Legacy carriers in the U.S. airline industry have a long history of vigorously defending their most important hubs from low cost carrier expansion. Since 2005, the U.S. airline industry has undergone some of the most dramatic merger activity in its history, with five mergers between major carriers reducing the number of major carriers from eight to four. This merger activity has coincided with low cost carrier expansion into some hubs previously dominated by legacy carriers. This dissertation quantifies how mergers change the incentives of incumbent legacy carriers to accommodate new entry. A technical challenge in doing so lies in the well-known âcurse of dimensionalityâ for modeling dynamic strategic competition, which is especially prohibitive in the context of network industries (including airlines). In the airline context, this curse is induced by the high-dimensionality of airline networks, since firms make simultaneous decisions about route structures, flight frequencies, and prices across thousands of markets. We solve this challenge by proposing a novel method for studying high-dimensional dynamic strategic competition which combines tools from machine learning, the econometrics of dynamic games, and approximate dynamic programming. Using this tool to analyze the Delta and Northwest merger and Southwest Airlineâs entry patterns, we find evidence that Southwest was more likely to enter flight segments where, from Delta and Northwestâs perspective, the expected value of committing aircraft capacity, relative to other flight segments, fell the most post-merger. Outside of the airline context, we further illustrate this method by studying a dynamic spatial store placement game among big box retailers (including Walmart), extending the analysis of Holmes (2011). Finally, in an unrelated context, we systematically study the identification of the average treatment effect on the treated under the difference-in-differences design in the context of repeated cross-sectional data when post-treatment treatment status is unknown for the pre-treatment sample. We illustrate our approach by estimating the effect of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1991 on employment outcomes of the disabled.

<p> This thesis explores the dynamic relationships among oil prices (real and nominal), real government spending, real exchange rates, GDP (real and nominal), M2, inflation, foreign exchange reserves, and reserve money for the GCC countries (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Qatar) and the non-GCC oil exporters (Canada, Norway, Iran, Russia, Nigeria, and Venezuela) for the 1970-2013 period. The thesis consists of three chapters, depending on the specific macroeconomic relationship being explored. I treat oil price shocks as exogenous. This treatment results in a significantly higher R2 in contrast to the literature that treats oil prices as endogenous. All the three chapters use a restricted (Choleski decomposition) Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) with a co-integration of macroeconomic variables. My main conclusions are: </p><p> First, in the GCC countries, where oil has a higher share of GDP, real oil prices have a stronger positive effect on real output than it does for the non-GCC oil exporters. In countries, where oil accounts for a large share of output, the fiscal policy response of countries (Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain, and Venezuela) is pro-cyclical. In countries, whose economies are largely dependent on oil (the GCC countries), the real exchange rate appreciates in response to real oil price shocks, driven by an increase in the price level, with virtually no response of the nominal exchange rate, but there is no real exchange rate appreciation in any of the non-GCC oil exporters, except for Venezuela. </p><p> Second, the money supply shocks affect output and inflation in Nigeria and Iran, but not in any of the other oil exporters. GDP shocks (through the transmission of oil prices) affect money supply in eight out of the twelve oil exporters, with a fixed or managed floating exchange rate. GDP shocks affect inflation in all of the oil exporters. </p><p> Third, there is a strong positive response of reserve money to foreign exchange reserve shocks, in countries with fixed/managed floating exchange rates, but not in countries with floating exchange rates. In the GCC countries, whose economies are largely dependent on oil, the oil shocks lead to inflation, but not in the non-GCC oil exporters, where oil plays a less significant role, and there are more monetary policy options available under floating/managed floating exchange rate regimes to control for inflation.</p>

This study focuses on explaining the determinants of home value for a given region of Oakland, California. With a history of high crime and low performing public schools, Oakland’s housing market has not achieved the same measurable success as neighboring cities like Berkeley and San Francisco. Through the use of time series regressions of panel data; rate of crime, school test scores, and distance to public transportation are examined in order to determine their singular and joint effects on single-family home values from 2008 to 2013. Trends in neighborhood characteristics indicate an ongoing change in neighborhood demographics, while regression results show each variables impact on price.

This paper looks at the determinants of length of a football manager’s reign before his sacking within the top clubs of England, Spain and Italy. I looked at five clubs in England, two in Spain and three in Italy. The dependent variable was the number of games a manager was in charge before his sacking and there were 10 independent variables. Out of these, the number of trophies won and transfer spending were significant at the 1% level and had a positive coefficient while being a manager in Spain was significant at the 10% level and had a negative coefficient. Lastly this paper tries to draw comparisons from these findings to CEO firings and finds that expectations of performance by the board of governors and meeting those standards could prove to be crucial for CEO’s to keep their job.

<p>The focus of this dissertation is to help explore, disentangle, and mechanize the role of the social and physical environment during gestation on the in utero child's later life outcomes. Specifically this work uses theoretical underpinnings adopted from the medical and epidemiological literature to inform the use of various applied econometric techniques on population representative data to rigorously examine the impact of a mother's mental and physical wellbeing during pregnancy on the human capital endowment and long-term economic outcomes of the in utero child. After a brief introduction, the second chapter reexamines the pioneering work by Douglas Almond (2006), which is thought to establish that in utero exposure to an adverse disease environment has a large, negative impact on health and socioeconomic prosperity that reaches well into adulthood. The analysis in this section casts doubt on the identification strategy used in that seminal work, and suggests that conclusions about the deleterious impact of in utero exposure to the influenza pandemic on socioeconomic prosperity in adulthood are, at best, premature. The third and fourth chapters delve into the topic of the impact of a mother's mental health during pregnancy on the birth outcomes of the in utero child. Utilizing two traumatic and unanticipated events, the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001 and the surge in Mexican Drug War violence, these chapters provide strong evidence that exposure to increased maternal anxiety has a significant negative impact on the early-life health of the in utero child.</p> / Dissertation

<p>This dissertation consists of 3 essays on development economics, with an overarching theme that relates to the economics of the family, child human capital, and migration. The three essays combine rigorous empirical strategies with the use of uniquely rich longitudinal data, the Mexican Family Life Survey, to advance our understanding of individual, household and family behavior.</p><p>Using these population-level data, the first chapter is an evaluation of a prominent anti-poverty program, Oportunidades, on child nutrition. Oportunidades was a leading intervention in targeting resources towards women and linking public transfers to investments in child human capital, and currently serves about one quarter of the Mexican population. To isolate the impact of the program, I draw on evidence from the nutrition and biology literatures regarding the biology of child growth, in combination with the timing of the roll-out of the program and the panel dimension of the data. Consistent with previous evidence, this analysis finds positive and sizable effects on children who live in rural communities incorporated at the beginning of the intervention. In contrast, the impact of the program in rural localities incorporated later in time and in suburban and urban communities are, at best, very modest.</p><p>The second chapter uses extensive information on non-co-resident family members, and variation in the spatial dispersion among them, to study the extent to which Mexican families share resources across households and test different models of family behavior. I extend previous work by explicitly looking at families with different degrees of spatial dispersion among their members, including families with members spread across international borders. I adapt the collective model developed in the intra-household literature to model the family decision problem, and I analyze family behavior with respect to two sets of outcomes: household budget shares and child human capital indicators. The results suggest that the combination of looking at different degrees of spatial dispersion within families and different dimensions of family behavior is crucial to a precise understanding of inter-household decision-making.</p><p>The third chapter offers an in-depth description and analysis of the determinants of the incidence and magnitude of cross-border remittances by Mexican migrants living in the United States. While the investigation of international remittances has a long history in both the scientific and policy literatures, developing a full understanding of the motivations for and the impact of these transfers has been constrained by inadequate data. In this analysis I use recently-collected and extremely rich longitudinal data on migrants, and their families in Mexico, to predict transfers behavior. Results suggest that important differences exist between male and female transfers patterns, and that key variables related to the degree of connection of the migrant with Mexico (and the U.S.), such as the location of family members, expectations about returning to Mexico, or savings/assets holdings, are all important in explaining remittances patters.</p><p>As a member of the team that implemented the third wave of the Mexican Family Life Survey, this thesis is part of a broader collaborative research agenda with both colleagues and advisors. In particular, Chapter 1 is in collaboration with Maria Genoni, Graciela Teruel, Luis Rubalcava, and Duncan Thomas. The programming, analysis, and writing of this chapter, as well as any errors in this work, are my own.</p> / Dissertation

For decades, education research examined how to most effectively produce educational outcomes. This dissertation includes four essays that evaluate the effects of two educational inputs -- capital expenditure and skills in early childhood -- and two organizations of educational practice -- exam schools and grade configuration â on student achievement, adult behaviors or longevity. Essay 1 studies the effect of school capital expenditure on student achievement. I apply a latent factor model to data from Michigan and find that on average capital expenditures on construction, land and structures increase reading proficiency by 1-2 percentage points. Such investment is unlikely to be the optimal investment in terms of cost-effectiveness. Essay 2 studies the effect of socioemotional skill and college education on adult heath behaviors, such as smoking, and longevity. I use data from Wisconsin to analyze the effects of socioemotional skill which is measured at the time of graduation from high school by a structural equation modelling approach. I find that socioemotional skills contribute to the attainment of higher education and increase longevity by inducing behaviors which are beneficial for health. Essay 3 studies the effect of attending K-8 schools on student achievement. I examines data from a geographic quasi-experimental school closure program in an anonymous district in the United States. I find that a move to separate middle schools negatively affects student test scores; this effect diminishes by grade eight. K-5 schools are beneficial for students at elementary grades. Essay 4 studies the effect of selective exam schools on student exam performance. Exam schools admit students solely on the basis of pre-existing achievement. I use data from urban China and find no effect of attending elite exam schools but a positive effect of attending non-elite exam schools on student test scores. The results from these four essays suggest that education policy should focus more on improvements in educational inputs and investment in the development of skills through early intervention programs because of the positive, long-term effects of these investments. To improve student achievement through redesign of the organization of educational practice, we need to consider reforms other than K-8 and exam schools.

<p> This dissertation provides novel tests of two recent theories that relate human capital variation among and within cities to differences in the price of interior space. The tests are novel in that they rely on measures of human capital that are typically unmeasured in previous research. In particular, the application to obesity as an alternative measure of human capital is entirely new. In a separate chapter, the dissertation tests the implications of these two theories on a small subset of the labor force (medical doctors), disaggregated by specialty, and distinguished by quality of the medical school that they attended. The empirical results of both novel tests are consistent with implications of the two theories tested; that both among and within cities, differences in human capital and real estate prices are positively related. </p>

High schools in the South in the early 20th century served as both an important white collar employer of women as well as a means of transmitting human capital to their students. I use a newly constructed dataset of high schools and high school teachers in Tennessee from 1923 â 1935 to analyze the gender gap between teachers and the impact of high school access on future career choice. I find that a significant gender wage gap exists between male and female high school teachers even after controlling for observables such as school attended, Explanations for the gap can be found in differences in gender of the principal, differences in classes taught, and market power by the school boards over the supply of female labor. Further study of the gender ratio of high school principals suggests that women did not make inroads into higher paying jobs over the course of the 1920s and early 1930s and that the Great Depression may have reduced job opportunities for women. I also find that increased human capital by the high school students tended to lead more of them to work as farmers. Many rural high schools emphasized scientific farming methods suggesting that this result may not be surprising.

Under the National Banking Acts of 1863 and 1864, the U.S. banking system simultaneously experienced immense growth and also severe financial instability stemming from nationwide banking panics. This dissertation explores both aspects of this period. The first chapter demonstrates that the wave of railroad failures during the Panic of 1873 intensified financial constraints in the railroad industry and amplified the effects of the crisis on real activity. Furthermore, it identifies government subsidies (in the form of land grants) as a key factor in increasing the probability of failure for recipient railroads. The second chapter studies the role of regulatory competition between federal and state governments in promoting banking efficiency and contributing to economic growth. The results indicate that the expansion of state banking, facilitated by the passage of state-level free banking laws, decreased monopoly power in rural markets and contributed to the growth of agricultural capital and output. The final chapter, coauthored with Peter Rousseau and Matthew Jaremski, shows that silver coinage, particularly the use of silver money to back bank deposits, played an important role in allowing the national banking system to continue to expand during the 1880s and early 1890s.