This paper utilizes fantasy football snake drafts to analyze risk tolerance of individuals who are trying to maximize their present and future utility, but are faced with unknown factors and only have limited resources. Fantasy football provides a unique perspective on risk tolerance, different than the commonly researched fields of auctions, financial portfolios, and lotteries. I examine mock draft data from Fantasy Football Calculator as well as rankings data from Fantasy Pros to gauge the amount of risk associated with each draft pick. I find that the more perceived uncertainty that is connected to an individual selection, the more likely the selection will exhibit risk averse characteristics.

This thesis studies the development of the “macro” and “craft” sectors of the brewing industry. After a comprehensive understanding of the history of beer, the focus segues into the economic development of the industry – including macro and microbrewery concentration, strategy analysis, and the recent emergence of craft breweries. Finally, two data sets are analyzed. The first examines overall industry trends against factors of horizontal differentiation, while the second observes how certain characteristics of an individual beer drinker indicate the degree to which their taste in / preference for beer has changed over the last five years. Results show that with the diminishment of homogeneity (via quality of ingredients and cultural shifts), craft breweries emerged. Furthermore, traits such as the quality of a beer drunk and the number of beers drunk a week are strong indicators that an individual beer drinker’s taste for beer has changed in the last five years. These findings, supported by earlier industry observations, suggest that craft breweries will continue to acquire a larger share of the American brewing industry.

This paper analyzes the impacts of the Malawi Social Cash Transfer Scheme. The goal of this paper is to help improve the design of cash transfers. First of all, I analyze whether the cash transfer positively affects child health variables despite occurring in a region with poor supply side health institutions. I find significant results for many child level variables, such as frequency of illnesses, but insignificant improvements in anthropometric measurements. Secondly, I examine whether female-headed households invest more in child health than male-headed households. The results show that the impacts of the cash transfer did not depend on the sex of the household head. This result provides some evidence that females do not always have systematically different preferences for expenditure on children than males. The paper uses the imperfect randomization of the cash transfer in combination with difference-in-differences regressions, propensity score matching, and Lee Bounds tests in order to ensure the robustness of the results.

This study compares the predictive ability of newly introduced strokes gained measures on PGA Tour earnings performance with that of more conventional golf statistics. It is found that the strokes gained measures explain slightly more of the variability in the distribution of earnings. Strokes gained on the approach shot are determined to be the most valuable relative to the other strokes gained metrics.

This thesis explores the possible avenues available to corporations and capital-managing entities seeking to increase their commitment to good works. These organizations have the potential to fill the gap in societal needs by supporting and investing in good works, including environmental protection and highly-innovative energy technologies, beyond the traditional corporate social responsibility (CSR) norm. These means include charitable giving, working with disadvantaged communities, corporate assistance to environmental or other social non-governmental organizations, and more. This thesis discusses the advantages and limitations of various corporate structures (C Corporations, S Corporations, LLCs, B Corps, L3Cs, and benefit corporations) and capital-managing organizations (mutual funds, foundations, and pension funds). Recommendations are provided for each to encourage good works with greater impact.

Local retail jewelry leaders of Saudi Arabian (S.A.) small to medium enterprises (SMEs) have struggled to survive through declining profits and increasing business foreclosures, thus threatening the sustainability of the Saudi retail sector and the Saudi economy. A globalization strategy to enhance profitability for jewelry retail SMEs in S.A. is needed, given the limited options for improving profitability. Despite this acknowledged need, leaders in S.A. have refrained from such a strategy because they lack knowledge of economic attraction features to target in the globalization process. The purpose of this quantitative correlational study using discriminant analysis was to examine specific countries' economic attraction features in the historical globalization strategy of a leading U.S. global jewelry company that could facilitate the implementation of a successful globalization strategy for a local Saudi jewelry SME retail company. The study addressed the effects of 6 independent predictor variables of 25 target countries' economic attractions on the dependent grouping variable, which distinguished among 3 order-of-entry groups according to the U.S. company's date of entry in each country between 1972 and 2009. Results indicated that except for the Hofstede index, no other variable had a significant role in the classification of the target countries. Because there was a scarcity of research on this topic, the study is beneficial for its theoretical and academic value, and may be practical for the derivative benefits of catalyzing business growth by empowering leaders of local, successful luxury brands in S.A. to implement their own globalization expansion process and increase employment in the Middle East.

This paper analyzes the impacts of the Malawi Social Cash Transfer Scheme. The goal of this paper is to help improve the design of cash transfers. First of all, I analyze whether the cash transfer positively affects child health variables despite occurring in a region with poor supply side health institutions. I find significant results for many child level variables, such as frequency of illnesses, but insignificant improvements in anthropometric measurements. Secondly, I examine whether female-headed households invest more in child health than male-headed households. The results show that the impacts of the cash transfer did not depend on the sex of the household head. This result provides some evidence that females do not always have systematically different preferences for expenditure on children than males. The paper uses the imperfect randomization of the cash transfer in combination with difference-in-differences regressions, propensity score matching, and Lee Bounds tests in order to ensure the robustness of the results.

In recent years, many firms have voluntarily taken actions to gradually increase the transparency of their corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts. Using data on a sample of U.S. firms, this paper empirically examines the factors that encourage firms to choose different levels of CSR transparency. This adds to the previous literature that has focused only on the binary decision to engage or not to engage in CSR, as opposed to the extent and comprehensiveness of voluntary CSR reporting. Environmental transparency data are collected from the Roberts Environmental Center (REC) at Claremont McKenna College, while data for firm characteristics and toxic releases are collected from Standard & Poor’s Compustat North American and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Robust regression analysis of environmental transparency shows that consumer, investor, and community stakeholders significantly increase the level of environmental transparency. In addition, environmental transparency is higher among firms that compete internationally relative to those with only a domestic presence.

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 is designed to help create a national minimum standard in the United States‘ public education system by requiring states to implement accountability systems. I examine the effect of No Child Left Behind on private school enrollment using a difference in differences model. Using data from the Private School Universe Survey, conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics, which is a survey conducted every two years and is mandatory for each American private school‘s administration to complete, I can evaluate the movement between public and private schools during the period when the requirements of No Child Left Behind were being implemented. I hypothesize that public schools have moved resources away from high achieving students toward the marginal students causing the high achieving students to enroll in private schools. Hence, private school enrollment will have increased due to No Child Left Behind. I find through my regressions that this hypothesis is true; the percentage of school-aged children in private schools increases after the signing of the No Child Left Behind Act.

In this paper, I examine the existence and roles of state dependence and switching costs in the mass transition from MySpace to Facebook during the 2007-2008 time period. Using a dataset that compiles individual browsing behavior and a discrete multinomial logit model, I find precise, yet extremely small amounts of state dependence for users of only MySpace, of only Facebook, and users of both MySpace and Facebook. Positive state dependence directly implies the existence of switching costs for each firm. While there is an abundance of literature regarding switching costs in the brick and mortar setting with tangible products and services, my work extends similar analysis to the relatively new online, social networking industry by studying consumer usage trends of the two networking powerhouses: MySpace and Facebook.