VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Essays in housing markets

This dissertation studies inefficiencies and riskiness in the US housing market. In Chapter I, coauthored with Anthony Lee Zhang, we study liquidity in residential real estate markets and show that market illiquidity is a key determinant of individual house price risk. In Chapter II, coauthored with Zi Yang Kang, we study how the quality of houses traded in a market evolves in the presence of predictable cyclical changes in market conditions. Chapter III studies how industrial concentration creates risk concentration through amplified pass-through of industry-specific productivity shocks into local house prices, wages, and employment

Keywords: Business.
Advisor: Piazzesi Monika
Schneider Martin (Professor of economics)
Diamond Rebecca (Of Stanford University. Graduate School of Business)
Essays in microeconomics

This dissertation studies problems policymakers face in diffusing new technologies, curbing misinformation, and delegating authority to regulators. The common thread in my approach to these problems is to (1) identify robustly optimal policies when policymakers have limited information about their setting, and (2) explore when it would be worthwhile to acquire costly information

Keywords: Business.
Advisor: Skrzypacz Andrzej
Akbarpour Mohammad
Jackson Matthew O. 
Ostrovsky Michael
Essays in nonverbal organizational design

In 2003, Eric Olson's 'Argument for Animalism' caused leading philosophers to revise their views concerning the basic metaphysics of personal identity. The philosophical view in which we humans are most essentially animals is consequential for the social sciences, although it may be oft forgotten. The essays presented in this dissertation represent the first arc of an ongoing research agenda in organization theory. I take the basic premise that when human animals collaborate in organizations, their physical and nonverbal attributes - qua animals - are likely to fundamentally shape the nature and functioning of those organizations. In the first essay of this dissertation, I trace how the spatial design of co-located workplaces directly causes variation in feelings of social solidarity among co-workers. In the second, (with my co-author) I outline the consequences for social solidarity in organizations when physical co-location is suddenly (indeed, involuntarily) abandoned in favour of remote collaboration. Finally, in the third essay, I investigate the intricacies of human status hierarchies as they interact with and attach onto physical objects

Keywords: Business.
Advisor: Barnett William P.
Clement Julien (Julien Alexandre Romain) 
Sterling Adina
Essays in political methodology

This dissertation is comprised of three chapters, which are united by their focus on measurement problems in political science and how those problems can (potentially) be resolved with applications of machine learning concepts. Chapter 1 shows how clustering techniques from machine learning can be used to reduce measurement error in human coding analyses. Chapter 2 shows when and how machine learning predictions can be used as valid proxies for missing administrative data. Finally, Chapter 3 shows how previously under-formalized concepts from political behavior can be formalized and measured with model validation ideas commonly associated with machine learning

Keywords: Political Science.
Advisor: Grimmer Justin
Hainmueller Jens
Iyengar Shanto
Essays on debt aversion

We propose that holding debt causes worse financial decisions using two novel experimental designs where we randomly assign debt. Our designs isolate the consequences of holding debt while controlling for potential confounding factors such as initial wealth levels, selection, risk, and time preferences. In our first set of experiments, we find that debt causes behavioral biases detrimental to subjects' financial payoffs. They play debt-biased strategies that are consistent with a model of debt aversion. Debt-biased behavior also deters subjects from arbitrage opportunities in borrowing decisions. In our second, income-focused debt experiment, we find mixed evidence. Debt-biased behavior varies with the saliency of debt. We do find suggestive evidence of a desire to reduce debt balances at the expense of actual earnings. Our findings go above and beyond traditional concepts in behavioral economics, and we can also show the opportunity cost of debt aversion at the extensive margin in addition to the intensive margin

Keywords: Economics.
Advisor: Pistaferri Luigi
Niederle Muriel
Roth Alvin E.
Essays on foster care and applied microeconomics

This dissertation is a collection of three separate solo-authored essays. The first essay studies how the placements of foster children in foster care into group homes and non-kin foster families affects their outcomes later in life and how the allocation of these placements affects aggregate outcomes. The second essay presents a Beckerian model of households fostering children and tests the mechanisms of the model. The third essay analyzes a theoretical model to assess whether universal testing of individuals in a pandemic increases or decreases disease spread

Keywords: Business.
Advisor: Diamond Rebecca (Of Stanford University. Graduate School of Business)
Somaini Paulo
Bloom Nick
Oyer Paul E. (Paul Edward)
Sorkin Isaac
Essays on inattention and inequality

This dissertation consists of four papers in economic theory which study the optimal acquisition, transmission, and elicitation of information. The first two chapters consider models of rational inattention, in which agents flexibly and optimally acquire costly information before taking decisions under uncertainty. Chapter 1 provides (sequential) optimization foundations for the information cost functions used in the rational inattention literature. Chapter 2 studies a problem of Bayesian persuasion in which the receiver is rationally inattentive to the sender's messages. Chapters 3 and 4 consider models of dynamic mechanism design with persistent private information, with a particular focus on the long-run inequality generated by optimal mechanisms in canonical insurance environments

Keywords: Economics.
Advisor: Milgrom Paul R. (Paul Robert)
Segal Ilya
Bernheim B. Douglas
Evaluating local and extraregional sources for the Late Cretaceous Nanaimo Group, British Columbia, via coupled detrital K-feldspar 40Ar/39Ar thermochronology and Pb isotopes

The Nanaimo Group of southwestern British Columbia has been the source of significant scientific interest due to its relationship with the Baja British Columbia (Baja BC) hypothesis -- the idea that the Nanaimo Group, along with much of western British Columbia, was originally located 2000--4000 km south of its present location on the western North American margin. My Ph.D. research uses 40Ar/39Ar thermochronology and Pb isotope analysis of detrital K-feldspar to examine the provenance of the Nanaimo Group's sandstones. I test connections to its local detritus source -- the Coast Mountains batholith of British Columbia -- and the two most likely extraregional sources -- the Idaho batholith and Mojave batholith. In Chapter 1, I analyze the 40Ar/39Ar cooling history of detrital K-feldspar from various sedimentary formations of the Nanaimo Group and compare it to a database of over 2,400 biotite 40Ar/39Ar and K/Ar cooling ages compiled from predominantly Cretaceous batholiths along the western North American margin. In Chapter 2, I examine basement K-feldspar Pb isotope values from samples collected throughout the Pacific Northwest and integrate them into a compiled database of 700 basement K-feldspar and 1415 age-corrected whole rock samples in western North America. In Chapter 3, I compare the Pb isotopic composition of detrital K-feldspar from the Nanaimo Group to western North America's basement rocks in order to identify (or rule out) extraregional sediment sources for the Nanaimo basin. While the western Idaho batholith yields the closest match of 40Ar/39Ar and Pb results to those of the Nanaimo Group, neither it nor the Mojave batholith fully accounts for all geochemical signatures found in the Nanaimo basin's extraregionally-sourced sedimentary formations

Keywords: Geological Sciences.
Advisor: Grove Marty
Caers Jef 
Mahoney J. Brian
Evaluating the Influence of the Nuclear: Cytoplasmic Ratio in the Maternal to Zygotic Transition in Xenopus Embryos

The maternal to zygotic transition (MZT) is a key developmental transition in rapidly developing vertebrate embryos marked by the initiation of zygotic transcription and degradation of maternal transcripts. This shift from maternal to zygotic control of gene expression requires the coordination of zygotic genome activation (ZGA) across thousands of promoters. Since the 1980s, it has been widely held that the Xenopus laevis MZT occurs due to titration of transcriptional inhibitors against increasing DNA content during rapid early embryonic cell divisions. The influence of increasing DNA content relative to cytoplasm during these rapid division cycles with no intervening cytoplasmic growth is conceptualized as an increasing nuclear-to-cytoplasmic (N:C) ratio. Recent evidence, however, points to N:C ratio-independent onset of the MZT. To better evaluate the influence of N:C ratios on the MZT in Xenopus embryos, I studied the effects of the N:C ratio on the expression of individual genes, rather than bulk radiolabeling methods as have been previously performed. I devised an algorithm to determine an activation time from an RNA-Seq expression time course. I then applied this algorithm to compare activation kinetics in Xenopus embryos engineered to have differing N:C ratios. This analysis revealed that activation times are broadly delayed in embryos with lower N:C ratios, supporting the model that an increase in the N:C ratio has a causal role in the onset of the Xenopus MZT. This work therefore contributes to the study of zygotic genome activation by providing both a rigorous method for analyzing activation kinetics and evidence for the N:C model on a per-gene basis.

Keywords:  Department of Biology
Biology
Stanford University Department of Biology
Developmental Biology
Molecular Biology
Xenopus
Transcriptomics
Thesis
Advisor: Skotheim Jan
Gozani Or
Jukam David
Evaluation of soil-dependent crop yield outcomes in Nepal using ground and satellite-based approaches

Smallholder farmers face many constraints to achieving food security. Optimal soil management is often limited by a lack of accessible and accurate soil characterizations, and an associated lack of soil-specific management practice recommendations. Crop yields depend on both soil quality and soil-mediated fertilizer responses. Existing research on soil-fertilizer interactions is primarily based on farm trials and/or survey data, which are resource intensive and typically restricted to local scales. High-resolution (~10-meter) remote sensing data and digital soil maps provide a low cost, scalable alternative. Here, we deploy satellite-based methods to estimate soil and fertilizer impacts on wheat yields in Nepal and to inform precision soil and nutrient management recommendations. We first combine field data with Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 imagery to delineate wheat cropping areas for 2016 – 2019 with 92% accuracy. We then estimate wheat yields at 10-meter resolution using Sentinel-2 and weather covariates based on yield models parameterized from two different methods: 1) APSIM crop model simulations and 2) ground crop cuts from 147 fields. Our ground-data calibrated satellite model predicted yields with good accuracy (R2 = 0.56), while the uncalibrated simulation-based approach had weaker but significant prediction accuracy (R2 = 0.25). Using a large dataset 16 of soil samples collected by the Nepal Agricultural Research Council, we examine the linear and non-linear effects of soil properties on wheat yields. We find statistically significant gains in yield of 0.9 – 2.4% are possible by increasing soil organic matter and zinc from highly deficient values to optimal values of 2.2% OM and 0.67 ppm Zn. Using digital soil maps of Nepal produced by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), we map organic matter and zinc deficiency in croplands, and find that 72% of cropland in the Nepal Terai is experiencing some level of deficiency in organic matter or zinc. Finally, the soil maps were combined with a survey of field-level crop management data and our yield estimates to test the interaction of soil quality with fertilizer effectiveness. Yields were significantly more responsive to zinc inputs in higher quality soils but responded similarly to nitrogen inputs across soil quality. Overall, nitrogen and zinc increased yields by 0.8 and 10.4 kg/ha per kg/ha of nutrient input, respectively. This research demonstrates the potential of satellite data, crop simulation, and machine learning to examine the influence of soils on yields and guide precision fertilizer use in smallholder regions.

Keywords:  Earth System Science
School of Earth Energy &amp; Environmental Sciences
remote sensing
agriculture
soil
machine learning
Thesis
Advisor: Lobell David B.
Fendorf Scott
Evaluation of the effects of stick-slip transitions on the seismic response of isolated structures with sliding bearings

Seismic isolation is a mature technology that has been proven to significantly reduce seismic demands on the superstructure and protect it from damage even during large earthquakes. However, the technology still has not found wide application outside commercial, high-budget projects, mainly because of the high cost of implementing an isolation system. In recent years, simple sliding isolation systems that use low-cost materials have gained attention for their potential to make seismic isolation economically feasible even in affordable housing. However, shaking-table tests and seismic analyses of elastic structures with sliding bearings show that large accelerations and forces occur in the superstructure every time the sliding interface transitions from stiction to relative sliding between the surfaces in contact. In current earthquake engineering design practice, this phenomenon is not explicitly accounted for, potentially leading to an unconservative design of the superstructure. This can be especially problematic if the technology is being applied in seismically vulnerable structures, such as those with masonry elements. The precise magnitude and potential effects of stick-slip transition phenomena are studied in this work. The first part of this work consists of experimental studies to characterize the frictional behavior of steel-polymer interfaces that are used—or have the potential for being used—in low-cost seismic isolation systems, culminating with the development of a friction model that is able to capture the observed behavior. The second part consists of parametric and analytical studies to evaluate the seismic response of sliding structures, considering the stick-slip transition phenomena. This part includes the development of an analytical equation that estimates the peak pseudo-acceleration response of a sliding structure as a function of a few structural, frictional, and ground-motion properties. The results of these studies improve the reliability of economically isolated structures and facilitate their design

Advisor: Miranda Eduardo
Borja Ronaldo I. (Ronaldo Israel)
Law K. H. (Kincho H.)
Evaluation of the variation of ketosteroid isomerase from enzyme energetics to evolution

Enzymes are exceptional catalysts that facilitate chemistry on the timescale of life. In this thesis, I discuss experimental and conceptual advances in understanding enzyme traits from an energetic and evolutionary perspective. First, I test the hypothesis that enzymes adapt to cold through rate enhancement. I do not find evidence of cold adaptation through rate enhancement broadly across the literature or in the model enzyme ketosteroid isomerase (KSI), despite prior expectation and evidence for rate-based temperature adaptation. I further evaluate energetic independence and additivity in the active site of KSI where I develop a model to account for observed rate variation based on naturally occurring active site changes in twenty KSI variants. I also review techniques to measure protein stability spanning large-scale and small-scale measurements. Integrating measurement approaches at different scales will be critical to develop and test physical models of enzyme traits such as stability and rate. Overall, this work enhances our understanding of enzyme energetics spanning rate and protein folding from an evolutionary perspective. I close this thesis with a perspective on principles of rubric development for use in graduate admissions. As the development of fair and effective criteria for graduate admissions presents a pressing challenge, I seek to normalize changing policy that does not serve our values in our places of research and I address the responsibility that we have as scientists to alleviate inequities and injustices present in our society

Keywords: Biochemistry.
Advisor: Herschlag Daniel
Harbury Pehr
Khosla Chaitan
Every Student Succeeds Act (2015): Exposing Racialized Spending Disparities at the Intradistrict Level in Florida Public Schools

In 2015, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) made public previously unavailable data on school district finances at the school level. While a large policy and research literature has focused on the importance of spending differences across school districts with varying levels of property wealth as a critical determinant of educational inequity, ESSA made possible an analysis of spending inequities at the intradistrict level across schools. Drawing on ESSA per-pupil expenditures data for the 2018-19 school year for the state of Florida, this thesis analyzes the association between school per pupil spending and student characteristics (race, lunch status) at 2,727 traditional public schools. The school district per pupil spending inequities most profoundly affect Hispanic students, with a $110 drop in spending for every 10 percentage point increase in Hispanic students. In contrast, school spending increases with the concentration of free or reduced lunch students. Breaking down the results by school level, many of the same patterns exist, with per pupil spending decreasing as the percentage of Hispanic students increases, and spending increasing with the percentage of free and reduced price lunch students. However, the magnitude of spending inequity changes across school levels, with the drop in spending associated with Hispanic students becoming increasingly extreme from elementary to high school. These findings not only expose inequities in per pupil spending but are also consistent with the hypothesis that the unequal distribution of quality, experienced teachers across schools contributes to sustained educational inequality. Clearly, there are racialized inequities in the way Florida public school districts distribute their funds, and this study makes a crucial first step in exposing said inequities, creating the need for intradistrict school finance reform to work towards leveling the playing field and closing the achievement gap.

Keywords: intradistrict inequity
interdistrict inequity
Every Student Succeeds Act
per pupil spending
education gap
Florida
public schools
school finance
school finance reform
Stanford University
Stanford Graduate School of Education
Thesis
Everyday Life as Resistance: Social and Political Participation through Networked Cultural Practices in Contemporary China

This thesis investigates the social and political significance of cultural practices on the Chinese online sphere. It foregrounds its argument in the larger context of the general landscape of the Chinese Internet, forms and traditions of online activism and political participation, the online censorship mechanism in mainland China, and how these aspects all intersect and interact with each other while being heavily impacted by national policies and the rise of social media. It engages with previous scholarly work that sought to theorize the social and political aspects of Chinese netizens’ cultural lives and practices, and brings in new insights by examining a few noteworthy online events and incidents as case studies. Ultimately, on a theoretical level, the goal of this research is to rethink the dichotomy of resistance versus compliance/assimilation in discussions about the political and social life in China, to trouble and complicate the discourse around online censorship in the Chinese context, and to add to the scholarly discussion on the concept of the public and civil society. It argues for the usefulness of situating the discussion around Chinese netizen’s social and political participation within the larger sociopolitical reality of contemporary Chinese society and the act of navigating everyday life in it.

Keywords:  Stanford Global Studies
China
Internet
online culture
cultural practice
civic participation
Thesis
Advisor: Inoue Miyako
The evolution of galaxy activity in massive clusters

The nature of galaxy evolution from the early Universe to the present day is intricately linked to large-scale environment: the environments of galaxies are expected to play a critical role in the development of their morphologies, star formation activity, and the activity of their central Super Massive Black Holes (SMBHs). Large scale environment can strongly and rapidly affect gas reservoirs which are a prerequisite for both star formation and SMBH activity. We would expect the effect of environment to be most pronounced in massive galaxy clusters, where both the density of the intracluster medium and number density of galaxies are the highest. This has indeed been established for star formation activity in the local and intermediate redshift universe, where dense, cluster environments are more likely to host elliptical, quiescent galaxies. However, the impact of the cluster environment on SMBH activity has been significantly less clear. At high redshift, the impact of clusters on galaxy activity is even less well understood. This is due to both a decline in the number of massive clusters at high redshift as well as increasing observational difficulty in reliably identifying and characterizing both the clusters themselves and their member galaxies. This dissertation tries to bring some clarity to these unknowns. First, we present an analysis of SMBH activity in a sample of massive clusters at intermediate redshift where we confirm a dependence of this activity on cluster mass. Second, we describe the spectroscopic characterization of one of the highest redshift galaxy clusters ever discovered, existing at a lookback time of more than 10 billion years. We model the stellar population of its member galaxies and trace their formation back to the cosmic dark ages, when the Universe was only 370 million years old. Finally, we do a deep dive into this cluster's galaxy population and find it to be remarkably similar to that of clusters in the local universe. We identify a tremendously enhanced quiescent fraction relative to the field and find evidence for accelerated size-evolution in these quiescent galaxies

Keywords: Physics.
Advisor: Allen Steven W. (Steven Ward)
Blandford Roger D.
Wechsler Risa H. (Risa Heyrman)
Experience of Psychosis and Homelessness During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Hospitalized Patients

For her capstone project, Julia Lebovitz wrote a research paper studying the dire effects COVID-19 has had on populations experiencing homelessness and psychosis. Julia conducted qualitative interviews with inpatient participants who were currently experiencing homelessness and psychosis at the Brigham and Women's Faulkner Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, to better understand the impact of COVID-19 on this community. Her project identified various factors affecting this diagnosis such as socio-political rhetoric, lack of safety, and lack of health access, among others. Julia hopes to show how the COVID-19 pandemic has influenced some individuals with serious mental illness experiencing homelessness and demonstrate the importance of secure and safe housing as a human right.

Keywords: COVID-19 (Disease)
Homeless persons > Housing
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Thesis