Mountain Scholar :: Browsing by Author "Miller, Ray, committee member"

Browsing by Author "Miller, Ray, committee member"

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Open Access
Environmental health risks, inequality and welfare beyond GDP
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Mensah, Angela Cindy Emefa, author; Barbier, Edward B., advisor; Weiler, Stephan, committee member; Miller, Ray, committee member; Mclvor, David W., committee member
A seemingly overlooked impact on economic well-being and inequality is the mortality and morbidity attributed to the environment, such as air, soil and water pollution, ecosystem degradation, unsafe water and sanitation, temperature balance and other environmental quality changes. These environmental health risks are impacting welfare worldwide. The World Health Organization estimates that 24% of all global deaths are linked to environmental factors, or around 13.7 million mortalities per year (Pruss-Ustun et al. 2016). Air pollution accounts for 7 million of these deaths, and around 3 billion people face health risks from using polluting fuels such as solid fuels or kerosene for lighting, cooking and heating (WHO 2020). Particulate matter alone kills more than 4 million people each year, mainly in emerging market and developing economies (Nansai et al. 2021). Over half the world's population is exposed to unsafely managed water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene, resulting in more than 800,000 deaths annually (WHO 2020). These exposures reduce the average life expectancy and constrain human capital accumulation, thereby reducing the quantity of human capital per person and adversely impacting income distribution, especially among poor countries who already have low human capital. This dissertation examines two channels by which these environmentally health risks impact the economy. The first chapter of this dissertation examines inequality convergence over the past three decades and asks if environmental health risks (EIH) on human capital are responsible for the slow rate of inequality reduction in countries. Though higher initial incidence of EIH simultaneously worsens the rate of inequality reduction, we find that those countries that experience faster reduction in the level of EIH tend to converge to a lower level of inequality more quickly than their counterparts. Thus, estimates that exclude the incidence of EIH may bias the speed of convergence downward. We conclude that high rates of income growth, per se, do not reduce inequality within developing countries. Instead, the level of both initial inequality and EIH are just as important as growth. As such, policies targeted at reducing inequality must also address the health impacts of the environment. The second chapter of this dissertation examines the impact of environmental health risk on welfare through its impact on average life expectancy. Employing the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) dataset of environmentally related mortality and morbidity across 163 countries over 1990-2019, we modify the consumption-equivalent macroeconomic welfare measure developed by Jones and Klenow (2016) to include these risks. We use the GBD estimates of environmentally related morbidity as a lower bound estimate of these risks to adapt the expected lifetime component of the Jones-Klenow welfare measure for each country relative to the United States. Similarly, we use the GBD's estimates of environmentally related disability adjusted life years (DALYs) as an upper-bound estimate of adjusting life expectancy for environmental health risks. Our results suggest that, across all 163 countries over 1990-2019, including environmental health risks in welfare is significant when compared to income (GDP) per capita or to welfare that excludes these risks. While welfare in advanced economies is considerably high and closer to the United States, emerging market and developing economies who suffer the most from environmentally related mortality and morbidity diverge substantially from the United States. This divergence in welfare is especially prominent among low and lower middle-income countries, who are disproportionately affected by environmental health risks. The findings of the first two chapters reaffirm the need to aggressively target and successfully implement the Paris Agreement, Agenda 2030 and its linked Sustainable Development goals. For example, achieving the target on green energy transition, not only promote energy efficiency but will also significantly cut down the number of mortality and health risks associated with polluting solid fuel and kerosene usage in developing countries. Similarly, the target on improving access to clean water and sanitation, when achieved, will improve welfare and reduce, if not eliminate, the about 827,000 deaths associated with unclean water and poor sanitation each year (see WHO 2020). Thus, the strategies for improving welfare, which is the focus of my research, are very much tied to the successful implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals. The third chapter analyzes the impact of crowding and ecosystem externalities flowing from the industrial fishery sector to the artisanal fishery sector. Both externalities are the results of illegal trawling of small pelagic stock (which is the legal target stock of artisanal fishery) as bycatch by the industrial fishery sector. To explore this issue, we develop a two-sector bioeconomic model with empirical application for the case of fishery in Ghana. We demonstrate that both externalities impact the productivity and profitability of the artisanal fishery. Our empirical results show that, between 1986 and 2013, by-catch ranges from 18% - 95% of total artisanal catch except for some extreme outliers. We also found that industrial fishing effort has being increasing since 2007 but with less than a proportionate increase in legal annual catch, when compared to previous years. This seems to have coincided with significant increases in by-catch. The conjectured is that the extra increases in industrial fishing effort may have been moved toward illegal trawling of by-catch. This may explain why effort is increasing with less than a proportionate increase in industrial fishery's annual landings. We estimated the optimal tax rate to be approximately 11%. However, given the data challenges, we believe that the true optimal tax rate lies between 100% and 10%. Consequently, when the optimal tax rate is applied, the amount of by-catch chosen by the industry fishery in the decentralized equilibrium is identical to the amount chosen by the government. We conclude that if the government's priority is to increase the productivity of the artisanal fishery, then the current level of by-catch should be reduced through monitoring and effective tax structures.
Open Access
Essays on economics of education
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Io, Kenese, author; Pena, Anita, advisor; Fremstad, Anders, advisor; Miller, Ray, committee member; Lopes, Tobin, committee member
Chapter one analyzes the opt-out movement in Colorado and New York. In 2015, Congress passed the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and reinforced the focus on educational equity through the mechanism of standardized tests. The ESSA maintained a 95% participation requirement for grades 3-8 English and Language Arts (ELA) and Math state assessments. I utilize state education data from Colorado and New York to identify how standardized test protests, which are now referred to as the opt-out movement, impact the participation rates in both states. I employ fixed effects regressions to assess the participation rates before and after the protests by interacting the opt-out movement with racial composition, region, and free and reduced lunch status and find that White students are primary participants in the movement in both states. I provide visual estimates of the fixed effect regressions to demonstrate the decline in participation rates with time varying controls. The decline in participation rates is persistent through 2018 in New York but trends back to pre opt-out levels in Colorado. I find a positive relationship between participation rates and performance in both states but this relationship is dampened after the opt-out protests. Finally, I calculate a counterfactual for school level performance to assess the relationship if schools maintained their pre opt-out levels. Results indicate that if policy makers use raw data to assess achievement gaps they could underestimate achievement gaps. The second chapter utilizes regional codes from the National Center of Education Statistics (NCES), this study compiles district and school level data to provide additional insight on the relationship between learning modes and performance. Jack et al. (30) estimated the impact of different instruction modes during the 2020-21 academic year on standardized test performance in 11 states and find that districts with full in-person learning experienced significantly smaller declines in pass rates. Colorado experienced a smaller performance decline relative to other states in the sample and appeared to be an outlier in their study. I use District-level data from their study to show a full transition to in-person learning would have reduced learning loss by 3-6 percentage points in Colorado. School-level analysis in Colorado indicates that the reduction in learning loss attributed to full in-person instruction is small and largely statistically insignificant apart from a few grades in Math. Analysis by racial subgroup indicates that increasing participation rates for minority students would positively impact performance. Finally, the third chapter uses administrative data from Colorado State University's Institutional Research, Planning, and Effectiveness (IRPE) and Student Athlete Support Services to identify the relationship between support services and student athletes' semester GPA and credit earned ratio. I analyze the relationship for four types of support services at the extensive (meetings versus no meetings) and intensive margins (number of meetings). I find that the relationship between support services and GPA varies based on the nature of the support service and the time of reception. In semesters that student athletes receive intensive support services, like tutoring, they earn lower GPAs. Student athletes who receive less intensive support services, like mentoring, earn higher semester GPAs. I find that support services and student athletes credit earned ratio exhibit no statistically significant relationship across all specifications. Negative selection is present in the sample because student athletes who are academically unprepared are more likely to receive support services. More intensive support services like tutoring highlight this selection in the result. I attempt to isolate the effect of support services by using the first support service session provided by SASS. I differentiate between early intervention and general support services and find that the benefit to student athletes from support services comes from receiving services in the first four weeks of the semester.
Open Access
Essays on migration and tourism in Georgia
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2024) Murvanidze, Elene, author; Alves Pena, Anita, advisor; Miller, Ray, committee member; Weiler, Stephan, committee member; Cavdar, Gamze, committee member
In the context of the Georgian economy, migration, tourism, and agriculture are fundamental sectors, each significantly influencing the country's socio-economic structure. Migration, driven by economic opportunities and geopolitical factors, impacts labor markets, remittance flows, and cultural diversity. Although emigration has historically led to challenges such as brain drain, remittances from Georgian migrants support household incomes and contribute to GDP. Tourism leverages Georgia's cultural heritage, scenic landscapes, and urban attractions to draw international visitors, creating jobs and generating foreign exchange. Agriculture, with its deep historical and geographical roots, remains crucial for food security, export earnings, and rural livelihoods, benefiting from the diverse crops grown in Georgia's fertile soils. As Georgia progresses economically, understanding and leveraging the interactions between migration, tourism, and agriculture is essential. This requires thorough examination and expansion of existing research to gain deeper insights into their socio-economic impacts. Only through such detailed analysis can policymakers develop strategic policies and make informed decisions. This dissertation aims to represent one small step towards this goal. Since 1990, over one million individuals, comprising about 25% of the country's population, have emigrated from Georgia due to political instability, security concerns, and socioeconomic challenges. Among the 25 East European and former Soviet countries, only Albania and Kazakhstan have experienced a greater proportion of population loss through emigration. Women constitute over half of all migrants, 39% of Georgian children reside in households with at least one migrant family member, and 19% of children live in households that receive remittances. Public discussions surrounding migration have subtly evolved: the stigma attached to independent female migrants for "abandoning" their families has gradually given way to an acknowledgment of their role in ensuring household survival. The first chapter of this dissertation examines the relationship between remittances and the education outcomes of children left behind. We use the 2012 household survey collected by Maastricht University and the International Centre for Social Research and Policy Analysis and measure the impacts on education outcomes of children between 11 and 18 years old. We estimate results for being a high academic performer (probit model), and average academic scores (OLS model). Our findings show that remittances do not impact children's school performance. When we control for migrant characteristics, we find that the migration of a female household member negatively impacts the child's school performance. To further investigate the impact of migrant gender on school performance, we analyze the child's current caregiver arrangements. The results show that a child's education outcomes are negatively impacted when mother is abroad and father is a caregiver. The impact is larger for girls than for boys. We do not find statistically significant evidence of adverse effects when fathers migrate and mothers are caregivers, or when both parents migrate and grandparents are caregivers. Remittances do not have a statistically significant impact in any of our specifications (in rural or urban settings, for daughters or sons). The dissolution of the Soviet Union drastically transformed the Georgian economy. High rates of unemployment and poverty, prompted the government to reconsider its economic strategies. Recognizing the need to diversify the economy, particular emphasis was placed on boosting the tourism sector. From 2009 to 2016, Georgia had one of the fastest-growing tourism sectors in the world. The number of international visitors quadrupled, and the tourism revenue as a share of GDP increased eight-fold. Despite the pivotal role played by tourism development in Georgia's economic landscape and policy formulation, its effects have not been extensively studied. There is no research indicating that the development of tourism in Georgia leads to sustainable economic growth. The second chapter investigates the impact of tourism development on economic growth. We utilize the autoregressive distributed lag bounds testing (ARDLBT) model, examining both annual data spanning from 1997 to 2019 and quarterly data from 2011 to 2019. The annual data results for the trivariate model (real GDP, tourism, real effective exchange rate) confirm Aliyev and Ahmadova's (2020) findings. Cointegration tests indicate the relationship between tourism and economic growth, a 1% increase in tourism arrivals is associated with a 0.14% decrease in real GDP. However, once we add agriculture (AGR) and foreign direct investments (FDI) as additional controls we do not find the long-run relationship between tourism and real GDP to be statistically significant. These conclusions are consistent across various model specifications and are further supported by our analysis of quarterly data. In terms of other tourism impacts, we find tourism to have a positive impact on the real effective exchange rate (REER), a 1% increase in tourism development is associated with a 0.08-0.19% increase in REER in the long-run. Additionally, tourism demonstrates short-term correlations with agriculture (AGR) and foreign direct investment (FDI), with a 1% increase in tourism development corresponding to increases of 0.11-0.49% in AGR and 1.07-1.46% in FDI. The third chapter evaluates the effects of protected areas on land use and income distribution, focusing on changes in tourism and agricultural production in a theoretical framework. Our findings show that conservation policy has economic and environmental consequences even when it does not directly intersect the agricultural frontier. The establishment or expansion of the protected area tends to attract more visitors. The growth of tourism and agricultural sectors will raise nominal wages and agricultural prices. The extent of these changes will determine whether inequality increases or decreases.
Open Access
Relationships between the wellness of older adults, health status, participation, and social determinants of health: a cross-sectional analysis using the National Health and Aging Trends Study
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2022) Parenti, Victoria, author; Graham, James, advisor; Schoessow, Kim, committee member; Miller, Ray, committee member
Objectives: The primary objective of the current study is to explore the independent effects of different types of health and participation variables on subjective well-being among community-dwelling older adults. A secondary objective is to examine the roles that social determinants of health, including environmental, economic, and social factors, may play in mediating those relationships. Data Source: The National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS) includes survey data from a large, nationally representative sample of Medicare beneficiaries ages 65 and older. The data capture a snapshot of later-life functioning, including information on health conditions, self-care, well-being, participation, living arrangements, and many more. NHATS data were developed for public use and have been used in more than 400 scientific publications. Participants aged 65 and older were drawn from Round 9 of NHATS conducted in 2019. Methods: Participants were included in the final sample if they resided in the community and completed a sample person interview (no proxy person interviews were included). Main variables being assessed include the 11 items of Well-Being, hospitalizations, general self-rated health, depressive symptoms, and participation in social activities. Proxy variables from the NHATS were selected to represent the individual domains of the social determinants of health, including economic stability, education, healthcare access, social and community context, and neighborhood and built environment. Bivariate and regression analyses were conducted to explore independent relationships and mediation effects. Results: The data indicate that hospitalizations, self-rated health, depressive symptoms, and participation in social activities are independently associated with subjective well-being. Additionally, indicators for economic stability, education, health literacy, and community context were independently associated with well-being among the sample of Medicare beneficiaries. There was one mediating effect of an individual SDOH domain on the relationship between hospitalizations and subjective well-being after conducting the regression analysis. Conclusion: The results from the current study contribute to a growing body of literature examining relationships between several factors and well-being outcomes for community-dwelling older adults. Data from the current study provide substantial insight on how health status, participation, and SDOH indicators can be used in future research to explore these relationships, and identify populations at risk for occupational justice or health inequities. Future research is warranted to validate measures and indicators of SDOH to further explore their relationships with health and well-being outcomes using national data sets.
Open Access
Three essays on food economics
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2022) Mendis-Murukkuwadura, Sachintha Sarani, author; Bonanno, Alessandro, advisor; Berning, Joshua, committee member; Bayham, Jude, committee member; Cleary, Rebecca, committee member; Miller, Ray, committee member
This dissertation is comprised of three analyses of households' food acquisition behavior. In Chapter 2, we estimate the substitution between different food categories and time allocated to food purchase and preparation using a demand system which includes both the demand for time and that for goods, by extending the Exact Affine Stone Index-EASI (Lewbel & Pendakur, 2009). This is the first study estimating Resource Engel Curves (which characterize the relationship between "total resources" and resource share), and goods-time cross price elasticities. For this analysis we created a unique dataset by merging the 2012 American Time Use Survey (ATUS) with the National Household Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey (FoodAPS), and perform the analysis for three sub-samples of households - 1) households participating in the SNAP program, 2) SNAP-eligible households that do not participate in the program, and 3) SNAP-ineligible households. The objective of Chapter 3 is to study the relationship between time allocated to different food related activities and households' diet quality of food acquisitions measured by their Healthy Eating Index - HEI, across the distribution of HEI. We utilize the same datasets developed in Chapter 2 and an Unconditional Quantile Regression estimator to perform the analysis on the same three sub-samples of households used in Chapter 2. In Chapter 4, we assess whether households whose children are exposed to Farm-to-School Programming show different fruits and vegetables purchasing patterns than those that are not. We matched two years of the USDA Farm to School Census (2013 and 2015) to Information Resource Incorporated Consumer Network Panel household-level data on Food-At-Home fruits and vegetables expenditures. We perform our analysis focusing on sub-samples of households residing in metro and non-metro areas, as well as by households below and above 185 percent of the poverty line.
Open Access
Three essays on labor, gender and development
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2022) Sedai, Ashish Kumar, author; Vasudevan, Ramaa, advisor; Pena, Anita Alves, advisor; Miller, Ray, committee member; Bhattarai, Niroj, committee member; Kroll, Stephan, committee member
In my PhD dissertation, I write three research essays on labor, gender and development in India. These essays are based on applied economic research and use longitudinal data estimation techniques. These essays relate to my overall interest in topics surrounding inadequate access to basic infrastructures–electricity, water and credit–and their impact on gender inequities, development opportunities, health, education and labor force participation in India. The first essay focuses on informal finance and women empowerment from an economic and non-economic standpoint. The second essay examines reliable electrification and gender differences in employment, health and household decision making. The third chapter discusses access to piped water and gender differences in employment, health, education and household decision making. The first essay titled, Friends and Benefits? Rotating Savings and Credit Associations as Alternative for Women's Empowerment in India, co-authored with Ramaa Vasudevan and Anita Alves Pena, builds on a theoretical model of Rotating Savings and Credit Associations (ROSCAs). In informal social and financial organizations like ROSCAs, members contribute to a common pot of money that is awarded to a different member at each meeting randomly or through a bid. This study examines the effects of ROSCA on women's socio-economic freedom and autonomy at the national level in India. We compare ROSCAs to agency based micro-credit schemes and analyze their effects using nationally representative longitudinal gender-disaggregated data from 2005-2012. Building on a theoretical model of household savings and spousal bargaining power, we use individual fixed effects and instrumental variable regressions to test the theoretical predictions. Among others, results show that ROSCA membership increases the likelihood of women's cash in hand for expenditure by 1.7 percentage points, say in major purchase decisions by 3.9 percentage points and fertility choice by 4.7 percentage points. These margins exceed those for exogenous micro-credit schemes and are robust to sensitivity tests. This study is the first to contrast ROSCAs with other micro-credit schemes at the national level. We propose scaling up and associating longstanding ROSCAs with self-help groups for more inclusive development. The second essay titled, Does Reliable Electrification Reduce Gender Differences: Evidence from India, co-authored with Ramaa Vasudevan, Anita Alves Pena and Ray Miller, looks at the issue of the lack of reliable electrification in India despite massive improvements in electricity access in the past decade. We argue that reliable electricity could reduce the time allocated to home production thereby increasing labor market participation, more for women than men. This essay is purely empirical in nature and revolves around the issue of electrification and gender differences in India. We analyze the effect of quality of electricity on gender differences using a comprehensive set of labor and non-labor market outcomes in India viz. labor force participation (usual status and usual principal status of employment), fuel and water collection, decision making for women and choices of fuel and energy for the household. Using the temporal variation in household electricity hours from the India Human Development Survey (2005-2012), we use individual fixed effects and instrumental variables regressions. Our analysis reveals contrasting trends with significant progress at the extensive margin of electricity access, but little progress at the intensive margin of quality, hours of electricity. We find that reliable electrification improves socio-economic status of women relative to men through increased employment opportunities and reduced time allocation to home production. For instance, 10 more hours of electricity increases the likelihood of employment in the 'usual status' by 2.1 pp for men, and 3.9 pp for women. The study recommends considering electricity as a right, and as part of the broader strategy for reducing gender disparities in India. The third essay titled, Who Benefits from Piped Water? Evidence from a Gendered Analysis in India looks at the effect of access to piped water on employment in farm work, wage/salary work, work days, earnings, health and education outcomes by gender in India. Developing countries, including India, have made impressive progress in providing households with piped water in the last two decades. Yet, access and quality of water available for daily use remains very low. Given the disproportionate burden of home production, the 'hidden' agricultural labor of women, and the fact that India has inadequate access to clean water for daily use, intra-household labor and health inequality could be larger in the absence of piped water access. The disproportionate burden on women of water collection and distribution in the household in developing economies calls for a study on the relationship between piped water supply and gender differences in employment, women's health, child health and education. I use spatiotemporal data from the largest gender disaggregated human development survey in India, 2005–2012, and carry out econometric analyses using individual fixed effects, village fixed effects and instrumental variable regressions to evaluate the effects. Results show that household access to piped water increases the likelihood of wage/salary employment by 11 percent, and annual earnings increase by 14 percent for women, comparatively higher than men, but only in rural areas. In urban areas, there is no effect of pipe water on women's employment. With piped water, women's self-reported health improves; child's health and education outcomes also improve. The study recommends evaluating the social demand curve for piped water supply, and the consideration of piped water supply as necessity, as part of a broader strategy to reduce gender differences and minimize poverty. Overall, these essays are motivated by the lack of emphasis and policy action on micro-credit and basic infrastructures for the poor and the disadvantaged, especially in rural India. Therefore, all three papers in this dissertation provide policy recommendations to problems of India's economic development relating to gender inequity, marginalization, unemployment, education and health, which thread the three essays together.
Open Access
Three essays on the inequality of household food security
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2024) Zhou, Siwen, author; Berning, Joshua, advisor; Bonanno, Alessandro, committee member; Bayham, Jude, committee member; Miller, Ray, committee member
This dissertation contains three essays on the inequality of household food security in the United States. In particular, the second chapter examines the effect of economic cycle, particularly unemployment, on the likelihood of food insecurity for different immigrant households in the United States relative to native US households. As unemployment is not randomly determined for households, we create a Bartik instrument by exploiting exogenous variation in industry shares across locations interacted with national industry growth rates to identify the disproportional effect of unemployment rate on food insecurity for immigrant households. The third chapter examines how immigrant households use time and money to manage their household food security relative to natives. To overcome the potential measurement errors and endogeneity of household level time-use and expenditures, aggregated cell-level means of food production time and expenditures are employed as instruments separately to identify the causal effects of time and money inputs on household food insecurity and how these effects vary across immigrant and native households. The fourth chapter seeks to elucidate the long-term structural nature of food security dynamics through household financial asset holdings in United States. By adopting an econometric strategy, this chapter uses a 19-years panel dataset from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (2001-2019) to establish the new the Structural Probability of Food Security (SPFS) measure for long-run study of food security dynamics.
Open Access
Three essays on welfare, well-being, and labor
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Chin, Sayorn, author; Zahran, Sammy, advisor; Mushinski, David, advisor; Miller, Ray, committee member; Bayham, Jude, committee member
This dissertation explores several topics in welfare, well-being, and labor economics, with a focus on: (1) health, wealth, and racial and ethnic welfare inequality; (2) the natural environment and well-being; and (3) whether labor markets place a wage premia for jobs that require workers to consume disamenities. To achieve these goals, the study utilizes three distinct datasets and applies a range of machine learning and econometric techniques, including natural language processing algorithms, as well as dynamic panel data estimators, natural experiments, and microsimulations. In Chapter 1, titled "Beyond Income: Health, Wealth, and Racial/Ethnic Welfare Gaps Among Older Americans'', we estimate racial and ethnic disparities in well-being among the older U.S. population using an expected utility framework that incorporates differences in consumption, leisure, health, mortality, and wealth. We use longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) supplemented with data from the Consumption and Activities Mail Survey (CAMS). Together, these provide a long and rich panel (1992-2016) for our analysis. Our measure broadly indicates that racial and ethnic inequality is larger than suggested by other welfare metrics such as income or consumption. We also find health, mortality, and wealth gaps are important in explaining the level of racial and ethnic welfare inequality among the older Americans in our sample, with leisure playing a comparatively minor role. Our decomposition exercises show that a majority of the estimated welfare gaps are determined by age sixty initial conditions as opposed to racial and ethnic differences in dynamic processes after age sixty. Our morbidity counterfactuals further suggest that eliminating common heath risk factors such as hypertension or diabetes in late-life only marginally closes overall welfare gaps. These simulations suggest that policies aimed at closing racial and ethnic gaps in late-life may be more successful and efficient if targeted earlier in the life-cycle. In other words, outside of direct wealth transfers, it may largely be too late to target such interventions directly at older populations. In Chapter 2, titled "The Morning Advantage: Differential Returns to Sunlight Exposure on Well-Being'', we estimate the effect of sunlight exposure on well-being by mimicking a natural experiment that utilizes the transition to daylight savings time as an external shock to the reallocation of sunlight between the morning and evening induced by differences in sunrise and sunset times across space, and time. We combine a collection of geolocated and timestamped tweets from Twitter with Natural Language Processing algorithms to create a comprehensive panel dataset of well-being (2014-2022) for the United States. Our findings show that the returns to sunlight on sentiment are stronger in the morning than in the evening. These results contribute significantly to the ongoing debate about whether to continue or abandon the practice of daylight savings. Specifically, the positive turn of sentiment in the morning highlights the underappreciated benefits to human well-being. Therefore, the potential shifting to darker mornings and brighter evenings following the proposed Sunshine Protection Act may do more harm than good. In Chapter 3, titled "The Compensation of Conscience: Evidence from the U.S. Labor Market'', we investigate compensating differentials in the U.S. labor market related to the degree of moral compromise required in different occupations. Specifically, we explore whether jobs that require workers to compromise their moral values offer higher compensation to compensate for the disamenities that contradict their moral beliefs. To conduct our analysis, we utilize data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97) and supplement it with data from the Occupational Information Network (O*NET) job descriptor, which allows us to develop a continuous measure of moral index across occupations. This data provides a rich and extensive panel spanning from 1997 to 2017 for our analysis. Our findings, obtained through the use of two-ways fixed-effects and first-difference models, indicate that jobs that require workers to compromise their moral principles are associated with higher compensation. This suggests that there is indeed a compensating differential for engaging in disamenities that conflict with a worker's moral values. Additionally, we observed that workers with a college education receive higher pay in jobs that require moral compromise, indicating that individuals with a college degree may have more employment opportunities and greater bargaining power, influencing their compensation preferences. Furthermore, we discovered evidence supporting an asymmetric relationship between changes in the occupational moral index and total hourly compensation. This relationship appears to be responsive to the intensity of moral compromise in the job.

Browsing by Author "Miller, Ray, committee member"

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