This paper explores the behavior of Major League Baseball pitchers. We analyze the pitching data from 2007-2010 in order to determine whether their actions follow minimax play. We also examine what the OPS statistic tells us about a pitcher's value.

Buildings are a significant energy consumer and are responsible for an increasingly large percent of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions, currently between 30 and 40 percent. Energy efficiency presents unique opportunities for building owners to reduce their environmental footprint and add value through cost savings, tax deductions, and increased market value. An analysis of 183 samples of efficiency measures in seven technology categories found that 74% of efficiency investments had a positive net present value. Building automation system and chiller plant improvements had the highest mean energy and carbon dioxide savings per square foot. Additionally, building automation systems had, on average the highest return on investment, approximately $800 above the cost of implementation per one thousand square feet. Only building envelope modifications had a negative mean return on investment. Building automation system upgrades avoided an average of 350 pounds of CO2e for every dollar spent, reducing a building’s total carbon footprint by as much as 28%. The results suggest that a significant opportunity for cost, energy, and emission savings is available across all technology categories.

Previous work found evidence that the racial composition of NBA teams was positively correlated with the racial composition of their metropolitan market areas during the 1990s. This paper finds continued evidence of this relationship in the 2000s, with an accompanying attendance boost from the incorporation of white players on teams located in whiter areas. There is also evidence that white players receive a salary premium relative to black players of equal performance quality. An examination of player performance indicates that demand for foreign players with the skill set of a forward or center is higher than demand for players of equal quality from the U.S. However, an analysis of salary discrimination related to foreign players produced no conclusive evidence.

I analyze the impact that a Major League Baseball (MLB) team’s ownership structure has on its financial and on-the-field efficiency. Previous work has shown that ownership structure does have an impact on firm efficiency. In MLB, a team under the management of a corporate owner could have access to potential cost and revenue synergies that would otherwise be unavailable to a team with a private owner. These synergies should increase the financial efficiencies of corporately owned teams, which should translate to success on the field, as measured by on-the-field efficiency.

This thesis describes the process in which a Two-Generation model and N-Generation model can determine the optimal levels of investment in sustainability without applying a discount rate to the benefits to future generations. These models constrain utility so that utility for each generation is equivalent; these models do not dilute the benefits to future generations, which promotes equity between generations and reflects the fact that Generation 2 will have to pay off the remaining balance on the sustainability investment. The models demonstrated that as the Generation 2’s expected value of a resource increases, the level of utility of both generations and total level of optimal investment should increase. In addition, while altruism can increase the utility of each generation, Generation 1’s level of altruism does not have an impact on the optimal level of total investment. Finally the Two-Generation model indicates that subsidizing interest rates for sustainability can be an effective way to increase investment levels. The N-Generation model demonstrates that thinking long-term will have a negative impact on the utility of the current generation; utility will decrease as the number of generations accounted for increases because of the competition among generations for scarce resources. While one generation may have to sacrifice, this model determines the level of investment in sustainability that maximizes utility across the generations and can help ensure that the trend of increasing utility continues.

Despite previous research in this area, the relationship between immigration and crime in the United States remains ambiguous and surrounded by misconceptions. However, recently, scholars have suggested that, despite the claims of policy-makers and popularized sociological theories, large immigrant concentrations may be linked with lower as opposed to higher crime rates. In the past, research in this area has been imprecise due to it its implementation of cross-sectional analyses for a limited selection of geographic regions. However, through the implementation of time-series procedures and the use of annual data for metropolitan statistical areas during the 2005–2010 periods, the present study evaluates the impact of changes in immigration concentration on changes in crime rates, both violent and non-violent. These multivariate analyses specify that violent and property crime rates generally decreased as metropolitan areas experienced increases in their proportion of immigrants. These results confirm the hypothesis that the recent decline in crime is partially due to increases in the concentration of foreign-born individuals.

Nonlinear prize money structures are used in professional golf tournaments in order to induce competitors to exert a maximum level of effort. While there has been a growing amount of literature using professional golf data to test tournament theory’s basic prediction that increasing prize levels results in an increase in player effort level, no consistent narrative has emerged. Furthermore, in 2007, the PGA Tour introduced the FedExCup system, which significantly altered the ranking and prize money structure of professional golf. This paper incorporates data from the 2011 PGA tour season to analyze whether or not the introduction of the FedExCup has led to increased effort level on the part of competitors, as predicted by tournament theory. The results negate the predictions of tournament theory and suggest that an increase in tournament prize money is associated with a corresponding increase in player scores over the course of the tournament. However, these findings can be explained by examining the dramatic increase in PGA Tour prize money levels over the last two and a half decades, which has induced golfers to decrease their average level of effort.

The rise in the prevalence of the Internet has had a wide range of implications in nearly every industry. Within the music business, the turn of the millennium came with a unique, and difficult, set of challenges. While the majority of academic literature in the area focuses specifically on the aspect of file sharing within the Internet as it negatively impacts sales within the recording sector, this study aims to assess the Internet’s wider impacts on the broader music industry. In the same time that record sales have plummeted, the live music sector has thrived, potentially presenting alternative business models and opportunities. This paper will discuss a variety of recent Internet-related developments including the rise of legal digital distribution, key economic implications, general welfare effects, changes in consumer preference and social phenomena as they relate to both the recording and live entertainment sectors. I employ a time series multiple regression model to evaluate the statistical significance of the relationship between the Internet’s rise and the value of record sales. For the concert industry, I will examine recent trends and descriptive data as they relate to the Internet’s prevalence.

The purpose of this study is to explore the mechanics of guanxi in an organizational setting, focusing on the use of interpersonal relationships within Chinese firms to discover how firms initiate, build and use guanxi networks. Two richly detailed case studies document changes that take place over time in two distinct networks with respect to key actors and their contacts. This research also investigates patterns of social structure that emerge over time in these two distinct cases looking at brokerage relationships, network density, and dyadic redundancy in three waves at six month intervals. The cases are dissimilar in all aspects except absolute size demonstrating the universal use of guanxi across time, geographic location, specific industries, and firm experience. Dynamic network visualization is used to highlight the sequence and rate of activity in each network to identify salient changes. The findings show that firms seek to improve their organizational guanxi by improving existing employees' guanxi quality within the firm and by recruiting new actors from outside the firm. Additionally, firms use organizational guanxi to expand their networks by forming cooperative partnerships with complementary organizations that enhance the attributes or potential of both organizations. And finally, firms initially exploit brokerage in organizational guanxi, then attempt to stabilize the network by fostering new ties to exclusive contacts.

Transportation Network Companies (TNC) are companies that use online-enabled platforms to connect passengers with drivers. In recent years, they have sparked controversy with the taxi industry, which accuses TNCs of operating unfairly. In my study, I look at taxi regulation, consumer transportation preferences, and costs and benefits of TNCs. I analyze data comparing three of these companies, Uber, Lyft, and Sidecar, with a traditional taxicab, and evaluate trends in taxi employment from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. I find that Transportation Network Companies generally have shorter wait times, cheaper prices, and increased convenience, aspects that appeal to consumer preferences. I also find that taxi driver employment tends to fluctuate with economic conditions, however cities that are more likely to use TNCs exhibit smaller growth. I predict that at current conditions, TNCs such as Uber and Lyft will overtake taxi services. Thus, the taxi industry must focus on increasing TNC regulation, creating innovative technology, and modifying its service to appeal to consumers.