This study estimates the effect of district wealth on Arizona Empowerment Scholarship Account program participation using data from the Arizona Department of Education. We find that students from poor districts are not more likely to participate as school performance decreases.Conversely, those from wealthy districts do increase participation as school performance decreases. We briefly try to explain the observed heterogeneity through survey results and commenting on the program design.

With a prison population that has grown to 1.4 million, an imprisonment rate of 419 per 100,000 U.S. residents, and a recidivism rate of 52.2% for males and 36.4% for females, the United States is facing a crisis. Currently, no sufficient measures have been taken by the United States to reduce recidivism. Attempts have been made, but they ultimately failed. Recently, however, there has been an increase in experimentation with the concept of teaching inmates basic computer skills to reduce recidivism. As labor becomes increasingly digitized, it becomes more difficult for inmates who spent a certain period away from technology to adapt and find employment. At the bare minimum, anybody entering the workforce must know how to use a computer and other technological appliances, even in the lowest-paid positions. By incorporating basic computer skills and coding educational programs within prisons, this issue can be addressed, since inmates would be better equipped to take on a more technologically advanced labor market.<br/>Additionally, thoroughly preparing inmates for employment is a necessity because it has been proven to reduce recidivism. Prisons typically have some work programs; however, these programs are typically outdated and prepare inmates for fields that may represent a difficult employment market moving forward. On the other hand, preparing inmates for tech-related fields of work is proving to be successful in the early stages of experimentation. A reason for this success is the growing demand. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment in computer and information technology occupations is projected to grow 11 percent between 2019 and 2029. This is noteworthy considering the national average for growth of all other jobs is only 4 percent. It also warrants the exploration of educating coders because software developers, in particular, have an expected growth rate of 22 percent between 2019 and 2029. <br/>Despite the security risks of giving inmates access to computers, the implementation of basic computer skills and coding in prisons should be explored further. Programs that give inmates access to a computing education already exist. The only issue with these programs is their scarcity. However, this is to no fault of their own, considering the complex nature and costs of running such a program. Accordingly, this leaves the opportunity for public universities to get involved. Public universities serve as perfect hosts because they are fully capable of leveraging the resources already available to them. Arizona State University, in particular, is a more than ideal candidate to spearhead such a program and serve as a model for other public universities to follow. Arizona State University (ASU) is already educating inmates in local Arizona prisons on subjects such as math and English through their PEP (Prison Education Programming) program.<br/>This thesis will focus on Arizona specifically and why this would benefit the state. It will also explain why Arizona State University is the perfect candidate to spearhead this kind of program. Additionally, it will also discuss why recidivism is detrimental and the reasons why formerly incarcerated individuals re-offend. Furthermore, it will also explore the current measures being taken in Arizona and their limitations. Finally, it will provide evidence for why programs like these tend to succeed and serve as a proposal to Arizona State University to create its own program using the provided framework in this thesis.

Amid the fast-growing market of plant-based alternatives to conventional meat, there still lies uncertainty about consumers’ preferences for these new products. Through an online survey using a Becker-DeGroot-Marschak mechanism, I test the effect that environmental information provision has on consumers’ immediate and long-term willingness- to-pay for the Whopper and Impossible Whopper from Burger King. Respondents were randomly assigned to either a control group or a treatment group, and both received information on taste in an attempt to isolate the effect of environmental information. Results show that certain groups respond to the information differently. Specifically, consumers who care about climate change are affected greatly by environmental in- formation suggesting these “climate advocates” are not fully informed despite the efforts of Impossible Foods. Vegetarians and highly educated individuals have relatively stronger preferences for the plant-based burger, in line with previous studies. Results also show a lasting effect of information on WTP, suggesting little need for repeated interventions.

This survey takes information on a participant’s beliefs on privacy security, the general digital knowledge, demographics, and willingness-to-pay points on if they would delete information on their social media, to see how an information treatment affects those payment points. This information treatment is meant to make half of the participants think about the deeper ramifications of the information they reveal. The initial hypothesis is that this information will make people want to pay more to remove their information from the web, but the results find a surprising negative correlation with the treatment.