Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
Barrett, The Honors College at Arizona State University proudly showcases the work of undergraduate honors students by sharing this collection exclusively with the ASU community.
Barrett accepts high performing, academically engaged undergraduate students and works with them in collaboration with all of the other academic units at Arizona State University. All Barrett students complete a thesis or creative project which is an opportunity to explore an intellectual interest and produce an original piece of scholarly research. The thesis or creative project is supervised and defended in front of a faculty committee. Students are able to engage with professors who are nationally recognized in their fields and committed to working with honors students. Completing a Barrett thesis or creative project is an opportunity for undergraduate honors students to contribute to the ASU academic community in a meaningful way.
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- Creators: Department of Economics
Description
Upon hiring a new college graduate, employers are left with limited information about the true productivity of the individual, mainly based on the information provided via resume and other related documents. Based on the information, which may include (and is not limited to) education years, grade point average(s), the institution one attended, majors, etc., employers attempt to differentiate between the candidates. Existing employer learning literature, such as Altonji and Pierret (2001) and Peter Arcidiacono, Patrick Bayer, and Aurel Hizmo (2010), have found that employers statistically discriminate upon hiring and estimate wages based on expected productivity conditional to observable characteristics--specifically education. As one's work experience accumulates, the wages are adjusted to the newly learned characteristics correlated with productivity. Thus, college graduates are more appealing as job candidates than high school graduates, with little learning done with experience in the labor market as employers have a more accurate depiction on productivity with more education years. With rising demands for high-skilled labor, there is a growing interest on what employers learn about from the name of the college listed on one's resume, as varying ability students sort into varying quality colleges. I include a one-dimensional index of college quality, as similarly constructed by Eleanor Dillon and Jeffrey Smith (2015), to measure the effects of attending a highly-selective institution in predicting individual ability. This paper provides additional support for the employer learning model on college graduates, with an emphasis on the direct role that college quality has at the start of one's career. Although college quality appears to be influential in providing employers additional information on one's productivity, unlike education, the weight placed on it by employers does not change with experience in the labor market. I further investigate within the college market and provide possible explanations behind learning on the basis of college quality, including: the possibility of information explained by quality unrelated to one's ability and the effects of attending a highly selective college.
ContributorsNam, Jimin (Author) / Veramendi, Gregory (Thesis director) / Dillon, Eleanor (Committee member) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / Department of Economics (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
Agent based models allow for complex results from simple parameters. The mobile agents in my model, the firms, are allocated an amount of capital, while the static agents, the workers, are allocated a range of wages. The firms are then allowed to move around and compete until they match with a worker that maximizes their production. It was found from the simulation that as competition increases so do wages. It was also found that when firms stay in the environment for longer that a higher wage is possible as a result of a larger window for drawn out competition. The different parameters result in a range of equilibriums that take variable amounts of time to reach. These results are interesting because they demonstrate that the mean wage is strongly dependent upon the window of time that firms are able to compete within. This type of model was useful because it demonstrated that there is a variation in the time dependence of the equilibrium. It also demonstrated that when there is very little entry and exiting of the market, that wage levels out at an equilibrium that is the same, regardless of the ratio between the number of firms and the number of workers. Further work to be done on this model includes the addition of a Matching Function so that firms and workers have a more fair agreement. I will also be adding parameters that allow for firms to see the workers around them so that firms are able to interact with multiple workers at the same time. Both of these alteration should improve the overall accuracy of the model.
ContributorsElledge, Jacob Morris (Author) / Veramendi, Gregory (Thesis director) / Murphy, Alvin (Committee member) / Department of Economics (Contributor) / Department of Physics (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2015-12
Description
Educational inequity – derived from disproportionate levels of resource availability and school quality – warrants examination from an economic perspective. The basket of topics pertinent to education policy today, may be characterized (mostly) into three categories, all representing key theoretical concepts of economics: supply, demand, and sorting. Furthermore, funding, teacher, and capital allocation patterns could inform the potential causal relationship between increased school demand (and resulting supply) and enhanced academic performance. My paper examines the district-level impact of positive school supply shocks – modeled via new school facility openings – on sorting and student performance on a standardized test. Applying econometric estimation techniques, my paper examines whether new school openings produce differential treatment effects in districts with separate socioeconomic composition. My methodology stems from previous research done by Cellini, Riegg, Ferreira, and Rothstein (2010), and Neilson and Zimmerman (2011). I also draw from Evans, Yoo, and Sipple (2010) to investigate an estimated version of student stability as a potential mechanism driving results. All 3 papers relate to school infrastructure and student performance. I find convincingly that test score improvements are relatively higher in districts experiencing a new school facility opening in FY 2009, than in districts without an opening. Additionally, I note treatment effect magnitude to be far smaller in districts exhibiting above-average income residents. In order to examine this finding further, I explore year-to-year changes in both pupil-to-teacher ratios and geographic mobility to characterize potential mechanisms behind this distinction. My results are consistent with research predecessors in that they suggest lower SES students benefit disproportionately from treatment and that test scores are decreasing in geographic mobility. Aside from previous research, I believe my finding that new school facilities most greatly improve student test performance in schools with lower pupil-to-teacher ratios, is unique and slightly inconsistent with the objective purpose of the new school facilities I examine. By using new school openings granted by the School Facilities Board of Arizona, I model a direct product of increased demand and am able to comment on how supply-side reactions impact high and low income districts differentially.
ContributorsBonaguidi, Matt (Author) / Veramendi, Gregory (Thesis director) / Murphy, Alvin (Committee member) / Department of Economics (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
Individual’s outcomes are significantly affected by occupation share changes. This is supported by regression analysis of the Displace Workers Survey a supplement to the Current Population Survey – a nationally representative panel data set. Regression analysis is used to demonstrate that individuals in occupations that are increasing as a share of the total number of workers are better off across the gamut of outcomes than their counterparts in occupations that are decreasing as a share of the total number of workers. Workers in occupations with increasing shares are more likely to find jobs quickly, less likely to experience significant wage losses, less likely to change occupation, and less likely to go on to welfare.
ContributorsGaughan, Patrick Michael (Author) / Veramendi, Gregory (Thesis director) / Foster, William (Committee member) / Department of Finance (Contributor) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / Department of Economics (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
The impact of the 2008 Great Recession was felt on a global level. While many European countries moved to
implement large fiscal adjustments in response to the financial crisis, various other economic consequences
were felt, such as inflation, public debt growth, and a decrease in purchasing power. A result from these
consequences that typically occur every recession are demand shocks within the employment sector. As firms
are put into tight financial positions, employers are forced to make employment decisions to cut costs for
long-term sustainability, such as laying off workers, or reducing their working hours.
This paper aims to investigate how weekly working hours are impacted by shocks to the economy across European countries. Using the 2008 recession as the basis, an empirical analysis was conducted with panel data for 32 countries over 33 years, with average weekly working hours across four occupational groups as the variable of interest, and various economic indicators such as GDP growth as independent variables. Additionally, countries were split up and grouped based on geographical location to examine potential country and region-specific trends.
Over time, there is a decreasing trend in weekly working hours across all observed occupations and countries. This decreasing trend continues during the 2008 recession, but the slope of decrease is not significant relative to the entire time period. However, when dis-aggregated into occupational groups with a distinction between full-time and part-time workers, the trends in working hours are a much more noticeable, both during the recession and over the entire time frame of observation.
implement large fiscal adjustments in response to the financial crisis, various other economic consequences
were felt, such as inflation, public debt growth, and a decrease in purchasing power. A result from these
consequences that typically occur every recession are demand shocks within the employment sector. As firms
are put into tight financial positions, employers are forced to make employment decisions to cut costs for
long-term sustainability, such as laying off workers, or reducing their working hours.
This paper aims to investigate how weekly working hours are impacted by shocks to the economy across European countries. Using the 2008 recession as the basis, an empirical analysis was conducted with panel data for 32 countries over 33 years, with average weekly working hours across four occupational groups as the variable of interest, and various economic indicators such as GDP growth as independent variables. Additionally, countries were split up and grouped based on geographical location to examine potential country and region-specific trends.
Over time, there is a decreasing trend in weekly working hours across all observed occupations and countries. This decreasing trend continues during the 2008 recession, but the slope of decrease is not significant relative to the entire time period. However, when dis-aggregated into occupational groups with a distinction between full-time and part-time workers, the trends in working hours are a much more noticeable, both during the recession and over the entire time frame of observation.
ContributorsDong, William (Author) / Veramendi, Gregory (Thesis director) / Bick, Alexander (Committee member) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / Department of Economics (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05