Cette thèse contribue à deux débats récurrents de la macroéconomie quantitative : la taille des multiplicateurs budgétaires pour le Chapitre 1 et les origines du cycle des affaires pour les Chapitres 2 et 3. Les trois essais qui la composent partagent en outre un thème commun. Ils illustrent comment l'utilisation de modèles structurels enrichis permet, à l'aide des données macroéconomiques, d'améliorer certaines stratégies d'identification et d'obtenir des résultats parfois contraires aux théories établies. Le premier chapitre de la thèse étudie l'impact sur l'estimation des multiplicateurs budgétaires des mouvements endogènes dans les dépenses publiques aux Etats-Unis. Un modèle DSGE avec règles fiscales, estimé sur données trimestrielles, est utilisé pour identifier et quantifier les ajustements automatiques des dépenses de consommation publique. Les résultats confirment le rôle significatif de ces mouvements endogènes dans les données. Le modèle est ensuite employé comme laboratoire pour tester la qualité des multiplicateurs estimés par trois approches classiques : un modèle DSGE avec politique fiscale exogène, des modèles VARs identifiés par restrictions d'exogénéité et des modèles VARs identifiés par restrictions de signe. Ces expériences indiquent que les multiplicateurs estimés à l'aide de DSGEs sont plutôt robustes aux erreurs de spécification, tandis que ceux obtenus par VARs structurels peuvent être largement biaisés et imprécis. En particulier, les restrictions de signe apparaissent incapables de gérer correctement les problèmes d'endogénéité, alors même qu'elles ont été développées dans ce but. Le second chapitre, coécrit avec Paul Beaudry et Franck Portier, documente les propriétés empiriques de plusieurs mesures du prix relatif des biens d'investissement, une variable souvent utilisée pour identifier les chocs technologiques spécifiques au secteur de l'investissement. Les données étudiées proviennent en majorité des Etats-Unis, mais les autres pays du G7 sont également considérés. Deux faits stylisés émergent : (i) Le prix relatif de l'investissement n'est pas fortement contracyclique, contrairement à une idée répandue parmi les économistes. (ii) Il est même procyclique après 1985, et ce de manière significative, tout comme les prix relatifs des sous-composantes de l'investissement total. Ainsi, l'analyse agnostique des données contredit la théorie selon laquelle les chocs technologiques spécifiques au secteur de l'investissement, qui sont associés à des mouvements contracycliques du prix relatif, constituent la source majeure des fluctuations économiques dans les économies développées. A la place, les résultats suggèrent un rôle important pour les chocs affectant la demande en biens d'investissement. Le troisième et dernier chapitre étend l'analyse du Chapitre 2 en incorporant des rigidités de prix sur les biens d'investissement dans un modèle DSGE monétaire à deux secteurs. L'estimation du modèle sur données trimestrielles américaines, à l'aide de techniques bayésiennes, suggère que ces rigidités nominales spécifiques au secteur de l'investissement constituent la friction la plus importante pour reproduire les propriétés clés des données. De plus, le modèle prédit qu'un choc améliorant la productivité dans le secteur des biens de consommation génère une expansion, alors qu'un choc technologique positif dans le secteur des biens d'investissement provoque une récession. Ces prédictions, qui sont en ligne avec les résultats de la littérature sur la comptabilité de la croissance, sont nouvelles dans la littérature DSGE. Le modèle prédit également que 80% des fluctuations de court et moyen terme dans le prix relatif de l'investissement proviennent de chocs de demande, suggérant que ce prix n'est qu'un indicateur très imparfait des chocs technologiques. / This thesis contributes to two recurrent debates in quantitative macroeconomics: the size of fiscal multipliers for Chapter 1, and the sources of business cycles for Chapters 2 and 3. A unifying theme of all three essays is that the joint use of available macroeconomic data and rich structural models allows to improve on standard identification strategies, delivering challenging results for the established conventional wisdom. In the first chapter of the thesis, I investigate how endogenous movements in government expenditures affect estimated fiscal multipliers for the U.S. economy. Using an estimated DSGE model with automatic fiscal rules to identify and quantify the feedback effects in government consumption, I find significant statistical evidence of endogenous patterns. I then use the model as a laboratory to test multipliers derived from three standard econometric approaches: a DSGE model with exogenous policy, VARs identified with exogeneity restrictions, and VARs identified with sign restrictions. The experiments suggest that DSGE-based multipliers are quite robust to misspecification, while structural VARs may provide severely overestimated and noisy multipliers in presence of endogeneity. Importantly, sign restrictions appear to perform worse that exogeneity restrictions, even though they have been especially designed to handle policy endogeneity. The second chapter, co-authored with Paul Beaudry and Franck Portier, documents the empirical properties of several measures of the relative price of investment goods, a variable often used to identify investment-specific technology shocks. Our focus in on U.S. data, but we also consider the other G7 countries. We emphasize two stylized facts: (i) There is no significant evidence that the relative price of aggregate investment is countercyclical in the data. (ii) It is significantly procyclical for the recent period, as well as the relative prices of most of its subcomponents. Therefore, our agnostic examination of the data does not validate the common view that investment-specific supply shocks, which trigger countercyclical movements in the relative price, are the main drivers of investment fluctuations. Instead, it points toward an important role for shocks to investment demand. The third and last chapter extends the analysis of Chapter 2 by incorporating investment price rigidity in a two-sector monetary DSGE model. Bayesian estimation from quarterly U.S. series suggests that sticky investment prices are the most important friction in terms of fitting the data. Furthermore, the estimated model implies that technology improvements are expansionary in the consumption sector but contractionary in the investment sector. These patterns, in line with the findings of the growth-accounting literature, have not been documented previously within estimated DSGE models. The model also predicts that eighty percent of the business-cycle movements in the relative price of investment arise from demand shocks, calling into question a widespread identification restriction imposing a period-by-period equality between relative technologies and relative prices.

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Recent advances in microcomputers allowed for the development of a Computer Assisted Assessment (CAA) device which provided a higher degree of feedback and interaction for subjects than had previously been possible. This enhanced human/machine interactive capability was found to increase the comparability between a CAA device and a traditional test instrument. A counter-balanced, pre-post test comparison between the manual and CAA Raven Standard Progressive Matrices (RSPM) indicated no difference between test mediums, with the exception of the CAA pre-test requiring significantly longer for students to complete than the manual pre-test version. A reliability study of the CAA RSPM indicated this version of the RSPM produced a test-retest r = 88 with a two-week interval (N = 21). In addition to examining the comparability between test mediums, five CAA derived measures were developed to determine their efficacy as psychometric measures. Three measures of response time and two measures of 'motoric efficiency' or purposefulness were developed. Each measure provided a means of fractionating subjects' responses and recording these responses in milliseconds and measuring motoric output with a resolution of 1/80th of an inch. Eighty-five CAA administrations of the RSPM were obtained using 4th, 5th and 6th grade public school students. Discriminate analysis revealed 3 of the CAA derived psychometric measures produced significant results at the p < .10 level. A final post hoc comparison between previously administered WISC-R scores and the CAA RSPM was made with 20 students. Multiple regression and correlation analyses indicated significant relationships with the CAA RSPM and the WISC-R verbal and full scale IQ scales. In addition several CAA derived measures demonstrated significant relationships with the WISC-R verbal, performance and full scale IQ scores.

Limited research exists on the impact of racial attitudes upon varying age groups of African American women in the workplace. The factors of conformity, dissonance, resistance, and internalization among African American women of accumulated negative experiences may affect their performance in the workplace. The purpose of this comparative descriptive quantitative study was to use the PRIAS and OCB scales to examine the impact of generational status and racial attitudes on organizational citizenship behavior in a sample of African American women. The study was guided by the theoretical framework of Ajzen's theory of planned behavior. Participants in the study consisted of individuals in Generation Y (aged 21-34), Generation X (aged 35-49), and the Baby Boomer generation (aged 50-64). Two survey instruments guided this study: the People of Color Racial Identity Attitude Scale (PRIAS) and the Organizational Citizenship Behavior Checklist (OCB-C). MANOVA and multiple regression were the statistical data analysis procedures that provided results for the 2 research questions guiding this study. The results showed statistically significant differences in racial attitudes among varying age groups of African American women in the workplace; Baby Boomers scored highest across the measures and Generation X scored lowest. Key themes related to this study were racial attitudes, self-identity, self-efficacy, racial bias, and stress-related issues. Organizations that have a limited minority workplace population will benefit from this study because workplace productivity can increase through positive interventions, awareness, and advocacy for positive change.

Due to the deinstitutionalization movement, many mentally ill individuals have left asylum treatment centers and have had no safe housing. The purpose of this grounded theory study was to explore the attitudes and opinions of homeless, mentally ill people regarding the community resources they consume and how they perceive and navigate those resources. The research questions focused on homeless, mentally ill individuals' shared experiences accessing health care, psychiatric care, and housing services as well as, barriers that impacted homeless, mentally ill individuals' use of these services, and their needs to address these barriers. Data were collected using face to face, semi structured interviews with 12 homeless individuals. The thematic analysis consisted of open and axial coding. Axial coding was used to assign and like categories and subcategories of codes according to their properties and dimensions. Emergent patterns were identified from the data to explain the lived experiences of mentally ill homeless people and their opinion and attitudes towards navigating of mentally ill homeless programs. The responses expressed the needs that were unmet: lack of mental health assistance, food needs, hygiene needs, safety concerns and survival needs. In order to make positive social change outreach predicated on increasing clear communication between outreach workers and the homeless mentally ill allows for developing a trusting relationship necessary in establishing contact and credibility in providing on going impactful treatment for the homeless mentally ill population.

Parental functioning and behaviors in the family impact the outcomes of adolescents; however, few researchers have identified how age-specific parental behaviors and parental stressors impact young children's social-emotional problems in low socioeconomic Hispanic families with children ages 6-11. Based on the family stress model, the purpose of this quantitative correlational study was to examine the relationship between parental behaviors (parental support, involvement, communication, and limit setting) and parental stress on children's social-emotional problems (internalizing and externalizing behavior problems), and the mediating effect of parental behaviors in low socioeconomic Hispanic families with children ages 6-11. A sample of 63 low socioeconomic, Hispanic mothers self-reported their perceived stress, parent-child relationship, and child's behavioral and emotional problems. The data were coded and grouped into 4 path analysis models based on the Pearson r correlation analysis, which indicated a significant relationship between parental behaviors and parental stress on children's externalizing behavior problems. The path analysis indicated that parental behaviors did not mediate the relationship between parental stress and children's externalizing behavior problems. The findings from this study have the potential to benefit low socioeconomic Hispanic families and their young children by improving the quality of parenting and developing and/or improving more targeted and relevant interventions for parent support, potentially leading to an overall community improvement of parent-child relationship and child outcomes.

Research correlates adolescent drug use and dropout rates, and the National Survey on Drug Use and Health shows 31.4% of those who dropped out of high school had used an illicit substance recently. The purpose of this study was to examine adolescents' perceptions of the influence of family, peers, and community, on recovery and academic achievement as a result of participation in a school-referred drug education program. To inspect the study purpose, Henggeler's multisystemic therapy was used to guide the study. Data collection used a researcher-designed, open-ended survey to collect responses from 14 individuals involved in a school-referred substance education program. Findings from a hand-coded, predetermined, color-based, schematic data analysis made it possible to use a thematic approach by 'chunking' the data accordingly for comparison and analysis. The results indicated that more education is needed on the topic of drug use and the community programs available to help with the recovery process, there was a lack of perceived peer pressure to use substances, and the importance of family communication and positive community connections to prevent recidivism. Findings may be used to improve treatment programs by promoting relationships, shortening lessons, and including popular teaching techniques in an attempt to engage those who are involved in the programs. Higher engagement and taking the needs and limitations of the clientele into consideration when designing treatment or education programs will help those in the program retain knowledge of resources and supports available to them thus helping to educate others while decreasing recidivism rates while promoting positive social change.

Although there has been a decline in heterosexual marriages, marriage is still an expectation for adults in the United States. Consequently, unmarried women feel pressured to explain their single marital status. Black women are the least likely to marry, compared to non-Black women and Black men, yet there is limited research addressing the experiences of unmarried Black women. The purpose of this study was to explore the lived experiences of unmarried, college-educated Black women and the effects of cultural and social expectations of marriage. Face-to-face, in-depth interviews were conducted with 10 women. The intersectionality theory was used as the theoretical framework to guide the data interpretation. By employing the Moustakas data analysis method for inductive data analysis, 6 themes emerged from the data: Me versus Them: Marital expectations, Marriage in the Black Community, Outsider Looking In, Single and Not So Happy, Single and Happy, and Perception of Marriage. The most significant emergent theme was Single and Happy because it depicted singlehood for this group and provided better understanding of the phenomenon in study. The participants pointed out various factors (see subthemes) that could cause insecurities and maladaptive symptoms but also indicated that unmarried degreed Black women are living satisfactorily while awaiting their marital opportunity, devoid of pressure from others to marry. The results of the study may promote positive social change by helping clinicians and society to understand this marginalized group of women. As such, more understanding and sensitivity will be rendered to these women as their lived experiences are reported, aiding in cultivating a society that is more accepting of single marital status for college-educated Black women.

Individuals with intellectual disabilities often require additional support in performing daily activities as compared to individuals without intellectual disabilities. New York's Office for Developmental Disabilities developed the eight hallmarks of person centered planning to help individuals with intellectual disabilities understand the options available to them regarding care and support and to advocate for themselves and their rights. Researchers have yet to articulate how guardians and professional care providers of individuals with intellectual disabilities experience person centered planning in day habilitation. Thus, using a qualitative phenomenological approach, 5 direct care staff and 5 guardians of individuals with intellectual disabilities were interviewed to understand their perspectives on the 8 hallmarks of person centered planning. The conceptual framework of this study was Piaget's theory of constructivism and Bandura's theory of social learning. I used the Colaizzi method for phenomenological analysis. Following that I used the NVivo 11 qualitative data analysis software package for finding common themes. The results of this study showed that guardians and professional care providers desired more communication and training about the 8 hallmarks of person centered planning to provide the greatest benefit to individuals with intellectual disabilities. Implications for further training of staff and families, and tracking the outcomes of the eight hallmarks of person centered planning for quality of life in clients could result in policy changes for the frame of care offered to people with intellectual disability.

Researchers have begun to focus on how traumatic experiences, such as breast cancer, can lead to positive psychological outcomes or posttraumatic growth. However, the positive dimensions in Omani breast cancer survivors were not known because most research on posttraumatic growth has been conducted mainly in Western countries. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the lived experiences of Omani women diagnosed and treated with breast cancer to understand posttraumatic growth in this population. Posttraumatic growth served as the theoretical foundation for the study and referred to positive experiences stemming from traumatic situations. The study included a convenience sample of 8 adult Omani women with histories of breast cancer. Data were collected through semi structured, in-depth interviews and was analyzed by thematic analysis technique. Color coding was done to point out the identified initial codes (35) and the codes were organized into 33 subthemes. Qualitative analysis of the data indicated 5 main themes of positive changes: greater appreciation of life, spiritual prosperity, improved interpersonal relations, empowerment and change in philosophy of life. Information from this study may contribute to Arab psychological literature on the personal growth of Arab women with breast cancer. In addition, the findings may lead to social change by helping practitioners diminish psychological debilities in Arab breast cancer survivors and inform interventions for Arab breast cancer survivors to develop coping skills to address future traumatic stress.