Ph.D. - Economics

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10125/1139

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Essays on central bank digital currency and monetary policy
(University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2025) Rahman, Adib Jawad; Wang, Liang LW; Economics
This dissertation consists of three essays examining various aspects of central bank digital currency (CBDC) and monetary policy. The first essay, coauthored with Liang Wang, investigates the effects of CBDC issuance in an economy with tax evasion and agent heterogeneity. We present a tractable model where all trades are voluntary, factoring in agent heterogeneity with unobservable idiosyncratic shocks. In the model, CBDC and cash compete as means of payment. The government can utilize CBDC to collect a labor tax, which appears to be non-distortionary. While agents with a lower marginal utility might challenge the government’s ability to finance its CBDC expenditure, we conjecture that a class of feasible policies can be identified for the optimal design of CBDC. Such policies could potentially involve higher nominal interest rates and lower inflation compared to the inflation rate associated with cash. In summary, the introduction of CBDC could enhance output and aggregate welfare by disincentivizing tax evasion. The second essay explores interest-bearing money, illiquid bonds, and banking in a news economy. Private currencies can facilitate intertemporal exchange under limited commitment, but they may exhibit excessive price volatility when backedby productive assets whose expected short-run return is subject to news shocks or flows of information. In the model, banks act as intermediaries by supplying private currencies in the form of bank deposits, backed by short-run expected returns on firms’ output pledged as collateral. Adverse news events about firm productivity in the short run can induce price volatility in bank deposits, potentially leading to a liquidity shortage. Adding household heterogeneity with news shocks results in bank deposits being priced at a premium in economies where liquidity matters, particularly during a liquidity shortage. Interest-bearing money, not backed by productive assets, can help alleviate this shortage. I show how interest-bearing money offers an additional policy tool that can help lift depressed asset prices. The interest rate affects asset prices via the investment channel, with banks using interest-bearing reserves as insurance against risk shocks. The relative insensitivity of the value of money to news events means social welfare could be improved, even if lump-sum taxation is not permitted. However, I find that the power of interest-bearing money is limited by the assumption that household preferences are publicly observable, allowing type-contingent transfers. Extending the model, an illiquid bond and a cash-in-advance constraint enable the coexistence of government debt and private currencies in the absence of news. The third essay analyzes the optimal design and implementation of CBDC in an economy where CBDC and bank deposits coexist as competing payment instruments. I develop a general equilibrium model to study the optimal design and implementation of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) in an economy where CBDCs and private bank deposits coexist as competing payment instruments. The findings suggest that the welfare consequences of CBDCs and the policies required for first-best implementation depend on specific parameters. In sufficiently patient economies, a passive monetary policy with non-interest bearing CBDC can achieve the first-best allocation without crowding out bank deposits. Conversely, in more impatient economies, active policies with positive inflation and nominal interest rates are necessary, and interest-bearing CBDC could potentially crowd out bank deposits if the interest rate on CBDC is too high relative to deposit rates. The results highlight the importance of carefully designing CBDCs with incentive-feasible policies intended to maximize welfare and minimize risks to financial intermediation and stability. In a calibrated model representing the US economy, I find that increasing the CBDC interest rate from 0% to 5% leads to a decline of about 5% in bank deposits, while improvingoverall welfare by 2%.
Three essays on the impact of environmental and population policies in South Korea
(University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2025) Choi, Ho Suk; Lee, Sang-Hyop; Tarui, Nori; Economics
This dissertation investigates the health and economic consequences of environmental shocks and policy interventions in South korea through three empirical studies grounded in applied microeconomics. Each chapter exploits a natural experiment to identify causaeffects, offering evidence relevant to environmental economics, health economics, and public policy. The first chapter examines how temporary environmental regulations during the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games and Asian dust events affected mortality. Using a fixed-effect instrumental variable approach with these events as instruments for PM₁₀ concentrations, the study finds that a 10 μg/m³ decrease in monthly PM₁₀ leads to a 7.9% reduction in cardio-cerebrovascular and respiratory mortality. The effects are most pronounced among women and older adults, while no significant impacts are found on all-cause, cancer, or injury mortality. These results underscore the substantial public health benefits of air pollution control. The second chapter assesses the effects of prenatal exposure to severe wildfires on birth outcomes, focusing on the April 2000 wildfires in Gangwon Province. Using a difference-in-differences framework and detailed birth registry data, the analysis finds that wildfire exposure during pregnancy significantly reduces birth weight. The adverse effect is particularly pronounced when exposure occurs during the first and third trimesters. The impact is stronger for older mothers and for female infants, highlighting heterogeneity in fetal vulnerability by maternal age and fetal sex. The third chapter evaluates the 2013 expansion of South Korea’s childcare subsidy, which extended financial support from the bottom 70% of households to all families with children aged 3–4. Using a difference-in-differences design with propensity score matching, the study finds that the policy significantly reduced total household consumption and preschool expenditures. However, these savings were not redirected to non-consumption categories such as savings or insurance. Instead, higher-income households increased spending on private extracurricular education, potentially exacerbating educational inequality. The policy had no discernible effect on maternal employment, suggesting that financial support alone may not be enough to overcome structural labor market barriers.
Three essays on dating and marriage using deep learning
(University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2025) Lee, Younghan; Lee, Sang-Hyop; Economics
This dissertation consists of three empirical studies that apply deep learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to the field of economics in dating and marriage. Each essay addresses a distinct question at the intersection of romantic relationships and economic outcomes, unified by methodological innovation. Chapter 2 investigates whether people tend to pair with partners who are genetically similar and how such genetic assortative mating influences household outcomes. Using polygenic scores from genomic data, I find strong evidence that couples are genetically similar in traits like subjective well-being, Age at First Birth, and Number of Children Ever Born. Notably, couples that show similar genetic tendency for higher well-being and delayed childbearing accumulate greater wealth, and they are less likely to divorce, while those with similar genetic traits toward larger families have more children but lower wealth. These findings imply that genetic assortative mating may cause economic advantages or disadvantages, and even lead to wealth inequality and demographic trends. Chapter 3 examines the role of physical attractiveness in dating and marital stability by utilizing deep learning-based facial recognition on a unique dataset of celebrity couples. We construct beauty scores and facial similarity measures from facial images of celebrities to analyze beauty premium in relationship dynamics. Physically more attractive individuals, especially women, tend to have more number of partners, however, the beauty effect remains only temporary for long-term relationships. In both marriage and short-term relationships, beauty yields greater opportunities initially, but the effect of education and number of past partners remain longer in relationship stability. For instance, we find that more attractive female celebrities have more partners but often shorter relationship durations, which suggest that appearance may negatively influence the relationship duration when no other forms of compatibility are supported. We also detect patterns in partner selection, such as same-race pairings and preferences shaped by profession, while finding no support for common beliefs like couples looking alike or astrological sign compatibility influencing stability. Chapter 4 explores a novel methodology by using large language models (LLMs) to simulate human behavior in dating markets. We create an artificial sample of silicon agents, AI agents generated by LLMs, calibrated to mimic a real-world speed-dating experiment. These AI-driven agents remarkably demonstrate human-like decision-making. For example, male agents prioritize physical attractiveness in partners, whereas female agents place greater weight on intelligence, mirroring gender differences in real world. These AI agents also reproduce human patterns of same-race preference. Also, incorporating latent personality traits (extroversion and openness) generate match predictions that are in line with real world data, demonstrating strong algorithmic fidelity. This innovative approach shows that generative AI can serve as a cost-effective, controlled, and ethical tool to replace human in social science research. Overall, the three essays illustrate how deep learning tools can be integrated into economic analysis of personal relationships. It is not only about understanding the determinants of partner selection and relationship stability but also highlighting implications for economic policy. The results inform debates on inequality (by showing how “like marries like” can widen wealth gaps), on the limits of observable attributes like beauty in securing lasting partnerships, and on new research frontiers using AI. Overall, this dissertation shows that modern AI techniques can deepen empirical economic research, suggesting ways to better-informed family policies and novel methodologies for complex human decision problems.
Three essays on innovation: Firms' responses to trade shocks, government policies, and labor market dynamics in Korea
(University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2025) Lee, Joonwoo; Greaney, Theresa; Lee, Sang-Hyop; Economics
Recent, prolonged low growth has made innovation-driven economic growth essential for many countries, especially in high-technology sectors such as semiconductors. Research and development (R&D) is the primary engine of this innovation, and firms in countries such as South korea (hereafter Korea) and the United States now contribute more than 80 percent of total national R&D.With this in mind, this study pursues three interrelated objectives. First, it examines how external shocks spur or hinder firm-level innovation. Second, it investigates how government policy can be designed to encourage private sector R&D. Third, it traces how the R&D-driven innovation affects employment, the central mechanism through which its effects reach the wider economy. This study is based on three empirical essays that use financial statement panel data for Korean listed firms. By connecting external shocks, policy design, and employment outcomes, this study aims to provide insights for policies that promote active firm innovation, and to clarify the labor market dynamics that accompany the pursuit of innovation. The first chapter examines the impact of the 2019 Korea-Japan trade dispute on Korean firms, focusing on their innovation responses. Affected firms are classified into two groups: user-side firms that rely on Japanese export-controlled chemicals for semiconductors, displays, and rechargeable batteries, and producer-side firms that can substitute those chemicals domestically. Both groups increased R&D expenditures in response to the shock, with some producer-side firms increasing patent applications. However, user-side firms faced higher costs, while producer-side firms benefited from productivity gains. This contrast suggests that supply chain diversification and domestic production substitution created opportunities for producer-side firms, while imposing higher costs on user-side firms due to production inefficiencies. The second chapter investigates the policy effects of a new R&D tax credit system implemented in korea since 2011. The system classifies eligible firms from two to three groups: Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs), non-SMEs, and newly medium-sized firms from previously non-SMEs, to align tax incentives with actual firm classifications. It raised the tax credit rate for medium-sized firms from 6 percent to 15 percent. Although, this study finds no clear evidence that the reform had a significant effect, firm heterogeneity does matter. Medium-sized firms with a higher intangible asset-to-capital ratio show a larger increase in R&D spending. Within the treatment group, the policy had clearly boosted R&D in high-tech firms and in firms with below average R&D intensity and poor financial conditions, suggesting that it eased financial constraints. The third chapter examines how firms' innovation activity, measured by R&D expenditures, is reshaping the Korean labor market. The key findings are as follows. First, R&D investment is generally associated with increased employment. This effect is especially strong in high-tech manufacturing, where longer R&D duration further amplifies it. Second, higher R&D investment tends to reduce the share of non-regular workers. In high-tech services, it is also associated with a decline in the share of female workers. Third, while the overall impact on average salaries is modest, there is a significant increase in high-tech conglomerates. These results highlight the skill-biased nature of R&D and labor force heterogeneity. As a result, the benefits tend to be disproportionately concentrated among regular employees. Thus, R&D-driven innovation may create high-quality jobs but also exacerbate labor market inequalities. Taken together, the essays demonstrate how external shocks or intentional government policy can trigger firms’ innovation activities, and how employment channels transmit both the benefits and the strains of firm-level R&D to the broader economy, thereby providing guidance for policies that seek sustainable and inclusive growth.
Three empirical studies on environmental hazards, public health, and policy responses
(University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2025) Amaya, Adrian; Molina, Teresa; Economics
The first essay examines the relationship between wildfire-driven ambient particulate matter (wildfire-PM) and health insurance enrollment in the United States. I leverage temporal and geographic variations in wildfire-PM to estimate their causaimpact on health insurance enrollment. The findings show that exposure to wildfire-PM significantly increases health insurance enrollment and this is largely driven by increases in Medicaid enrollment. I also show evidence that Medicaid enrollment can mitigate the mortality effects of wildfire-PM exposure. The results of this essay indicate that public health insurance plays a crucial role in buffering vulnerable individuals against health risks associated with environmental hazards like wildfire-PM. The second essay explores the relationship between artisanal small-scale mining (ASM) in Ghana and malaria transmission. In Ghana, ASM tends to be a highly transitory and illicit activity that overwhelms mining lands with uncovered excavation pits. Once these pits are filled with stagnant water, they turn into ideal breeding sites for mosquitoes which are the primary vectors for malaria transmission. Using a difference-in-differences approach, this study finds that proximity to newly established ASMs significantly increases malaria incidence among children under five years old. This relationship is robust across different methodological specifications and highlights the need for targeted interventions to mitigate disease transmission in mining-adjacent communities. The third essay shifts focus to a global scale, examining how countries responded to the the COVID-19 pandemic. Using nighttime lights (NTLs) satellite imagery, this study categorizes 170 countries into four adaptation pathways based on how NTLs change over time. The findings indicate that, as expected, countries implementing stringent lockdowns experienced steep declines in nighttime activity. Interestingly, those that rapidly adopted health policies such as contact tracing and testing exhibited faster recovery of their NTLs compared to those that relyied primarily on lockdowns. This research provides insights into how remotely sensed data can be used to supplement efforts to monitor impact and recovery at a fine temporal and spatial scale.
EVIDENCE FROM MEXICO: HEALTHY MIGRANT HYPOTHESIS, WEIGHT AND WAGE DYNAMICS, A BAYESIAN APPROACH TO QUANTILE REGRESSION
(University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2024) Hotchandani, Hazel; Halliday, Timothy; Economics
Chapter one utilizes data from the Mexican Family Life Survey (MxFLS) to conduct an empirical analysis within the framework of the Roy Model, examining whether Mexican emigrants to the United States are positively selected in terms of health. Understanding whether emigrants are favorably self-selected or represent a random sample of Mexico’s population can inform policymakers in shaping labor market and immigration policies that impact both native and non-native workers. By comparing the pre-migration Body Mass Index (BMI) of individuals who migrated to the United States with those who remained in Mexico, this study directly tests for selection. The results indicate that younger, single, and non-overweight individuals are more likely to migrate, as they are better positioned to succeed in the United States labor market and benefit from greater wage differentials. Conversely, the effect of health on migration diminishes for married individuals, with higher capital and social investments in Mexico, coupled with greater migration costs, reducing their incentives to migrate. Chapter two explores the dynamics of weight and wages within Mexico using all three waves of MxFLS data, analyzing how the weight-wage relationship varies across gender, community size, and occupation type. The findings reveal a wage premium for male workers in rural areas and blue-collar jobs, while the weight-wage relationship for females is more complex and mixed. Chapter three introduces a parametric modeling approach based on the asymmetric Laplace distribution of errors and demonstrates the application of Bayesian inference to quantile regression. Using non-informative improper priors with a uniform distribution, values are simulated from the posterior distributions via a random-walk Metropolis-Hastings (MH) algorithm. Applying this methodology to pooled MxFLS data uncovers important features of the wage returns to BMI, particularly for male workers in Mexico, that would otherwise be hidden by traditional mean regression techniques.
Quantifying Weather and Climate Impacts on Electricity Demand and Agricultural Productivity in the US: Implications for Climate Change Adaptation
(University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2024) Zhang, Sisi; Roberts, Michael J.; Economics
This dissertation consists of three Chapters. The first chapter discusses the weather impact on electricity consumption and the policy implications from the temperature sensitive shiftable electricity demand. Growth of intermittent renewable energy and climate change make it increasingly difficult to manage electricity demand variability. Transmission and centralized storage technologies can help, but are costly. An alternative to centralized storage is to make better use of shiftable demand, but it is unclear how much shiftable demand exists. A significant share of electricity demand is used for cooling and heating, and low-cost technologies exists to shift these loads. With sufficient insulation, energy used for air conditioning and space heating can be stored in ice or hot water from hours to days. In this study, we combine regional hourly demand with fine-grained weather data across the United States to estimate temperature-sensitive demand, and how much demand variability can be reduced by shifting temperature-sensitive loads within each day, with and without improved transmission. We find that approximately three quarters of within-day demand variability can be eliminated by shifting only half of temperature-sensitive demand. The variability-reducing benefits of employing available shiftable demand complement those gained from improved interregional transmission, and greatly mitigate the challenge of serving higher peaks under climate change. The second chapter compares the predictions of a process-based crop model (SIMPLE) and statistical model, each of which links high-resolution weather to crop yields, across hundreds of thousands of representative sampled corn and fields in the United States. Grid-level weather is aggregated to the county-level and linked to actual county-level outcomes over 20 years. The statistical model has a better fit overall, and it captures much of the extreme-heat impact on crop yield in 2012, while the SIMPLE model does not. Under climate change scenarios, the statistical model predicts a decline in average yield of 20 bu/ac while the SIMPLE model predicts an increase of 5.2 bu/ac. Similarly, we compare the models for soybeans yield forecast, the outcome is inline with the outcome for corn, which is statistical model has a better fit and captures the extreme heat effect. The third chapter compares air temperature in three different reanalysis dataset by comparing the goodness-of-fit from hourly electricity consumption regression discussed in chapter one. Weather variables in different reanalysis datasets have different values, and they indicate different results in applied studies, such as those predicting the impacts of climate change. Different reanalysis datasets may perform better in different locations and for different weather metrics. To help reconcile differences and evaluate the performance I compare air temperature in three reanalysis datasets, ERA5-land, NARR and MERRA2 for the continental US, by comparing how well each data set predicts a physical outcome, hourly electricity demand. I find that air temperature from ERA5-land results in the most accurate predictions on average. Results are more ambiguous at the regional level. ERA5-land has the best fit in the east interconnect, while prediction performance is inconsistent in the west interconnect, possibly due to more subtle and extreme geographical differences within the balancing authorities examined.
Essays on the Intersection of Economics, Public Health Policy and Politics
(University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2024) Siegal, Nicole; Molina, Teresa; Economics
This dissertation consists of three essays on the intersection of economics and public health policy and politics. The first essay evaluates how exposure to increased levels of Deaths-of-Despair (deaths from suicide, drug overdose, alcohol poisoning, and liver disease and cirrhosis) in a community impacts the outcomes in U.S. Presidential elections. Using county-level panel data and two-way fixed effects regressions, I find that a standard deviation increase in this mortality rate led to an increase in the Republican (GOP) vote share of 2.39 percentage points. Prior studies have linked increasing political polarization and conservatism to economic trends such as income inequality, import competition, and financial crises. Controlling for these and other economic and demographic factors, exposure to Deaths-of-Despair maintains a positive and significant impact on GOP vote shares. This impact is larger and only statistically significant in later years (2016-2020), compared to earlier (2004-2012). There were stronger effects in counties that the GOP candidate won in the previous election, and in counties with higher White population percentages. The results are maintained when using an instrumental variables approach to mitigate endogeneity concerns. The second essay, coauthored with Ruben Juarez and Alika Maunakea, studies how after having been affected by the highest increase in COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic, Honolulu and Maui counties in Hawaii implemented vaccine passport mandates for select industries in September 2021. The degree to which such mandates impacted COVID-19 mitigation efforts and economics remains poorly understood. We therefore examine the effects of these mandates on changes in three areas using difference-in-difference regression models: (1) business foot traffic; (2) number of COVID-19 cases per 100,000 individuals, and (3) COVID-19 vaccination rates across counties affected or unaffected by the mandates. We observed that although businesses affected by mandates experienced a 6.7\% decrease in foot traffic over the \mbox{14 weeks} after the mandates were implemented, the number of COVID-19 cases decreased by 19.0\%. Notably, the vaccination rate increased by 1.41\% in counties that implemented mandates. In addition, towards the end of the studied period, the level of foot traffic at impacted businesses converged towards the level of that of non-impacted businesses. As such, the trade-off in temporary losses at businesses was met with significant gains in public health and safety. In the third essay coauthored with Teresa Molina, we examine whether and how migration decisions respond to state-level changes in abortion policy in the United States. Using data from Guttmacher Institute and the American Community Survey for information on gestational age limits and interstate migration from 2006-2019, we estimate a gravity model, regressing bilateral migration onto the gestational age restrictions of the origin and destination states, a variety of economic, demographic, and political control variables for both states, as well as state-pair and year fixed effects. Across several different specifications, we find that individuals are less likely to move to states with more restrictive policies.
THREE ESSAYS ON MINIMUM WAGE IN VIETNAM AND PEER EFFECT ON COMPENSATION SCHEME
(University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2024) Le, Binh; Lee, Sang-Hyop; Sherstyuk, Ekaterina; Economics
This dissertation investigates the impact of the minimum wage unification policy onhousehold income and employment in Vietnam, and the role of peer information and communication in the individual performance. The dissertation is comprised of three essays. The first essay focuses on the income effect of the minimum wage unification policyin Vietnam. In 2011, Vietnam government implemented a new minimum wage policy which unified the regional minimum wage of the domestic firms and foreign establishments. However, the 2011 policy brought an unintended consequence as only formal sector workers are affected by this policy, leaving the workers in the informal sector unaffected. By utilizing the difference-in-differences approach as the identification strategy, and the panel data of Vietnam Living Standard Survey (2010–2016), the study found that the policy increased the household income of formal sector workers by 54 percent compared with their counterpart. It also improved a composite index of quality of life by 5.1 point for formal sector workers. The income effect of the policy is heterogeneous across demographic groups with more pronounced effect for low-skilled workers and those in the vulnerable group. The second essay examines the employment effect of the minimum wage unificationpolicy from the firms and workers level by exploiting different data sets: Vietnam Household Survey (2008–2018), Vietnam Enterprise Census (2007–2018), and Small Medium Survey (2009–2015). The difference-in-differences is used as the identification strategy, the results show that the increase in the unique minimum wage policy leads to a substantial decrease in labor demand among the domestic firms. On average, the policy reduces the total employment by 12.8 percent among the domestic enterprises. Compared to the household firms without the registered business licenses, the typical SMEs also reduces the labor demand by 6.3 percent. The SMEs are also likely to replace the number of regular workers, full-time workers, and workers with a formal labor contract for irregular workers and workers without formal labor contract. Due to the policy, the SMEs reduce the number of regular workers by 5.4 percent, and part-time regular workers by 11.8 percent. Firms are likely to reduce workers with formal labor contract by 6.9 percent, while they increase workers without labor contract by 7.2 percent. Moreover, this study also finds that remaining workers spend more time at work by extending their working hours, which is confirmed from both firm side and worker side. The last essay utilizes the lab experiment to investigate and decomposes the effect of peers on work performance through two specific channels: peer performance information and peer communication. The participants performed a real-effort task of adding two highest numbers from a pair of 4x4 matrices and were paid by piece rate under four different treatments. The treatments differed in whether peer performance information on a randomly matched other participant was provided, and whether the matched participants could communicate via chatbox. Overall, I found no evidence of the significant peer effects through either peer performance information or communication. However, the effects ofthese channels on the individual performance are found for some subsets of participants. The high performers reported communication to be a distraction rather than a cooperation opportunity with their partner; their productivity is reduced in the presence of the chatbox. For females, the individual productivity is significantly reduced in the presence of both peer performance information and communication via chatbox. My experimental results also connect to the literature on gender differences in the competitive environment
Incentives: Theory In Network Games And An Application For COVID-19 Vaccination
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2023) Kang, Zheng; Juarez, Ruben; Economics
This 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.
Applying Empirical Techniques From Economics To The Study Of Individual And Social Welfare
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2023) Zheng, Rangrang; Molina, Teresa; Economics
This 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.
Three Essays On Environmental Shocks And Policy Response
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2023) PARK, DONGKYU; Tarui, Nori; Economics
This 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.
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; Economics
This 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.
Essays On Applied Microeconomics In Health And Labor
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2023) Ward, Maya; Halliday, Timothy J.; Economics
This 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.
Essays On Health Coverage Expansions And Its Impacts On Low Income Populations
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2023) Chu, Benjamin Christopher; Halliday, Timothy J.; Economics
This 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.
Essays on International Trade and Energy Usage
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2023) Gyawali, Pratistha; Greaney, Theresa; Economics
This dissertation explores research questions in international trade economics, with chapters on landlocked trade and deep-water ports trade, and in energy economics, with a chapter on residential energy usage. The first chapter looks into the effect of being landlocked on international trade flows in the manufacturing sector. The study overcomes the empirical challenge of using a country-specific variable ‘landlocked’, within a structural gravity framework in the presence of importer and exporter fixed effects. Results show that the impact of being landlocked for manufactured goods trade is highly negative and statistically significant. Such effect is higher for low-income landlocked countries as compared to high-income landlocked countries. The impact of being landlocked on manufactured goods trade declined in 2005 as compared to 1980. A series of robustness checks further confirm the estimates. The second chapter looks into the effects of having deeper ports, which are capable of hosting larger ships, on international trade in the manufacturing, agricultural, mining and services sectors, using a structural gravity model. Results show that countries with at least one port capable of hosting a Panamax ship (i.e., port depth of at least 41 feet) trade tremendously more (e.g., 163.0 to 174.8 percent more manufactured goods) than countries without such ports. Ten additional feet of port depth is estimated to increase a country's international trade in manufactured goods by 8.2 to 12.7 percent, in mining goods by 29.5 to 33.9 percent, and in agricultural goods by 31.9 to 34.1 percent. Port depth does not appear to be a strong determinant of trade in services, especially considering its effect on individual service industries. For trade in commodities, having more ports at deeper cutoff depths is shown to be an additional trade facilitator and most of the trade elasticities become even larger when landlocked countries are excluded from our sample. The third chapter, in energy economics, explores residential energy usage using a Conditional Demand Analysis model using data from the 2019 Residential Energy Use Survey. The study estimates the impact of solar photovoltaics (PV) and weather on the end use electricity consumption by residential households in Hawai`i. Hawai`i has a high penetration of distributed PV systems and this chapter delves into how electricity consumption in various households differs with and without photovoltaic systems. Results show that households with PV have more electric appliances and higher gross electricity usage than those without PV. Electricity usage by households with PV is more sensitive to weather than the usage by households without PV.
Essays on Business Analytics and Game Theory
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2023) Nguyen, Minh; Juarez, Ruben; Economics
This collection of essays explores several research topics in business analytics and game theory. The first essay, Chapter 2, applies text mining and machine learning to quantify the impact of natural disaster risk on firm performance. The second essay, Chapter 3, uses machine learning and the Merton model to predict corporate financial distress in a transition economy. The third essay, Chapter 4, investigates optimal investment strategies in finite and mean field games, considering the presence of risk-seeking agents and using a hyperbolic absolute risk aversion (HARA) utility function. Each chapter focuses on a specific type of shock, including climate shocks (Chapter 2), economic shocks (Chapter 3), and stochastic shocks (Chapter 4).
Evaluating Economic Policies In Ecuador: 2007 - 2017
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2022) Rivadeneyra Camino, Ivan; Juarez, Ruben; Economics
This manuscript is a comprehensive analysis of the effects of the most significant nationwide economic and social policies in Ecuador from 2007-2017. In each top-down decision, we explain the motivation of the policies, the expected effects, and assess the results. The main work includes three chapters that empirically study the implication of policies made to support underprivileged groups, and one chapter that explains economic integration using a theoretical model. We evaluate the unexpected decision to increase the monthly unified minimum wage in 2008. Using a differences-in-differences approach we estimate the overall causal effect on the affected populations, which led to a decrease in labor demand by 0.5 percent after one month and by 2.5 percent after four months. We find that the minimum wage hike led to a 2.2 percentage point decline in the probability of remaining employed after one month, and the treatment effect rose to 3.9 percentage points after four months. We estimate the effects of the minimum wage hike on wage changes by wage bin throughout the monthly wage distribution. We find that, after one month, wages increased by 17 to 37 percent for workers paid less than $200 and also uncover wage spillover effects up to the 77th percentile of the wage distribution. The effects of a 2008 policy that eliminated tuition fees at public universities are analyzed using a difference-in-differences strategy that exploits variation across cohorts differentially exposed to the policy, as well as geographic variation in access to public universities. We find that the tuition fee elimination significantly increased college participation and shifted people into higher-skilled jobs. We detect no statistically significant effects on income. The bulk of the benefits of this fee elimination were enjoyed by those of higher socioeconomic status. Individuals who speak an indigenous language and those born in poor areas saw no improvements in college enrollment or changes in job type. Mobile money (MM) is the most promising tool to engage more individuals living in rural and marginalized communities with the banking sector. By accessing a comprehensive data set of the first MM project initiated by the Ecuadorian government, we tracked the behavior of users within the MM network. Temporal analysis of network representations of MM transactions shows agents’ behavior over time and reactions to tax-incentives for the use of non-cash transactions. Immediate positive effects on the economic activity of continuing users and a marginal effect on their interconnectedness are shown. The tax-incentive distorted economic behavior and had a modest effect on the adoption and diffusion of MM. Implementation of these new technologies requires consideration of specific characteristics of each economy and their implements. Using a theoretical model, on factor endowments shows that global integration with China can generate two sets of economies, one set that is better off, and a second set that are worse off or indifferent. This result is essential to understand the effects in countries like Ecuador during the 2006- 2014 period, when China joined the global stage resulting in positive effects on the Ecuadorian economy. Our study aims to contribute to the debate on how policies on minimum wages, elimination of tuition fees in higher education, financial inclusion, and trade explained by factor endowments affected the economic behavior of the populations studied and their overall wellness in developing countries.
Essays in Applied Microeconomics
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2022) Inafuku, Rachel; Halliday, Timothy J.; Economics
This dissertation is composed of three chapters that apply econometric techniques to solve questions in the health and labor economics fields. The first chapter assesses the impact of obesity on labor market outcomes over economic downturns. Specifically, I measure labor market differentials between obese and healthy weight workers over business cycle fluctuations using two national surveys. I find that when unemployment increases, obese individuals experience larger declines in income relative to those who are not obese. These findings are robust to the inclusion of occupation fixed effects, suggesting the findings cannot be fully explained by obese workers selecting careers that tend to have greater sensitivity to business cycle fluctuations. The second chapter of this dissertation is joint work with Timothy Halliday, Lester Lusher, and Aureo de Paula. This study pairs variation stemming from volcanic eruptions with panel data on the census of Hawai`i public student test scores to estimate the impact of pollutants on student performance. We first precisely estimate a small drop in average test scores. Then, utilizing Hawai`i's rich diversity across schools in baseline exposure, we estimate sharp nonlinearities - effects for schools with PM 2.5 levels above 9 units are nearly five times the magnitude as for schools below. Lastly, we find that the drop in test scores for economically disadvantaged students is nearly four times the magnitude of their advantaged counterparts. This performance gap across student type arises from within school variation, suggesting the gap cannot be explained by differences in school resources. The final chapter of this dissertation is in collaboration with Maya Ward. In this study, we use the 1997 cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) to analyze the effect of economic downturns on labor market outcomes differentially 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 characteristics (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 in the economics literature. Furthermore, findings that assess the impacts of the Big Five on economic outcomes are mixed due to differences in the data used. We find that those who report higher levels of emotional instability tend to see larger unemployment insurance take up and fewer weeks of employment during economic downturns 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 higher levels of emotional instability cause workers to be less productive during recessions.
Essays On Impacts Of Climate, Energy Conservation Policy, And Optimal Energy Transition
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2022) Doan, Thi Thanh Thuy; Roberts, Michael J.; Economics
Global warming poses severe risks to human well-being. The U.S. is experiencing more frequent extreme weather events, such as heat waves, cold snaps, hurricanes, and wildfires. These changes are occurring primarily due to production and consumption of fossil fuels that release greenhouse gases. Thus, the economic issues raised by climate change concern the interplay between the impacts of climate and the changes in behavior needed to mitigate those impacts. My dissertation uses a range of datasets, econometric methods, and an optimization model to study some human impacts of climate, an energy conservation policy, and an optimal energy transition pathway. The studies differ widely in terms of the questions addressed and methods employed. Taken together, they show how economic analysis can provide insight into all aspects of the climate problem and aid development of solutions. Specifically, the first chapter investigates how temperature affects individual time allocation, including labor supply and recreation; the second chapter examines how residential electricity consumers respond to monetary and non-monetary incentives in a unique electricity conservation program implemented by the US military; the third chapter develops a computational model to evaluate the need for new natural gas pipeline and storage capacity in the context of an ongoing energy transition that greatly values gas in the near term, but will need to phase it out over the long term.

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