Browsing by Author "Tavani, Daniele, committee member"
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Item Open Access Abelian surfaces with real multiplication over finite fields(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2014) Freese, Hilary, author; Achter, Jeffrey, advisor; Pries, Rachel, committee member; Peterson, Chris, committee member; Tavani, Daniele, committee memberGiven a simple abelian surface A/Fq, the endomorphism algebra, End(A) ⊗ Q, contains a unique real quadratic subfield. We explore two different but related questions about when a particular real quadratic subfield K+ is the maximal real subfield of the endomorphism algebra. First, we compute the number of principally polarized abelian surfaces A/Fq such that K+ ⊂ End(A) ⊗ Q. Second, we consider an abelian surface A/Q, and its reduction Ap = A mod p, then ask for which primes p is K+ ⊂ End(A) ⊗ Q. The result from the first question leads to a heuristic for the second question, namely that the number of p < χ for which K+ ⊂ End(A) ⊗ Q grows like √χ/log(c).Item Open Access Arithmetic properties of curves and Jacobians(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2020) Bisogno, Dean M., author; Pries, Rachel, advisor; Achter, Jeffrey, committee member; Cavalieri, Renzo, committee member; Tavani, Daniele, committee memberThis thesis is about algebraic curves and their Jacobians. The first chapter concerns Abhyankar's Inertia Conjecture which is about the existence of unramified covers of the affine line in positive characteristic with prescribed ramification behavior. The second chapter demonstrates the existence of a curve C for which a particular algebraic cycle, called the Ceresa cycle, is torsion in the Jacobian variety of C. The final chapter is a study of supersingular Hurwitz curves in positive characteristic.Item Embargo From revolutions to realities: an empirical investigation of the Arab Spring's consequences(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Muktad, Abdalla, author; Miller, Ray, advisor; Tavani, Daniele, committee member; Zahran, Sammy, committee member; Çavdar, Gamze, committee memberWith the irrevocable change in the Arab world over the last decade, fully understanding the economic and political impact of the Arab Spring is paramount for policymakers. This dissertation consists of three empirical essays on the Arab Spring which attempt to capture causal relationships between Arab Spring and some political and economic factors. Exogenous shocks such as the experiences of revolution are treated as natural experiments which minimize problems of endogeneity and selection. Therefore, these essays are analyzed based on the synthetic control method and synthetic difference-in-differences. The first essay concerns the impact of the Arab Spring on economic growth, corruption and democracy. I focused on Tunisia and Libya as a case study of Arab Spring countries using the synthetic control method (SCM). I found that there was a negative impact of the Arab Spring on economic growth after 2010 for both Tunisia and Libya. On the other hand, the results suggested that although there was a substantial increase in democracy after the Arab Spring for both Tunisia and Libya, democracy sharply decreased in 2015 in Libya due to armed conflict. Surprisingly, the results showed that there was a substantial increase in corruption in both Libya and Tunisia after the Arab Spring. In the second essay, I estimated the Arab Spring's impact on foreign aid by using the synthetic difference-in-difference method. I examine whether the Arab Spring affects the distribution of foreign aid. I argue that the conflict may respond differently to different types of aid because of the objectives and aid-giving motives. The results indicate that, following the Arab Spring, there was a general increase in total foreign aid to affected countries, with exceptions for certain donors and a stronger increase for "non-traditional Western allies," with the United States being the largest contributor. Also, the findings suggest that, following the Arab Spring, various donors increased foreign aid to affected nations, particularly in government and civil society support, as well as humanitarian aid, with the United States focusing on government and civil society aid in Tunisia, Libya, and Syria, European countries emphasizing government and civil society aid in Libya and Tunisia, and Multilateral aid generally increasing, except for government and civil society aid in Yemen. In the third essay, I studied the spillover effect of the Arab Spring by investigating its influence on nearby countries concerning economic growth, bilateral trade, and foreign direct investment. I aimed to address how proximity to Arab Spring countries impacts the economic growth, bilateral trade, and foreign direct investment of neighboring economies. The results found that countries located within 2000 kilometers of Arab Spring nations experienced a significant negative impact on both real GDP and net inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI). However, the negative effects on bilateral trade were not statistically significant, suggesting that engaging in trade with Arab Spring countries did not necessarily harm the economic growth of neighboring countries.Item Open Access Inequality as a cause of macro-instability and productive inefficiency(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2015) Friedman, Mark, author; Bernasek, Alexandra, advisor; Stevis, Dimitris, committee member; Tavani, Daniele, committee member; Vasudevan, Ramaa, committee memberThese essays will examine the impact of inequality from both macro and micro perspectives. The first issue to be raised will be the contribution of inequality to macroeconomic instability. In the third chapter the focus will expand to determine whether an optimal level of inequality can be found. Much of the examination will be informed by principles outlined in the Progressive Utilization Theory (PROUT) developed by the philosopher P. R. Sarkar. As this dissertation was written during the recovery from the Great Recession, a timely controversy is addressed in the first chapter – whether growing inequality contributes to economic instability. Arguments for and against the proposition are critically examined in detail. It is concluded that the accumulated weight of the arguments favor the position that inequality can indeed help destabilize economies. In the second chapter econometric evidence is presented to show that high inequality contributes to the severity of economic downturns, both in terms of GDP declines and in consumption losses. Attention is also given to the impact of inequality in contributing to the global crisis leading to the Great Recession. While the initial evidence presented here cannot be considered conclusive in demonstrating a causal link between inequality and that specific crisis, it is shown that rising inequality was present in most of the 15 countries included in the study which were suffering recessions. An attempt to define an efficient limit to inequality will be the focus of the third chapter. The discussion will extend from the PROUT principle that any inequality that is accepted by society is only justified to the extent that it provides incentives for greater service to society by those receiving more than others. Any amount of income or in-kind amenities provided to a person that is beyond the minimum requirements by the standards of that society should not exceed the value of the extra services coaxed from that person by the extra incentives. A humanistic model of motivation for productivity is developed that suggests that people are productive for a variety of reasons besides material rewards. This is intended to place the need for incentives, and by extension inequality, in a perspective that suggests wide inequality is unnecessary and economically inefficient. Diagramatic analysis that introduces the Sarkarian Individual Productivity Curve demonstrates reasonable limits to inequality.Item Open Access Measuring values for environmental public goods: incorporating gender and ethnic social effects into stated-preference value-elicitation methods(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2011) Jones Ritten, Chian, author; Kling, Robert W., advisor; Bernasek, Alexandra, committee member; Tavani, Daniele, committee member; Loomis, John B., committee memberThis dissertation explores the theory and seemingly paradoxical results between the economic literatures of contingent valuation method and risk aversion and the interdisciplinary literature of perceptions of risk, specifically with regard to race and gender effects. While a review of the contingent valuation literature shows no systematic gender or race differences in willingness to pay to reduce risks associated with nonmarket goods and services, the risk aversion literature finds systematic gender and race differences in levels of aversion to risks. Women are found to be more risk averse than men and Blacks and Hispanics less risk averse than whites. It is hypothesized that an individual measure of willingness to pay to reduce risks associated with nonmarket goods should be directly related to individual levels of risk aversion and consistent with individual perception of risk. The results from the risk perception literature also find systematic gender and race differences. These results are consistent with the risk aversion literature for gender effects, but inconsistent for Blacks and Hispanics who are found to perceive more risks than whites. To explore this inconsistency, a theoretical model is constructed that connects the contingent valuation theory to that of risk aversion and perceptions of risk. Insights from the risk perception literature are used to create a model of absolute risk aversion in order to make a tractable connection to risk aversion and stated valuation in CVM. Data from a previously collected dataset by Loomis et al (2009) is fit to the model. The results reinforce the inconsistency found between the risk perception and contingent valuation literatures and indicate a possible shortcoming of traditional methodology used by contingent valuation studies and the need for use of proper payment vehicles. The existence of social preferences has been well established in the experimental literature and is formally modeled in this dissertation by incorporating influences of self-interest, altruism, reciprocity, fairness, and commitment in the context of stated willingness to pay in contingent valuation methodology. The models suggest that the existence of social preferences may explain some of the inconsistency between the relevant literatures. A dichotomous choice stated valuation study of various vaccination programs was conducted among college students at Colorado State University. The finding indicate gender differences in willingness to pay for vaccination programs and that the payment vehicle may have substantial effects on valuation. The inclusion of social preferences is a substantial improvement to modeling of valuation and when not included, may lead to underspecified models that ignore existing gender effects.Item Open Access Moduli spaces of rational graphically stable curves(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2021) Fry, Andy J., author; Cavalieri, Renzo, advisor; Shoemaker, Mark, committee member; Wilson, James, committee member; Tavani, Daniele, committee memberWe use a graph to define a new stability condition for the algebraic and tropical moduli spaces of rational curves. Tropically, we characterize when the moduli space has the structure of a balanced fan by proving a combinatorial bijection between graphically stable tropical curves and chains of flats of a graphic matroid. Algebraically, we characterize when the tropical compactification of the compact moduli space agrees with the theory of geometric tropicalization. Both characterization results occur only when the graph is complete multipartite.Item Open Access The gender dynamics of public finance: a Chinese and cross-country analysis(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2014) Knight, Tabitha, author; Braunstein, Elissa, advisor; Tavani, Daniele, committee member; Seguino, Stephanie, committee member; Charlton, Sue Ellen, committee memberThis dissertation consists of four chapters, integrated with the goal of increasing the knowledge of ways in which fiscal policies affect women's welfare worldwide. First, we provide an overview of the literature relating fiscal policies, gendered employment, and growth, contribute a conceptual model of employment based on these relationships, and propose areas for future work. While we consider the direct relationship between scal policy and gendered employment, we also consider two indirect relationships where scal policy in influences employment through its eect on growth and the unpaid labor burden. Next, we direct our focus towards the Chinese economy as we present a synopsis of women's position in the labor market and discuss the historical patterns of production and social norms, the evolving structure of the Chinese economy, and the ways in which these changes in influence women's relative wages, employment opportunities, and mobility; we also include an examination of possible future Chinese growth policies and their potential impacts on women's relative welfare. Using the knowledge obtained in the first two parts of this dissertation, we provide an empirical study of gendered employment in China with a focus on public spending on social infrastructure. We find that public spending on education is associated with increases in gender equality in employment as well short-run economic growth via upward harmonization. Finally, we further extend our work to a world-wide analysis of the same and find that public spending on healthcare and education are positively related to women's relative employment via upward harmonization. In this dissertation we aim to increase the understanding of the relationship between public sector spending, specifically on social infrastructure, and women's relative welfare, and encourage future work to evaluate other development policies through a gendered lens in order to provide policy options for those aiming to increase economic development in a gender-sensitive manner.Item Open Access The use of conditional convergence between economies to estimate steady state incomes within economies(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2014) DelVecchio, Micah, author; Cutler, Harvey, advisor; Tavani, Daniele, committee member; Braunstein, Elissa, committee member; Costanigro, Marco, committee memberThis dissertation introduces a panel data method to estimate country-specific steady state levels of output in an augmented Solow growth model. The use of panel data permits the estimation of a country-specific effect which can explain the surprising result that many developing economies are above their steady states. These empirical results also confirm that the augmented Solow model can explain the present cross-country income divergence of developed and developing economies. Another application finds evidence that the post-Soviet economies began their transition toward markets with initial conditions of overcapitalization. Finally, when the results are sufficient, there is also the possibility of describing an entire period of growth and gaining insights into future periods. This is shown with the OECD economies. In Islam (1995), panel data is first used to estimate the parameters of the Solow growth model. The following year, Cho and Graham (1996) published a small paper which illustrates a simple way to compute steady state levels of per capita income by using the results of cross-sectional convergence tests. This dissertation simply combines these two methods with the result that the interpretations are more satisfying. In sum, we find that countries can begin a period of development above or below their steady states and that countries converging from above should be considered to be overcapitalized. This implies that development through investment can only succeed when there is convergence from below the steady state. Above the steady state, total factor productivity is too low to sustain the relatively high levels of capital. The organization of the dissertation is linear with an introduction preceding the second chapter's literature review and the development of a theoretical and empirical model in the third chapter. The applications of the method then follow. Chapter 4 uses a worldwide sample to compare the result to other work and to show that this fundamental model of growth theory can explain the observed increasing levels of international inequality. Chapter 5 takes a look at the transition economies. In addition to finding evidence of overcapitalization, this dissertation finds a positive correlation between growth and the privatization of small business under transition. Additionally, there is a negative impact of price liberalization under the conditions of repressed inflation experienced by many Soviet-era planned economies. Chapter 6 uses a sample of OECD economies to obtain a significant deterministic, technological growth rate. This is possible because the countries are similar enough to make the assumption that they have the same growth rate more realistic. This enables an understanding of steady states after the initial period and leading into the most contemporaneous period of the sample.Item Open Access Three essays on corruption in the Middle East and North Africa(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2022) Kirsanli, Fatih, author; Vasudevan, Ramaa, advisor; Tavani, Daniele, committee member; Zahran, Sammy, committee member; Dossani, Asad, committee memberThis dissertation focuses on the corruption phenomenon at the macro level in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) after the Arab uprisings regarding its impacts on economic growth and income inequality. The first chapter investigates the relationship between corruption and economic growth. The results show that after the Arab Spring, corruption lowers economic growth. After clustering the MENA countries into three categories -- severe, moderate, and light -- according to the magnitude of the Arab protests and their outcomes, the results are obscure due to the low number of observations. Although the results are not significant in sub-sample regressions, they are robust for the entire data set with alternative corruption indexes. Furthermore, the findings verify that the natural resource curse is a valid argument. Lastly, the Chow test confirms that 2011, the year when the Arab protests started, constitutes a structural break. The second chapter examines the impact of corruption on income inequality. The findings concludes that there is no significant relationship between corruption and inequality for the entire data set. Then, the MENA region is categorized into three sub-regions as in the first chapter to test whether results constitute intra-regional heterogeneity. The robust results reveal a negative and significant relationship between the Arab Spring and inequality in severely affected countries. Nevertheless, the results are insignificant for moderately and lightly affected countries. The third chapter analyzes the heterogeneous findings of the previous chapters. In the first part, crony capitalism, democratization of corruption and rentier state models are discussed to explain the political-institutional characterization of severely, moderately and lightly affected countries. In the second part, severely affected countries are further examined on how corruption income inequality nexus rotates in terms of magnitude and sign and still significant after the Arab Spring. The political economy analysis helps to provide country and group-specific policy recommendations.Item Open Access Three essays on gender inequality, dynamic bargaining, and technology adoption in subsistence agriculture(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2014) Slootmaker, Christopher, author; Braunstein, Elissa, advisor; Tavani, Daniele, committee member; Iverson, Terrence, committee member; Bond, Craig, committee memberTo view the abstract, please see the full text of the document.Item Open Access Three essays on globalization of trade and structures of economic growth and (under) development: comparative analysis of advanced and emerging nations(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2020) Ganguly, Arpan, author; Braunstein, Elissa, advisor; Vasudevan, Ramaa, advisor; Tavani, Daniele, committee member; Zahran, Sammy, committee member; Stevis, Dimitris, committee memberWith the rise of neoliberal perspectives on economic policy and development in the 1980s came a new phase of globalization in the world economy. Quantitative increases in trade and financial flows, coupled with qualitative changes in corporate strategy and governance have been elemental to this process. Globalization of trade and production has integrated developed and underdeveloped regions of the world in a process of capitalist expansion and accumulation, one that has at times delivered bouts of growth in some countries, but little in terms of economic development or improvements in employment in others. This dissertation seeks to understand linkages between the globalization of trade and structures of development and under-development. Chapter 1 empirically evaluates the impact of trade and globalization on the quality of employment, particularly wage inequality by skill type and the functional distribution of income. This paper argues that rather than changes in relative prices, the link between trade and wage inequality is better explained by the mechanism of skill-intensity reversals. This is evident in trade's negative impact on less-skilled labor's skill intensity in production. Particularly for emerging nations, gains from external integration based on exploiting resource or skill-based differences in comparative advantage seems to have become transitory over time. Chapter 2 models the multifaceted impacts of trade and globalization on economic growth, using principal component analysis to differentiate among groups of countries based on how global capital interacts with domestic macroeconomic structures. This paper ties together a wide range of structuralist growth models to provide a unified narrative on regimes of globalization and growth. Chapter 3 evaluates the impact of trade globalization on economic development through its impact on structural change. This paper groups the analysis of regional differences in structural change in the development literature into three broad categories. Data on sectoral composition of value-added trade, output and employment is used to emphasize these regional dynamics, highlighting how internal and external constraints on the industrial sector lie at the heart of these challenges.Item Open Access Water quality and fishery impacts(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Wilson, Michelan, author; Barbier, Edward, advisor; Pena, Anita, committee member; Tavani, Daniele, committee member; Manning, Dale, committee memberFishery production is an important source of income for many people across the world. Marine and freshwater fisheries provide jobs in local communities and is also important for trade in both developing and developed economies. Climate change and human activities pose a threat to the fish production by changing habitat quality. Changes in fish production have direct impacts on economic welfare (consumer and producer surplus) and the goal of fishery management is to improve both biological and economic fishery outcomes. This dissertation explores the relationship between fish production and various water quality indicators in the Estuary and Gulf of St. Lawrence (EGSL) and examines the economic impact of changes in water quality in fisheries. It examines the pathways through which water quality impacts fish stocks and subsequent impacts on harvest and economic welfare, and suggests policies for fishery management. Chapter one examines the impact of water quality in a marine fishery under regulated access. It particularly focuses on how hypoxia impacts welfare in a large fishery that has different degrees of hypoxia. Chapter two examines water quality in a freshwater fishery and focuses on the direct and indirect mechanisms through which nutrient pollution impacts fisheries. Finally, chapter three acts as an extension to chapter one, examining the impact of hypoxia on a marine species with an additional assumption that the impact of this water quality indicator may be different at different life stages, which may change the possible welfare impacts of variations in water quality.