Home » Year
Category Archives: Year
Splitting Hairs or Splitting Regions: The Differential Democratic Impacts of Splitting ZIP Codes vs. Counties During Redistricting
by Jacob Hervey
Abstract
In light of the Supreme Court’s holding in Gill v. Whitford, judicially-enforceable gerrymandering
metrics must focus on democratic harms to individual citizens, instead
of state-wide measures of proportionality. Previous literature has suggested that gerrymandering
metrics should focus on the extent to which congressional districts split preexisting
geographic boundaries (namely, ZIP codes and counties). This work compares
the differential democratic harms caused by ZIP code versus county splitting during
redistricting across two domains. First, we exploit the changes during the 2010 redistricting
process to construct a difference-in-difference model that captures changes in
voters’ political knowledge as a function of their exposure to geographic splitting. Second,
we predict district-level electoral outcomes from 2002-2018 based upon the extent
of ZIP code and county splitting. Our results indicate that ZIP code and county splitting
cause more significant democratic harms for different outcomes of interest. While
county splitting has more negative consequences for constituents’ political knowledge,
ZIP code splitting is more detrimental with regards to voter turnout.
Dr. Patrick Bayer, Faculty Advisor
Dr. Michelle Connolly, Faculty Advisor
JEL Codes: D72, K16, H11
Investing in Rural Healthcare: Impact of Private Equity Acquisition on Financial and Utilization Outcomes of Rural Hospitals
by Amanda He
Abstract
Private equity investment in the healthcare sector has risen considerably in recent decades, yet
the impact of private equity ownership in rural hospital markets is largely unknown. Existing research
points to a correlation between private equity acquisition and increased hospital incomes and charges.
Rural hospitals, however, are structurally and operationally different from their urban counterparts, with
lower occupancy rates and higher susceptibility to financial distress. This paper seeks to (1) characterize
the types of rural hospitals acquired by private equity firms and (2) examine the changes in rural hospital
financial, utilization, and survivability outcomes following private equity ownership. Using a 15-year
panel of Medicare data, I estimate the impact of 352 private equity deal-hospitals across nine financial
and utilization outcomes. Additionally, I estimate the impact of private equity on hospital closures. I find
that private equity acquisition improves profitability for both urban and rural hospitals, but the
magnitude is smaller for rural hospitals. My results suggest that private equity-owned hospitals increase
profits by reducing operating expenses. Among rural hospitals, private equity ownership is associated
with fewer discharges and lower occupancy rates, which may be a concern for long-term viability. I find
a statistically significant negative correlation between private equity acquisition of rural hospitals and an
increased likelihood of closure. PE-acquired hospitals have a negative spillover effect on other hospitals
within the same hospital referral region, leading to a higher probability of closing.
Professor Ryan McDevitt, Faculty Advisor
Professor Michelle Connolly, Faculty Advisor
Professor Grace Kim, Faculty Advisor
Honors
JEL classification: G23, G33, G34, I10, I11
Religious Identity and Climate-Sustainable Behavior
by Zixin “Finnie” Zhao
Abstract
What motivates individual action on climate change? The study focuses on the
potential influence of religious identities. It employs a laboratory experiment to
investigate how priming religious identity affects individuals’ donation behaviors
to climate versus non-climate charities in a dictator game setting. In contrast
with expectations, this study finds no significant evidence that an increase in religious
identity salience influences religious individuals’ donation to climate, nor
does it affect overall charitable donation behaviors, when demographic factors
and perceptions about charity are controlled. Although failing to establish a
causal relationship between religious identity and climate-sustainable behavior or
a linkage between religious identity and pro-social behavior, this research marks
an innovative attempt to use experimental economics methodology to study factors
that shape individual responses to the global climate challenge.
JEL classification: C91; D64; Q54; Z12
The Impact of 2021 Advance Child Tax Credit Payments on Low-Income Households’ Labor Supply
by Zixin “Ellen” Zhang
Abstract
Studies have established that the Advance 2021 Child Tax Credit (CTC) payments substantially reduced poverty and food insecurity, but some claim that the CTC payments may create negative labor supply effects that could offset its hardship-reduction benefits. Researchers have used a variety of methods to measure how the monthly CTC payments affect the labor supply of households, but the results vary from significant decreases to no significant change to even increases in household labor supply. Using a method novel to this literature, I estimate the labor supply impacts of Advance 2021 CTC by analyzing labor supply changes in response to real amounts of CTC received, which varies by household depending on regional cost-of-livings. Through fixed effects linear regressions across many different combinations of household type and income level, I find that, on average, receiving Advance CTC caused a statistically significant decrease in household labor supply. However, for different household subgroups, I find both statistically significant and insignificant labor supply impacts as well as both increases, decreases, and no change in households’ labor supply due to monthly CTC payments. This suggests that the impacts of 2021 Advance CTC on household labor depend heavily on a household’s situation, specifically income level and household composition. These household-specific patterns align with prior research on the Advance 2021 CTC and how welfare payments are used by families.
JEL Codes: C31, H24, I38, J22
Last Second Comebacks: Examining Influencers of Bankruptcy Success
by Eric Junzhe Zhang
Abstract
The American bankruptcy system allows for companies to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy to
protect their assets from creditors and reorganize their business operations to continue operating after going through bankruptcy court. While the process is meant to help improve the financial health and business operations of companies after they exit the bankruptcy process, supposedly remedied firms will often find themselves filing again for bankruptcy despite the drastic changes they underwent to avoid such a fate. As such, it is difficult to determine what exactly makes a bankruptcy successful, as oftentimes a company with one metric that deems the bankruptcy successful may have another conflicting metric that deems it unsuccessful. This thesis seeks to contribute to prior knowledge on bankruptcy analysis by examining what in-court factors and company metrics drive bankruptcy success, with the change in debt-to-asset ratio and refiling likelihood post emergence being used as measures of bankruptcy success. Probit regression is used to analyze the change in the debt-to-asset ratio from bankruptcy filing to emergence while multivariable regression analysis is used to analyze the likelihood of refiling post-bankruptcy emergence. Explanatory variables which will be examined across these two variables will be the time spent in bankruptcy court, whether there was forum shopping to Delaware or New York, size of assets / EBIT of the firm, hedge fund presence, CEO turnover, whether a case was prepackaged, unionization rate, prime rate at filing and emergence, whether there was a 363 asset sale, whether a firm remained public following emergence, and debtor in possession financing. Results suggest that likelihood of refiling is a better measure of bankruptcy success than relative change in debt-to-asset ratio, which faces issues with the significance of its variables and their explanatory power.
JEL classification: G33, K22, G34
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.
Prof. William Darity, Faculty Advisor
Prof. Michelle Connolly, Faculty Advisor
JEL Classification Numbers: D14, D31, J15
School Choice and Neighborhood Change in Post-Katrina New Orleans
by Rosalind Fei Yang
Abstract
As school choice policies weaken the traditional link between neighborhoods and
schools, traditional housing patterns previously governed by school zoning are changing. This
paper examines the connection between school choice reform, specifically an increase in charter
schools, and changes in neighborhood composition, focusing on New Orleans over time. I use
data from the American Community Survey, the National Center of Education Statistics, and the
Louisiana Department of Education. The goal is to understand how school choice policies
influence residential dynamics, with a specific focus on their role in gentrification patterns.
JEL Classification: H75, I21, I28
The Effect of Gun Prevalence on the Occurrence of School Shootings
by Abigail Ullendorff
Abstract
This paper studies how gun prevalence, represented by federal firearm background
checks, affects the occurrence of school shootings. While precedent literature has estimated
adverse effects of school shootings on exposed children, including reductions in mental health,
academic achievement, and labor market earnings, few studies have attempted to identify factors
that influence school shooting frequency in the first place. The analysis sample is an annual state
panel of shootings during 2000-2021, constructed from the proprietary K-12 School Shooting
Database as well as from data on background checks, demographic characteristics, economic
conditions, and measures of violence and mental health status. Estimates from
difference-in-differences regressions that include state and year-by-census region fixed effects
and state-specific linear trends indicate a positive relationship between gun prevalence and
school shootings, particularly when the dependent variable is specified as a binary indicator of
multiple school shootings having occurred. Results are robust to using the annual shooting count
or its quartic root, an indicator that a shooting occurred, Poisson regressions of school shooting
count models, and quadratic state trends as additional controls. Several types of shootings,
including targeted, elementary school, high school, and deadly shootings, increase in frequency
and/or likelihood when gun prevalence rises.
JEL classification: I18, I29, K42
A Comparison of the HHI and the Procurement-Based Framework in Merger Review
by Kenneth Gong
Abstract
The Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI), a measure of market concentration, plays
a critical role in the U.S. Merger Guidelines. It is used as a threshold metric that marks
certain mergers as potentially harmful to consumers. However, the microfoundations for
the HHI are grounded in the Cournot oligopoly model, which may not be an appropriate
foundation for certain markets, particularly those in which buyers purchase through
competitive procurements. Recent developments in Incomplete Information Industrial
Organization (IIIO) allow merger analysis to be tailored to such procurement-based
markets. While IIIO methods allow one to calculate the probability of an increase in
price (PIP) as a result of a horizontal merger, until now no work has been done to
compare the HHI approach to merger review with the IIIO approach. In this paper,
we find that the IIIO approach is largely consistent with the 2023 Merger Guidelines
in that we agree that both the post-merger HHI and the change in HHI should be used
in merger review, however our results place greater emphasis on the change in HHI in
terms of predictive power of the PIP.
Professor Leslie Marx, Faculty Advisor
