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Title: Three Essays in the Economics of Education
Creator: Kho, Kevin
Date: 2018
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Chapter 1: School Cellphone Bans and Student Substance Abuse: Evidence From California Public High SchoolsFollowing high profile school shootings and the September 11th terrorist attacks, public concern over school emergency preparedness prompted the California State Legislature in 2003 to overturn a statewide ban against student possession of cellphones on campuses. After the repeal of the prohibition, which had been established in 1988 to curb drug dealing, school districts were allowed...
Show moreChapter 1: School Cellphone Bans and Student Substance Abuse: Evidence From California Public High SchoolsFollowing high profile school shootings and the September 11th terrorist attacks, public concern over school emergency preparedness prompted the California State Legislature in 2003 to overturn a statewide ban against student possession of cellphones on campuses. After the repeal of the prohibition, which had been established in 1988 to curb drug dealing, school districts were allowed individually to either continue banning phones or modify their device policies; most opted over time to accommodate usage during certain hours of the day. Using fixed effects regression analysis clustered at the district level, I exploit variation in the timing of district policies to estimate the impact on substance abuse from lifting school cellphone bans. Results provide evidence that allowing students to use cellphones at school increases opportunities to obtain and abuse controlled substances; this effect is particularly pronounced in the incidence of marijuana smoking among 9th graders, who exhibit a 1.3 percentage point higher chance of reporting past-month marijuana use in the year a ban is lifted.Factors involved may include the capability that the technology provides to negotiate high risk interactions in private and to seek out and contact a relatively small number of drug suppliers; as is thus to be expected, no impact is found on the consumption of cigarettes, which can be obtained legally by a large proportion of high schoolers.Chapter 2: Impact of Internet Access on Student Learning in Peruvian Schools (with Leah Lakdawala and Eduardo Nakasone)We investigate the impacts of school-based internet access on pupil achievement in Peru, using a large panel of 5,903 public primary schools that gained internet connections during 2007-2014. We employ an event study approach and a trend break analysis that exploit variation in the timing of internet roll-out up to 5 years after installation. We find that internet access has a moderate, positive short-run impact on school-average standardized math scores, but importantly that this effect grows over time. We provide evidence that schools require time to adapt to internet access by hiring teachers with computer training and that this process is not immediate. These dynamics highlight the need for complementary investments to fully exploit new technological inputs and underscores the importance of using an extended evaluation window to allow the effects of school-based internet on learning to materialize.Chapter 3: Discretionary School Discipline Policies and Demographic DisparitiesIn 2014, California passed the law AB 420, becoming the first state to limit the use of school suspensions and expulsions as punishment for "willful defiance" - a subjectively determined offense thought by state lawmakers to lead to racial disparities in discipline. In this paper, I overview the state's recent (from 2012-2017) progress in reducing exclusionary discipline and note effects on disproportionality, here characterized as the difference between a given group's proportion of discipline and its proportion of enrollment. Using identification by treatment intensity, based on schools' pre AB 420 proportion of discipline attributable to willful defiance, I also attempt to gauge the effectiveness of reducing punishment of defiance in mitigating disproportionality. School level administrative data from elementary schools (spanning kindergarten through 5th grade) indicate that exclusionary discipline has considerably declined throughout the period. On the other hand, it does not appear that AB 420, along with lower willful defiance related discipline, has reduced disproportionality.
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Title: Essays on heterogeneity in econometric models
Creator: Shang, Shengwu
Date: 2013
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: The dissertation consists of three parts and the theme is to deal with heterogeneity ineconometrics models for positive response variables. The first part studies the models withmultiplicative heterogeneity for cross sectional data; the multiplicative heterogeneity canbe transformed from the log linear model with additive heterogeneity. We introduce thenotion of Average Partial Effect (APE) and Conditional APE (CAPE); the estimators andtheir asymptotic distribution are proposed. In order to...
Show moreThe dissertation consists of three parts and the theme is to deal with heterogeneity ineconometrics models for positive response variables. The first part studies the models withmultiplicative heterogeneity for cross sectional data; the multiplicative heterogeneity canbe transformed from the log linear model with additive heterogeneity. We introduce thenotion of Average Partial Effect (APE) and Conditional APE (CAPE); the estimators andtheir asymptotic distribution are proposed. In order to catch the positivity of the unknownconditional expectation function of the unobserved heterogeneity, we borrow the idea ofpower series approximation of unknown function in Newey (1993, 1994) and develop an\exponential sieves" estimator for CAPE suggested in Wooldridge (1992a).The second part of the dissertation pertains to extending results for CAPE in chapter 1for panel data sets. First, Using the models in Wooldridge (1999), We compare three mainestimation methods for positive response variable{ FE method for log linear model (LFE),Poisson Quasi-Maximum Likelihood (PQML) and Generalized Method of Moment (GMM){ by Monte Carlo Simulation and real life data set. It is not surprising that LFE estimatoris not consistent when PQML is; however, we do find circumstance where both LFE andPQML estimators are consistent plus LFE is more efficient. With this regard, we introduceGMM to improve the efficiency of PQML estimator as well as keeping the consistency; thisway also finds a solution to the problem raised in Wooldridge (1999). From the simulationresults, we find that GMM can reduce the standard error of PQML estimator by almosta half. Second, an \exponential sieves" estimator for CAPE is proposed under panel datasetting; the result automatically extends the results in Ai and Norton (2008) from crosssectional setting to panel data models. Third, We also apply the GMM to a US domesticairlines data set and the result shows that GMM improves the efficiency by 10% comparedwith PQML.The third part investigates the effect of spatial correlation for fractional response variable.By a MEAP data of Michigan in 2009/2010 school year, we investigate again the effect ofschool financing reform on school performance which is studied by Papke (2005, 2008), Pakeand Wooldridge (2008); we use both level math test pass rate (linear case)and its log oddsratio (nonlinear) as dependent variable to run OLS and GLS regression; Conley (1999)'sspatial dependence corrected standard errors are calculated and nd that the statistical significance for some regressors hinges on the choice of cut o points ; however there do existother factors whose statistical significance is robust to the choice. This way we shed somelight on how to pick the right window size. Moreover, by transforming LOR back to levelrate, we find the spending effect estimated from linear model is about 4 6% higher thanfrom nonlinear one.
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Title: Essays on the impact of social media in the automobile industry
Creator: Wang, Yen-Yao
Date: 2017
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: The U.S. automobile industry is increasing reliance on social media marketing and is ranked the highest one in traditional and digital advertising spending. Despite a significant body of research in social media, the effectiveness of social media in this competitive marketplace has not received the detailed examination. My dissertation seeks to fill in this gap by conducting two studies to examine the impact of social media on customers' engagement behaviors as well as firms' sale performance...
Show moreThe U.S. automobile industry is increasing reliance on social media marketing and is ranked the highest one in traditional and digital advertising spending. Despite a significant body of research in social media, the effectiveness of social media in this competitive marketplace has not received the detailed examination. My dissertation seeks to fill in this gap by conducting two studies to examine the impact of social media on customers' engagement behaviors as well as firms' sale performance. My first essay examines the dynamic interactions between firm-generated content (FGC), user-generated content (UGC), and offline sales (light vehicles) in the setting of the firm's Facebook fan page in the U.S. automobile industry. The findings suggest that (1) FGC is more effective in influencing offline car sales than UGC, (2) offline car sales would trigger more FGC and UGC activities, and (3) there is a positive feedback effect between FGC and UGC. These findings vary across different forms of format presentation and content of post, suggesting that firms need to fully customize their social media strategy to reach their goals more efficiently. Furthermore, customers in different groups (luxury versus non-luxury) demonstrate dramatically different patterns. My second essay explores the dynamics of online word-of-mouth (WOM) and its spillover effects by considering the relative effects at the stages of customer awareness and consideration. The findings indicate that (1) online WOM at the stage of consideration has the stronger effect on offline car sales than online WOM at the stage of awareness, (2) spillover effects exist across both stages of awareness and consideration, though effects are heterogeneous in direction: positive spillover effects at the stage of awareness while negative spillover effects at the stage of consideration, and (3) at the stage of awareness, online WOM initiated by firms is more effective in influencing offline car sales than online WOM initiated by users. Furthermore, not every mechanism at Facebook (i.e., post, like, comment, and share) has the equal impact on offline car sales and these different mechanisms also influence how customers appreciate online WOM at the stage of consideration. Finally, the results vary significantly across origin of brand, market structure, and price factor.In summary, my dissertation offers valuable insights for firms on how to better develop their social media strategy to engage with their customers and boost offline car sales in this economically important industry. Furthermore, these two studies would also advance the literature by understanding further the dynamics of social media on offline sales of the durable or high-involvement products. Finally, the unique and rich data also allows me to test the underlying mechanism at work that will shed light on our theoretical understanding of the impact of social media from different perspectives.
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Title: Three essays on the economics of child health
Creator: Vangjel, Lenisa
Date: 2010
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: The first chapter of this dissertation examines the effect of insurance mandates on infant immunization rates. Immunizations are one of the greatest public health achievements of the 20th century. While US infant immunization rates have been increasing in the last 20 years, the cost of fully immunizing a child with all recommended vaccines has almost tripled. This is partly due to new additions in the list of recommended vaccines, but also due to the use of new, safer, but more expensive...
Show moreThe first chapter of this dissertation examines the effect of insurance mandates on infant immunization rates. Immunizations are one of the greatest public health achievements of the 20th century. While US infant immunization rates have been increasing in the last 20 years, the cost of fully immunizing a child with all recommended vaccines has almost tripled. This is partly due to new additions in the list of recommended vaccines, but also due to the use of new, safer, but more expensive technologies in vaccine production and distribution. In recent years, many states have mandated that recommended childhood vaccines be covered by private health insurance companies. Currently, there are 33 states with such a mandate. In this paper, I examine whether the introduction of mandates on private insurers affected immunization rates. Using state and time variation, I find that mandates increased the immunization rate for three vaccines - the diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis, polio and measles vaccines - by about 1.8 percentage points. I also find evidence that the mandates shifted some vaccinations from public to private sources.The second chapter of this dissertation studies the issue of whether concerns about autism affected vaccine takeup. In the wake of strong claims that there existed a link between autism and the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine, which was refuted by later research, I examine whether fewer parents immunized their children. This task becomes difficult as the timing of the controversy in the US coincided with expansions in medical access for children and other programs that affect childhood immunizations, as well as another controversy regarding mercury containing preservatives in childhood vaccines. Using a time trends analysis and a few differencing strategies that compare the take up of MMR to other vaccines, I find that the MMR-autism controversy led to a decline of about 2 percentage points in the take up of MMR and a negative spillover on other vaccines. I find some evidence that more educated mothers responded more to the controversy, which is consistent with more educated individuals absorbing health information more quickly. However, this disparity persisted even after new research and information about the lack of such link became widespread in the media.The third chapter of this dissertation analyzes the effectiveness of a peer counseling breastfeeding support program for low income women in Michigan who participate in the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program. Because there was excess demand for services provided by the program, many women who requested to participate were not subsequently contacted by the peer counselors. We compare the breastfeeding outcomes between the two groups and identify the effectiveness of the program based on the differences between the women who requested to participate and were enrolled relative to those who requested participation, but were not contacted due to lack of capacity. Our analysis uses survey data from the program as well as administrative data from Vital Records, Medicaid, and WIC from the state of Michigan. After providing evidence that our key assumption in identifying the effect if program is consistent with the data, we estimate that the program caused the breastfeeding initiation to increase by about 27 percentage points and the mean duration of breastfeeding to increase by more than 3 weeks. The support program we evaluated was very effective at increasing breastfeeding among low income women who participate in WIC, a population that nationally breastfeeds at rates well below the national average and below what is recommended by public health professionals.
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Title: Three essays in applied economic theory
Creator: Lau, Chilei Oscar
Date: 2012
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Chapter 1 suggests "soft debt" as a social convention that facilitates long-term reciprocal relationships. In each round of a two-player repeated game, one player develops a need for help from his counterpart, who may or may not be able to help. Unlike the existing favor trading models, the benefit and cost involved in each round, as well as the roles of potential receiver and provider of help, are randomly drawn. In addition, instead of automatically accepting help whenever it is offered by...
Show moreChapter 1 suggests "soft debt" as a social convention that facilitates long-term reciprocal relationships. In each round of a two-player repeated game, one player develops a need for help from his counterpart, who may or may not be able to help. Unlike the existing favor trading models, the benefit and cost involved in each round, as well as the roles of potential receiver and provider of help, are randomly drawn. In addition, instead of automatically accepting help whenever it is offered by the provider, the receiver can decline the offer. If help is rendered, a soft debt is tacitly accrued by the receiver to the provider and added to the soft debt balance between them. A player is said to follow a soft debt strategy if his decisions about offering and soliciting help depend on the entire history only through the soft debt balance. His counterpart's expected future value of the relationship therefore also depends on the balance. This consideration creates intertemporal incentives that promote reciprocity. Soft transactions occur when help is traded between players following soft debt strategies. Under discrete benefits, there exist stationary Markov equilibria in which the players trade as long as the debt balance does not exceed a certain limit. The first best allocation is never achieved, but all trades that do occur in the equilibria are efficient. The model provides a unifying framework for decision making when both hard and soft transactions are available (e.g. hiring a mover versus asking a friend to help move to a new home). Chapter 2 emphasizes that when the benefits and costs are random, the favors do not necessarily result in positive surpluses. The players then need to consider not only whether the counterparts are trustworthy, but also whether the favor is efficient and whether the expected value of future trades justify the current cost even if the counterpart is willing to cooperate. This chapter proposes a modified grim trigger strategy, called the "limited efficiency strategy," in which a player will help if and only if (i) the favor is efficient (ii) the cost incurred is below a certain threshold (iii) no one has ever defected. Multiple equilibria with trades exist.Chapter 3 presents an axiomatic approach to extend the Expected Utility Theorem to multi-periods. The standard time-separable form is recovered when the functions describing the risk and substitution attitudes are identical. Further, I argue that the standard analysis of risk aversion neglects the agent's option to trade his lottery outcome. With trading, an agent is not indifferent to the timing of resolution of lotteries on consumptions. It is straightforward to characterize risk attitudes and to compare risk aversiveness between agents (even with different ex post preferences). The approach can accommodate multiple goods in each period. Time consistency is discussed.
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Title: Harold Janetzke and Eileen Janetzke discuss their career at REO Motor Car Company and Diamond REO Trucks, Inc
Creator: Janetzke, Harold
Date: 1992-02-26
Collection: G. Robert Vincent Voice Library Collection
Description: Harold Janetzke recalls his career as a timekeeper and engineer at REO Motor Car Company/Diamond-Reo Trucks, Inc. in Lansing, MI, from 1936 to 1975. He describes the 1937 strike that brought the UAW into REO, his move to engineering and attending Michigan State College. He says that the Great Depression devastated the Lansing community, but that World War II brought work back to the plant as REO converted from car to truck production. Janetzke's wife Eileen describes her job as a secretary at...
Show moreHarold Janetzke recalls his career as a timekeeper and engineer at REO Motor Car Company/Diamond-Reo Trucks, Inc. in Lansing, MI, from 1936 to 1975. He describes the 1937 strike that brought the UAW into REO, his move to engineering and attending Michigan State College. He says that the Great Depression devastated the Lansing community, but that World War II brought work back to the plant as REO converted from car to truck production. Janetzke's wife Eileen describes her job as a secretary at REO, meeting and marrying Harold, and working until late into her first pregnancy in 1943. They describe the heart break of the plant's closing in 1975, the loss of the pension and Harold going back to work for a few more years at Motor Wheel. The interviewers are Shirley Bradley and Lisa Fine. Recorded as part of the REO Memories oral history project.
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Title: Interview of Robert Repas, professor emeritus of the Michigan State University School of Labor and Industrial Relations
Creator: Repas, Bob, 1921-
Date: 1986-10-22
Collection: G. Robert Vincent Voice Library Collection
Description: In an wide-ranging interview, Robert Repas, professor emeritus of the Michigan State University School of Labor and Industrial Relations, remembers his family in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and how he became interested in labor issues and socialist causes. Repas recalls his first union jobs, studying economics in college and earning a degree from the University of Wisconsin. Repas says that he only later become interested in workers' education and goes on to recount his work in a variety of union...
Show moreIn an wide-ranging interview, Robert Repas, professor emeritus of the Michigan State University School of Labor and Industrial Relations, remembers his family in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and how he became interested in labor issues and socialist causes. Repas recalls his first union jobs, studying economics in college and earning a degree from the University of Wisconsin. Repas says that he only later become interested in workers' education and goes on to recount his work in a variety of union related positions before coming to MSU in 1957. Repas is interviewed by John Revitte, MSU professor of Labor and Industrial Relations.
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Title: U.S. President Barack Obama speaks to the press after meeting with BP executives on compensation for the oil spill
Creator: Obama, Barack
Date: 2010-06-16
Collection: G. Robert Vincent Voice Library Collection
Description: President Barack Obama speaks to the press immediately following a meeting with British Petroleum executives. Obama announces that the company has agreed to set up a $20 billion escrow account administered by an independent party to pay claims for damages from the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Obama also talks about the economic impact of the spill and promises to do everything possible to help those effected.

Title: The problem of the multiple interpretation of Ricardo
Creator: Aksoy, Ercüment G. (Ercüment Galip)
Date: 1988
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: The enactment of lend-lease
Creator: McBane, Richard Laughlin
Date: 1958
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: The unemployment impact of the Vietnam War
Creator: King, Christopher Terrell, 1947-
Date: 1976
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: George talks about being haunted by the term Voodoo Economics, says the budget will be balanced by 1984, likes the job of Vice President
Creator: Bush, George, 1924-2018
Date: 1981-09-18
Collection: G. Robert Vincent Voice Library Collection
Description: Vice-President George H.W. Bush talks about being haunted by the term Voodoo Economics, says the budget will be balanced by 1984, and says he likes the job of Vice-President. On "Good Morning America" with David Hartman.

Title: President Taft discusses labor and capital in a campaign speech
Creator: Taft, William H. (William Howard), 1857-1930
Date: 1912
Collection: G. Robert Vincent Voice Library Collection
Description: President Taft discusses labor and capital.

Title: Homelessness and the World Cup
Creator: Ladd, Joshua Andrew
Date: 2015
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Homelessness and the World Cup is a thesis about how the planning of the 2014 World Cup soccer tournament affected the lives of the homeless in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It is an ethnographic study that looks into the presence, use, and destruction of informal settlements near the Maracanã stadium. Maracanã was the sight of some of the matches in the 2014 World Cup soccer tournament. The study relied on observational data regarding before and after uses of informal settlements as well as the...
Show moreHomelessness and the World Cup is a thesis about how the planning of the 2014 World Cup soccer tournament affected the lives of the homeless in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It is an ethnographic study that looks into the presence, use, and destruction of informal settlements near the Maracanã stadium. Maracanã was the sight of some of the matches in the 2014 World Cup soccer tournament. The study relied on observational data regarding before and after uses of informal settlements as well as the phenomenological approach to ethnography. That approach to ethnography aims to understand the subject’s experience of their day-to-day lives. The thesis argues that the policies of mega event planning often directly contradict the needs of homeless individuals exercising their rights to inhabit public places.
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Title: Dean Acheson gives an address from Washington, D.C., speaking on various topics
Creator: Acheson, Dean, 1893-1971
Date: 1946-12-08
Collection: G. Robert Vincent Voice Library Collection
Description: Acting Secretary of State Dean Acheson discusses conditions in European and other countries at end of World War II; U.S. aid to foreign countries; explanation of U.N.R.R.A. and eligibility of countries for relief.