Hood College George B. Delaplaine Jr. School of Business
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Item Data at the Margins(2024-04-25) Faith Mae Kiser; David Gurzick; Hood College George B. Delaplaine Jr. School of Business; Hood College Departmental HonorsAddressing the digital divide is paramount for ensuring equitable access to technology, which serves as a foundation for socio-economic empowerment. This thesis explores the scope and impact of digital inclusion efforts within Frederick County, Maryland, emphasizing how equitable technology access is crucial for community development. Through a comprehensive literature review and qualitative analysis of a local initiative, this case study highlights the complexities of the digital divide and the essential role of collaborative ecosystems in promoting digital literacy and access. The methodology comprises an extensive analysis of demographic data, policy assessments, and case study from Frederick County, compared with broader digital inclusion strategies both nationally and internationally. The findings reveal that successful digital inclusion necessitates a multi-stakeholder approach, with government, private sectors, and community organizations collaborating effectively. The conclusion posits that Frederick County, Maryland can both benefit from and serve as a blueprint for similar regions by adopting innovative, community-centric strategies that integrate digital tools into daily life, thus empowering all residents. The anticipated result is a more connected and digitally inclusive community, leading to improved educational, economic, and social prospects. By contributing to the scholarly conversation on digital equity and providing practical recommendations for stakeholders, this thesis aims to advance the understanding and implementation of digital inclusion strategies, ensuring no resident, even those at the margins, are left behind in our increasingly digital society.Item Fishy Business: “Reeling In” and Analyzing the Impact of Climate Change on Groundfish Quota Prices(2024-04) Turner, Samuel J.; Joshi, Janak; Stewart, Ann; Kim, Sang; George B. Delaplaine Jr. School of Business; Hood College Departmental HonnorsThe Northeast United States Multispecies Fishery (NMGF) implemented a catch-share program in 2010. This program, a modified Individual Transfer Quota (ITQ) system, uses self-organized fishermen groups known as sectors to allocate fishing quotas. However, there are transaction costs associated with inter-sector trades of these quotas, which act as barriers to trade and prevent efficient allocation. At the same time, climate change is causing NMGF stocks to relocate both farther north and into deeper waters to escape a variety of unfavorable environmental conditions. Utilizing panel data from 2010 to 2019, this study examines how climate change, in tandem with the aforementioned transaction costs, influenced prices in the NMGF quota market. This study expands on the econometric models used in previous literature to measure NMGF quota market efficacy. Results from the hurdle models and OLS model, respectively, suggest that sea surface heatwaves and the number of stormy days in a fishing year impacted quota prices. While these findings strongly suggest that climate change is influencing NMGF quota prices, they also underline the econometric complexity of discerning market efficiency, especially for an immature market like the NMGF quota market. As climate change continues to affect stocks, and transaction costs prevent efficient allocation, policymakers and regulators face the challenge of preparing the NMGF modified-ITQ system to mitigate potential environmentally induced collapses, ensuring its resilience in the face of climate change.Item Get a Little, Give a Little: A Look at Philanthropy in Higher Education(2016-04) Roy, Kirsten; Weaver, Glen; Hood College Business Administration; Hood College Departmental HonorsThis study aims to determine what factors may motivate current undergraduate students to give to their alma mater after graduation. The study examines the likelihood to give financially and the likelihood to give time or service after graduation. This study differs from previous research as it looks at current undergraduates (i.e. future alumni) as opposed to current alumni. Mixed methodology was used in the form of interviews and a survey. The results indicate that overall experience, volunteer participation, level of identification with the college or university, and agreement to be an active alumnus all have a positive relationship with the likelihood to give. Grade Point Average (GPA) was found to have a negative relationship with likelihood to give.Item Pivot Learning entrepreneurship from inside a tech startup(2018-04) Hutchins, Joseph; Gurzick, David; Hood College Economics and Business Administration; Hood College Departmental HonorsI likely have developed my entrepreneurial mindset through a seed that was planted approximately 11 years ago. While the steps I have taken into the startup world have recently materialized, I was given the necessary characteristics to take these steps when my mother purchased her own concession company years ago. As I sat there just a few months removed from my tenth birthday, I remember vividly my mother coming home telling me my family had just bought a company. My take on entrepreneurship at that time was that only the elite could become involved. From that moment on it could surely only be a straight shot to becoming a millionaire and having our town house become a thing of the past. Flash forward two years and my mom was still running the company from our town home while our equipment was stationed at my grandmother’s house. She was still working her job as a bartender at our local bar on the side as well as working in a doctor’s office 20 miles away. All of this was done while my step-dad was also working as a contractor, so the work day truly began at 5 when they both got off work. Even though I was only 12 years old, seeing my mother work 13 hour days on average stuck with me and is something I will never forget.Item The Gendered Impact of Migration and Remittances on Educational Attainment and School Enrollment: The Case of Nicaragua(2016-05) Traini, Catherine; Coon, Michael; Hood College Economics and Business Administration; Hood College Departmental HonorsThis study analyzes the gendered impact of migration and remittances, the money sent by foreign migrants to their home country, on the children in the receiving households. Previous studies have found that the influx of remittances in the receiving households increases children’s educational attainment because there is more income to be allocated to it, but does that increasing trend shift based on the gender of the person that migrates? This question is tested using regression analysis on data from the World Bank 2005 Nicaraguan Living Standards Measurement Study (Encuesta Nacional de Hogares sobre Medicion de Niveles de Vida 2005) to examine relationships between the gender of the remitter and the education level attained by their children that remain in Nicaragua. I found that the presence of remitters in the household increases the education of children by a year, and the presence of a female remitter increases the education of young girls by almost four years. Lastly, the presence of a male remitter increases 8 to 12 year old boys likelihood of school enrollment and the same holds for female remitters and 8 to 12 year old girls.Item The Role of Democracy in Economic Development: A Case Study of South Korea and India(2023-04-28) Stubits, Jakob; Kim, Sang; Safner, Ryan; Joshi, Janak; Parson, James; George B. Delaplaine Jr. School of Business; Hood College Departmental HonorsIndia and South Korea both began their paths to development at around the same time using the same strategy (import substitution). Today, the GDP per capita in South Korea is over sixteen times that of India’s. So how did one achieve such higher growth than the other? While South Korea was under authoritarian rule for the forming years of its development, it became successful because of the economic freedom it provided and its more liberal trade policies. India, despite its democratically elected government, created high barriers to entry for new competitors which stifled their innovation and growth. However, when India began to liberalize their trade policies in the 1980s, their economic growth rate improved. While there are many explanations, this paper will focus on the role of democracy in terms of legitimacy and economic freedom as the driving force of change. This idea is supplemented by the trade strategies used and economic theory to explain the growth.Item Working Hard for Pay that’s Hardly Working: Gender Differences in time use in the care economy and their effect on wages(2017-05) Bealer, Jaclyn; George, Erin; Hood College Economics and Business Administration; Hood College Departmental HonorsIn this paper I perform analyze the impact of care activities on individual’s wages, focusing on the differences between men and women. The care variables that I investigate are childcare, elderly care, and household care. This data comes from the 2015 American Time Use Survey. I perform two different regressions. The first is a log-linear regression and the second is a Heckman two-step equation and Oaxaca- Blinder decomposition. The log-linear model allows me to get an overall basis of results and then the Heckman two-step and Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition isolates the potential discrimination for these differences in time use for men and women. I find that the effects spent on elderly care need further investigation as I got contradicting results. The effects of childcare and household care are found to be significant and not equal for men and women. For women there are negative associations for time spent caring for their children and households in respect to wages but men have a positive association for these same activities. I conclude that women are more affected by the care economy through deductions in their individual wages.Item Gender Specific Patterns of Spending Remittances and their Implications for Development: Evidence from Bosnia and Herzegovina(2017-05) Golemac, Angela; Eager, Paige; Hood College Economics and Business Administration, and Political Science; Hood College Departmental HonorsRemittances are an important tool to combat poverty and stimulate local development. They are an important part of today’s global economy and for some developing countries com- prise a significant percent of GDP. Remittances in Bosnia’s economy were equivalent to 11 percent of GDP in 2013. One out of every twenty households receives remittances. Prior lit- erature demonstrates that gender influences the spending remittances. Women tend to spend remittances more on food and education while men on consumer goods. This paper examines how gender determines remittance expenditures in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Using the World Bank’s LSMS household survey data from 2004, I develop an IV regression and Tobit model, using the share of household receiving remittances and wealth index as instrumental variables. I also used a probit model to examine determinants of receiving remittances. The results confirm the prior literature: women spend more on education, food, and overall consumption, while men spend more on durable goods, health, and cable subscriptions. These results indicate that females receiving remittances do more to help maximize positive benefits of remittances on the development in Bosnia.Item Criminology and NCAA Football: Does criminal activity by student athletes impact wins and revenue in college football?(2017-05) Magnuski, Trevor; Kim, Sang; Hood College Economics and Business Administration; Hood College Departmental HonorsArrests occur all across collegiate athletics, and the media gives society a negative perception of these athletes. These arrests could potentially hurt the reputation of the individual as well as the institution where they attend. In order to see if this is true, we use a panel data method in order to determine if arrests of college football players impacts the winning percentage of a school and their revenue. Literature looking at reasons for arrests and on field performance were used to help identify control variables needed in the study. Overall, the relationship between winning percentage and arrests of football players has little to no effect, but the revenue is somewhat effected by the number of arrests by a program.Item (Re) Designing Women: A Content Analysis of Female Characters on American Sitcoms(2017-05) Mann, Katie; Van Winter, Jerrold; Hood College George B. Delaplaine Jr. School of Business; Hood College Departmental HonorsCultivation theory has shown that television impacts viewer’s perception of reality, and research indicates that sitcoms are currently the most popular sub-genre of television. Despite these findings, no study has been done to analyze the portrayal of female characters on sitcoms and how this portrayal may be impacting women’s views of their role in society. For this study a content analysis was conducted on 100 sitcoms and 149 female characters, over the last 60 years, to gain an understanding of the portrayal of female characters on the most popular sitcoms of each decade. This study looks to answer three main questions pertaining to the accuracy of the portrayal of women’s workforce participation, the accuracy of the portrayal of working mothers, and how this portrayal has changed in the past sixty years. These three questions are addressed through the use of a logit regression analysis and by comparing the data collected on the female characters to the United States actual labor participation rates.Item How Does Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Affect GDP per Capita and Trade Volume in Land Locked Developing Countries in Asia, Africa, and South America?(2022-05-25) Regmi, Anubhooti; Safner, Ryan; Economics Department; Departmental HonorsThis paper aims to quantify the effect of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) on Trade volume and GDP per Capita. Due to lack direct access to the warm waters, high transport and transit costs land locked developing countries are at a significant economic disadvantage compared to the rest of the world. In quantifying the effect of ICT on economic growth and trade volume, I employ a two-way fixed effect model to quantify the effect of ICT growth on trade volume and GDP per Capita. I use secondary data from the World Bank Database and International Telecommunication Union. This paper aims to quantify the effect of ICT development in terms different ICT indicators. Indicators required for enabling infrastructure or the adoption of technology among the population as identified by International Telecommunication Union (ITU) are Fixed-telephone subscriptions, Mobile-cellular subscriptions, Percentage of Individuals using the Internet, Fixed-broadband subscriptions, Mobile-broadband subscriptions, and international bandwidth. This paper applied annual data across a timespan of 14 years, from 2007 to 2020. When regressed GDP per capita and trade volume against all the independent variables and co-variate I find that any one percent Mobile Cellular subscription increases GDP per capita and trade volume by 0.156% and 0.421% respectively.Item The Parenthood Premium for Lesbians in the USKolosieke, Natalie; Hood College George B. Delaplaine Jr. School of Business; Hood College Departmental HonorsPrevious studies have found that lesbians earn more than straight women, and mothers earn less than non-mothers. Studies about lesbian women and mothers are often considered when explaining the gender wage gap but have rarely been studied at the same time. National surveys that include sexual orientation are not common, and data is often only available for people in same sex couples which can skew results with miscoded roommates. For this reason, this paper uses data from the American Community Survey (ACS) to study only married women. To ensure that all data was collected at least a year after same sex marriage was legalized in the US, our data ranges from 2017 to the most recent data from 2019. We estimate the difference in annual income between married lesbian mothers and married straight mothers. We find that married lesbian mothers experience a wage premium relative to married straight mothers in our Ordinary Least Squares regression accounting for demographic, educational, occupational, and work-related variables. A Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition was also done to see if the income differences between the straight and lesbian married mothers can be accounted for by cross-group differences. It showed that discrimination is a component of the difference, and gender stereotypes and expectations are part of the parenthood penalty/premium. Further research into differences between parents of opposite sexual orientation is an important next step to determining the cause and possible policy changes to lower the motherhood penalty in the US.Item Western Colonization and Its Impact on Female Migrant Workers: The Study of Labor Management of Domestic Migrant Workers from Indonesia and the Philippines(2021-05-26) English, Marhaennia; Eager, Paige; Boyd, Ann; Campion, Corey; Hood College Department of Political Science; Hood College Departmental HonorsIndonesia and the Philippines are two countries of origin for labor migration. These countries share similar historical roots; however, female Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) are often more successful than Indonesian female migrant workers (PMI). This research paper will explore and compare how the legacies of colonization affect migrant workers from Indonesia and the Philippines. I will explore cultural colonialism by the Spanish and the Americans in the Philippines in comparison with the Dutch in Indonesia. The majority of female migrant workers are employed in the service industry; thus, this paper will focus on female domestic workers. Furthermore, this paper will also explore the degree to which Dutch, Spanish, and American colonialism influenced gender relations in Indonesia and the Philippines. I will analyze how perceptions of women have continuing influences upon the social status and progress of female domestic workers. Lastly, this paper will compare how the legacies of colonization affect labor management for female domestic migrant workers by examining policies which focus on women’s empowerment and agency prior to leaving the sending country for their overseas placement. Another critical aspect of the research focuses on the efficacy of the workers’ legal protections both in the receiving and sending countries.Item Residential Segregation, Socioeconomic Deprivation, and Neighborhood Homicide Victimization(2021-04-25) Ciocco, Kevin; Safner, Ryan; Joshi, Janak; Kim, Sang; Tysse, Jill; The George B. Delaplaine Jr. School of Business; Hood College Departmental HonorsThis paper estimates the effects of racial residential segregation and various factors of socioeconomic deprivation on Black and White neighborhood homicide victimization rates, in an effort to explain the gap in homicide incidence between the two racial groups. The effects of these variables on neighborhood homicide rates are approximated using socioeconomic data collected from the US Census Bureau at the census tract level in Baltimore, Maryland, from 2010 to 2019, for the non-Hispanic White and Black populations. Racially disaggregated homicide data was obtained from the Baltimore Sun, via the Baltimore Police Department. Examination of 200 Baltimore census tracts provides evidence that various socioeconomic factors are predictors of both White and Black homicide victimization. Additionally, the results suggest that racial residential segregation greatly amplifies the effects of socioeconomic deprivation on Black homicide victimization. This indicates that the gap in racial homicide victimization rates is linked to discriminatory laws and tactics carried out in the United States, as well as the disparities in socioeconomic affluence between Black and White Americans.Item Influence of Socioeconomic Factors and Gun Laws on the Frequency of Gun Violence in America: A Statewide Analysis from 2010-2018(2020-11) Valentin Donchev; Hood College George B. Delaplaine Jr. School of Business; EconomicsAre gun laws effective in lowering the frequency of gun violence, and do socioeconomic factors affect this in any way? This paper analyzes the influences of both gun control provisions and socioeconomic factors on the frequency of intentional gun violence inflicted against others, measuring changes to each on a statewide basis over the 2010 to 2018 period. This paper uses two-way fixed effects models controlling for year and state in the study, and results show that most measurable socioeconomic conditions have little effect on the frequency of gun violence. As for gun laws, while some provisions are not effective in lowering the frequency of gun violence, overall, states with more gun control provisions in place see a lower frequency. However, not all types of laws lower the frequency equally.Item Regulation and Discrimination: Race and Interest Rate Mark-Ups in the Auto Loan IndustryNicholson, Elias; Safner, Ryan; George, Erin; Zaki, Hoda; Economics; Hood College Departmental HonorsIn 2013 the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) introduced guidance targeting discriminatory auto lending practices by indirect lenders. The guidance holds indirect lenders responsible for discrimination at the dealer level if the mark-up they permit on their loans creates an ability for the dealers to discriminate. In theory, the guidance should lower the ability of dealers to discriminate through interest rates because it holds the indirect lenders who allow mark-up responsible for the final interest rate. This paper analyzes the short and long-term effects of the guidance on discriminatory auto lending to determine how effective reducing interest rate discrimination was in practice. I utilize data from the 2010, 2013, and 2016 Surveys of Consumer Finances in order to analyze the effect of the guidance implementation by the CFPB on differences in borrower Annual Percentage Rate (APR) on auto loans. Results from an Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition conclude that the period while the guidance was active did not result in any significant decrease in the level of discrimination.