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Browsing by Author "Pena, Anita, advisor"

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    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.
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    In search of the incidence of the corporate tax on employment and wages: evidence from U.S. state tax reforms
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2018) Kakpo, Eliakim, author; Cutler, Harvey, advisor; Pena, Anita, advisor; Li, Cher, committee member; Kroll, Stephan, committee member
    Several controversies emerged recently following a series of corporate inversions designed to minimize corporate tax liabilities. Moreover, secular stagnation and ever-decreasing levels of corporate tax collections by federal and state jurisdictions in the U.S contributed to the resurgence of a widespread interest in tax reform. To reduce corporate tax evasion and promote economic growth, policymakers passed the "Tax Cuts and Jobs Act" in 2017 which substantially reduced the corporate income tax rate. The opportunity of the reform remains a controversial debate across the political spectrum. This dissertation explores the experience of U.S. state policy changes related to the taxation of corporations to study the extent to which the tax is passed onto workers in the form of lower wages and employment in the short-run. The first chapter discusses the political economy of U.S. state corporate tax reforms. Using a unique dataset of state corporate tax rates, I observe that business tax changes are associated with tax competition, swings in economic cycles, and left-right political ideology. In contrast, long-term debt and budgetary pressures do not correlate with state corporate tax policies. Moreover, I document a regional heterogeneity and notice a slowdown in state tax changes after the Federal Reform Act of 1986. These findings matter for the empirics of corporate tax incidence, which is increasingly concerned with the endogeneity between tax reforms and other economic developments. The second chapter studies the responsiveness of wages and employment to state corporate tax changes in the presence of market concentration and combined reporting legislation. I exploit policy discontinuities at state borders by pairing counties in states featuring a tax change with their contiguous counterparts in control states. I observe that corporate tax cuts do not boost employment or wages while tax hikes reduce the growth of both. When controlling for market competition, I notice that the wage sensitivity to a tax hike decreases with the number of establishments and depends on legislation regarding corporate profit reporting rules. The third chapter evaluates the economic effects of a natural experiment created by the 2005 Ohio tax reform. The policy drastically reduced the corporate and personal income tax, as well as the property tax on machinery over the period 2006-2010. I observe several cross-sections of the Current Population Survey and compare groups of individuals in Ohio to similar individuals in (i) the Midwest and (ii) other U.S. states around the reform. Using a difference in difference identification approach, I conclude that the tax reform did not significantly boost wages and employment opportunities; but seems to have affected the reporting of self-employment earnings.
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    Making ends meet in a social context: grandparent childcare during the 2008 recession, debt of the poor and financial innovation, and relative poverty's effect on election outcomes
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2018) Roberts, Michael, author; Pena, Anita, advisor; Weiler, Stephan, committee member; Zahran, Sammy, committee member; Kroll, Stephan, committee member; Pressman, Steven, committee member
    The chapters illustrate dynamics of the choices of individuals and households when facing income and time constraints in the recent United States. In the first chapter, grandparent childcare provision is studied from the supply side with a focus on the effect of the 2008 recession. Findings suggest differing effects for lower income respondents, and female respondents. In the second essay, I test a structural consumption model building on Brown (2007) and extending into recent periods using newly available data. Results suggest that Minskian effects are present in consumption in the U.S. Lastly, I test a new relative poverty measure against the more traditional form and study its relation to electoral outcomes from 2000-2016. Results suggest that state-level relative poverty decreases the likelihood of Republican victories. All of these aspects investigate the relationship between the social and the economic in the modern U.S.
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    The local economic impact of demographic change
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2022) Landini, Austin, author; Pena, Anita, advisor; Weiler, Stephan, advisor; Mushinski, David, committee member; Coats, Jennifer, committee member
    Little research exists exploring the relationship over time between changes in demographic concentrations and economic outcomes such as tax, spending and income. Given the speed of demographic transformation in the United States over the past few decades, it is important for policymakers to understand the relationship between demographics and economic indicators, as well as potential mechanisms which may drive these relationships. The following dissertation research is divided into five chapters, with Chapters 1 and 5 introducing the topic and concluding, respectively. In Chapter 2, I argue that there is an endogenous relationship between demographic change and economic outcomes such as tax and expenditure per capita which is biasing previously published results. Taking into account the time impact of unobservable variables in Census data 1980-2010, Census Places which are becoming more diverse have lower tax and expenditure per capita. Because Census Places do not capture the entire US demographic landscape, especially in rural areas, Chapter 3 makes use of ACS 5-year estimates 2010-2019 to show that there is also a robust negative relationship between non-White composition and income per capita at the Census Tract level in Colorado. The fact that Census Places and Tracts which become more diverse over time suffer from reduced tax, expenditure and income per capita is an important consideration for public policymakers moving forward. Still, these results cannot be taken as causal and further research is warranted into mechanisms which may be driving this negative relationship in order to implement policies aimed at reducing residential segregation and inequality. Chapter 4 uses a voluntary contribution game embedded in a list survey to determine whether demographic information about a community could be altering individuals' willingness to contribute to public programs. In Chapter 2, I begin by commenting on a famous publication by Alesina, Baqir and Easterly (1999) which finds that the relationship at the Census Place level between race heterogeneity and tax/spending per capita is positive. That is, places with higher levels of race heterogeneity have higher levels of tax and spending, but lower spending on `productive' public goods such as road maintenance and sewerage in 1990 Census Data. I begin by iii reproducing similar results for the most recently available 2010 Census data, then arguing that these results are likely biased due to endogeneity. Unobserved variables such as bargaining power, culture, and political representation impact both demographic change and tax/spending over time. As a result, cross sectional results which do not incorporate the time impact of these unobserved variables are likely to be inaccurate. More recent economic literature, especially associated with Opportunity Insights, has produced an extensive analysis of individual-level outcomes given a place of birth. Chapter 3 shifts the unit of analysis from the individual to the place, using US Census Tracts. I argue that demographic change at the Tract level is occurring in predictable ways along racial and income lines. Tracts which increase their White Non-Hispanic population over time are becoming wealthier in terms of aggregate income and income per capita, while Tracts which increase in Minority population become less wealthy. This result suggests that policymakers may be able to combat inequality by understanding and responding to the mechanisms which drive demographic segregation. Individuals' support for public funds is a complex decision which is influenced by the information the respondent has about the public fund, its contributors, and its use. Individuals may be less willing to contribute to public projects if they perceive (correctly or incorrectly) that others will not contribute. Policymakers would like to understand what types of information are important factors in the contribution decision. Since perceptions and beliefs about the likeliness of others to contribute is a potentially sensitive question, respondents may choose not to answer questions about their beliefs and perceptions truthfully. This effect is known as social desirability bias. To combat social desirability bias, social scientists have in recent years employed the list survey experiment. Chapter 4 combines a list survey type experiment into a voluntary contribution game to examine perceptions about race which could underlay the negative relationship found in Chapters 2 and 3. I find that individuals do use demographic information to influence contribution to public funds, and that contribution levels are highest when the community which will benefit from the public fund is similar in race/ethnicity to that of the respondent. The results of this body of work suggest that the conflict and inefficiency hypothesis as presented in the literature is flawed. That is, lower public goods spending in diverse areas is not produced by mismanagement of available funds, but rather by a dearth of funds available. Nonetheless, there are elements of residential preference and voting behavior which could be driving observed differences in public goods spending and quality by creating residential segregation which perpetuates economic inequality.
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    Three essays on the economic effects of combat related post-traumatic stress disorder on U.S. veterans
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2022) Lee, Kelly M., author; Pena, Anita, advisor; Zahran, Sammy, committee member; Mushinski, David, committee member; Stallones, Lorann, committee member
    Since September 2001, approximately 2.77 million military service members have served on over 5.4 million deployments (Wenger, 2018) to Iraq and Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), and Operation New Dawn (OND). Soldiers returning from these deployments are at risk of experiencing adverse mental health issues, to include post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression. The first-stage of this study examines the relationship between exposure to combat and a diagnosis of PTSD and depression. Then, I explore the effects a diagnosis of PTSD and depression have on the employment and risk-taking behaviors of U.S. service members. Chapter 1 focuses on active duty service members, veterans, and National Guardsmen and Reservists and estimates the effects of combat on their mental health outcomes. I then decompose the effects of combat and examine the effect of differing measures of combat on mental health. These measures include deployment length, exposure to enemy firefight, killing or wounding someone, and exposure to the death or injury of an ally, civilian, or enemy. I find that exposure to combat and several separate combat events leads to higher probabilities of adverse mental health outcomes for military members. Chapter 2 explores the effect a diagnosis of PTSD has on several employment outcomes for U.S. veterans. First, using a standard probit model, I examine the effect of PTSD on four employment outcomes: the probability of employment, the number of hours worked per week (on average), employment sector, and job satisfaction. I find that PTSD is associated with a decreased probability of employment and a decrease in the number of hours worked per week. However, if PTSD is endogenous, then these results will be biased. For example, veterans with PTSD may be perceived by potential employers as being dangerous or incompetent (Hipes & Gemoets, 2019), which could affect the probability of employment. To address this concern, I employ a two-stage estimation approach using exposure to combat as an instrument to minimize the bias in the estimated effect of PTSD on the probability of employment and the number of hours worker per week. I find no significant effect of PTSD on either outcome. Chapter 3 focuses on the relationship between a diagnosis of PTSD and depression and the risk-taking behaviors of service members. Risk-taking behaviors are defined as intentional behaviors that have potential negative consequences or loss and have been found to be positively associated with PTSD. U.S. military personnel returning from deployments are experiencing adverse mental health issues which can lead to an increase in risk-taking behaviors. This increase in risk-taking behaviors can lead to worse economic outcomes for veterans, such as high unemployment rates and decreased earnings. I approach this question from two separate directions. First, I examine the effect a diagnosis of PTSD or depression has on the risk-taking behaviors of U.S. veterans. Second, I examined the association of exposure to combat on risk-taking behaviors using the combat events found to be significant to a diagnosis of PTSD or depression in Chapter 1. I find that PTSD is associated with an increase in the use of nicotine, alcohol, and other substances. As stated above, the broad goal of this research is to improve our understanding of the long-term consequences a diagnosis of combat-related PTSD has on U.S. veterans. Chapter 1 allows me to explore the effect different combat experiences have on the probability of adverse mental health outcomes. While Chapter 1 looks at the direct effects of combat exposure on mental health outcomes, Chapter 2 looks beyond the combat experience and examines the effect a diagnosis of combat-related PTSD has on the employment outcomes of U.S. veterans. Chapter 3 extends the work in the previous chapter by exploring one potential reason for the lower levels of employment found in U.S. veterans by examining the effect PTSD and depression have on the risk-taking behaviors of previously deployed service members.