading →

Reconciling the Environmental Kuznets Curve with the Free Rider Problem

By Scott Bradford Covert The current paper studies the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis, which claims a parabolic relation exists between per capita GDP and environmental degradation. This would suggest a developing nation could expect to increase pollution significantly during the beginnings of industrialization and then, as the country began switching to a service-oriented economy, […]

Continue Reading →

Gas Prices and Automobile Advertising Expenditures in U.S. Markets

By Chenyu Janet Chang I examine how automobile manufacturers change their advertising strategies when gasoline prices rise. In particular, I use a robust OLS regression to estimate how gasoline prices affect advertising expenditures on vehicles with different levels of MPG. I use detailed data from the ACCRA Cost of Living Index, Adspender, and Polk’s NVPP. […]

Continue Reading →

Questions?

Undergraduate Program Assistant
Matthew Eggleston
dus_asst@econ.duke.edu

Director of the Honors Program
Michelle P. Connolly
michelle.connolly@duke.edu