Theses and Dissertations

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Open Access
A county-level analysis of residential solar adoption in the United States
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2012) Kerschen, Matthew, author; Kling, Robert, advisor; Zahran, Sammy, advisor; Bond, Craig, committee member
This thesis set out to achieve two major objectives, with a third objective added at the end. The first was the update and analysis of the zero-inflated negative binomial (ZINB) model used by Zahran et al. (2008) in regards to its validity and robustness as a predictor of the count of solar using households in a county. The second objective was to use the model to provide an empirical measure of the effect financial and regulatory incentives have on the count of solar using households. The final objective was to explore and explain an unexpected decrease in the count of solar using households. This was done by using a ZINB regression to model the number of occupied housing units that use solar heating at the county level over the period from 2000 to 2009. In addition to analyzing the effects of the explanatory variables, geographic information systems (GIS) modeling was used to provide geographic mapping of the distribution of occupied housing units that use solar heating. The results indicate that Zahran et al.'s (2008) model is a robust and accurate predictor of the count of solar using households. Financial incentives were found to have an insignificant impact on the count of solar-using households, while regulatory incentives decreased the odds of a zero count in a county, but also decreased the expected count. A correlation was found between densely populated counties and the decrease in the count of solar using households.
Open Access
A history of interest
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2011) Palmer, Daniel Dwight, author; Bernasek, Alexandra, advisor; Vasudevan, Ramaa, committee member; McCulloch, Michael L., committee member
A History of Interest uses methods inspired by the work of Michel Foucault to uncover institutional aspects of credit and debt. It explores three hypotheses and covers the period 1290-1914. During this period, Anglo-American society went from a system of debt conscription and usury restrictions in the Middle Ages to a system of voluntary bankruptcy and credit reporting by the late 19th century. This thesis explains how that transition occurred. Situating these changes in Foucault's notion of disciplinary writing, it also suggests what that transition means for the modern world.
Open Access
Addressing the religious free-rider problem via religious consumption signaling and religious capital accumulation
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2012) Simpson, Jason J., author; Bernasek, Alexandra, advisor; Zahran, Sammy, committee member; Dickinson, Greg, committee member
The aim of this paper is to investigate and illustrate the religious free-rider problem within church congregations while investigating religious consumption signaling patterns and the ability, or lack thereof, to form religious capital. From an institutional perspective, this paper will address stigma-screening processes via three economic models in an effort to understand and evaluate the overall effectiveness of institutional responses towards free-riding members. In addition, this paper will explore incentives behind perverse consumption signaling as a method of communicating membership, as well as the overall impact of restricting religious capital accumulation for both members and free-riders alike.
Open Access
An option value analysis of hydraulic fracturing
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017) Hess, Joshua H., author; Iverson, Terrence, advisor; Cutler, Harvey, committee member; Weiler, Stephan, committee member; Manning, Dale, committee member
Many uncertain public policy decisions with sunk costs can be optimally timed leading policymakers to delay implementing a policy despite positive expected net present value. One salient example of this is hydraulic fracturing (fracking), a recently developed oil and gas extraction technology, that has increased fossil fuel reserves in the US. However, many municipalities have seen fit to ban its use despite seemingly positive expected net benefits. We hypothesize that an option value framework that values the ability to delay and learn about an uncertain project may explain fracking bans in practice where the neoclassical net present value rule does not. We test this by developing a stochastic dynamic learning model parameterized with a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model that calculates the value of learning about uncertainty over damages and uncertainty over benefits. Applying the model to a representative Colorado municipality, we quantify the quasi-option values (QOV), which create an additional incentive to ban fracking temporarily in order to learn. To our knowledge, this is the first attempt to quantify an economy-wide QOV associated with a local environmental policy decision. In Chapter 1 we argue that a numerical, option value approach is the appropriate way to examine uncertain public policy issues involving sunk costs. This method allows for an optimal timing of the public project rather than the 'now or never' approach of the ubiquitous net present value rule. We present local fracking policy as an excellent application for an option value approach as has positive expected net benefits but has been subject to local bans seemingly despite the net present value rule. We also defend our use of a CGE model to estimate the local economic benefits of fracking. Chapter 2 presents the option value model associated with epistemological uncertainty over environmental damages. Also, this chapter presents damage values parameterized to the City of Fort Collins for application in this and the subsequent chapter. With this in hand, we solve the model and demonstrate the results. Chapter 3 has a similar structure to Chapter 2. First, it discusses the literature on stochastic oil movements, then it presents the option value model associated with stochastic uncertainty over local benefits. Then, assuming the same parameterized expected damage as in Chapter 2, we solve the model and display the results.
Open Access
Banking efficiency in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries: an empirical analysis using data envelopment analysis approach
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2009) Alsarhan, Abdulwahab, author; Phillips, Ronnie, advisor
Measurement and analysis of banking efficiency has received increasing attention in applied economics in recent years due to the rapid globalization of the financial industry and consequently, increasing competitiveness in international financial markets. Efficiency in a general term in economics describes how well a system performs in generating the maximum output for given inputs. Efficiency in banking industry terms is measured as the difference between the bank's position and its best production frontier. There are two main techniques that are used to evaluate banking efficiency, parametric methods and non parametric methods. The debate on which approach is more convenient for analyzing the efficiency of the banking industry is still open and has been the subject of many applied works (Luciano and Regis 2007).
Open Access
Bitcoin price formation: an empirical investigation
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2019) Light, Aric, author; Tavani, Daniele, advisor; Pena, Anita, committee member; Kroll, Stephan, committee member
Created in 2008 and rising to prominence in 2017, Bitcoin continues to generate controversy as to whether it is a speculative asset or the harbinger of a future of global, decentralized commerce. The focus of this paper is to investigate the properties of Bitcoin and its market by assessing asset specific factors (users, hash rate, etc.) and traditional market factors (market risk, currency risk, etc.). The objective is to quantify the impacts of these forces as drivers of Bitcoin returns and to develop a risk measurement framework with the potential to inform future use cases. The analysis is broken out into two parts. The first seeks to quantify the impact of asset specific "supply and demand" factors with respect to Bitcoin's daily price return and volatility and to determine the relative efficiency of the nascent Bitcoin market. To do this a GARCH model is specified which enables the measurement of return impacts and volatility within a single model. A back test and forecast are then conducted to determine if the conditional value at risk and expected shortfall can be accurately captured by the model. We determine the Bitcoin market is weakly efficient, returns are highly impacted by supply and demand factors and that the specified value at risk model accurately describes the exceptional volatility. The second part incorporates a set of macro-financial variables into the model to determine Bitcoin's exposure to traditional sources of risk; such as stock and currency market returns. The results show that Bitcoin is largely unimpacted by broad macro-financial variables once supply and demand variables are properly accounted for. This suggests that although Bitcoin is a weakly efficient market it is generally disconnected from worldwide capital and currencies market. This further suggests that Bitcoin may have currently limited "real world" use cases which is an important consideration for investors.
Open Access
Brain drain and reverse brain drain: individual decision making and implications for economic growth
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2011) Hua, Kuo-Ting, author; Fan, Chuen-Mei, advisor; Cutler, Harvey, committee member; Kling, Robert W., committee member; Loomis, John B., committee member
In two models, this dissertation explores two different but related topics in the international migration of skilled individuals, namely, the possibility of beneficial brain drain arises from the out-migration of skilled individuals and the potentially economic incentives for the emigrants to return to their homeland. The first model is a R&D and human capital accumulation hybrid endogenous growth model with a modified human capital accumulation behavior. It shows that an individual learns from previous innovations and that human capital accumulation fuels improvement in the quality of goods to promote economic growth. Since the ability of an individual is the key to the formation of human capital, the economic growth rate is tied to the representative individual's ability. It also shows that, with the presence of uncertainty about the opportunity of migration, the sending country could benefit from brain drain even without the scale effect. The second model is a two-period overlapping generation human capital growth model with a common self-selection fashion. Each individual optimally chooses his human capital level and the location he works. It shows that an increase in the probability of migration induces human capital accumulation in the sending country resulting from more individuals becoming potential returnees, and each potential emigrant or returnee acquiring more education. It also shows that the domestic investment opportunity could further increase human capital acquisition for an potential returnee while the wage premium couldn't.
Open Access
Building equity in addiction: is there potential for higher returns from stocks with products and services associated with addiction?
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Tully, Sean Patrick, author; Vasudevan, Ramaa, advisor; Turtle, Harry, committee member; Mushinski, David, committee member
Industries associated with addiction have long been some of the most profitable businesses on the planet. In both good times and bad, human beings seem to be drawn to activities – whether having a drink, smoking a cigarette, or venturing to the local casino – that fall into the category of vice and have a history of being associated with addiction. An individual going through tough times may be sitting in their apartment drinking the same scotch as persons celebrating a colleagues' promotion in the pub across the street. Merriam-Webster defines vice as 'a moral depravity or corruption, a moral fault or failing, or a habitual and usually trivial defect or shortcoming' (Merriam-Webster, 2020). As societal norms become more relaxed with time, some activities previously considered to be controversial, reflective of bad habits, or provided with the risk of developing a dependency are becoming more tolerated. In some cases, even previously illegal products are becoming legalized. This gives some companies with products and services considered potentially addictive in nature the opportunity to enter new markets and yield potentially higher returns for investors, albeit at the cost of promoting and providing the means to participate in socially harmful activities. What level of possible investment returns can investors taking equity in alcohol, tobacco, gambling, and cannabis companies expect? As far back as 2001, a report commissioned by Credit Suisse First Boston found that vice as a market sector outperformed the market as a whole and held up particularly well during past recession periods. If investing in companies associated with addiction and vice has produced attractive market returns for investors in the past, will a portfolio of investments in stocks specifically offering potentially addictive products and services produce similar results? Can investors taking equity in companies associated with potentially addictive products such as alcohol, tobacco, gambling, and cannabis expect higher returns versus investing in the S&P500 market index? The goal of this thesis is to explore whether investors can expect higher returns from investments associated with potentially addictive products and human vices when compared with returns of the broader market represented by the S&P500 index. We will construct an investment portfolio of stocks based on addictive products, and study how individual stocks in the portfolio correlate to overall market performance (betas vs benchmarks) by completing both equally weighted and market value-based analysis. We also perform regressions with the CAPM, Fama-French three-factor, and several control variable augmented models to analyze return performance of the addiction portfolio as compared to the S&P500.
Open Access
Closing the growth gap: regional entrepreneurship growth in different regions of Vietnam
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2016) Pham, Chi L., author; Weiler, Stephan, advisor; Mushinski, David, committee member; Suter, Jordan, committee member
This paper examines the effect of provincial growth factors on regional entrepreneurship growth in Vietnam by combining theoretical and empirical models. Separate regressions are run for 63 provinces of Vietnam across the time period of 2005 to 2013. The key findings are that the growth gap between the rich and the poor regions still exists, and the strongest growth factor affecting provincial entrepreneurship growth is the market growth. There is evidence of spillover effects which implies that new firms and/or the development of a province's factors may generate new entrepreneurial opportunities not only for the province itself but also for the neighboring regions.
Open Access
Determinants of small business lending
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2011) Kravchenko, Nataliia, author; Weiler, Stephan, advisor; Bernasek, Alexandra, committee member; Villupuram, Sriram, committee member
The aim of this paper is to determine the factors that drive banks' decisions to provide loans to small informationally opaque enterprises. This paper combines three important aspects related to small business lending - asymmetry of information, bank efficiency, and regional economic performance - and hopes to establish the complex ties between them and understand how banks can use the information available for the benefit of SMEs, and ultimately regional growth.
Open Access
Determining the financial performance of private veterinary practices
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 1981) Höglund, Donald Lee, author
Determining the financial performance of a private veterinary practice requires first and foremost that a private practice be considered as a business enterprise. Veterinarians, while facing a maze of normal business problems, have for the most part neglected any type of formal financial performance analysis. The collection and summarization of financial data in the veterinary practice is an essential prerequisite for analyzing financial performance. This collection and data summarization can be amassed conveniently and concisely in three commonly used financial statements: The Balance Sheet, The Income Statement, and The Statement of Changes in Financial Position. From here the actual analysis begins. Countless businesses in many industries utilize standard analytical techniques that provide business information for management decision making. Essentially, an analysis of the financial performance of the private veterinary practice is affected in three ways. First, the analyst calculates common-size percentages for all accounts on the balance sheet and income statement. Second, certain accounts are selected for an analysis of trend and growth rate, and third, a computation of certain relevant financial ratios is required for a comparison of accounts and account structure. Each of these three techniques can be performed for one instant in time and over several time frames thus allowing the veterinarian to compare his practice to other veterinary practices as well as to other similar industries. These analytical tools, while widespread in American business, are virtually non-existent in the veterinary industry. They should be computed and used for making managerial and financial decisions in the private veterinary practice.
Open Access
Does trade cause growth across trading blocs?
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2009) Marturana, Michael A., author; Braunstein, Elissa, advisor; Cutler, Harvey Stephen, committee member; Davies, Stephen (Stephen P.), committee member
Does international trade influence the growth rate of income per capita across trading blocs? Many empirical studies have been conducted to analyze the effect of international trade on economic growth. This paper investigates the growth effects from trade, on income per capita, across the four trading blocs of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the European Union, the North American Free Trade Agreement, and the Southern Common Market from 1970 through 2004. Using an autoregressive process of one lag, the model yielded results consistent with economic theory—exports positively influence the growth rate of income per capita while imports reduce said rate. Furthermore, these variables are statistically significant at standard levels. The model also controls for membership in a particular trading bloc and finds intra-bloc economic growth rates to differ substantially. Other variable estimates from the model however, are not consistent with theory which implies some degree of model misspecification and suggests further research is needed.
Open Access
Economic efficiency of US 2007 heavy-duty diesel emission standards: a lifecycle-based approach
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2010) Anderson, Aaron, author; Kling, Robert W., advisor; Willson, Bryan D., committee member; Iverson, Terrence W., committee member; Bernasek, Alexandra, committee member
A new method of evaluating vehicle emission standards is developed and applied to US 2007 heavy-duty diesel emission standards. The method is closely related to lifecycle analyses because it relies on the calculation of lifecycle costs of a single vehicle meeting the new standards, as well as the lifecycle costs of a vehicle compliant with previous standards. This allows the calculation of a per-vehicle net benefit, which is then, along with forecasted vehicle sales, used to estimate the total net benefit of the standards imposed over some period of years. There are multiple advantages to the approach developed here relative to that used by the EPA. Primarily, it allows a comparison of benefits and costs that occur across different periods of time, it relies on marginal damage estimates from the peer-reviewed literature, and it is easily adaptable to different emission standards. In contrast to the result of the EPA analysis, it is found that the net benefit of the standards is negative.
Open Access
Economic essays on wildlife-aircraft conflict in the United States
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2019) Navin, Jordan, author; Weiler, Stephan, advisor; Anderson, Aaron, committee member; Pena, Anita, committee member; Kroll, Stephan, committee member; Mushinski, David, committee member
Wildlife-aircraft conflict poses a substantial economic and safety threat in the United States (US). Dolbeer, Wright, Weller, Anderson, and Begier (2014) estimates direct costs related to wildlife strikes burdened the US economy by approximately $157 million annually between 1990 and 2014. In 1995, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) collaborated on a project with the United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Wildlife Services to investigate the magnitude and nature of the wildlife strike problem, ultimately resulting in the creation of the National Wildlife Strike Database (NWSD). However, reporting strikes (and associated information, such as repair costs) to the NWSD is not mandatory, and information used to calculate economic damage estimates from wildlife strikes in the US relies on voluntarily reported cost data. This dissertation focuses on the direct costs of wildlife strikes in the US and the associated disclosure behaviors of large domestic American airlines. Chapter 1 investigates the relationship between the likelihood of voluntary repair cost disclosure after a wildlife-strike event by such airlines and market competitiveness and idiosyncratic firm profits. Results show changes in competitiveness and profitability impact the voluntary disclosure of wildlife-strike repair costs by major US airlines to the NWSD. Chapter 2 similarly examines airline voluntary disclosure accuracy, employing emerging methods from economics and accounting literature that test the accuracy of self-reported data based on a statistical property exhibited by large datasets, known as Benford's Law (de Marchi & Hamilton, 2006; Dumas & Devine, 2000; Nigrini, 1996; Zahran, Iverson, Weiler, & Underwood, 2014). Analogous to Chapter 1, findings indicate the accuracy of repair costs American air carriers report to the NWSD is linked to market competition and profits. Chapter 3 relates to developing a method for interpolating missing repair costs in the NWSD using machine learning techniques. Results show that a neural network outperforms both linear regression and random forest models when predicting out-of-sample data, and furthermore, interpolating missing costs in the NWSD with a neural network delivers an average annual estimate of the direct costs of wildlife strikes in the US that is approximately $75 million, significantly less than prior estimates. Specifically, the neural network approach yields estimates $19 and $82 million lower, respectively, than when using mean cost assignment and Dolbeer et al. (2014)'s reported estimate derived using a variation of the same method.
Open Access
Empirical examination of the determinants of corruption: cross-sectional and panel analysis
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2008) El-Bahnasawy, Nasr Galal El-Din, author; Revier, Charles F., advisor; Bernasek, Alexandra, advisor
This study explores the determinants of corruption, using cross-sectional, panel random-effects, and dynamic panel analysis to check the robustness of the results to alternative specifications and estimation methods. The study uses two different indexes of perceived corruption, the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) and the Control of Corruption measure (CC), to check the robustness of the results with alternative corruption measures. The study also uses a large array of explanatory variables that may influence corruption, including a large set of economic variables, a set of political variables, and a group of sociocultural variables. The first interesting result indicates that the rule of law strongly impacts corruption and that a better quality of law enforcement is correlated with lower corruption. Moreover, rich countries are perceived to have lower corruption than poor countries. This work highlights the importance of the rule of law and per capita GDP in the battle against corruption. Furthermore, this study finds the following. Lagged corruption impacts current level of corruption. Larger countries seem to have higher perceived corruption. A larger percentage of the population that is rural is associated with higher perceived corruption. Higher proportion of seats held by women in the national parliament is associated with lower corruption. Political stability, regulatory quality, ethnic fractionalization, and natural resource abundance do not impact corruption in my analysis. This study also examined the impact of some other factors on corruption such as voice and accountability, government effectiveness, the cost of business start-up procedures, the ratio of average government wage to per capita GDP, the degree of openness to international trade, membership in various religions, the level of economic development, and the legal system origin.
Open Access
Entrepreneurship by gender: characteristics, financing, and growth
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2014) Conroy, Tessa, author; Weiler, Stephan, advisor; Bernasek, Alexandra, committee member; Mushinski, David, committee member; Thilmany, Dawn, committee member
Women own less than one-third of firms in the United States, despite comprising nearly half of the labor force. The gender gap holds in most local areas, but analysis by county shows that there is significant variation in male- and female- business ownership across space. Though previous studies link entrepreneurial activity to several important regional characteristics, none consider how the impact of these characteristics, particularly the availability small business financing, might vary between men and women. Further, there has been little consideration for separate impacts of male- and female-owned firms on economic growth. Chapter one identifies the determinants of growth in the propensity for male- and female-owned firms and considers the relative importance of endowment and behavioral differences in explaining the gender gap in business ownership. The results indicate that there are significant endowment and behavioral differences between the male and female populations, particularly with regard to human capital accumulation. Human capital accumulation at the bachelor's degree level increases the propensity for male-owned firms, but the relationship between human capital accumulation and the propensity for female-owned firms forms an inverted "U." Counties with large shares of females at very low and very high education attainment have lower growth in the propensity for female-owned firms, and growth is highest in counties with a large share of female college graduates. Family structure is also a significant factor, shown by the negative effect of the number of children per adult, which is much stronger for males. A Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition demonstrates that though the effect of endowment differences is larger in absolute value, the behavioral differences captured by the coefficient effect, are key to alleviating the gender disparity in business ownership. Chapter two analyzes the impact of male- and female-owned firms on economic performance. The results show that counties with higher initial densities of male- and female-owned firms, generally have lower subsequent employment growth. More detailed analysis by employment status shows that male-owned employer firms have the strongest relationship to economic growth compared to female-owned employer firms and non-employer firms owned by either gender. Instrumental variable analysis using the historical mining industry addresses the potential endogeneity created by including births in the empirical model of employment growth. Chapter three focuses on capital as an especially important input to entrepreneurship, and ultimately, to economic growth. So far as bank loans are critical to the start-up, survival, and expansion of establishments, it is reasonable to expect spatial linkages between lending and establishment births as well as between lending and economic performance. This study examines the effect of small business loans based on Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) data and applies an instrumental variable strategy using money demand shocks to address potential endogeneity between lending and establishment births. Using an economic growth framework and cross-sectional empirical model for U.S. counties, we test the hypotheses that the establishment birth rate, employment growth, and our measure of entrepreneurship for each gender is higher in counties where bank financing is more available, controlling for community-level characteristics affecting business and economic dynamics. We also consider the long-term effect of small business lending and focus on establishing the appropriate lag structure. The results indicate that lending has a significant and positive effect on births that is strongest in rural and micropolitan counties. Second, increases in lending appear to have a weakly negative effect on employment growth. There is no effect of lending on entrepreneurship for either gender.
Open Access
Entrepreneurship, information, and economic growth
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2010) Bunten, Devin, author; Weiler, Stephan, advisor; Phillips, Ronnie J., 1951-, committee member; Zahran, Sammy J., committee member
This thesis analyzes the impact of entrepreneurship on economic growth across US cities within a formal production function approach. Like previous analyses of economic growth--but unlike many studies of entrepreneurship--economic growth is measured in personal income per worker. The production function features three traditional inputs with a novel fourth: entrepreneurial capital. Entrepreneurship is a process of information revelation which produces a dynamic externality providing marketplace information to potential future market entrants, outside firms, lenders and others. Entrepreneurial capital measures the contribution of this information to economic growth. Multiple measurements of entrepreneurial capital are used, each emphasizing different aspects of the entrepreneurial environment. The statistical results support the views that entrepreneurship is a causal input to local economic growth, that the effects of entrepreneurship are geographically localized, and that the thicker markets of large cities.
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 in the economics of care
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2022) Altringer, Levi A., author; Braunstein, Elissa, advisor; Zahran, Sammy, advisor; Mushinski, David, committee member; Hempel, Lynn, committee member
The Build Back Better legislation (H.R. 5376) currently being debated in Congress represents the first major attempt to build a care infrastructure that heavily invests in children and families, recognizing the value of care and care workers. The legislation (1) promotes recruitment, education, training, retention, and career advancements of direct care workers by providing competitive wages, benefits, and other support services to the direct care workforce; (2) establishes an entitlement program to provide qualifying families the opportunity to obtain high-quality child care; (3) allows states, almost entirely federally funded for the first three years, to provide universal preschool to 3- and 4-year-olds; (4) establishes universal paid family leave; (5) provides infrastructure grants to improve child care safety; (6) supplies child care wage grants for small businesses; (7) provides child care allowances as part of trade adjustment programs for workers; (8) makes permanent the expansion of the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit provided by the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021; and (9) establishes payroll tax credit for child care workers and tax credits for caregiver expenses. In their own way, each chapter of this dissertation speaks to policies outlined in this legislation. In Chapter 1, titled The Role of Care Policy in Procyclical Child Mortality, I investigate the impact of the business cycle on child mortality. I conceptualize care as being supplied by three sectors---household, private, and public---and argue that public investment and provision insulates children from cyclical fluctuations in the quantity and quality of care provided. I then hypothesize that, in so far as the care mechanism mediates procyclical child mortality, children who are most likely to be the beneficiaries of generous care policy will be less exposed to the mortality risks of economic boom. Employing a sample of 21 OECD countries over the period 1960-2015, I show that procyclical mortality is null for children 5 to 9 years of age. This is the age group for which all OECD countries in my sample have universal, publicly provided care---i.e., primary education. Among children 0 to 4 years old, however, economic expansions are associated with increased risk of mortality. I then show that procyclical mortality among the 0- to 4-year-old age group is attenuated, and even disappears, in increasingly generous care policy environments. In Chapter 2, titled The Contemporaneous Mortality Benefits of the Head Start Program, I investigate the impact of Head Start on population-level child mortality. Though widely perceived as a schooling program focused on cognitive development, I argue that the "whole child" services provided by Head Start act as a de facto investment into the health and safety of poor children. The Head Start Expansion and Quality Improvement Act of 1990 led to considerable variation in program funding across localities. Further, program age requirements meant that increases in funding were largely directed toward the enrollment of 3- and 4-year-old children. Employing a sample of 50 large labor market areas over the period 1983 to 2007, I estimate log-log and log-linear fixed-effect mortality regressions and find that, relative to 1- to 2-year-olds, increases in Head Start funding are associated with reductions in 3- and 4-year-old mortality, all else equal. Then, utilizing that fact that children must also be poverty-eligible for Head Start, I show that the potential mortality benefits of Head Start are pronounced in relatively poor and disproportionately Black communities, as expected. In Chapter 3, titled Revisiting the Wages of Virtue and the Relative Pay of Care Work, I extend and update previous research by investigating the relative pay of care work in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997. Research in feminist and labor economics provide several theoretical rationale as to why workers in care occupations might receive lower wages. I employ three separate measures of care work and show the continued existence of wage penalties among nurturant care occupations, while there appears to be no wage penalty for workers in reproductive care occupations, all else equal. Testing for heterogeneous care penalties across the occupational skill distribution, I find that the wage penalty for nurturant care work increases in relatively high-skill occupations among men. Alternatively, the wage penalty for nurturant care work is null, if not a slight wage premium, in relatively high-skill occupations among women. I explore potential explanations for the inconsistent behavior of these estimated care penalties across gender, such as occupational crowding and selection via occupational segregation, or sorting. The findings of this chapter have important implications for care penalty literature and motivate potential avenues of future research.
Open Access
Essays on Bitcoin mining and renewable energy: exploring sustainability and profitability
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Hutabarat, Simon Poltak Hamonangan, author; Iverson, Terrence, advisor; Fremstad, Anders, committee member; Shields, Martin, committee member; Burkhardt, Jesse, committee member
This Ph.D. dissertation comprises three interlinked studies exploring the intersection of renewable energy economics and cryptocurrency mining, focusing on Bitcoin. Using data from the California Independent Service Operator (CAISO) and a case study from East Indonesia, this research aims to inform energy and financial policies for a sustainable future. The first chapter, "Harnessing Renewable Energy for Cryptocurrency Mining: An Analysis of Locational Marginal Prices in California," looks into the potential of Bitcoin mining to utilize the surplus renewable energy produced during daylight hours when demand is relatively low. It considers whether the Locational Marginal Prices (LMPs) are systematically lower in areas rich in renewable energy resources, presenting an opportunity for strategic Bitcoin mining operations. The second chapter, "Assessing the Impact of Bitcoin Prices on Optimal Mining Hours: Implications for Renewable Energy Development," explores the profitability dynamics of Bitcoin mining. The study discusses the influence of Bitcoin prices and electricity costs on mining operations' profitability, including the ideal hours of operation. The findings suggest that for Bitcoin to be "green" and reduce carbon emissions, the Bitcoin price must be significantly lower than historical averages. The final chapter, "Exploring the Effects of Production Tax Credits on Renewable Energy Development: A Computable General Equilibrium Approach in East Indonesia," evaluates the potential impact of production tax credits (PTCs) on Indonesia's renewable energy industry. This study provides a quantitative assessment of the economic implications of a PTC, contributing to the ongoing debate on incentivizing renewable energy development. Together, these chapters offer insights into the potential of cryptocurrency mining to harness renewable energy, the factors affecting the profitability of Bitcoin mining, and the impact of tax incentives on renewable energy development. These findings could guide policymakers and stakeholders in making informed decisions for a sustainable and profitable future.