Dissertations / Theses: 'Microeconomics'

1

Monteiro, de Azevedo Eduardo. "Essays in Microeconomics." Thesis, Harvard University, 2012. http://dissertations.umi.com/gsas.harvard:10181.

Full text

Abstract:

This dissertation consists of three essays on microeconomics. The first essay considers matching markets, markets where buyers and sellers and concerned about who they interact with. It proposes a model to analyze these markets akin to the standard supply and demand framework. The second essay considers mechanism design, the problem of designing rules to make collective decisions in the presence of private information. It proposes the concept of strategyproofness in the large, which is that an agent without too fine information has negligible gains from misreporting her type in a large market. It argues that, for all practical purposes, this concept correctly separates mechanisms where behavior akin to price-taking is observed, and those where participants rampantly manipulate their stated preferences. A Theorem is proven that gives a precise sense in which strategyproofness in the large is not a very restrictive property. The third essay considers the evolutionary origins of the endowment effect bias, where the willingness to pay for a good is smaller than the willingness to accept. It gives evidence that this bias is not present in a modern hunter-gatherer population, questioning standard evolutionary accounts. It shows that cultural shocks in a subpopulation did give rise to the bias.
Economics

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

2

Webb, Tracy J. "Essays in microeconomics." Thesis, University of Essex, 1999. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.310042.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

3

Bárczi, Nathan. "Essays in microeconomics." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/39715.

Full text

Abstract:

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Economics, 2007.
Includes bibliographical references.
This dissertation consists of three essays in microeconomic theory. The first two concern methods of modeling bounded rationality and unawareness, while the third applies a model of jointly determined reputation to incentive problems in the market for expert advice. Increases in awareness information can be associated with dramatic increases in certainty or uncertainty. The first chapter of this dissertation seeks to unify both phenomena under a single framework of epistemic negligence, or errors in an agent's epistemic relation to tautological beliefs. It is shown that impossible possible worlds (excess uncertainty) result from a failure to believe all tautologies, while possible impossible worlds (excess certainty) result from belief in 'tautologies' which may in fact be false. A propositional model is employed throughout the paper, and several of its properties are compared to the standard state-space model, which implicitly assumes that epistemic negligence does not exist. Chapter 2 continues to work with a propositional model of knowledge, focusing more closely on agents who fail to take into account all relevant dimensions of uncertainty.
(cont.) We show that in such a setting, if agents' learning makes them better off over time, then (1) they may suffer from delusion, but only in a proscribed way that is consistent over time, and (2) contrary to standard conceptions of learning, it is possible for them to rule in 'states of the world' that they had previously ruled out, because by doing so they increasingly avoid overconfident mistakes. As a separate concern, and in light of recent corporate scandals, chapter 3 develops a theoretical model designed to address the question of whether reputational concerns can discipline providers of expert advice to exert costly but accuracy-enhancing effort. The primary finding of the paper is that the effort exerted by an expert can be highly sensitive to whether its reputation is determined by its effort alone or whether the firm it is evaluating also has a costly action available to it, by which it too can influence the expert's reputation for accuracy. We characterize equilibria in these two settings, and they are found to differ in several interesting ways, which shed some light on the concerns of federal authorities that credit rating agencies applied insufficient effort to their evaluation of firms such as Enron.
by Nathan A. Barcuzi.
Ph.D.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

4

Sanktjohanser, Anna. "Essays in microeconomics." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2017. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:06519e58-2807-477b-9f77-ec9714215c4e.

Full text

Abstract:

This thesis consists of two theoretical chapters, focusing on dynamic games, and one empirical chapter. In Chapter 1, I consider a repeated game in which, due to imperfect monitoring, no collusion can be sustained. I add a self-interested monitor who commits to generating an imperfect private signal of firms' actions and sends a public message. The monitor makes an offer specifying the precision of the signal generated and the amount to be paid in return. I show that with low monitoring cost, collusive equilibria exist. In the monitor's favorite collusive equilibrium, firms' payoffs are decreasing in the discount factor. My model helps explain the cartel agreements between the mafia and firms in legal industries in Italy and America. In Chapter 2, I consider a bargaining game with two types of players - rational and stubborn. Rational players choose demands at each point in time. Stubborn players are restricted to choose a bargaining strategy from a proper subset of strategies available to rational players. In the simplest case, stubborn players are restricted to choose from the set of "insistent" strategies that always make the same demand and never accept anything less. However, their initial choice of demand is unrestricted. I characterize the equilibria in this game, showing how the flexibility of the stubborn type changes equilibrium predictions. Chapter 3 estimates the effect of longer prison sentences on criminal asset recovery, using administrative, cross-sectional data on confiscation orders in the UK. Confiscation orders request convicted offenders to pay the value of their criminal assets, and specify a prison sentence to be served in the case of non-payment. Using a fuzzy RDD, I exploit discontinuous changes in the legal maximum of this prison sentence. There is evidence that longer prison sentences incentivize offenders to pay.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

5

Pardo, Reinoso Oliver. "Essays on microeconomics." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2015. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/3108/.

Full text

Abstract:

This thesis consists of three chapters. Using economic theory, they analyze the effect of certain changes in the environment on some variables of economic interest. The first chapter studies the effect of securitization on asset pricing when agents have heterogeneous beliefs about future dividends, prices and interest rates. The securities are constrained to belong to tranches of different payment priority, mimicking collateralized debt obligations (CDO). Securitization weakly increases the gap between the price of an underlying asset and any perceived present value of its dividends. The necessary and sufficient conditions for this increase to be strict are identified. In cases where there is a type of agent more sophisticated than all others, securitization can decrease the rate of return some agents receive without increasing the rate of return of none. The second chapter checks the robustness of a surprising result in Dekel et al. (2007). The result states that strict Nash equilibria might cease to be evolutionary stable when agents are able to observe the opponent’s preferences with a very low probability. The chapter shows that the result is driven by the assumption that there is no risk for the observed preferences to be mistaken. In particular, when a player may observe a signal correlated with the opponent’s preferences, but the signal is noisy enough, it is shown that all strict Nash equilibria are evolutionary stable. The third chapter studies one dimension of the social cost of bad public infrastructure in developing countries. It uses an extensive period of power rationing in Colombia throughout 1992 as a natural experiment and exploit exogenous spatial variation in the intensity of power rationing as an instrumental variable. It is estimated that power rationing increased the probability that a mother had a baby nine months later by five percent. Women who were exposed to the shock and had an additional child tend to be in worse socio-economic conditions more than a decade later.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

6

Davies, Tim. "Essays in Microeconomics." Diss., The University of Arizona, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/195608.

Full text

Abstract:

This dissertation consists of three essays in applied microeconomics. Each essay explores a different issue of economic interest.The essay in Chapter 2 describes an experiment designed to investigate if using assets with an intrinsic value that increases over time leads to persistent undervaluation in laboratory asset trading markets. This question has not previously been investigated by researchers. Results from ten sessions are reported. Three used assets with an intrinsic value that decreased over time. The results from these sessions are consistent with the findings by prior researchers who frequently observed price bubbles in laboratory asset trading experiments. The remaining seven sessions used assets with an intrinsic value that increased over time. In all these sessions trading generally occurred at prices below the asset's intrinsic value.In Chapter 3, in an essay co-authored with Adrian Stoian, we study road running races. Tournaments, where ordinal position determines rewards, are an important component of our economy. By studying sporting tournaments, we hope to shed light on the nature of other economically significant tournaments where data may be less readily available. We separately quantify the sorting and incentive effects of tournament prizes by employing a novel two-part model which we apply to a unique data set of road running race results. We present a counterfactual example of how a hypothetical change in prizes would be predicted to change race participation and speed.In Chapter 4, in an essay co-authored with Jedidiah Brewer and Joseph Cullen, we examine the combined effects of the locations and the brands of retail gasoline outlets in Tucson, Arizona on market prices. We apply an innovative approach to model the impact of competing gas stations that avoids limiting analysis to predetermined nearby locations. We show that increased brand diversity is associated with higher prices and that gas stations affiliated with mass-merchandisers and grocery stores reduce market prices by a larger amount and over a greater distance than other types of gas stations. We demonstrate that our conclusions are not sensitive to the choice of distance metric.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

7

Pollrich, Martin. "Essays in Microeconomics." Doctoral thesis, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät, 2015. http://dx.doi.org/10.18452/17204.

Full text

Abstract:

Die Dissertation untersucht die Auswirkung fehlenden Commitments eines zentralen ökonomischen Akteurs in verschiedenen institutionellen Umfeldern. Aufsatz 1 bietet eine neuartige Erklärung für grobe Zertifizierung: Diese verringert die Anreize für Kollusion zwischen Zertifizieren und Zertifizierten. Kollusion wird verstanden als die Möglichkeit, gegen Bestechung, ein vorteilhaftes Zertifikat an einen Verkäufer zu vergeben. Konfrontiert mit einem Bestechungsangebot wägt der Zertifizier ab ob der kurzfristige Ertrag - in Form eines Bestechungsgeldes - die langfristigen Kosten – in Form des einhergehenden Reputationsverlustes – aufwiegt. Dabei erweist sich eine gröbere Zertifizierung als besonders nützlich um den kurzfristigen Ertrag zu reduzieren. Im zweiten Aufsatz werden optimale Vertragsmechanismen untersucht, wenn sich der Prinzipal nicht auf eine Auditstrategie verpflichten kann. Solche optimalen Mechanismen nutzen unparteiische Mediatoren aus. Die Verwendung eines Mediators ist profitabel, da somit Korrelation zwischen dem Report des Agenten und der Handlungsempfehlung an den Prinzipal erzeugt werden kann. Optimale Mechanismen verwenden zudem strikt mehr Verträge als Typen des Agenten, was unter vollständigem Commitment nie optimal sein kann. Der dritte Aufsatz beschäftigt sich mit Verträgen welche die Abwanderung von Unternehmen verhindern können. Der Regulierer kann sich dabei nur auf kurzfristige Verträge verpflichten und die Firmen können standortspezifische Investitionen tätigen. Wenn im Gleichgewicht Abwanderung permanent verhindert wird, dann werden keine Subventionen in der Zukunft gezahlt. Dies bedeutet, dass die Firma in Zukunft gar keinen Anreiz mehr haben darf abzuwandern. Um dies zu erreichen muss also der heutige Vertrag enorme Investitionsanreize setzen. Im Extremfall ist dann teurer Abwanderung zu verhindern wenn die Firma investieren kann, als im hypothetischen Fall ohne Investitionsmöglichkeit.
This dissertation studies the impact of a lack of commitment of a central economic actor in a given institutional environment. Essay 1 offers a novel explanation for the occurrence of coarse disclosure in certification: coarseness reduces the threat of collusion between certifiers and sellers. Collusion is understood as the possibility of selling a favorable certificate to a seller. Upon accepting a bribing offer, the certifier trades-off short-run gains – in form of the bribe – against long-run losses, from loosing reputation. Coarse disclosure is shown effective in reducing the short-run gain. The second essay studies optimal mechanisms in a contracting problem where the principal cannot commit to an auditing strategy. In this framework optimal mechanisms make use of an impartial mediator. Employing a mediator is strictly beneficial because it allows for correlating the agent’s report with the recommendation to the mediator. In general, optimal mechanisms use strictly more contracts than types, which would be not profitable under full commitment. The third essay studies contracts that avert relocation of a firm. The regulator can offer contracts only on a short-term basis, and the firm can undertake a location-specific investment. If in equilibrium relocation is permanently averted, then there are no future transfer payments. But this implies the firm cannot have an incentive to relocate in the future. Tom guarantee the latter, the initial contract has to provide string investment incentives. In the extreme, averting relocation with the firm’s possibility of investing becomes more costly than in the hypothetical case without an opportunity to invest.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

8

Rakic, Ruzica. "Essays in Microeconomics." Doctoral thesis, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.18452/18080.

Full text

Abstract:

Diese Dissertation besteht aus drei unabhängigen Kapiteln über mikroökonomische Themen. Die ersten beiden Kapitel befassen sich mit Themen der Industriökonomie und Wettbewerbstheorie, wohingegen das dritte Kapitel Fragestellungen von Cheap Talk Spielen untersucht. Kapitel 1 untersucht die Folgen, die sich aus einer partiellen Akquisition zwischen Wettbewerbern ergeben. Kapitel 2 analysiert die Auswirkungen einer Forschungs-und Entwicklungs (FuE)- Kooperation auf die Investitionsanreize in einem Markt, in dem eine Mehrproduktunternehmer mit einem Einzelproduktuntfirma konkurriert. Kapitel 3 untersucht die Funktion der Mediation zur Erleichterung der Kommunikation mit privaten Informationen.
This dissertation consists of three independent chapters in the field of microeconomics. The first two chapters are concerned with topics of industrial organization and competition policy, whereas the third chapter addresses some problems in cheap talk games. Chapter 1 studies anti-competitive issues that arise from partial acquisition between competitors. Chapter 2 analyzes the effects of cooperation on R&D investment incentives in a market where a multi-product firm competes with a single-product firm. The third chapter examines the role of mediation in facilitating communication with private information.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

9

Olckers, Matthew. "Essays in microeconomics." Thesis, Paris 1, 2019. http://www.theses.fr/2019PA01E036.

Full text

Abstract:

Dans ce mémoire, j’étudie trois sujets de microéconomie : le ciblage, les jeux de hasard et l’épargne-retraite. Le premier chapitre, basé sur un travail conjoint avec Francis Bloch, examine une approche du ciblage basée sur le classement par les amis. Un planificateur social a pour objectif d’extraire un classement des individus en demandant à chaque individu de classer ses amis. Nous étudions comment la structure du réseau social de la communauté détermine la capacité du planificateur à extraire un classement véridique et efficace. Notre analyse souligne l’importance des amis communs. Le deuxième chapitre, basé sur un travail conjoint avec Joshua Blumenstock, étudie les paris sportifs en ligne, qui ont gagné en popularité au Kenya et dans d’autres pays d’Afrique orientale. Nous utilisons un vaste ensemble de données sur les transactions de paris sportifs pour prouver que les joueurs peuvent devenir trop confiants dans leur capacité à prédire le résultat des matchs. Nous soutenons que l’excès de confiance persiste parce que les joueurs surestiment la fréquence à laquelle leurs amis gagnent et parce que les joueurs surpondèrent les succès passés par rapport aux échecs passés. Dans le troisième et dernier chapitre, j’utilise une expérience de terrain pour étudier l’impact de la fourniture d’une calculatrice de retraite sur l’épargne-retraite à des employés d’une grande entreprise sud-africaine. La calculatrice fournit des projections de revenu de retraite et aide à contrer les perceptions erronées de la croissance exponentielle. Même si la plupart des employés épargnent toujours au taux minimum et que l’intervention a été organisé pour coïncider avec les augmentations de salaire, le calculateur n’a pas entraîné d’importantes augmentations de l’épargne
In this dissertation, I study three topics in microeconomics — targeting, gambling and retirement saving. The first chapter, based on joint work with Francis Bloch, studies the friend-based ranking approach to targeting. A social planner aims to extract a ranking of individuals by asking each individual to rank his or her friends. We study how the structure of the community’s social network determines the planner’s ability to extract a truthful and efficient ranking. Our analysis highlights the importance of common friends. The second chapter, based on joint work with Joshua Blumenstock, studies online sports betting, which has gained widespread popularity in Kenya and other East African countries. We use a large dataset of sports betting transactions to provide evidence that gamblers can become overconfident in their ability to predict the outcome of matches. We argue the overconfidence persists because gamblers overestimate how frequently their friends win and because gamblers overweight past success relative to past failure. In the third and final chapter, I use a field experiment to study the impact of providing employees at a large South African company with a retirement calculator on retirement saving. The calculator provides projections of retirement income and helps to counter misperceptions of exponential growth. Even though most employees save at the minimum rate and the intervention was timed to coincide with salary increases, the calculator did not lead to large increases in saving

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

10

VERSTRAETEN, Lorenzo. "Essays in microeconomics." Doctoral thesis, European University Institute, 2019. http://hdl.handle.net/1814/62486.

Full text

Abstract:

Defence date: 6 May 2019
Examining Board: Andrea Mattozzi, European University Institute (Supervisor); David Levine, European University Institute; Alfredo Di Tillio, Università Bocconi; Dino Gerardi, Collegio Carlo Alberto, Università degli Studi di Torino
This dissertation consists of three self-contained essays in microeconomics. The first chapter studies a principal-agent model where a biased agent can costly collect information useful for the principal. I study what is the optimal contract the principal should commit to, when she cannot do contingent transfers to the agent. When the agent's value of information is higher than its cost, the optimal mechanism is a threshold delegation rule. The principal allows the agent to choose among all the available actions up to some threshold. This threshold is increasing in the parameter measuring the cost of information. Otherwise, the principal will commit to extreme biased behavior to induce information acquisition. The utility of the principal is non-monotonic in the cost of information. While inducing information acquisition becomes more difficult with higher cost, certain deviations in the acquisition stage become more expensive and thus less profitable for the agent. The second chapter is coauthored with Julie Pinole. Knowing that Individuals interact with their peers, we study how a social planner can intervene, changing these interactions, in order to achieve a particular objective. When the objective is welfare maximization, we describe the interventions for games of strategic complements and strategic substitutes. We show that, for strategic complements, the planner uses resources to target central players; while she divides individuals into separated communities in the case of strategic substitutes. We study which connections she targets in order to achieve these goals. The third chapter is coauthored with Julie Pinole and analyzes a model of contagion on social network. We ask how a social planner should intervene to prevent contagion. We characterize the optimal intervention and the cost associated. We discuss the intuition behind the choice of the planner and we provide comparative static on the cost of intervention for different type of network.
Chapter 1: Optimal Contracts with No Transfers and Costly Information Acquisition 1 Introduction 1 2 Literature Review 3 The Model 4 The Problem of the Principal 5 Welfare Analysis 6 Conclusions Chapter 2: Optimal intervention for network games 1 Introduction 2 Literature Review 3 The Model 4 Closest network structure to implement a chosen vector of actions 5 Closest network structure that maximizes welfare 6 Comparison with GGG 7 Network structure analysis 8 Other Interventions 9 Appendix Chapter 3: Stopping contagion: optimal network intervention 4 Optimal immunization 5 Applications 6 Conclusion

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

11

YAKA, IRMAK. "Essays in Microeconomics." Doctoral thesis, Luiss Guido Carli, 2019. http://hdl.handle.net/11385/200704.

Full text

Abstract:

In Chapter 1 [The Effect of Foreign Ownership on Competition: Evidence from the Turkish Banking Industry], the competitive conditions for the Turkish banking industry is examined by using the Panzar-Rosse (1987) model and considering the foreign investments to the banking industry. Within the liberalization of the financial markets, foreign direct investment activities have grown very quickly especially in the banking sector. Acquisition by foreigners has been linked to introduction of new technology and expansions in products and service range. This suggests that the inflow of foreign capital can alter the competitive structure of an industry. I plan to investigate the quantitative importance of this phenomenon using the data from the Turkish banking industry. To measure the competition upon increase in foreign ownership, I will use the Panzar and Rosse (1987) model that allows to test for market structure relying solely on information from the financial statements of the banks. The results indicate a monopolistic competition for the Turkish banking industry. In Chapter 2 [The Role of Credit Supply in Increasing Demand: Evidence from Turkish Automobile Market], the effects of credit supply in increasing demand of a durable good (car market) by vector auto-regression (VAR) is examined. After the devaluation of the Turkish Lira against Euro and US Dollar, automobile prices in Turkey rose substantially. Despite this context, car sales also increased. In this paper, I explore the role of credit supply of the Turkish banks. Throughout this period, consumer credit increased due to the modernization of the Turkish banking sector. The results indicate that car credits first boost car sales and then affects the latter negatively.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

12

Farsi, Mehdi. "Applied microeconomics and econometrics." Zurich : ETH, Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich, Centre for Energy Policy and Economics (CEPE), 2008. http://e-collection.ethbib.ethz.ch/show?type=habil&nr=31.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

13

Amodio, Francesco. "Essays in applied microeconomics." Doctoral thesis, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10803/296800.

Full text

Abstract:

This thesis provides an empirical investigation of externalities and social interaction mechanisms in various settings. In the first chapter, I show how input heterogeneity triggers productivity spillovers at the workplace. I find that the exogenous assignment of inputs of heterogeneous quality allows workers to free ride on each other, yielding negative productivity spillovers. In the second chapter, I investigate the impact of violent conflict on firm behavior. I show how conflictinduced distortions in the accessibility of foreign markets force Palestinian firms to substitute imported materials with domestically produced materials, diminishing their output value. In the third chapter, I explore the relationship between ethnic diversity and conflict in contemporary South Africa. Results show that ethnic diversity within the black majority was highly correlated with conflict incidence during the democratic transition. In the fourth chapter, I study spillovers among potential victims from investment in crime protection technologies. I find that burglary protection investment of neighbors significantly increases the likelihood of a given household of investing in the same technology.
Esta tesis es un estudio empírico de externalidades y mecanismos de interacción social en varios contextos. En el primer capítulo muestro como heterogeneidad en la calidad de los insumos genera efectos derrame en el puesto de trabajo. Encuentro que la asignacíón exógena de los insumos genera un problema de free riding, con efectos de derrames negativos sobre productividad. En el segundo capítulo, investigo el impacto de un conflicto violento sobre la actividad de las empresas. Los resultados muestran como el conflicto genera distorsiones en el acceso a los mercados extranjeros, forzando las empresas palestinas a substituir materiales importados con materiales locales, con una consecuente disminución del valor de su producción. En el tercer capítulo, exploro la relación entre diversidad étnica y conflicto en el el Sudáfrica contemporáneo. Los resultados muestran como, durante del proceso de democratización, la diversidad étnica entre la mayoría negra estaba fuertemente correlacionada con la incidencia de conflicto a nivel local. En el cuarto capítulo, estudio efectos derrame de las inversiones en tecnologías de protección ante el crimen sobre las víctimas potenciales. Los resultados muestran que las inversiones en tecnologías de protección contra el robo en vivienda por parte de los vecinos aumentan de manera significativa la propensión a invertir en la misma tecnología.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

14

Lombardi, María. "Essays in applied microeconomics." Doctoral thesis, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/10803/420870.

Full text

Abstract:

This thesis is composed of three independent articles. The first chapter studies a nationwide teacher pay-for-performance program in Peru, and shows that it had a precisely estimated null impact on student learning. I provide suggestive evidence that some of the program’s characteristics might have hindered teachers’ ability to improve the incentivized outcome or infer their probability of winning the bonus, explaining this zero effect. In the second chapter, I examine the impact of compulsory voting laws in Austria, and show that while these laws led to significant increases in turnout, they had no impact on government spending patterns or electoral outcomes. Individual-level data suggests these results occur because individuals swayed to vote due to compulsory voting are more likely to be non-partisan and uninformed, and have less interest in politics. In the final chapter, I study how income inequality affects growth in Brazil, and find that places with higher initial inequality exhibit higher subsequent growth. I show that this effect is entirely driven by inequality originating in the left tail of the income distribution, and provide evidence on channels consistent with credit constraints and setup costs for human and physical capital investments, as well as an increasing and concave individual propensity to save.
Esta tesis se compone de tres artículos independientes. El primer capítulo estudia un programa nacional de remuneración basado en el desempeño en el Perú, y muestra que tuvo un efecto nulo y precisamente estimado sobre el aprendizaje estudiantil. Proporciono evidencia sugiriendo que algunas de las características del programa podrían haber limitado la capacidad de los docentes de mejorar en términos del indicador incentivado o inferir su probabilidad de ganar el bono, explicando así este efecto nulo. En el segundo capítulo, examino el impacto de las leyes de voto obligatorio en Austria, y muestro que aunque estas incrementaron considerablemente la participación electoral, no tuvieron impacto alguno sobre el gasto público o el resultado de las elecciones. Un análisis de información a nivel individual sugiere que estos resultados se dan porque los individuos que votan a raíz de su obligatoriedad son menos propensos a tener una afiliación partidaria, y están menos informados e interesados en la política. En el último capítulo estudio cómo la desigualdad de ingresos afecta al crecimiento económico en Brasil, y encuentro que aquellos lugares con mayor desigualdad inicial crecen más. Muestro que este efecto est´a impulsado íntegramente por la desigualdad originada en la parte inferior de la distribución de ingresos, y presento evidencia sobre mecanismos consistente con la existencia de restricciones crediticias e indivisibilidad de la inversión en capital físico y humano, así como una propensión individual al ahorro creciente y cóncava.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

15

Lerche, Adrian. "Essays in applied microeconomics." Doctoral thesis, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 2019. http://hdl.handle.net/10803/667722.

Full text

Abstract:

This thesis consists of three self-contained chapters that empirically evaluate the influence of capital costs and occupational regulation on labor demand. In the first chapter, I study the effects of investment tax credits on firms’ input choices in Germany. I find evidence that such a policy has a strong positive direct effect on firm investment and employment, and that positive spillovers between firms lead to sizable further adjustments. In the second chapter, I estimate the firm-level capital-labor elasticity of substitution. I set up a model of firm production with size-dependent capital costs and estimate the model for a German tax policy targeted towards manufacturing firms. The estimated elasticity implies important complementarities between capital and labor in firm production. In the third chapter, I analyze how the formal recognition of immigrants’ foreign occupational qualifications affects their subsequent labor market outcomes using novel German data. The results show that access to regulated occupations after recognition is an important driver for faster assimilation of immigrants’ earnings.
Aquesta tesi consta de tres capítols independents que avaluen empíricament la influència dels costos de capital i la regulació ocupacional sobre la demanda laboral. En el primer capítol, estudio els efectes dels crèdits fiscals sobre inversions a la determinació d’input de les empreses a Alemanya. Trobo proves que aquesta política té un fort efecte directe positiu en la inversió i en l’ocupació de les empreses, i que els efectes indirectes entre empreses porten a ajustaments ad-dicionals positius. En el segon capítol, calculo l’elasticitat de substitució entre el capital i el treball a nivell de l’empresa. Estableixo un model de producció d’empreses amb costos de capital discontinu i estimo el model per una política fiscal alemanya dirigida a empreses manufactureres. L’elasticitat estimada implica importants complementarietats entre el capital i el treball en la producció de les em-preses. En el tercer capítol, analitzo com el reconeixement formal de les qualificacions ocupacionals estrangeres dels immigrants afecta els seus resultats del mercat laboral posteriors utilitzant noves dades alemanyes. Els resultats mostren que l’accés a ocupacions regulades després del reconeixement és un factor important per a una assimilació més ràpida dels ingressos dels immigrants.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

16

Zejcirovic, Dijana. "Essays in applied microeconomics." Doctoral thesis, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/10803/663097.

Full text

Abstract:

This thesis is composed of three articles. The first two chapters study the impact of pharmaceutical promotion of opioid analgesics in the US. In the first chapter, we find that counties, where sales representatives of opioid drugs reach more doctors, have higher opioid overdose mortality rates. We also show that doctors receiving promotion for opioid drugs have higher opioid prescription rates. The second chapter examines the role of opioid promotion and opioid painkiller availability on non-poisoning suicide rates. We find that promotion of opioid drugs can increase suicide rates but that this effect is mitigated in counties with strong addiction-help networks. In the final chapter, we analyze the effect of exposure to civil conflict violence on voting behavior. Using data from elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1990 and 2014 and exploiting variation in war intensity across municipalities, we estimate that violence towards civilians had a negative impact on voter turnout.
Esta tesis está compuesta de tres capítulos. En los primeros dos capítulos se estudia el impacto de la promoción farmacéutica de los analgésicos opiáceos en Estados Unidos. En el primer capítulo se encuentra que los lugares donde los agentes de ventas farmacéuticas visitaron a un mayor número de doctores, tienen mayores tasas de muertes por sobredosis de opiáceos. Se muestra que los doctores que son visitados por los agentes de ventas escriben más recetas médicas incluyendo opiáceos. El segundo capítulo estudia el rol de la promoción y disponibilidad de opiáceos en suicidios no causados por envenenamiento. Los resultados indican que la promoción de opiáceos puede aumentar la tasa de suicidios pero que este efecto es mitigado en lugares con fuertes redes de apoyo para la adicción. En el tercer capítulo, se analiza el efecto de estar expuesto a violencia causada por un conflicto civil sobre el comportamiento electoral. Usando datos de elecciones en Bosnia y Herzegovina entre 1990 y 2014, y aprovechando diferencias en la intensidad de la guerra entre municipalidades, se estima que la violencia en contra de personas civiles tiene un efecto negativo en la participación electoral.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

17

Pham, Tu-Lam. "Three Essays on Microeconomics." Diss., lmu, 2009. http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:19-97803.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

18

Buehler, Benno. "Essays in Applied Microeconomics." Diss., lmu, 2010. http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:19-128848.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

19

Molnár, Tímea Laura. "Essays in applied microeconomics." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/62561.

Full text

Abstract:

The first chapter studies parents’ intra-household time and resource allocation, focusing on parental quality time, and the implications for early childhood development. I develop a model that explains the "parental time-education gradient" puzzle, and I confirm its predictions, exploiting exogenous, drastic daycare price decrease in Quebec. I find that as daycare becomes cheaper, parents increase time devoted to their children, at the expense of home production and leisure, while consuming more of home production market goods (eating out, domestic help), and child market goods (daycare, games and toys); the time reallocation is larger for higher-educated parents. The estimated structural parameters uncover the pivotal role of complementarity (substitutability) between time and market goods in child human capital (home) production, and suggest a time efficiency advantage in non-market activities for higher-educated parents. I use them to assess how universal daycare shapes skill gaps in early childhood. My findings point to differential parental investment and time efficiency as important mechanisms behind widening skill gaps in early childhood. The second chapter measures the causal impact of academic redshirting---the practice of postponing school entry of an age-eligible child---on student achievement and mental health. I use Hungarian administrative testscore data for 2008-2014, and an instrumental variable framework. The institutional feature I exploit is a school-readiness evaluation, compulsory for potentially redshirted children born before January 1st. I compare children born around this cutoff and find that (1) although there are large student achievement gains for all, disadvantaged boys benefit the most from redshirting---and only they benefit in terms of mental health; (2) the positive effects of higher school-starting age are driven by absolute, rather than within-class relative age advantage. The third chapter studies how closely private insurers’ payment schedules follow Medicare's, exploiting institutional changes in Medicare's payments and dramatic bunching in markups over Medicare rates. We find that, although Medicare's rates are influential, 25 percent of physician services, representing 45 percent of spending, deviate from this benchmark. Heterogeneity in the pervasiveness and direction of deviations reveals that the private market coordinates around Medicare's pricing for simplicity but innovates when sufficient value is at stake.
Arts, Faculty of
Vancouver School of Economics
Graduate

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

20

Tang, Yuan Emily. "Essays in empirical microeconomics." Connect to a 24 p. preview or request complete full text in PDF format. Access restricted to UC campuses, 2007. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/ucsd/fullcit?p3284312.

Full text

Abstract:

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2007.
Title from first page of PDF file (viewed January 14, 2008). Available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 110).

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

21

Croxson, Karen. "Essays on Applied Microeconomics." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2009. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.522866.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

22

Blanchenay, Patrick. "Essays in applied microeconomics." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2013. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/816/.

Full text

Abstract:

This thesis addresses three questions using the same tool of microeconomic modelling. In the first chapter (joint with Emily Farchy), I examine the role of individual’s decision to acquire broad versus specialist knowledge. I show that a worker can afford to become more specialized on a narrower set of skills by relying on other workers for missing skills. This yields a new explanation of the urban wage premium, and in particular of why workers tend to be more productive in bigger cities, where the existence of better networks of workers provides more incentives to acquire specialized skills. This conclusion matches well established empirical findings on workers’ productivity in the literature. In the second chapter, I look at the dynamics of human capital acquisition over time and show the possibility of what I term a social poverty trap. Namely, parents who do not instil in their offspring the culture of social cooperation (modeled as a higher discount rate) deny them the possibility of future good outcomes; in turn, this new generation will be unable to invest resources in the socialization of their offspring, and so on. This creates a poverty trap where some dynasties are stuck in a bad equilibrium. In the last chapter, I model political parties campaigning on different issues to voters with limited attention. I assume that the relative salience of the different issues depend on how much time parties devote to each issue. In this setting, I show that campaigning might result in excessive focus on divisive issues (for political differentiation) to the detriment of Pareto-improving ones.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

23

Spamann, Holger. "Essays in Applied Microeconomics." Thesis, Harvard University, 2012. http://dissertations.umi.com/gsas.harvard:10418.

Full text

Abstract:

Chapter 1 develops a model of parallel trading of corporate securities (shares, bonds) and derivatives in which a large trader can sometimes profitably acquire securities and the corporate control rights inherent therein for the sole purpose of reducing the corporation's value and gaining on a net short position in the corporation created through off-setting derivatives. At other times, the large trader profitably takes a net long position in the corporation and exercises its control rights to maximize the corporation's value. This strategy is profitable if and because other market participants cannot observe the large trader's orders and hence cannot predict how the control rights will be exercised. In effect, the large trader is benefitting from trading on private information about payoff uncertainty that the large trader itself creates. This problem is most likely to manifest in transactions that give blocking powers to small minorities, particularly out-of-bankruptcy restructurings and freezeouts, and is bound to become more severe when derivatives trade on an exchange rather than over-the-counter. Chapter 2 investigates in parallel the cross-country determinants of crime and punishment in the largest possible sample of countries with data on homicides, victimization by common crimes (ICVS), incarceration rates, and the death penalty. While models with a small number of plausible covariates predict much of the variation of homicide and incarceration rates between major developed countries, they predict only one seventh of the actual US incarceration rate. Chapter 3 probes into the pervasive correlations between legal origins, modern regulation, and economic outcomes around the world. Where legal origin is exogenous, it is almost perfectly correlated with another set of potentially relevant background variables: the colonial policies of the European powers that spread the "origin" legal systems through the world. The chapter attempts to disentangle these factors by exploiting the imperfect overlap of colonizer and legal origin, and looking at possible channels, such as the structure of the legal system, through which these factors might inﬂuence contemporary economic outcomes. It ﬁnd strong evidence in favor of non-legal colonial explanations for economic growth. For other dependent variables, the results are mixed.
Economics

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

24

Sands, Emily Glassberg. "Essays in Applied Microeconomics." Thesis, Harvard University, 2014. http://dissertations.umi.com/gsas.harvard:11338.

Full text

Abstract:

This dissertation contains three chapters. Each applies the tools of applied microeconomics to questions in labor economics, the economics of education, and social economics, respectively. In the first chapter, which is joint work with Amanda Pallais, we present the results of a series of field experiments in an online labor market designed to test whether workers referred to a firm by existing employees perform differently from their non-referred counterparts and, if so, why. We find that referred workers have higher performance and lower turnover than non-referred workers. We demonstrate a large role for selection: referred workers perform better and persist longer even at jobs to which they are not referred at a firm where their referrers do not work. Team production is also important: referred workers are much more productive when working with their own referrer than with someone else's referrer.
Economics

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

25

Hwang, Jisoo. "Essays in Applied Microeconomics." Thesis, Harvard University, 2013. http://dissertations.umi.com/gsas.harvard:10851.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

26

Lee, Hoan Soo. "Essays on Applied Microeconomics." Thesis, Harvard University, 2013. http://dissertations.umi.com/gsas.harvard:10837.

Full text

Abstract:

Empirical and theoretical topics in applied microeconomics are discussed in this dissertation. The first essay identifies and measures managerial advantages from access to high-quality deals in venture capital investments. The underlying social network of Harvard Business School MBA venture capitalists and entrepreneurs is used to proxy availability of deal access. Random section assignment of HBS MBA graduates provides a key exogenous variation for identification. Being socially connected to peer venture capital firms and private equity seeking startups leads to more deal flow, larger asset under management and better performance in the inaugural funds of HBS-executive run venture capital firms. The second essay presents a two-stage model of competing ad auctions. Search engines attract users via Cournot-style competition. Meanwhile, each advertiser must pay a participation cost to use each ad platform. Advertiser entry strategies using symmetric Bayes-Nash equilibrium that lead to the Vickrey-Clarke-Groves outcome of the ad auctions are derived. Consistent with the model predictions, empirical evidence shows that multi-homing advertisers are larger than single-homing advertisers. Comparative statics on consumer choice parameters, quality, and user welfare are used to analyze the prospect of joining auctions to mitigate participation costs. The analysis provides conditions when such joins do and do not increase welfare. The third essay develops and computes a dynamic model of search in internet advertising. Micro-level browsing data from Microsoft's Bing.com (formerly known as Live.com) is used for structural estimations. The model predicts that users do not click on any ad with weak signals due to accumulating search cost and monotonicity of the value function. Rational search reveals a cascading pattern: the user clicks on a sufficiently high, highest-signal ad first, then moves on to the ad with the next highest conditionally expected probability of match once his assessment on the current ad degrades over time. The user exits when maximum assessment of likelihood of match over all ads is below a threshold value. The essay provides a novel approach to understanding rational herding behavior when product quality is only partially unraveled.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

27

FERNANDES, MAURÍCIO MACHADO. "ESSAYS IN APPLIED MICROECONOMICS." PONTIFÍCIA UNIVERSIDADE CATÓLICA DO RIO DE JANEIRO, 2013. http://www.maxwell.vrac.puc-rio.br/Busca_etds.php?strSecao=resultado&nrSeq=25454@1.

Full text

Abstract:

PONTIFÍCIA UNIVERSIDADE CATÓLICA DO RIO DE JANEIRO
COORDENAÇÃO DE APERFEIÇOAMENTO DO PESSOAL DE ENSINO SUPERIOR
CONSELHO NACIONAL DE DESENVOLVIMENTO CIENTÍFICO E TECNOLÓGICO
PROGRAMA DE SUPORTE À PÓS-GRADUAÇÃO DE INSTS. DE ENSINO
Essa tese é composta por três artigos empíricos independentes. No primeiro capítulo é avaliado em que medida diferenças no histórico profissional entre os gêneros influenciam o diferencial de salários observado no mercado de trabalho formal brasileiro. Para isto, utiliza-se uma amostra aleatória e representativa de 1 porcento dos trabalhadores presentes na RAIS / MTE entre os anos de 1994 e 2009. A partir dessas informações é reconstruída a trajetória profissional dos indivíduos pertencentes à amostra. As estratégias empíricas exploram a característica longitudinal dessa base de dados para gerar informações complementares acerca do diferencial de salários entre gêneros. Os resultados revelam que as medidas de histórico profissional têm impactos economicamente relevantes sobre os rendimentos individuais. Períodos de ausência no mercado de trabalho reduzem em média os rendimentos e um maior engajamento dos trabalhadores implica salários maiores. Entretanto, a inserção dessas medidas mais fidedignas de histórico profissional dos trabalhadores acarreta uma diminuição de no máximo 10 porcento na magnitude do coeficiente associado ao diferencial de salários entre os gêneros, ou seja, um impacto bastante reduzido. O segundo capítulo investiga a importância relativa de duas dimensões da qualidade dos professores para a aprendizagem em matemática e língua portuguesa dos alunos da oitava série do ensino fundamental na rede de ensino paulista. Com este propósito, adota-se uma abordagem de função de produção educacional e a principal especificação utiliza um modelo de valor adicionado com controle para o desempenho passado dos estudantes. Os resultados mostram que tanto o conhecimento quanto as atividades pedagógicas dos professores em sala de aula têm impacto positivo e estatisticamente significante sobre a aquisição de habilidades cognitivas. Entretanto, o efeito do conhecimento dos docentes apresenta uma magnitude pequena em termos econômicos. Já os impactos associados à adoção frequente de práticas pedagógicas eficazes tem magnitude bastante relevante. Por exemplo, a intervenção de substituir um professor de matemática que não passa lição de casa sempre por outro que o faz aumenta a proficiência dos alunos em aproximadamente 12 porcento de um desvio padrão da distribuição de notas. O terceiro capítulo analisa a relação entre identidade partidária e as escolhas políticas para o contexto das municipalidades brasileiras no ciclo político entre 2004 e 2008. Para isto, utiliza-se o arcabouço de regressão com descontinuidade para estimar o efeito causal local de um município ser governado por um partido de esquerda ao invés de um de direita sobre as políticas públicas. Os resultados apontam que governos de esquerda gastam proporcionalmente menos com urbanismo e saúde e mais com administração. No entanto, esses maiores gastos administrativos não estão associados a um inchaço da máquina pública com servidores.
This thesis is composed of three independent empirical articles. In the first chapter is evaluated to what extent differences in labor supply factors and careers by gender influence the wage gap observed in the brazilian formal labor market. For this, we use a 1 percent representative random sample of the workers in RAIS / MTE between the years 1994 and 2009. From this information is retrieved the career path of individuals in the sample. The empirical strategies exploit the longitudinal feature of this database to generate complementary information about the gender wage gap. The results show that the labor market history measures have economically relevant impacts on individual incomes. Career interruptions reduce average earnings and workers with continuous labor market attachment have higher wages. However, the inclusion into the analysis of these more reliable job experience variables results in a reduction of up to 10 percent in the magnitude of the gender wage gap estimates. This represents a quite reduced influence. The second chapter investigates the relative importance of two dimensions of teacher quality for the learning in mathematics and Portuguese of eighth graders of the elementary school in São Paulo state. For this purpose, we adopt an approach based on the educational production function and the main specification uses a value added model with control for the students past grades. The results show that both the teachers knowledge and pedagogical activities inside the classroom have a positive and statistically significant impact on the acquisition of cognitive skills. However, the teachers knowledge effect has a small economic magnitude. Yet the impacts associated with the frequent application of effective teaching practices are quite large. For instance, the intervention defined by the replacing a math teacher who does not always give homework for another that does it, increases the students proficiency in approximately 12 percent of a standard deviation of the grades distribution. The third chapter examines the relationship between political partisanship and government size for the context of the brazilian municipalities after 2004 local election. In order to achieve this, we use a regression discontinuity research design to estimate the local causal effect on political choices of a municipality being governed by a left-wing party instead of a right-wing one. The results show that left-wing governments spend proportionately less on urbanism and health, and more on administration. Nevertheless, this higher administrative spending is not associated with an excessive hiring of public employees.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

28

Boneva, Teodora Bojanova. "Essays in empirical microeconomics." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2015. https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.709170.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

29

Guiteras, Raymond P. "Essays in empirical microeconomics." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/45907.

Full text

Abstract:

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Economics, 2008.
Includes bibliographical references.
This thesis consists of three essays addressing open empirical questions in applied microeconomics. Chapter 1 attempts to quantify the impact of climate change on Indian agriculture. I use historical data on past yearly weather fluctuations and crop yields to measure the effect of these weather fluctuations on output, then use climate change prediction models to derive projections of the impact of future climate change on future productivity. I find that even moderate climate change could be seriously detrimental to productivity, with a consensus prediction for warming over the period 2010-2039 reducing productivity 4.5 to 9 percent. Chapter 2 provides a new tool for analysis of distributional, or quantile, effects in regression discontinuity (RD) models. RD has become increasingly popular over the last decade as a method of obtaining quasi experimental estimates of mean treatment effects. This paper extends the methodology to the measurement of quantile treatment effects. I provide simulation evidence on the effectiveness of the estimator and an empirical application to returns to compulsory schooling in the United Kingdom. Chapter 3, written jointly with Esther Duflo and Michael Greenstone, examines the impact of a water and sanitation intervention in Orissa, India, on health outcomes, in particular the monthly incidence of severe cases of diarrhea and malaria. The design of the intervention, in particular the fact that the water system is activated suddenly, unpredictably and simultaneously for all households in a given village, allow us to overcome several empirical challenges that have impeded credible estimation in the past. We find large effects: the arrival of services appears to reduce severe cases of diarrhea by as much as forty percent, with similar effects on severe cases of malaria. Furthermore, these effects appear to be persistent, as they continue to be apparent in the data after three and even five years.
by Raymond P. Guiteras.
Ph.D.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

30

Aron-Dine, Aviva. "Essays in applied microeconomics." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/72826.

Full text

Abstract:

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Economics, 2012.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references.
This dissertation consists of three chapters on topics in applied microeconomics. In the first chapter. I investigate whether voters are more likely to support additional spending on local public services when they perceive current service quality to be high. My empirical strategy exploits discontinuities in the Texas school ratings formula that create quasi-random variation in perceptions about school quality. I find that receiving an "exemplary" versus a "recognized" rating increases support for a school district's bond measures by about 10 percentage points. Voters respond to the level of a district's rating. not just to whether the district has improved or slipped. I develop and implement a test for whether these patterns of voter behavior lead to efficient outcomes; however, the results are inconclusive. The second chapter. written jointly with Liran Einav, Amy Finkelstein, and Mark Cullen. investigates whether individuals exhibit forward looking behavior in their response to the nonlinear pricing common in health insurance contracts. Our empirical strategy exploits the fact that employees who join an employer-provided health insurance plan later in the calendar year face the same initial price of medical care but a higher expected end-of-year price than employees who join the same plan earlier in the year. Our results reject the null of completely myopic behavior; medical utilization appears to respond to the future price, with a statistically significant elasticity of medical utilization with respect to the future price of -0.4 to -0.6. To try to quantify the extent of forward looking behavior., we develop a stylized dynamic model of individual behavior and calibrate it using our estimated behavioral response and additional data from the RAND Health Insurance Experiment. Our calibration suggests that the elasticity estimate may be substantially smaller than the one implied by fully forward-looking behavior, yet it is sufficiently high to have an economically significant effect on the response of annual medical utilization to a non-linear health insurance contract. Overall. our results point to the empirical importance of accounting for dynamic incentives in analyses of the impact of health insurance on medical utilization. In the third chapter. I exploit a discontinuity in federal financial aid rules at age 24 to estimate the effect of financial aid on college enrollment. school choice. and persistence and degree completion rates. Undergraduate students who are not married and do not have children are classified as "dependent" or "independent" for purposes of federal financial aid based on whether they have turned 24 as of January 1 of the "award year." Independent students qualify for additional grant aid and are eligible to take out much larger federal loans. Using data from the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study and the Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study. I show that average grant aid per student increases by about $1.100. or 55%. at age 24. while 12% of students take advantage of the higher federal loan limits. Estimates of the effects of additional aid on enrollment, persistence. and degree completion are inconclusive; while not statistically significant. they do not allow me to rule out sizable effects. I do find evidence of an increase in enrollment at for-profit colleges. concentrated among students whose parents are not college graduates.
by Aviva Ronit Aron-Dine.
Ph.D.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

31

Lumer, Gerald B. (Gerald Benjamin). "Essays in empirical microeconomics." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1994. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/11825.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

32

Lamont, Owen A. "Corporate finance and microeconomics." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1994. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/11965.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

33

Buika, Kyle Joseph. "Essays in Applied Microeconomics." Thesis, Boston College, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/2345/3317.

Full text

Abstract:

Thesis advisor: Julie Mortimer
Essays on the effects of health policy payment systems in long-term care and end-of-life care institutions are studied. In the arena of long-term care, state Medicaid agencies have recently implemented pay-for-performance (P4P) programs to address poor quality of care in nursing homes. Using facility-quarter level data from 2003 to 2010, we evaluate the effects of Medicaid nursing home P4P programs on clinical quality measures, relying on variation in the timing of P4P implementation across states. Further, we exploit variation in the structure of states' programs to investigate whether programs that reward certain dimensions of quality are associated with larger improvements. We find P4P decreases the incidence of adverse clinical outcomes by as much as 8%, and the improvements are concentrated among the measures that experienced an increase in their relative returns and share strong commonalities in production. In the Hospice industry, changes to the current reimbursement system are mandated by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The motivation stems from noticeable hospice utilization changes since the Medicare Hospice Benefit (MHB) introduced a per-diem reimbursement in 1983. This research analyzes the abilities of a multi-tiered payment system, and a simpler two-part pricing system, to accurately match Medicare payments with hospice patient costs. Both systems improve on the current payment mechanism, while two-part pricing is the only system to maintain access to care for all MHB eligible patients. In addition, consumer disutility incurred by driving to airports is estimated and used to define air travel markets. Though an accurate definition of an economic market is important for any study of industry, there is no rule governing what exactly constitutes a market. To define a market we must ask the question ``between which products do consumers substitute,'' knowing that the answer to this question will depend on how ``close'' products are to one another in product space, as well as how close they are to one another, and to consumers, in geographic space. We estimate a discrete choice model of air travel demand that uses known information about the locations of products and consumers, which allows us to study substitution patterns among air travel products at different airports. We evaluate the commonly used city-pair and airport-pair definitions of a market for air travel, and conclude that a city-pair is the appropriate definition. We also employ the Hypothetical Monopolist test for antitrust market definition, as defined by the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission, and conclude that the relevant geographic market for antitrust analysis is frequently more narrowly defined as an airport-pair
Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2013
Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Discipline: Economics

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

34

Pinna, Fabio. "Essays in applied microeconomics." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2014. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/930/.

Full text

Abstract:

This thesis is composed by three essays and applies econometric methods to analyze different economic research questions using microeconomic data. The first essay (chapter 2) analyzes consumer searching behavior in a grocery context. The second essay (chapter 3) studies the implications of the introduction of a bonus scheme in a principal-agent context using data from furniture sales. The third essay (chapter 4) proposes an empirical strategy to estimate the impact that a worsening in banks’ wholesale funding opportunities (such as the Italian sovereign debt crisis of 2011) has on borrowers’ ability to repay their loans. Chapter 5 concludes the thesis and provides some directions for future work. The first essay (chapter 2), written jointly with Stephan Seiler, estimates the effect of time spent searching in a supermarket on consumers’ expenditure. The analysis is implemented using a unique data-set obtained from radio frequency identification tags which are attached to supermarket shopping carts. This allows us to record consumers’ purchases as well as the time they spent in front of the shelf when contemplating which product to buy, giving us a direct measure of search effort. We estimate the effect of extending search on the price consumers pay within a category while controlling for a host of confounding factors such as category-level price variation over time and measurement error. Our results show that an additional minute spent searching lowers category-level expenditure by $1.40. Extending search-time by one standard deviation allows consumers to appropriate 8 percent of the possible category-level price savings. The second essay (chapter 3) uses data on the staff of a furniture firm to show that, when a fixed bonus scheme conditional on revenues was introduced, it increased the revenues generated by all sales employees, but I find no significant heterogeneous effect of the bonus scheme depending on whether the employee is given control over price or not. The essay also shows that giving the sales staff control over price does not significantly increase revenues. The effect of the bonus scheme and of price delegation on gross profits minus paid bonuses, commissions, and wages were similar. These results are robust to a number of checks, and are consistent with a model of moral hazard and price delegation. The effect of the bonus scheme and of price delegation on gross profits minus paid bonuses, commissions, and wages were similar. These results are robust to a number of checks, and are consistent with a model of moral hazard and price delegation. Chapter 5 concludes and discusses the limitations of the current work and provides some directions for future research.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

35

Caramellino, Gianpaolo. "Essays in applied microeconomics." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2018. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/3786/.

Full text

Abstract:

This thesis consists of three chapters that belong to the realm of Applied Microeconomics. The first two chapters are empirical projects that assess the role of time for human capital development of immigrants in the U.S. The third one is a theory project that studies how managerial career concerns and experimentation influence risk-taking behaviours. Chapter 1 studies how age at arrival in the U.S. affects the skill development of young immigrants in the U.S. Using the within family variation across siblings entered in the U.S. at different ages, I document a cognitive/non-cognitive tradeoff induced by age at arrival. As for cognitive skills, the effect of age at arrival is negative, in particular for the ability to learn English. The effect on cognitive skills is reflected in immigrants’ educational achievements. However, age at arrival plays a positive role for illicit behaviours. Children of immigrants arrived later tend to show less problematic behaviours than their siblings arrived earlier, also controlling for their English ability. Through an indirect accounting exercise, I estimate the negative effect of age at arrival on the labor market performance of immigrant adults. I conclude the paper showing that more educated parents anticipate the arrival of their children in the U.S. Chapter 2, co-authored with Leonardo Felli, Carola Frege and Yona Rubinstein, studies the intergenerational assimilation of immigrants in the U.S. In our study, we observe the outcomes of several immigrant generations. Moreover, we link immigrant mothers and their children, thus observing the outcomes of two immigrant generations belonging to the same cohort. Controlling for the selection into migration and return migration, we document that it takes two immigrant generations to exhaust the full potential of cognitive and educational assimilation, while it might take longer for other social outcomes, such as the attitude towards problematic behaviour and the likelihood of having children. Chapter 3, co-authored with Francesco Sannino, studies the effect of managerial career concerns and experimentation on risk-taking. We model an economy where managers create value through their ability to learn at an intermediate stage about the intrinsic profitability of a risky investment. Managers are heterogeneous in their ability to extract information from experiments, and care about their reputation. Their incentive to take on risk is distorted by career concerns, and can result in under or over risk-taking. When, following the experiment, better managers discard risky projects more often than bad ones we observe over risk-taking. Our result is in contrast with Holmstr ̈om (1999) where managers’ ability affects the project’s success rate, and career concerns can only produce inefficiently low risk-taking. We show that the inefficiency is reduced in one extension of the model, where the market can also observe the outcome of similar projects. The novel implication is that markets more plagued by career concerns distortions are those where managers engage in more idiosyncratic activities.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

36

Kumar, Navin. "Three Essays in Microeconomics:." Thesis, Boston College, 2021. http://hdl.handle.net/2345/bc-ir:109228.

Full text

Abstract:

Thesis advisor: Arthur Lewbel
In this series of essays, I apply the tools of economics to a variety of real world problems. The first essay looks at the impact of a gun control regulation on mortality and crime. A third of US states have removed all restrictions on carrying concealed handguns. This might decrease crime by invisibly arming law-abiding citizens, or increase it by eliminating penalties for criminals. It could have no effect at all, because handguns are easily hidden, so anyone who wished to carry a gun was already doing so. I compare counties along the borders of states that liberalized concealed carry to contiguous counties in neighboring states that did not, using mortality and crime micro-data. I find that deregulation had no impact on homicide, violent crime, firearm mortality, firearm usage, or firearm ownership. The second essay, co-authored with Sajala Pandey, looks at the impact of an earthquake in Nepal on child development. Biologists have posited that prenatal maternal stress (PNMS) has an adverse impact on child development, possibly via the process of epigenetic imprinting which occurs during the first trimester. Researchers have attempted to study this link by using natural disasters as a source of exogenous variation. A shortcoming of these studies is that natural disasters may also affect prenatal healthcare provision, either by decreasing it’s provision (due to infrastructure being destroyed) or increasing it (thanks to aid flowing into the region.) We look at the impact of 2015 Earthquake in Nepal on children who were (a) in utero at the time of the earthquake and (b) in areas severely affected by it. Consistent with theories from PNMS, we find that the earthquake adversely impacted their height-for-age, and the effects were concentrated on individuals who were in the first trimester of gestation. These negative effects were entirely offset by an increase in the consumption of antenatal healthcare. We find that the earthquake resulted in a improvement in development indicators for those children who were in severely affected areas but not in-utero at the time of the earthquake, highlighting the importance of healthcare provision in early childhood. The third essay, co-authored with Andrew Copland, proposes a solution to the problem of assigning multiple scarce goods to agents in the absence of prices, for example assigning seats in courses to students in a university. Students submit a list of preferences over courses, a lottery for rankings is held, and an algorithm allocates each student their top available course, reversing their ranks at the end of each round. Then, for each student, the algorithm compares their outcomes to the outcomes generated by every alternative ordering they could have set. Whenever such revisions result in more preferred outcomes, their preferences are replaced with the alternative. Our solution is non-dictatorial and Pareto optimal. When it converges without encountering a loop, it is strategy-proof. It retains properties even in small economies. We compare our algorithm to alternatives
Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2021
Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Discipline: Economics

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

37

Chen, Yujiang. "Essays in empirical microeconomics." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2018. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/276976.

Full text

Abstract:

In this thesis, I study the impact of minimum wage policy and city agglomeration on wages and employment in local labour markets. This is an important topic because having a better understanding of the determinants of regional wage differentials and employment offers insights into: the roles played by local production, consumption and city structures; the standard of living enjoyed by workers with different human capitals; and policy recommendations for the future minimum wage law and city planning regulations. I use local occupation and geographic information to assess how highly productive occupations and local consumption amenities sort workers and generate local wage differentials. I also use this information to construct instruments that enable the accurate estimation of the effects of policy interventions. After an introduction in chapter 1, chapter 2, The Impact of the Minimum Wage on the Wage Distribution: Evidence from China, provides an empirical estimation of the effects of minimum wages using a Chinese household survey. I introduce new instrumental variables, relating to transport costs and local productivity, to control for the potential median wage endogeneity. The instrument variable regressions indicate that the effective minimum wage, defined as the ratio between the minimum wage and the median wage, significantly reduces the lower tail wage inequality — measured by the wage differential between the 50th and the 10th percentiles— by up to 0.3 per cent. In chapter 3, The MinimumWage and Its Impact onWage and Employment, joint work with Coen Teulings, we propose a novel framework for estimating the effects of minimum wages by considering the neoclassical wage and labour participation equations at the same time. To estimate the non-linear censored model with correlated error terms, we provide a five-step procedure and use maximum likelihood estimation. After correcting the bias using occupation information and city size, we find that effective minimum wage correlate significantly with the proportion of workers earning below minimum wage. I study the structure of city and commuting in chapter 4, Consumer City and the Sharing Economy. Based on the international trade literature, I develop a theoretical model with multiple cities, which have different amenities and productivities. In equilibrium, the unobservable parameters are estimated using local employment, wage, and commuting information. Cities show strong agglomeration effects in both productivity and consumption amenities. A counterfactual technological improvement, providing a cheaper transportation for workers and consumers, leads to a more concentrated employment distribution, commuting pattern and higher utility. In the final chapter, Agglomeration and Sorting, joint work with Coen Teulings, we show that agglomeration externalities are strongly related to the occupational structure. At the same time, regional differences in house prices offset these externalities. We develop a multi-region model with regional heterogeneity in workers and jobs, tradable versus non-tradable commodities, consumption amenities, regional house prices, non-homothetic utility, and interregional labour mobility. The model fits the regional data on the fixed wage effects, the return and mean level of human capital, land prices, and the city-rural area distinction well. We use land values to calculate the value of agglomeration.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

38

Valente, Marica. "Essays on Applied Microeconomics." Doctoral thesis, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.18452/22184.

Full text

Abstract:

In der ökonomischen Forschung wird eine Vielzahl von Strategien verwendet, um zu versuchen kausale Schlussfolgerungen aus Beobachtungsdaten zu ziehen. Neue Strömungen in der Literatur zu kausaler Inferenz konzentrieren sich auf die Kombination von Methoden zur Vorhersage und kausalen Fragestellungen. Diese neuen Methoden ermöglichen es neue Forschungsfragen zu beantworten und bieten die Möglichkeit bestehende Forschungsfragen in der Literatur neu zu adressieren. Diese Dissertation umfasst empirische Arbeiten in den Bereichen (i) Umweltökonomie: Ich evaluiere die Preispolitik für Abfälle mithilfe der “synthetic control” Methode und Methoden des maschinellen Lernens; (ii) Arbeits- und Migrationsökonomie: Ich identifiziere und quantifiziere nicht gemeldete landwirtschaftliche Arbeitsleistung, die durch einen plötzlichen Migrationszustrom verursacht wird; (iii) Konfliktökonomie: Ich analysiere die wirtschaftlichen Kosten eines hybriden Krieges, des Donbass-Krieges in der Ukraine. Der Beitrag dieser Dissertation zur bestehenden Literatur ist dreifach. Erstens kombiniere ich neuartige Datenquellen und stelle neue Datensätze bereit. Zweitens verwende ich moderne Evaluierungsmethoden und passe sie an, um politisch relevante kausale Parameter in verschiedenen Bereichen der ökonomischen Forschung abzuschätzen. Drittens vergleiche ich neuere mit traditionellen ökonometrischen Ansätzen, die zuvor in der Literatur verwendet wurden. Meine Dissertation zeigt, dass moderne ökonometrische Techniken vielversprechend sind, um die Genauigkeit und Glaubwürdigkeit von kausalen Schlussfolgerungen und die Evaluierung von Politikmassnahmen zu verbessern.
In economics, researchers use a wide variety of strategies for attempting to draw causal inference from observational data. New developments in the causal inference literature focus on the combination of predictive methods and causal questions. These methods allow researchers to answer new research questions as well as provide new opportunities to address older research question in the literature. This dissertation entails empirical work in the fields of (i) environmental economics: I evaluate waste pricing policies using synthetic controls and machine learning methods; (ii) labor and migration economics: I identify and quantify unreported farm labor induced by a sudden migrant inflow; (iii) conflict economics: I evaluate the economic costs of an hybrid war, namely, the Donbass war in Ukraine. The contribution of this dissertation is threefold. First, I combine novel data sources and provide unique datasets. Second, I apply and tailor modern evaluation methods to the estimation of policy-relevant causal parameters in various fields of economics. Third, I compare recent versus traditional econometric approaches previously employed by the literature. My dissertation shows that modern econometric techniques hold great promise for improving the accuracy and credibility of causal inference and policy evaluation.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

39

Sándor, László. "Essays in Applied Microeconomics." Thesis, Harvard University, 2015. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:14226075.

Full text

Abstract:

This dissertation collects three pieces of work. The first chapter documents empirically how Danish households substituted between insurance and liquidity, namely how the up-take of unemployment insurance fell when credit suddenly became more cheaply available for some. The second chapter presents results from a natural field experiment comparing financial and non-financial incentives to promote pro-social behavior. Finally, the third chapter presents the theoretical motivation for and results from a laboratory experiment conducted in Iceland on measuring time preferences conditional on incomes not changing, or correcting for the change when they do.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

40

Dette, Tilman C. "Essays in Applied Microeconomics." Thesis, Harvard University, 2016. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:33493554.

Full text

Abstract:

This thesis combines three essays in applied microeconomics. The first essay studies hospital responses to price changes and the introduction of DRG reimbursements; using a large administrative data set on all inpatient hospital admissions in Germany from 2005 to 2013, we find that hospitals respond stronger to financial incentives in areas of higher medical discretion. The second essay studies the effect of two UK compulsory schooling law changes; deriving an optimal pooled regression outcome and pooling data across 50 surveys, I show that the two reforms had no measurable impact on a large set of job market outcomes. The third essay studies the benefit of observing more customer data on optimizations of a large online retailer; predicting optimal product display ranks based on smaller data sets than the actually observed data, we estimate the effect of less data on click and order conversion rates.
Economics

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

41

Potter, Joel. "Essays on applied microeconomics." Diss., Kansas State University, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/2097/706.

Full text

Abstract:

Doctor of Philosophy
Department of Economics
Dennis L. Weisman
This first essay empirically tests the Peltzman Effect utilizing a unique dataset that is used to investigate the behavior of Formula One race car drivers. The race-level dataset was culled from various sources and includes detailed information from a total of 547 Formula One races. A fixed effects model is used to determine whether or not Formula One race car drivers alter their behavior in response to changes in the conditional probability of a casualty given an accident. The empirical estimates support economic theory; Formula One race car drivers become more reckless as their cars become safer, ceteris paribus. Furthermore, the behavioral response of drivers is larger when the analysis is confined to changes in the conditional probability of a fatality given an accident. The second essay utilizes data from the National Youth Survey to reevaluate key conclusions from Fair (1978). This study supports some of Fair's empirical findings; however, the estimates obtained from this research contradict Fair in several key ways. For example, this paper finds that the coefficients of occupation and education are both statistically significant but the signs are opposite to those in Fair (1978). An even more noteworthy contradiction is the negative relationship between years of marriage and infidelity; this suggests that marriage longevity is positively related to that of match quality of the relationship. Also included in these new specifications are independent variables that better control for individual heterogeneity, factors such as general health, race, and alcohol consumption. This essay presents a simple model to characterize the outcome of a land dispute between two rival parties using a Stackelberg game. This study assumes that opposing parties have access to different technologies for challenging and defending in conflict. Conditions are derived under which territorial conflict between the two parties is less likely to persist indefinitely. Allowing for an exogenous destruction term as in Garfinkel and Skaperdas (2000), it is shown that, when the nature of conflict becomes more destructive, the likelihood of a peaceful outcome, in which the territory's initial possessor deters the challenging party, increases if the initial possessor holds more intrinsic value for the disputed land.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

42

Seira, Enrique. "Essays on empirical microeconomics /." May be available electronically:, 2007. http://proquest.umi.com/login?COPT=REJTPTU1MTUmSU5UPTAmVkVSPTI=&clientId=12498.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

43

Suleymanova, Irina. "Four essays in microeconomics." Aachen Shaker, 2009. http://d-nb.info/993995926/04.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

44

Pantano, Juan. "Essays in applied microeconomics." Diss., Restricted to subscribing institutions, 2008. http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1679289321&sid=9&Fmt=2&clientId=1564&RQT=309&VName=PQD.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

45

Dewey, James F. "Studies in applied microeconomics." [Florida] : State University System of Florida, 1998. http://etd.fcla.edu/etd/uf/1998/amd0035/dewey.pdf.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

46

Ferraro, Jimena. "Essays in Applied Microeconomics." Thesis, Toulouse 1, 2016. http://www.theses.fr/2016TOU10054/document.

Full text

Abstract:

Cette thèse en microéconomie appliquée se compose de trois chapitres, chacun abordant une question différente. Le premier chapitre, « La distribution séquentielle en présence de fraude », montre comment les entreprises peuvent exploiter le moment de la diffusion des contenus afin d’atténuer les effets de la fraude numérique, dans un monde où un certain piratage est inévitable. À travers un modèle, cet article fournit une explication claire de la façon dont une firme peut faire obstacle à la fraude à travers un changement de la distribution séquentielle du produit. En l’absence de fraude, les profits des entreprises sont indépendants de la manière dont le contenu est mis en vente. Cependant, lorsque la fraude représente une menace réelle, l’entreprise peut en atténuer les effets en choisissant de manière stratégique la part du produit qui est offert à chaque période. Cela permet de changer la valeur du produit pour les consommateurs et de rendre la fraude moins attractive de ce point de vue. L’entreprise en situation de monopole bénéficie de la libération de contenu en deux périodes différentes d’une manière asymétrique qui trouvent des analogies dans des exemples réels tels que le marché des outils logiciels spécialisés ou des émissions de télévision. Le deuxième chapitre, « L’offre complice dans les enchères à valeur commune », présent les effets d’un type d’enchère frauduleuse appelée « enchère complice ». Cette fraude consiste à placer des enchères anonymes sur ordre du vendeur en vue de faire monter artificiellement le prix de l’objet vendu. Nous concevons un modèle simple pour comprendre les incitations du vendeur à enchérir de manière complice dans une enchère anglaise à valeur commune, dans laquelle l’information privée des participants suit une distribution discrète. Nous montrons comment le caractère discret de la distribution affecte le profit espéré du fait d’enchérir de manière complice pour le vendeur ex-ante. Nous montrons aussi comment le vendeur révise ses enchères complices à partir de l’information qu’il reçoit à mesure que l’enchère se déroule. Nous trouvons que si le nombre de signaux est faible, le vendeur peut gagner à ne pas participer, même lorsque les autres participants sont myopes. Par ailleurs, et quel que soit le nombre de signaux dans l’enchère, si le nombre de participants est assez élevé, le fait d’avoir la possibilité de mettre en œuvre une enchère complice a toujours pour effet de détériorer le profit espéré du vendeur. Le troisième chapitre, « Le confort des médecins et le choix des césariennes », est co-écrit avec Shagun Khare et Alan Acosta. Cet article analyse les causes qui pourraient expliquer le taux élevé de césarienne à Buenos Aires, en Argentine, qui excède largement la recommandation de l’Organisation mondiale de la Santé (OMS). L’hypothèse d’une demande induite par le fournisseur, qui prévoit plus de césariennes que nécessaire du point de vue médical, pourrait expliquer cet écart. Dans cet article co-écrit avec Shagun Khare et Alan Acosta, nous étudions un aspect des incitations des médecins à stimuler la demande : le confort. A partir d’une enquête menée auprès de femmes enceintes à Buenos Aires, nous regardons si les chances qu’une femme fasse l’objet d’une césarienne dépend du moment de l’accouchement, en particulier s’il s’agit d’un jour travaillé ou non. En laissant de côté les césariennes planifiées, nous trouvons que le confort compte, mais seulement dans les hôpitaux privés. Nous trouvons aussi qu’une femme qui déclare préférer une césarienne à une naissance naturelle a de plus grandes chances de recourir à une césarienne dans les hôpitaux privés. Nos résultats montrent aussi que l’environnement institutionnel joue un rôle déterminant sur la manière dont le confort des médecins et les préférences des mères influencent ces choix
This thesis in applied microeconomics is composed of three chapters, each one addressing a different question. The first chapter, “Sequential distribution in the presence of Piracy”, shows how firms can exploit the timing of the release of digital content as a way to mitigate the effects of piracy, in a world where some piracy is unavoidable. We develop an analytical model where a monopolist produces a particular good, and it can choose the time at which its product is available to consumers. On top of deciding on prices, the monopolist also chooses the share of the product it releases at each period. In the absence of piracy, firm’s profits are independent of the way in which content is released. However, when piracy is a real threat, the firm can soften its effect by strategically selecting the share of the product offered in each period, changing consumers’ valuation and making piracy less attractive from their perspective. The monopolist benefits from releasing content in two different periods in an asymmetric way which find analogies in real life examples such as the market of specialised software tools or of TV shows. The second chapter, “Shill bidding in common value auctions”, presents the effects of a particular cheating environment in common value auctions. Shill bidding consists of placing anonymous bids on the seller’s behalf to artificially drive up the prices of the auctioned item. We build a simple model to understand the incentives a seller has to shill bid in an English common value auction where the bidders’ private information is drawn from a discrete distribution. We show how the discreteness affects the seller’s ex-ante expected gain of shill bidding, and we also show how the seller updates his shill bid based on the new information he receives as the auction goes on. We find that if the number of signals is low, the seller might be better off refraining from participating even when bidders are fully myopic. Moreover, for any number of signals in the auction, if the number of participants is sufficiently high, the shill bidding strategy always deteriorates the seller’s expected profits. The third chapter, “Physician convenience and cesarean section delivery”, is co-authored with Shagun Khare and Alan Acosta. This paper analyses the causes that might explain the high rate of cesarean section in Buenos Aires, Argentina, that far exceeds the World Health Organization recommendation. The supplier-induced demand hypothesis, which predicts more c-section deliveries than otherwise medically needed, might be the reason for this disparity. In this paper, using a survey of pregnant women in Buenos Aires, we study one aspect of the physician’s incentives to induce demand: convenience. We look at whether a woman’s chance of getting a c-section depends on the period of delivery, i.e. whether it is a working day or not. Setting aside scheduled c-sections, we find that convenience matters, but only in private hospitals. We also find that women who state that they prefer c-sections over natural births have a higher chance of having a c-section in private hospitals. While physicians’ convenience and mothers’ preferences do matter, our research finds that the institutional environment plays a defining role in how much these matters

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

47

Mitra, Arnab. "Essays in Applied Microeconomics." Diss., The University of Arizona, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/204292.

Full text

Abstract:

The first essay of this dissertation explores the role of congressional politics in environmental law enforcements in the United States. It examines if and to what extent the political affiliation of a representative politician matters for the enforcement of the Clean Air Act (CAA); in particular whether the affiliation of a representative politician to a particular party results in a higher/lower level of enforcement in his/her constituency. The period of 1989 to 2005 is considered. The analysis shows that political processes at the local, state and federal level did matter for facility level enforcements. By and large, the Republican politicians tended to reduce facility level inspections compared to their Democrat counterparts and the magnitude of such reduction marginally increased with the seniority of the Republican politicians----a finding that has important policy implications. As a result the political affiliation of a politician emerges as a key instrument for environmental enforcement in the emissions equation.The second essay studies the potential issue of contagion in individual honesty (or, dishonesty). When an individual believes that peers are predominantly untruthful (or, truthful) in a given situation, is he/she more likely to be untruthful (or, truthful) in that situation in absence of monitoring, social sanction and reputation formation? The analysis employs an asymmetric information deception game patterned after Gneezy (2005) and reaches at the conclusion that individuals are heavily (partly) contagious when they believe that peers are predominantly dishonest (honest). The conclusion sheds some light on one of the many individual level root causes as to why the world is bipolar in the distribution of corruption (with most countries are either highly corrupt or highly honest).The third essay discusses the complementarity that existed between the diffusion of motor vehicles usage and the construction of the network of roads in the United States during the first half of the twentieth century. With the expansion of roads, communication between two destinations became smoother, faster and more convenient and in turn attracted more and more people to use motor vehicles as a medium of communication. We empirically investigate how the expansion of the network of roads resulted in the diffusion of motor vehicles. We plan to empirically explore the impact of the diffusion of motor vehicles usage on the expansion of the road network in our future work. The complementarity that existed between the diffusion of motor vehicles and the expansion of roads in the United States in the first half of the twentieth century has important policy implications for today's developing countries that do not have a well constructed network of roads.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

48

Sivakul, Aganitpol. "Essays in applied microeconomics." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2015. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:617fabeb-e47b-4194-bfab-a7601c0edce1.

Full text

Abstract:

This thesis is a collection of three independent essays that applies microeconometrics techniques to empirically study topics in development and labour economics. The first chapter uses evidence from a natural experiment in Bangladesh, where households were treated to different types of transfer, food grains and cash, at different periods in time, to test the effect of these transfers on household consumption behaviour. Using the fixed effect instrumental variable model, the estimation results show that though in-kind transfers did cause households to consume more grain than they would have chosen under equal-value cash transfers, the impact on calorie consumption and children health status is minimal. Households that received cash were able to reallocate their funds more effectively, and chose to spend their extra income on clothing and children's non-food consumption, while at the same time spending no more on vices. The second chapter investigates the dynamics of living standards in Thailand. Income and earnings processes are first modelled after the statistical Galton-Markov process before being extended to follow a more structural permanent earnings model. Empirical estimations of income and earnings persistence in Thailand employ both constructed pseudo-panel data from Thailand's Labour Force Surveys and the Townsend Thai panel data. Galton-Markov estimates found conditional persistence to be low in Thailand. However, quantile regression estimates find that persistence is low at the bottom of the distribution but high at the top, indicating a divergence in earnings as time passes. A study of the covariance structure of earnings finds that total variation in the earnings process is predominantly driven by moderately persistent transitory components following the AR(1) process. The third chapter attempts to empirically fit the power-law distribution and study the dynamics of inequality, especially at the upper end, of the income and consumption distribution in Thailand. We find that using the popular but incorrect method based on the linear regression approach will lead to researchers drawing a wrong conclusion. Regression estimates of the power-law exponent, a, provide strong evidence of power-law fit in Thailand. However, from the implementation of the superior Clauset et al. method, the evidence in support of the power-law fit is much weaker. Estimates of a for both income and consumption suggest that there is low inequality at the top in Thailand but further inspection finds that there is a high level of persistent between-group inequality between the top and bottom ends of the distribution. In addition, following Battistin et al. (2009), we find weak support for Gibrat's law of proportional random growth as the income-generating process in Thailand.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

49

Michon, Junior William. "Essays in applied microeconomics." reponame:Repositório Institucional do FGV, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10438/15227.

Full text

Abstract:

Submitted by William Michon Jr (wmichon@fgvmail.br) on 2016-01-12T00:42:38Z No. of bitstreams: 1 TeseWilliam.pdf: 1615824 bytes, checksum: 897cfc6ac3606eb91d728cc52748cb1e (MD5)
Approved for entry into archive by BRUNA BARROS (bruna.barros@fgv.br) on 2016-01-13T13:19:57Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 TeseWilliam.pdf: 1615824 bytes, checksum: 897cfc6ac3606eb91d728cc52748cb1e (MD5)
Approved for entry into archive by Maria Almeida (maria.socorro@fgv.br) on 2016-02-11T17:50:48Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 TeseWilliam.pdf: 1615824 bytes, checksum: 897cfc6ac3606eb91d728cc52748cb1e (MD5)
Made available in DSpace on 2016-02-11T17:51:06Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 TeseWilliam.pdf: 1615824 bytes, checksum: 897cfc6ac3606eb91d728cc52748cb1e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-07-13
Esta tese é composta de três artigos. No primeiro artigo, ``Risk Taking in Tournaments', é considerado um torneio dinâmico no qual jogadores escolhem como alocar seu tempo em atividades que envolvem risco. No segundo artigo, ``Unitização de Jazidas de Petróleo: Uma Aplicação do Modelo de Green e Porter' é analisado a factibilidade de se haver um acordo de cooperação em um ambiente de common-pool com incerteza nos custos das empresas. No terceiro artigo, ``Oilfield Unitization Under Dual Fiscal Regime: The Regulator Role over the Bargaining', por sua vez, é estudado a unitização quando existem dois regimes fiscais distintos, como os jogadores se beneficiam disso e o papel do regulador no regime de partilha.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

50

Simroth, Dora. "Essays in Applied Microeconomics." Doctoral thesis, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät, 2015. http://dx.doi.org/10.18452/17307.

Full text

Abstract:

Die erste Arbeit untersucht die Einschulungseffekte des indischen Midday Meal Scheme, das größte Schulessenprogramm der Welt. Um die kausalen Effekte der Strategie zu isolieren, benutzen wir die schrittweise Implementierung des Programms in Indiens Staaten in öffentlichen, aber nicht privaten Schulen. Wir finden einen substanziellen Zuwachs der Einschulung an Grundschulen. Die zweite Arbeit untersucht die Korrelation zwischen unternehmerischem Versuch und Startup und lokaler religiöser Diversität. Wir finden heraus, dass die Orte mit höherer religiöser Diversität mit einer höheren individuellen Wahrscheinlichkeit assoziiert sind, ein neues Unternehmen zu versuchen zu gründen, aber nicht es zum Erfolg zu führen. Die dritte Arbeit modelliert einen Markt in dem Konsumenten gegenüber den Arbeitern Altruismus empfinden und ein wohliges Gefühl davon ableiten, Produkte von Firmen zu kaufen, die zumindest einen Mindestlohn bezahlen. Symmetrische reine Strategie Equilibria werden analyisiert in einem Zufalls-Nutzenmodell mit einem Kontinuum an Konsumenten und n Firmen.
The first paper is a large-scale assessment of the enrollment effects of India''s midday meal scheme, the largest school feeding program in the world. To isolate the causal effect, we make use of staggered implementation across Indian states in public but not private schools. We find a substantial increase in primary school enrollment. The second paper studies the correlation between entrepreneurial trial and startup and local religious diversity. We find that localities with higher religious diversity are associated with a higher individual probability of trying to set up a new venture, but not of setting it up. The third paper models a market where consumers feel altruism towards workers and derive a warm-glow from buying products of firms that pay at least a minimum wage. Symmetric pure-strategy equilibria are analyzed in a random utility model with a continuum of consumers and n firms.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Microeconomics'

Create a spot-on reference in APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, and other styles