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Property Rights and Growth: a Matter of Extremes

by Joshua Kazdin Abstract This text explores the impact of property rights on economic growth by analyzing pooled cross-section ratings of property rights in 120 countries across a 35 year period. Empirical results are couched within a theoretical model that incorporates institutions into a general production function, adding property rights as an idiosyncratic shock. A […]

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The Debt Laffer Curve: Estimates for 1990-2005

by Elena Bachvarova Abstract This paper shows the Debt Laffer curve for all low- and middle-income countries for the period 1990-2005. Due to data limitations, only 127 of the 149 such countries are represented. Eastern Europe and Asia, with the exception of Myanmar and Lao PDR, do not suffer from debt overhang. Latin American countries […]

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On the Failure of the Median Voter Theorem in the Presence of Multiple Contests of Varying Types

by Edward Philpot Abstract The median voter theorem, rst formalized by Duncan Black in 1948, is the result of a classic model used to describe the positioning of candidates in majority-rule elections, eponymously stating that candidates will converge to the median. The goal of this paper is to describe how the median voter theorem fails […]

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An Empirical Analysis of Fundamental Indexation

by David Garver Abstract The Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) and the case for efficient market equity pricing has been dealt a series of blows over the last twenty years. The recent emergence (Arnott, Hsu & Moore, 2005) of a set of strategies that purport to beat the capitalization weighted market portfolio suggested by the […]

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The Effect of Maternal Employment on Adolescent Development

by Daniel Pu Abstract The sharp rise in maternal employment in the recent decade may have unintended consequences for child development. Previous research has shown the negative impacts of maternal employment during early childhood on child cognitive development. However, no studies have investigated the long term effects of maternal employment. This study fills this void […]

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Clean Growth: Emissions taxes and endogenous technological change

by Daniel Cook Abstract This paper studies the long-run effects of imposing a tax on the emissions from energy usage. We impose an endogenous tax on polluting emissions from energy use in a model where energy firms can do R&D in order to clean up their energy product. The model is an extension of that […]

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Risky Business: The Effect of Family Income on Teen Risky Sexual Behavior

by Caitlin McLaughlin Abstract Risky sexual behavior can have profound consequences for a teen’s physical wellbeing, mental health, and future economic success. We explore this topic by examining the relationship between total household income and risky sexual behaviors including the use of birth control, number of sexual partners, age at first intercourse, and the contraction […]

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The Rationale Behind P2P Network Users

by Brian Choi Abstract An online distribution of copyrighted materials through P2P network is one of major legal issues today. While several P2P users have been fined severely for a violation of a copyright law, an illegal file sharing within the P2P network still continues to thrive, and the effectiveness of the punishment against P2P […]

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Output and the Composition of Government Spending in India

by Ashni Parekh Abstract This paper uses a Cobb-Douglas production function to analyze the role of government spending in the Indian economy and tries to determine how different categories of spending affect growth outcomes. Government spending is hypothesized to influence output and growth through two channels, by affecting the level of TFP and the level […]

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The Informational Content of Implied Volatility in Individual Stocks and the Market

by Andrey Fradkin Abstract We examine the informational content of historical and implied measures of variance through an evaluation of forecasts over horizons ranging from 1 to 22 days. These forecasts use heterogeneous autoregressive (HAR) regressions which are constructed with high-frequency data. Our results show that the t and forecasting ability of models based on […]

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Questions?

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

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