Ph.D. - Economics
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Item EVIDENCE FROM MEXICO: HEALTHY MIGRANT HYPOTHESIS, WEIGHT AND WAGE DYNAMICS, A BAYESIAN APPROACH TO QUANTILE REGRESSION(2024) Hotchandani, Hazel; Halliday, Timothy; EconomicsItem Quantifying Weather and Climate Impacts on Electricity Demand and Agricultural Productivity in the US: Implications for Climate Change Adaptation(2024) Zhang, Sisi; Roberts, Michael J.; EconomicsItem Essays on the Intersection of Economics, Public Health Policy and Politics(2024) Siegal, Nicole; Molina, Teresa; EconomicsItem THREE ESSAYS ON MINIMUM WAGE IN VIETNAM AND PEER EFFECT ON COMPENSATION SCHEME(2024) Le, Binh; Lee, Sang-Hyop; Sherstyuk, Ekaterina; EconomicsItem Incentives: Theory In Network Games And An Application For COVID-19 Vaccination(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2023) Kang, Zheng; Juarez, Ruben; EconomicsThis dissertation consists of three essays on the intersection of incentives in theoretical network games and an application of incentives. The first essay studies a buyer-seller network where sellers offer sign-up bonuses to buyers using points, a currency whose value depends on buyers' effort to learn how to use it. Buyers choose the optimal level of learning based on the total amount of points they can obtain. Based on the level of learning, they decide which offers from sellers to accept, with a heterogeneous transaction cost for each offer accepted. Real-world examples include sign-up bonus points for bank credit cards, chain hotel points, and chain restaurant points, where the value of the points is subjective to buyers' effort to learn how to use them. The paper explores the existence of a Subgame Perfect Nash Equilibrium (SPNE) on sellers' choices of sign-up bonus points offered to buyers. In addition, the paper provides comparative statics evaluating changes in the expected revenue return from buyers and network connections in the game. The second essay starts with modeling a price transmission for intermediaries in a market network for identical goods. Intermediaries simultaneously post prices for their intermediation services, followed by producers choosing their connection strategies, and consumers choosing their buying decisions. We provide necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of non-cooperative Nash Equilibria. Meanwhile, we prove the natural existence of cooperative outcomes under intermediaries' collusion. Furthermore, we provide comparative statics on the network expansions with new connections. The third studies vaccine hesitancy in the Hawaii population. Understanding contributors to vaccine hesitancy and how they change over time may improve COVID-19 mitigation strategies and public health policies. To date, no mechanism explains how trust in and consumption of different sources of information affect vaccine uptake. A total of 1594 adults enrolled in our COVID-19 testing program completed standardized surveys on demographics, vaccination status, use, reliance, and trust in sources of COVID-19 information, from September to October 2021, during the COVID-19 Delta wave. Of those, 802 individuals (50.3%) completed a follow-up survey, from January to February 2022, during the Omicron surge. Regression analyses were performed to understand vaccine and booster uptake contributors over time. Individuals vaccinated within two months of eligibility (early vaccinees) tended to have more years of schooling, with greater trust in and consumption of official sources of COVID-19 information, compared to those who waited for 3--6 months (late vaccinees), or those who remained unvaccinated at 6 months post-eligibility (non-vaccinees). Most (70.1%) early vaccinees took the booster shot, compared to only 30.5% of late vaccinees, with the latter group gaining trust and consumption of official information after four months. These data provide the foundation for a mechanism based on the level of trust in and consumption of official information sources, where those who increased their level of trust in and consumption of official information sources were more likely to receive a booster. This study shows that social factors, including education and individual-level degree of trust in (and consumption of) sources of COVID-19 information, interact and change over time to be associated with vaccine and booster uptakes. These results are critical for developing effective public health policies and offer insights into hesitancy over the course of the COVID-19 vaccine and booster rollout.Item Applying Empirical Techniques From Economics To The Study Of Individual And Social Welfare(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2023) Zheng, Rangrang; Molina, Teresa; EconomicsThis dissertation consists of three essays on the application of empirical techniquesfrom economics to the study of decision making, both at the individual and societal level. The first two essays, which are single-authored, focus on individual decision-making in the context of marriage. The third essay, co-authored with Professor Michael Roberts, Matthias Fripp and Patricia Hidalgo-Gonzalez, studies optimal decisions for society in the context of the environment. The first essay estimates the Intergenerational Transmission of Divorce (ITD) in China. Using the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, I identify that children with a divorced parent are 93% more likely to get divorced than those with parents who have never divorced, and the ITD is larger from mothers to daughters and fathers to sons. Controlling for community fixed effects reduces the magnitude of the ITD by only 14%, suggesting that transmission takes place via parent-child interactions, not just community-level influences. The second essay estimates the effect of children on parental divorce. I find that a higher number of biological children is negatively associated with the chance of divorce. To identify causality, I use an instrumental variables strategy which exploits geographic variation in the roll-out of the “Later, Longer, Fewer” (LLF) policy – a family planning policy initiated in the 1970s to lower fertility in China. The IV model yields the opposite conclusion of the OLS results; that is, more children increase the chance of divorce. The third estimates the importance of transmission for decarbonization of the electricity sector in US. Solar and wind power are now cheaper than fossil fuels but are intermittent. The extra supply-side variability, paired with great geographic heterogeneity in land, wind, and solar resource potential, could make long-distance transmission between regions considerably more valuable in a decarbonized electricity system as compared to conventional systems dominated by controllable thermal power plants. We evaluate the potential gains of optimizing transmission within and between the three major interconnects of the United States using a high-resolution model that jointly optimizes investments in transmission, storage, production, and hourly operations for the contiguous United States. We find that optimally expanding transmission within each interconnect reduces total cost of electricity by 3.4% in a fully decarbonized system and by 0.1% in a least-cost system that still employs fossil fuels. Further opptimizing transmission between the three interconnects reduces total cost of electricity by an additional 1% in a fully decarbonized system as compared to 0.2% in a least cost system. The extra savings from transmission in a decarbonized system derives mainly from savings of battery storage and very little from reduced generation capacity. Overall, the comparison of capacity expansion results show that between grid connection reduces the cost of 100 percent decarbonization by 1.6%.The value of within interconnect transmission is 3 times of the value for between interconnect transmission addition.Item Three Essays On Environmental Shocks And Policy Response(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2023) PARK, DONGKYU; Tarui, Nori; EconomicsThis dissertation analyzes the economic effects caused by exogenous shocks and focuses on discussing the mechanisms behind them. Though this dissertation does not deal with only one specific topic, each topic may provide valuable insights for policymakers to establish efficient environmental policies in various fields. Chapter 2 is related to the effect of the expiration of the Korea-Japan Fishery Agreement (KJFA) on Korean long-line hairtail fishery. Since the agreement expired on June 30, 2016, the Korean and Japanese fishing vessels cannot enter the mutual EEZs. The main reason for the expiration is the significant difference of view about the number of Korean long-line hairtail fishing vessels and their catches in Japan’s EEZ. This chapter analyzes the impact of the expiration using the catch data of Korean long-line hairtail fishing vessels. Chapter 3 analyzes the relationship between earthquakes and housing prices. In particular, this chapter focuses on the housing price near a nuclear power plant (NPP) which is the Gori NPP in Korea. By doing so, this chapter addresses how the housing market values the risk of the NPP using two different exogenous shocks, one is the Fukushima accident in Japan (2011) and another is the Pohang earthquake in Korea (2017). Lastly, Chapter 4 covers the effect of the low emission zone (LEZ) policy on air quality in Seoul, Korea. The LEZ policy has been led by the EU and the main purpose is to prohibit driving old diesel vehicles. Many previous studies support the effectiveness of the policy. However, the purpose of this chapter is to verify the policy effect in Seoul where the air quality is significantly affected by China. Moreover, this chapter handles the cost-benefit analysis of the policy focusing on the secondary PM10 formation caused by the reduction of NO2.Item Three Essays on Low Fertility, Population Aging, and Old Age Support Systems in South Korea(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2023) Kim, Hyun Kyung; Lee, Sang-Hyop; EconomicsThis dissertation investigates the contemporary issues of low fertility, population aging, and the old age support system in South Korea. The first chapter focuses on the respective effects of two sources of population aging, fertility and mortality. The second chapter focuses on low fertility and evaluates the effect of the childbirth grant policy on boosting fertility considering maternal migration. The third chapter focuses on population aging and investigates elderly inequality and the old-age support system considering the role of familial transfers. The first chapter examines how two factors of population aging, changes in fertility and mortality, will respectively affect South Korea’s economic future. The economic effects of population aging are examined by considering the population in each age group under alternative demographic scenarios. Utilizing South Korea’s recent population projections and National Transfer Accounts data, the paper applies a simple decomposition model to measure the respective effects of fertility and mortality on separate aspects of the economy: labor income, consumption, and public and private transfers. The results imply that the effects of low fertility and low mortality on the economy are very different in direction, magnitude, timing, and impact by age group. The only effect of an aging population that is the same in all circumstances is the effect on the public pension system. The results show that low fertility and low mortality will increase pressure on the public pension system of South Korea. The second chapter investigates whether higher childbirth grants are really effective tools in boosting fertility, considering the maternal migration induced by regional differences in childbirth grants in South Korea. As interest in the effect of childbirth grants on fertility increases, there are also growing studies on the effect of childbirth grants on boosting fertility. However, the effect of childbirth grants on fertility in previous literature may be biased due to the maternal migration induced by regional differences in childbirth grants. In order to measure the true effect of childbirth grants on boosting fertility at the national level, maternal migration induced by regional differences in childbirth grants should be considered. By utilizing rich and unique data sets collected from all 17 provincial and 229 municipal units in South Korea, this study demonstrates that childbearing-aged females are incentivized to move into municipalities with much higher childbirth grants. The results also show that childbirth grants still have a positive effect on boosting fertility even after controlling for the effect of maternal migration induced by regional differences in childbirth grants. In addition, this study identifies that living and childbearing conditions are important decision factors for the migration of childbearing-aged females. The last chapter examines the effect of familial support on reducing elderly inequality. Previous studies show that population aging may lead to an increase in inequality as inequality in income and consumption tends to increase with age. However, the effect of population aging on consumption inequality for the elderly may depend on the old-age support system, as transfers can reduce inequality. Although the role of public transfers was widely examined, little is known about the role of private transfers in reducing inequality. This chapter examines the role of familial transfers in the old-age support system and in reducing inequality using micro-level South Korea’s National Transfer Accounts (NTA) data. The results suggest that intergenerational private transfers in extended households do reduce consumption inequality for the elderly. By income level, the elderly in low-income households are more dependent on public transfers. The elderly in nuclear high-income households rely heavily on their own asset for consumption, whereas those in extended high-income households are more dependent on private transfers. The counterfactual analysis suggests that the consumption inequality for the elderly has increased over time not only because the population is aging but because the share of extended households is rapidly declining in South Korea.Item Essays On Applied Microeconomics In Health And Labor(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2023) Ward, Maya; Halliday, Timothy J.; EconomicsThis dissertation applies econometric techniques to topics in health and labor economics in Colombia, the United States, and India. The first chapter examines the relationship between domestic violence legislation in Colombia and intra-household bargaining power for women. I use the Demographic Health Survey (DHS) Waves V to VII with a difference-in-difference strategy to causally identify the relationship between the implementation of a gender policy from the law and an increase in the household bargaining power of women. I find evidence of an overall positive relationship, indicating potential spillover effects. As intra-household bargaining power is traditionally hard to influence, this could signal an indirect strategy to influence this and other modes of female empowerment.The second chapter is in collaboration with Rachel Inafuku on the effects of economic down- turns on labor market outcomes across the Big Five personality traits. There is still a large amount of unexplained variation in various labor market outcomes after accounting for observable characteristics (age, gender, education, etc) indicating that unobservable charac- teristics (personality, work ethic, etc) may also play an important role. While the psychology literature has investigated the relationship between personality and labor market outcomes, there are far fewer studies that incorporate personality traits within economics. Further- more, there is not a clear consensus within the economics literature that determines how the labor market outcomes of workers varies across personality traits. Using the 1997 cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), this study looks at how economic downturns impact labor market outcomes differentially across the “Big Five” personality traits. We find that those who report higher levels of emotional instability tend to see more unemployment insurance take up and fewer weeks of employment during economic down- turns relative to those who are more emotionally stable. Additionally, the effects do not seem to be driven by employer discrimination, as it may be that workers with higher levels of emotional instability are less productive during recessions. The final chapter assesses the impact of ethnic networks on healthcare use in India. Simply increasing availability of healthcare services alone does not increase usage, but investigation into ethnic networks may provide insight into the mechanisms of decision making regarding the services. Using cross-sectional data from Wave 4 (2015-2016) of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS), I explore how networks affect usage for maternal health services, repeating regressions for language-district, language-social, and district-social groups. I find evidence of network influence for all delivery and prenatal care outcomes for the language- district network definition, evidence for institutional delivery and prenatal care as well as a first trimester prenatal checkup for district-social groups, and little evidence for network effects for the language-social groups network definition. This suggests that ethnic networks are used for some maternal healthcare decisions, but that the definition and construction of that network for the analysis matters. District appears to be an important factor in networks that affect healthcare use, while social groups (as defined by the data) seems to not capture networks as well.Item Essays On Health Coverage Expansions And Its Impacts On Low Income Populations(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2023) Chu, Benjamin Christopher; Halliday, Timothy J.; EconomicsThis dissertation is composed of two chapters that apply econometric techniques to evaluate the impacts of the Affordable Care Act Medicaid expansion on health coverage for low-income populations. The first chapter evaluates who enrolled in Medicaid as a consequence of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Using the 2010–2017 American Community Survey, I estimate how characteristics relating to work status and race/ethnicity affect the probability that an individual will be a complier, defined as those induced by the ACA Medicaid expansion to obtain Medicaid coverage. Across all states, I find that part-time workers, not non-workers, are the most likely to be compliers. This finding is not consistent with certain notions that Medicaid participants are the ”undeserving poor” - a sentiment that may have hindered efforts to expand Medicaid in certain states. Additionally, I find that in non-expansion states, many of which have high Black populations, the probability of being a complier is higher for Blacks than for other racial/ethnic groups, suggesting that Black people in non-expansion states would be the largest beneficiaries of any new expansions. This paper not only identifies the types of individuals who were already impacted by the expansion but also identifies which populations would benefit the most from subsequent expansions. The second chapter analyzes how effective was the ACA in enrolling children already eligible for Medicaid and Children Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Utilizing the American Community Survey (ACS) from 2012 to 2017, I adopt a difference-in-differences approach that measures the changes in public and private coverage for Medicaid and CHIP eligible children before and after the enactment of the ACA Medicaid expansion. I find that there are modest yet significant increases in public coverage for children who were previously eligible for Medicaid and CHIP prior to the expansion, providing evidence of a “welcome mat” effect. However, I observe significant crowding out in employer-sponsored insurance for both previously eligible children and children who became newly eligible as a result of the new adjusted gross income (MAGI) thresholds established after 2014. My findings not only establish, under the ACA Medicaid expansion, clear evidence of a “welcome mat” effect for children across various age and income groups, but they may also suggest that parents favor fully subsidized public coverage over partially subsidized private insurance for their children.