Optimal investment in human capital through effective K-12 schooling is critical for building a productive work force. This investment is particularly important for minority and low income students. My dissertation uses econometric techniques to analyze the effects of different educational programs on the academic achievement of elementary and middle school students in Arizona. The first essay evaluates the effect of Arizona's new English program, the 4-hour ELD block, on the achievement of students. In the 2008-2009 academic year, Arizona law required that English Language Learner (ELL) students to be separated from their native English-speaking peers and interact in the same classroom for 4-hour per day with other ELL students. In this study dynamic panel data methods and regression discontinuity design are employed to analyze the effect of the 4-hour ELD block program on the academic achievement of students. Using data from one school district during the school years 2006 to 2010, this study shows that this new program did not have a notable effect on the state-wide test scores of ELL students. The second essay assesses the long-run and short-run effects of Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) program in Arizona. The TIF program is a nationwide performance-based compensation plan that provides incentives to teachers based on the student performance. The TIF program started in Arizona in the 2007-2008 school year and targets high need schools. Using a panel data set from 2006-2007 to 2010-11 school year, the effect of the TIF program on the achievement of students is estimated using the difference-in-difference method. Comparing the short-run and long run effect of this program indicates that the long-run effect is greater than that of the short-run. Finally, by utilizing a rich set of panel data from 2006-2007 to 2010-2011 school years, the third essay studies the raw and value-added achievement gap between first and second-generation students with native students. This study shows that native students outperform both groups of immigrant students in reading and math tests. Within immigrant students, second-generation students outperform first-generation students in reading but not in math, while the achievement growth of the second-generation students has a slower pace.

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Medicaid provides coverage to approximately 60 million individuals and is the largest single payer of healthcare for children. Given this scope of the program and the concentration of low-income and minority recipients, improvements to the quality of care delivered to Medicaid members represents a significant opportunity to reduce health care disparities and improve the overall delivery and quality of healthcare within the U.S. The current study sought to evaluate the various approaches that state Medicaid agencies are taking to assess and improve the quality of care to their managed care enrollees and the degree to which they have implemented recommendations of various policy experts. A survey was distributed to the Medicaid Directors of all 50 states. A total of 23 states with risk based managed care programs responded, representing 62% of the states that have managed care programs. The results indicated that nearly all states are utilizing standard performance measures as one method to assess quality, with virtually all relying on HEDIS measures for this purpose. Additional strategies that are being used include public reporting of quality data and the use of pay-for-performance incentives; few states are currently focusing on health information technology. Recommendations are made for steps that the Medicaid program could take at both the state and federal level to further develop quality improvement programs.

This research attempted to evaluate the pay-gap between women with children and women without children. Previous literature consistently concludes women with children will have lower incomes than women without children. The income determination model is composed of individual, structural, and gender segments and is used to examine the pay-gap between these two groups. The 2004 American Time Use Survey dataset is used to analyze the hypothesis that women with children will have a lower income than women without children. Results in this research contradict previous research. OLS Regression revealed women with children have a higher income than women without children. However, further analysis showed women without children have higher economic return for their age and occupational prestige than do women with children. The structural segment in the income determination model explained the disparity more than the other two segments. Policy implications are discussed. / Thesis (M.A.)--Wichita State University, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Dept. of Sociology.

The Master's degree paper provides the analysis of pay system in State owned company Telšiai Region Roads; theoretical and practical aspects of its creation and implementation. The survey data allowed us to identify and evaluate employees’ expectations and state the drawbacks. To improve employees’ interest towards work an empirical research was carried out during which the main functions of work organization in a company were evaluated, related problems were identified as well as their causes and possible solutions to them. The research results confirmed the author's hypothesis that there are some considerable problems regarding creation and implementation of pay system in an organization, which hinders the state enterprise from successful further development.

This thesis studies issues in auctions and contests. The seller of an object and the organizer of a contest have many instruments to improve the revenue of the auction or the efficiency of the contest. The three essays in this dissertation shed light on these issues. Chapter 2 investigates how a refund policy affects a buyer's strategic behavior by characterizing the equilibria of a second-price auction with a linear refund policy. I find that a generous refund policy induces buyers to bid aggressively. I also examine the optimal mechanism design problem when buyers only have private initial estimates of their valuations and may privately learn of shocks that affect their valuations later. When all buyers are \emph{ex-ante} symmetric, this optimal selling mechanism can be implemented by a first-price or second-price auction with a refund policy. Chapter 3 investigates how information revelation rules affect the existence and the efficiency of equilibria in two-round elimination contests. I establish that there exists no symmetric separating equilibrium under the full revelation rule and find that the non-existence result is very robust. I then characterize a partially efficient separating equilibrium under the partial revelation rule when players' valuations are uniformly distributed. I finally investigate the no revelation rule and find that it is both most efficient and optimal in maximizing the total efforts from the contestants. Within my framework, more information revelation leads to less efficient outcomes. Chapter 4 analyzes the signaling effect of bidding in a two-round elimination contest. Before the final round, bids in the preliminary round are revealed and act as signals of the contestants' private valuations. Compared to the benchmark model, in which private valuations are revealed automatically before the final round and thus no signaling of bids takes place, I find that strong contestants bluff and weak contestants sandbag. In a separating equilibrium, bids in the preliminary round fully reveal the contestants' private valuations. However, this signaling effect makes the equilibrium bidding strategy in the preliminary round steeper for high valuations and flatter for low valuations compared to the benchmark model. / Thesis (Ph.D, Economics) -- Queen's University, 2010-04-20 21:34:12.295

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<p>The term organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) was first explored by Bateman and Organ (1983) to refer to particular behaviours that may benefit an organisation and gestures that cannot be enforced by means of formal role obligations nor be elicited by contractual guarantee of recompense. Organ (1988) proposes that OCB may have a positive impact on employees and organisational performance. Incumbents who are experiencing satisfaction from performing their jobs are likely to be better ambassadors for the organisation and be committed to their organization (Buitendach, 2005). Silverthorne (2005, p. 171) considers job satisfaction to be important for effective organisations and defines job satisfaction as &ldquo / ... a pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one&rsquo / s job&rdquo / . Previous research indicates that individuals are most likely to go beyond their formal job requirements when they are satisfied with their jobs or committed to their organisations, when they are given intrinsically satisfying tasks to complete, and/or when they have supportive or inspirational leaders. Research into Organisational Citizenship behaviour (OCB) has primarily focused on the effects of OCB on individual and organisational performance. Several empirical studies report that OCB produces various tangible benefits for employees, co-workers, supervisors and organisations in a variety of industries (Ackfeldt &amp / Leonard, 2005). It essentially refers to prosocial organisational behaviour that goes beyond what is expected in role descriptions. Bolino, Turnley and Niehoff (2004) claim that three basic assumptions have characterised OCB research. Firstly, they argue that OCB research stemmed from non-self-serving motives such as organisational commitment and job satisfaction. Moreover, they maintain that OCB has led to a more effective functioning of organisations and finally that OCB benefited employees by making organisations more attractive to work in. Murphy, Athansou and King (2002) reported positive relationships between OCB and job satisfaction. Chiu and Chen (2005) investigated the relationship between job characteristics and OCB and recommend that managers enhance employees&rsquo / intrinsic job satisfaction to promote the display of OCB. Most research studies have investigated OCB as an outcome variable with job satisfaction as one of its antecedents. Although the majority of researchers contend that OCB is an outcome of job satisfaction, some research indicates that the two variables can function as antecedents or consequences or there may well be a reciprocal relationship between the two variables. This study endeavours to elucidate the factors that are postulated to produce job satisfaction and organisational citizenship behaviour, based on a sample of 133 employees in a retail organisation in the Western Cape. The results indicate that there are significant relationships between biographical characteristics and job satisfaction, between the dimensions of OCB and job satisfaction and between the job satisfaction dimensions and OCB.</p>

This project investigates the impacts of nutrition merchandising on consumers’ willingness to pay for local tomatoes and strawberries. The data come from survey of Kentucky and Ohio residents in June 2011. Two thousand one hundred twelve individuals from Kentucky and Ohio were surveyed, to find out the impact of selfawareness of health benefits and health benefits information on their willingness to pay. The consumers were offered one of the three survey versions. The versions varied by how much nutrition information was provided to the consumer related to both strawberries and tomatoes – otherwise identical. A had the most, B had text only, and C omitted any nutritional benefits. This nutrition preamble was offered just before doing a payment card willingness-to-pay experiment. Standard demographic data were also included. The goal of the study was to see if and in what way the provision (or nonprovision) of this information, as well as consumers’ own knowledge of nutritional benefits of local foods, their beliefs and lifestyle influenced their willingness to pay for these local products.