VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Three Essays in Industrial Organization
Keywords: Auctions
Dynamic Models

This thesis includes three chapters studying topics related to industrial organization. In the first two chapters, I study auctions with discrete bidding increments and bidding costs (henceforth pay-per-bid auctions). In chapter one, I develop a general theoretical framework for pay-per-bid auctions. In this model, bidders have private valuations and arrive exogenously throughout the duration of the auction. Participants are uncertain about the number of other bidders in the auction and I allow the bidders to have non-equilibrium beliefs about this state variable. I then propose a simulated method of moments estimator which I use to recover the underlying structural parameters even when bidders have biased beliefs. Using data from an online auction website called Swoopo, I show that the revenues we observe cannot be generated by a model where bidders have rational expectations but is consistent with a model where bidders have biased beliefs. In chapter two of the thesis, I show that while pay-per-bid auctions generate excess revenues, there is also significant variation in these revenues and markups across different products and categories. Using the theoretical framework and methodology developed in the first chapter, I separately estimate the structural parameters for different products. Finally, given these estimates, I use counterfactual analysis to decompose the sources of markup heterogeneity in these auctions In chapter three of the paper, I study the identification and estimation of dynamic models of market entry when firms can choose to buy or lease fixed inputs. I am particularly interested in the identification of counterfactuals which change the stochastic process of the state variables. I first show that without any additional restrictions, the structural parameters of the model are not point identified. Second, I propose plausible exclusion restrictions that provide point identification of the counterfactuals of interest. Finally, I propose a simple simulation based method to construct confidence regions for counterfactual choice probabilities when they are not point identified. I show the validity of the method using Monte Carlo experiments.
Citizenship, Authorship, and Disability in Cervantes and Scarron
Keywords: Cervantes
early modern
Milton
Moliere
Renaissance
Scarron

Noting the all-too-recent interest of disability scholars in early modern literature, this dissertation seeks to establish a way forward for the study of disability in a period-appropriate way. Through its juxtaposition of disabled authors’ Paul Scarron and Miguel de Cervantes’ paratexts and their treatment of disability in literary texts, it seeks to elucidate a possible relationship between disability and representation. It uses popular lexicographies to trace the diverse and changing vocabulary the two authors employed for different impairments. At the same time, it considers different genres, such as epic and drama, and modes like the burlesque, which were particularly accessible to disabled men of the period. This dissertation provides an account of the differing disabilities of both authors, and how their respective disabilities called into question their national identities. The stakes were high for both. Cervantes had to demonstrate that though the hand was a symbol of Hispanitas, or Spanishness, in losing his he had only become more Spanish. For Scarron, his inflammatory disease, which had left him with a dramatic spinal curvature, meant that he needed to employ the burlesque to demonstrate both his wit (a courtly and French quality) and his natural humour. The authors' disabilities are considered in relation to the organ or functioning which was impacted, as well as its associated symbolism and history. Since early modern people did not collapse all impairments into one category the way we do today with the term "disabled," their understanding of each impairment and its particular context and history indicates a way forward for contemporary scholars who grapple with today’s all-inclusive identity category of "disability."
Development of Chemoselective Transformations for Organic Synthesis: From Amphoteric Boronates to Benzynes
Keywords: benzyne
boron
catalysis
cross-coupling
heterocycle synthesis
MIDA

A significant challenge in organic chemistry is the development of methodologies capable of synthesizing new molecular motifs or previously inaccessible scaffolds. Previous research in the Yudin laboratory has utilized amphoteric molecules to address this challenge. These compounds contain orthogonally reactive nucleophilic and electrophilic sites, and they offer a versatile platform for the development of chemo- and regioselective chemical transformations. Chapters 1 – 3 of this thesis focuses on the development of amphoteric MIDA (N-methyliminodiacetic acid) boronates and their application in the synthesis of novel borylated compounds. In chapter 1, amphoteric ⍺-boryl aldehydes are utilized in the Ugi 4-component reaction for the modular synthesis of β-amino boronates. A mild deprotection method provided the free boronic acid forms of the target molecules, which display notable stability toward protodeborylation. Utilizing this methodology, a low-micromolar inhibitor of DPP-IX was developed. Chapter 2 describes the application of ⍺-boryl aldehydes in the synthesis of electron-deficient allylboronates, which are then used as a foundation for borylated thiophene synthesis. This is the first example of borylated heterocycle synthesis from allylboronates. Chapter 3 details the development of a copper-catalyzed synthesis of amphoteric borylketenimines, and their utility as linchpin reagents. A variety of previously inaccessible borylated compounds were synthesized utilizing this methodology. Chapter 4 deviates from the previous 3 in that amphoteric reactivity is not explored. In this chapter, we explore the effect of MIDA hemilability on allylic C-H oxidation. During the reaction, the MIDA amine reacts as a nucleophile – intercepting the palladium-catalyzed allylic acetoxylation and re-routes the reaction to furnish stable, allylammonium ⍺-amino boronates. Finally in Chapter 5, the reactivity of vinylaziridines with benzynes is explored. Depending on the reaction conditions and the choice of the aryne precursor, the aziridinium intermediate can be trapped through two distinct mechanistic pathways, furnishing either benzazepines or allyl fluorides with complete stereospecificity.
Essays on Contract Design in Marketing
Keywords: Behavioral Econimics
Contract Design
Frogetting
New Product Development
Technology

This thesis examines how firms design their contracts in different marketing contexts. The first essay theoretically investigates the impact of external advances in consumption tracking technologies on the design of pricing contracts. Using the context of mobile banking applications that help consumers track their spending and avoid penalty fees for overdrawing their accounts, I find that in response to the availability of consumption tracking, a firm would lower its penalty fee (just enough to disincentivize consumers from using it). As a result, consumer welfare improves even if consumers do not use consumption tracking technology. When consumers vary in their forgetfulness, the availability of consumption tracking technology can hurt some consumers, while helping others. The second essay examines contracts in the context of new product development. I develop a theoretical model to explain the prevalence of standardized incentive plans, which provide a reward without considering the differential amount of resources invested in the projects. I model the phenomena where a representative project manager has private information about the quality of her own project and can manipulate the signal of project quality that the organization receives during the identification/resource-allocation stage. I show that when the manager manipulates the signal, a standardized incentive plan encourages the manager of a high-quality project to manipulate more and stand out. I argue that under some conditions a standardized incentive plan can be preferred because such a plan leads to more accurate resource allocation, even though a customized incentive plan is more efficient in inducing implementation effort.
A Phenomenological Account of Women Graduate Students: Lived Experience of Challenges in Global Public Health Practice
Keywords: distress
global public health
graduate students
hidden labor
mental health
sexual and gender based violence

During the last two decades academic global public health grew dramatically, including higher student demand to participate in internationally-based fieldwork. As a foundational space for graduate level training, practice, and research activities, the university plays a primary and significant role in the formation and future practice of students. While academic research and practice opportunities within international settings may provide unique experiences for U.S. and Canadian graduate students, it remains an overlooked area of inquiry. At times, these experiences can be intensely challenging or distressing, with additional burdens experienced by women. This study aims to gain insight into the lived experience of Canadian and U.S. women graduate students participating in global public health practice, and how they experience this phenomenon. This study is situated within Max van Manen’s qualitative methodology, phenomenology of practice. This hermeneutic approach is aimed at meaning-making through emotional, embodied, existential, and pathic ways of knowing. Seven women participated in 18 in-depth phenomenological interviews, while 18 women completed a guided writing exercise. Data creation methods were designed to capture lived experience descriptions of global public health practice. Key themes discussed in this dissertation include sexual and gender-based violence and harassment, discomfort with privilege, mental health challenges (specifically depression), and not being heard. Further findings focused on the burden of hidden labor performed by women to keep themselves safe from sexual and gender-based violence, including discussion on travel safety and transportation, witnessing or experiencing violence, lack of preparedness or follow-up, financial burdens and stress, and support networks and peer relationships as protective. The experience of participating in global public health practice is of particular consequence to the training, education, and future practice of graduate students. This study holds the potential to positively affect an individual’s experience, and thus practice, through offering new meaning structures, language for an unfamiliar experience, or ways to describe, conceive of, and respond to global public health fieldwork. Furthermore, by dedicating space to this phenomenon and giving voice to women graduate students’ lived experience, public health institutions may be better able to recognize, validate, respond to, and support students participating in global public health practice.
Altered 3D Vascular Architecture and Cerebral Blood Flow in a Mouse Model of TBI
Keywords: 2-photon fluorescence microscopy
Arterial Spin Labeling MRI
Blood flow
Traumatic brain injury
Ultrasound wave reflection
Vascular remodeling

It is established in traumatic brain injury (TBI) animal models that the vasculature undergoes loss and recovery. Although past studies have correlated vascular structural alterations with cerebral blood flow (CBF) changes or functional outcome, analysis has largely focused on histological measures of vessel density and diameter. However, it is the 3D organization of cerebral blood vessels that determines the overall capacity of the cerebral circulation to meet the metabolic requirements of the brain. To examine function and 3D organization in the same mouse brain, a methodology was developed combining in vivo Arterial Spin Labeling (ASL) MRI to quantify blood flow under rest and hypercapnia followed by ex vivo 2-photon fluorescence microscopy (2PFM) to quantify 3D vascular structure. Application of this methodology to a controlled cortical impact mouse model of TBI enabled analysis of the evolution of vascular architecture and its relation to blood flow. Despite early (1-day) loss of vasculature, vessel density and vascular volume recovered 1-month post-TBI. However, the reorganized vasculature possessed a radial pattern that corresponded to low blood flow. Since these microvascular alterations are difficult to directly detect with in vivo technologies, ultrasound wave reflection analysis was applied to the carotid arteries of these mice. It was demonstrated that quantification of cerebral vascular resistance with ultrasound has the potential to detect whether a mouse received a TBI. Ultrasound therefore may present an efficient, non-invasive method for detecting TBI via changes in vascular architecture.
Teachers’ Preference for Mathematics Instructional Practice and Professional Learning after Participating in an RCT Study: A Mixed Methods Study
Keywords: knowledge transfer
mathematics education
practice change
professional education

My dissertation examines the process of knowledge transfer (KT) from an effectiveness randomized controlled trial (RCT) into daily practice, specifically whether professional development, new program content, and teacher’s characteristics influence teachers’ uptake decisions. Teacher learning as experienced in the RCT and implementation as described through teacher interviews are used to explore practice choices. My research was situated within the context of an externally funded and registered randomized control trial (#NCT02456181) involving 212 elementary school teachers that examined the effectiveness of two contrasting math programs. Research data was derived from three sources: a baseline questionnaire and mathematics measure (n=198) probing teaching-efficacy and knowledge for mathematics, a one-year post RCT survey (n=98) of teachers’ use of the mathematics programs from the RCT and semi-structured interviews (n=14) in which teachers reflected on participating in the study and mathematics instruction. During the RCT, the host school board was midway through implementing collaborative inquiry (CI) as part of a teacher professional iii learning initiative. This permitted for a comparison of contrasting teacher professional learning models. A phased mixed-method design was used for this thesis. Teachers’ learning experiences from their RCT participation were compared with interview responses to identify similarities and differences related to their training and their daily practice. These findings were then used to explain the survey uptake results. Survey results revealed a noteworthy uptake of the novel mathematics program one year after the study: 31% of teachers reported using the program as a full replacement and 26% reported using it as a resource. Measures for teacher’s mathematics knowledge (standardized math test) and teaching-efficacy for the program (self-reported questionnaire) suggested teacher competence and confidence for teaching new programs, irrespective of characteristics (e.g., education, experience, sex) or situational factors (e.g., grade level, pedagogical program). Interviewed teachers preferred experiential learning, accessing new math knowledge from peers, and autonomy in establishing pedagogical practices. The study results present teachers as capable learners of a new mathematics program, yet preferring to choose the content and approach to professional learning. These results support including teachers as equal partners in the development of any new math implementation strategies.
Wages, Worker Mobility, and the Macroeconomy
Keywords: Inequality
Mobility
Search
Wages

This thesis contains three essays on wages, worker mobility and the macroeconomy. Chapter 1 develops an equilibrium model of the labor market with on-the-job search, wage-tenure contracts, and heterogeneity in match productivity. The model predicts an inverse relationship between match productivity and post-unemployment wages where workers in high productivity matches earn a low wage initially, but experience significant wage growth over tenure. The model is considered in the context of labor market entry for young adults. Unemployment risk in the transition process reduces worker mobility and limits the ability of workers to recover from a low quality initial match. Quantitatively, workers that initially form low quality matches expect to produce 8.0% less and consume 5.2% less in their first three years in the labor market relative to workers that initially form high quality matches. Chapter 2 studies efficiency in the model developed in Chapter 1. The social planner's match formation strategy perfectly insures employed workers against unemployment risk and results in an 11.3% increase in permanent consumption relative to the competitive equilibrium. Two self-financed policies in the forms of an extension of unemployment insurance and a hiring subsidy are considered as alternative strategies to increase worker welfare. The optimal policies increase permanent consumption by 5.1% and 1.3% respectively relative to the competitive equilibrium, however both policies are associated with a decrease in average output per worker. Chapter 3, joint with Shouyong Shi, develops an equilibrium model of the labor market where workers have incomplete information about their ability. Search outcomes yield information for updating the belief about the ability, which affects optimal search decisions in the future. Firms respond to updated beliefs by altering vacancy creation and optimal wage contracts. To study equilibrium interactions between learning and search, this paper integrates learning into a search equilibrium with on-the-job search and wage-tenure contracts. The model is calibrated to quantify the extent to which learning and on-the-job search can explain empirical facts related to wage decreases in job-to-job transitions, duration dependence in unemployment, and frictional wage dispersion.
To Sing or Not to Sing, Again: Perspectives on the Journey of Reclaiming One's Voice as an Adult Non-singer
Keywords: adult non-singer
community
identity formation
narrative methodology
safe place
sense of self

In this study, I explored the perspectives of three adults who self-described as non-singers through the conceptual framework of “identity formation,” to determine how “sense of self” influences their lives, and how they re-imagine the singer-self as an aspect of the whole self – physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Many well-established music communities in Western society do not often promote a sense of welcome and hospitality for those who believe they cannot sing. Fortunately, all three participants found their way to a “Singing Fore the Love of It” program focused on their needs, doubts, and concerns. After a period of continued participation in learning to sing activities, further exploration through interviews gave insight into their perceptions of the terms safe place, proprioception, and community. The vivid portraits of the participants’ journeys showed that sense-of-self as an adult singer was influenced by the relationships formed in group dynamics encountered earlier in one’s life; in families, in schools, in communities such as the arts, and in the church. This research was grounded in the narrative methodological perspectives of Boyatzis (1998), Yin (2008), and Creswell (2012), with a focus on the importance of investigating the complexity of experience as lived by the participants, no matter how disparate their points of view might be. I collected extensive data over a period of six months through participant interviews, beginning with an opening questionnaire from which future questions were developed to draw out more vivid memories and reflections. I examined codable moments through the lens of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, culminating in the creation of a template for journeying as an adult non-singer. Based on the findings, I outlined implications for further research, specifically regarding how adult non-singers may be nurtured and inspired to re-imagine themselves physically, emotionally, and spiritually––from within, projected outward, and in collaboration with others.
New Physics of the Standard Model and Beyond
Keywords: beyond the Standard Model
compact star
gravitational waves
quark matter
UV completion

In this thesis, I present the research works carried during my Ph.D. period from 2014 to 2019, on topics of the high energy completion and the low energy exploration of the Standard Model (SM). The focus will be put on four finished papers. Firstly, we introduce the extensions of the Standard Model that are not only completely asymptotically free, but are such that the UV fixed point is completely UV attractive. Semi-simple gauge groups with elementary scalars in various representations are explored. We also present a Pati-Salam model for illustration. We then attempt to build the asymptotically safe extensions of the Standard Model using the large number-of-flavour technique. Next, we build a phenomenological model that describes the mass and decay width spectra of the lightest pseudo-scalar and scalar meson nonets at low energy. We then apply this model to the study of quark matter, and find that udQM (quark matter consists of up and down quarks only) generally has a lower energy per baryon than the strange quark matter and normal nuclei for baryon number A> Amin with Amin ≥ 300. After that, we present the work on the ud quark stars (udQSs) that are composed of udQM. Distinct signatures are discussed compared to the conventional study regarding strange quark stars. The tidal deformabilities in binary star mergers, including the udQS-udQS and udQS-HS cases, are calculated. This study points to a new possible interpretation of the GW170817 binary merger event, where udQS may be at least one component of the binary system detected.