VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
What Does Migration Mean for Children Left Behind? Educational Evidence from Guatemala

This paper examines how the internal or international migration of an adult household member affects the educational attainment of children who remain behind in the rural highlands of Guatemala. I hypothesize that migration’s net effect on children’s schooling depends on the relative strengths of the positive “remittance effect,” which increases schooling attainment by relieving credit constraints, and the negative “disruption effect,” which affects children’s household responsibilities and lowers children’s own expectations of the returns to schooling, particularly if they expect to migrate themselves. Analysis of a self-collected 2007 household survey with a distinctive set of household control variables reveals that migration’s effect on children’s schooling varies in both sign and magnitude by households’ access to credit and attitudes towards education. The families that benefit most from migration are those with weaker connections to education: those that expect lower returns to education for their children, are headed by mothers with little or no education or their own, and lack access to credit. On the other hand, migration has a negative or net zero effect on children’s schooling in households with stronger connections to education: those that expect medium or high returns to schooling, are headed by mothers with at least three years of education, and that have access to banking and lending services. Though a small sample size plagues this analysis, the results broaden and deepen the scope of the argument that migration is neither purely positive nor purely negative for children, but rather has complex and differential effects on schooling attainment.

Keywords:  Department of Economics
Stanford Department of Economics
Thesis
Advisor: De Giorgi Giacomo
A Study of Korean Corporations’ Strategies for Expanding into the Chinese Market: Focus on the Strategy for Distribution Channels

Many industrialized countries including Korea are expanding into Chinese market. This study reflects logical ways for Korean companies to expand successfully into Chinese market. Examining mainly focuses on Korean companies around Chinese boarder and Pohai region. The study first raises significance and purpose of the study. Then, it begins with theoretically examining channel selection process of distribution such as considering OEM export and DI. After that, hypotheses were made mainly regarding the relationship between transactional asset peculiarity and transaction costs. Finally I introduce variables, sampling, data collection, and analyzing methods which leads to careful analysis of samples and survey participants. With data analysis and testing hypotheses, I found that Korean companies can approach Chinese market with increasing export or investment. Also the tendencies of switching from investing in labor intensive to capital intensive industries were found. On the other hand, the study also suggests that Chinese market needs to be categorized since it is such a huge market. Lastly in order to succeed in Chinese market, differentiated characteristics of Korean companies are needed from Japanese or American companies. Some limitations of the study were found due to small sample size, only testing certain industry and credibility of survey.

Keywords:  Department of Economics
Stanford Department of Economics
Thesis
Advisor: Rothwell Geoffrey
Adverse Selection and Consumer Behavior in the Viatical Settlement Market

The similarities between the viatical settlement market and the standard market for insurance evoke the question of what effect asymmetric information, an oft discussed topic surrounding standard markets, might have in the viatical settlement market. In order to examine the possibility of the existence of adverse selection in this market, as well as to gain a better understanding of the dynamics of the market in general, I analyze a model describing consumer behavior in this market. Applying the results of my analysis to the logic of a classic adverse selection model, I develop and implement a test of adverse selection in the viatical settlement market using nationally representative data on viatical transactions. Additionally, I extract a new prediction from the consumer behavior model relating the probability of selling life insurance to both the policy’s face value and the policyholder’s mortality risk, and I test this prediction against data on HIV+ individuals. In the end I find that there is no empirical evidence for adverse selection in the viatical settlement market, and that the consumer behavior model is largely consistent with the data.

Keywords:  Department of Economics
Stanford Department of Economics
life insurance
mortality risk
Rothschild Stiglitz model
asymmetric information
Thesis
Advisor: Bhattacharya Jay
Africa’s Trade with China: Good for Growth?

Trade between China and African countries has dramatically increased in recent years, at an unprecedented rate. At the same time, robust economic growth in Sub-Saharan African countries has accompanied this trade boom. The question remains however, whether or not trade with China has actually induced this growth. Furthermore, recent media reports have suggested that Africa’s trade with China may instead be detrimental to Africa’s development. This study examines the impact of Chinese trade alone on African growth. Controlling for endogeneity issues and institutional effects, it finds that evidence to suggest that Chinese trade has had a positive impact on African growth.

Keywords:  Department of Economics
Stanford Department of Economics
Thesis
Advisor: Mahajan Aprajit
An Examination of the Wage Productivity Gap

Economists have been puzzled by the recent trends in real wage and productivity growth. While productivity has risen steadily, the popular press has lamented that real wages have failed to keep pace. Some argue that the inclusion of benefits explains the disparity. Others suggest that labor has lost much of its bargaining power with the firm, as evidenced by a decline in unionization rates, and as such, a lower portion of firm profits are going to pay wages and salaries. Still others have suggested that the puzzle of real wage and productivity growth might not be much of a mystery at all – real wages have kept pace with productivity depending on how one measures these trends. This paper seeks to examine more closely the dynamics of real wage and productivity growth. Using data from various US government agencies, including the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Bureau of Economic Analysis, it takes an empirical approach to determine the extent of the divergence between real wage and productivity growth and discusses factors influencing these relationships.

Keywords:  Department of Economics
Stanford Department of Economics
Wages
compensation
productivity
CPI
PCE
PPI
Thesis
Advisor: Taylor John
Consumer Learning and Habit Formation with Multiple Brand Choices

This paper proposes a tractable structural model for the behavior of a consumer who learns and forms habits from consumption. The consumer’s dynamic programming problem is solved and applied to two sets of scanner data on purchases of yogurt to estimate the model’s structural parameters by maximum likelihood. Using ideas from multinomial logit, the consumer is viewed as making purchase decisions faced with multiple brand choices. Estimation of the model produces statistically significant estimates (as well as dollar values) of both learning and habit formation in the data.

Keywords:  Department of Economics
Stanford Department of Economics
Thesis
Advisor: Segal Ilya
Counterinsurgency Principles and US Military Effectiveness in Iraq

Since the end of major combat operations in Iraq in May 2003, the US military has been struggling to restore security and stability to the country in the face of irregular armed opposition. In response, the military has gradually adopted principles of counterinsurgency first enunciated during the Cold War as the core of its strategy in Iraq and its preparations for similar conflicts in the future. This commitment to “classic” counterinsurgency is clearly manifested in the recently published US Army and Marine Corps counterinsurgency field manual. However, this thesis shows that counterinsurgency as presently conceived and implemented has not produced positive strategic improvements in security in Iraq. Part of the problem is the uneven application of counterinsurgency principles due to the military’s lack of capabilities appropriate for tasks other than high-intensity combat. However, a more significant but less-studied reason for the military’s inability to secure Iraq is that the counterinsurgency principles that it operates by do not properly address the situation in that country, which is faced with a failing government, civil war, and general lawlessness as well as an insurgency. This thesis recommends addressing the limitations of counterinsurgency doctrine with a more comprehensive national strategy for nation building that would be a better framework for addressing future conflicts similar to Iraq.

Keywords: CISAC
Center for International Security and Cooperation
Stanford University
United States
Iraq
counterinsurgency
military policy
Thesis
Advisor: Holloway David
Debt Forgiveness and Sovereign Credit Ratings in Developing Countries

Although debt forgiveness for developing countries has claimed an increasingly prominent role in development policy, its efficacy remains in question. This study examines one particular goal of debt forgiveness: encouraging external investment by easing the incentive problems associated with large debt stocks. I assess the impact of debt forgiveness on creditor sentiments, using Institutional Investor sovereign credit ratings as a proxy for creditor outlook. Using a dataset of a broad sampling of developing countries over the last twenty-five years, I find that although large external debt stocks have a significant negative effect on credit ratings, debt forgiveness has not had any significant impact in improving them, likely as a consequence of significant reborrowing by developing countries and larger aid flows outside of debt forgiveness.

Keywords:  Department of Economics
Stanford Department of Economics
Debt forgiveness
debt relief
sovereign credit ratings
Thesis
Advisor: Taylor John B.
Degrees of Separation: An Alternate Cause of Discrimination

This paper builds a social network employment model that divides the labor force into two groups of different relative size: a majority and minority group is introduced. Average workers from each group are otherwise completely identical, possessing an equal level of ability. However, due to social network effects, minority workers not only receive a disproportionately low fraction of job offers through referral, but also expect lower average wages. Thus, the model suggests that simply the introduction of a majority and minority group in the labor force (when workers are more likely to know others who share similar attributes) breeds inequality. Discrimination (measurable differences in expected welfare between groups, given equal ability) can persist independently of psychological prejudices like racism or sexism—discrimination may be an inherent consequence of the interaction of more- and less- “advantageous” social networks.

Keywords:  Department of Economics
Stanford Department of Economics
labor force
discrimination
inequality
social network
Thesis
Advisor: Arrow Kenneth
Determining the Motivations for Internal Remittances in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar

Remittances, financial transfers between family members across borders, have become a substantial form of private aid to developing countries in recent decades. In contrast with the remittance literature that has focused on international migration from wealthier regions, this paper analyzes two extremely impoverished areas within India that provide considerable levels of internal migrant labor. Using the Survey of Living Conditions conducted in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar from 1997-1998, this paper explores the determinants of internal remittances and their effects on marginal consumption and savings among households in these regions. By quantifying remittance elasticities of consumption and savings, this paper finds evidence that altruism may be a stronger motive relative to interhousehold insurance considerations in the aggregate. A subsidiary finding is that remittance transfers to regional households increase the relative proportion of household expenditures on consumption categories and decrease the relative proportion dedicated to investments in human capital, calling into question the notion that remittances are primarily used for productive reinvestments in developing economies.

Keywords:  Department of Economics
Stanford Department of Economics
India
remittances
poverty
migrant workers
private transfers
economics
Thesis
Advisor: Mahajan Aprajit
Explaining the Stagnation of Commercial Institutional Innovation in the Islamic Middle East

Timur Kuran’s explanation of the decline of commercial institutional innovation in the Islamic Middle East posits Qur’anic inheritance law as a potential obstacle to larger and longer-lasting commercial arrangements, which create pressure for such innovation. In this paper, I explore the logic of this theory by creating and analyzing a simple agent-based model of a mercantile society in agents choose contracts each round to maximize their utility. I use the model primarily to enumerate certain minimal parametric conditions on which Kuran’s argument could be predicated, and to suggest avenues for further empirical research that could support the theory’s claims.

Keywords:  Department of Economics
Stanford Department of Economics
Islamic Middle East
Timur Kuran
innovation
Qur'anic inheritance law
Thesis
Advisor: Greif Avner
Free Agency and Contract Options: How Major League Baseball Teams Value Players

When evaluating and signing players, Major League Baseball teams face incomplete information regarding a player’s true value. This paper explores how teams deal with such uncertainty and whether their approaches toward high-risk free agent signings and low-risk contract option decisions differ. I use seemingly unrelated regression to estimate the relationships between past performance and future performance and between past performance and free agent salaries. I find that in determining free agent salary offers, teams undervalue past performance relative to its power in predicting future performance. For the low-risk option decisions, I use the Wilcoxon Sum Rank Test and a logit regression to determine that teams are much less cautious and follow no discernible pattern in exercising options. Teams thus use very different approaches in making free agent and contract option decisions.

Keywords:  Department of Economics
Stanford Department of Economics
sports economics
salary determination
free agent
labor
management
Thesis
Advisor: Hall Bob
How Migrant Workers Find Housing in Beijing: The role of individual agency in differential housing access and outcomes

As a rapidly developing country, China has experienced a surge of internal rural-to-urban migration. Migrant workers are powerful catalysts in the development of their host cities and have considerable agency in their lives. This thesis examines the following questions: 1) how do migrant workers find housing, 2) what are the living arrangements and housing conditions for different subsets of migrant workers, and 3) what are the available channels in which they can improve their housing conditions? It does not intend to deny or trivialize the institutional constraints that affect the daily lives of migrant workers; neither does it intend to be a historical survey of how cities around the world have relied on the labor of internal migrant workers to yield similar patterns of urban growth. Instead, this study focuses on migrant workers in Beijing without the urban household registration and their differential experiences with housing provision as evidence of individual agency. Residential patterns tend to vary with socio-economic mobility, therefore indicating the extent of migrant assimilation. This study asserts that migrant workers have a considerable degree of agency in their lives and have devised coping strategies to manipulate personal resources to improve their outcomes of housing provision, as opposed to remaining passive recipients of structural discrimination. The first chapter of this thesis will provide a historical overview of institutional barriers that migrant workers encounter in the city, summarize the current literature, and explain the need for further research beyond the urban household registration system. The second chapter will describe the framework of this study and the results. The final chapter will suggest how informal channels such as occupation and social networks may exceed the influence of structural discrimination, in contrast to previous studies.

Keywords:  Urban Studies
urban studies
stanford
migrant workers
beijing
housing
migration
Stanford University Urban Studies
Thesis
Advisor: Seto Karen
International Dimensions of Neuroscience: The Development of a New Field of Inquiry

The impact of context on how science and technology are adopted in society has been a focal point for Science, Technology and Society (STS). Contextual differences must be taken into account when scientific or technological innovations are transferred to new communities. Neuroethics, in its modem form, investigates the impact of brain science in four basic dimensions: the self, social policy, practice and discourse. In this study I compiled a set of 461 peer-reviewed articles with
neuroethics content published by authors from around the world. I analyzed the data to examine two central topics: (1) the development of international neuroethics over time and, (2) the differences in how challenges at the intersection of ethics and neuroscience are viewed in countries that are considered developed by International Monetary Fund (IMF) standards, and those that are developing and participate less in capital-intensive science such as neuroscience. My results demonstrate that from 2002 to 2005 there has been a steady increase in global participation in neuroethics as measured by numbers of articles published, journals publishing articles, and countries contributing to the literature. The majority of the countries publishing neuroethics-related material are developed. The focus of these publications as well as of the publications from developing
countries was the practice of brain science and the amelioration of neurological disease. Indicators of technology creation and diffusion in developing countries were specifically correlated with increases in publications concerning policy implications of brain science. Neuroethics is an international endeavor and, as such, should be sensitive to the impact that context has on acceptance and use of technological innovation. STS models provide an important framework for informing advances in neuroscience and its partnership with the growing field of neuroethics.

Keywords: Sofia Lombera
Neuroscience
Honors theses
Stanford University. Program in Science Technology and Society
Thesis
International Scientific Engagement for Mitigating Emerging Nuclear Security Threats

The threat of nuclear weapons is ever present in today’s international security landscape. Aspiring proliferators such as Iran and recent proliferators such as North Korea pose a grave threat to the integrity of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Moreover, developed nations worry that new proliferators may allow nuclear weapons to fall into the hands of terrorists or other non-state actors.
The threat posed by nuclear weapons is so great, that it merits a more complete discussion of potential techniques and strategies to avoid nuclear conflict. In recent months, even the Bush administration— notorious for its reliance on gunboat diplomacy and its skepticism of arms control agreements —has begun to explore diplomatic and other means to deal
with potential proliferators.2 Hecker and his colleagues were engaging with North Korean scientists and diplomats in an unofficial capacity. This constitutes one aspect of a strategy to mitigate the threat of nuclear weapons. The role of the scientific security community, of which Hecker is apart of, is often overlooked. Nonetheless, during much of the Cold
War scientists of mutually hostile nations have indeed worked together and made crucial contributions to easing tensions, promoting arms control agreements and mitigating the threat of nuclear war.
During the Cold War, scientists from both sides of the iron curtain engaged in a transna-tional dialogue to address the perils of nuclear conflict. Through personal connections, conferences such as Pugwash and inter-academy programs, these scientists worked to foster transparency, alleviate tensions, and explore potential agreements between their governments for arms control and arms reduction. This group of security-minded scientists introduced norms and ideas and gained access to key policy-makers in the U.S. and Soviet Union. In some instances, the international group of scientists were able to influence international policies where government officials and diplomats had failed.
A better understanding of the actions of these scientists will provide insights into creating effective strategies for Hecker and other like-minded scientists who are working on today’s international nuclear conflicts. Fundamentally, this thesis looks to the scientists of the past for inspiration in better managing nuclear security threats of the present.

Keywords: nuclear nonproliferation
arms control
cold war
science and diplomacy
nuclear weapons
international relations
Stanford University
Center for International Security and Cooperation
Thesis
Advisor: May Michael
Mercury Speciation and Transport: New Idria, California

In this study, sediment samples from in and around the New Idria mining district were analyzed to determine the speciation and concentration of mercury as it exits the mine site and travels toward the San Joaquin River. Results from this study lay the groundwork for future research on New Idria and its contribution to mercury in the San Joaquin River and San Francisco Bay. Ultimately, these data may provide the basis for policy decisions regarding remediation of the New Idria mining district, with the potential for positive impact on the health of San Francisco Bay.

Keywords:  Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences
School of Earth Energy &amp; Environmental Sciences
mercury
California
Thesis
Advisor: Brown Gordon
Fendorf Scott
Optimal Collective Action Clause Thresholds

Major financial crises in the previous decade—Mexico in 1994, East Asia in 1997, and Russia in 1998—have drawn greater attention to the importance of organized sovereign debt resolution. Collective action clauses (CACs) are stipulations in bond contracts that allow for greater certainty and flexibility in the debt restructuring process in the event of a sovereign default. By allowing restructuring to occur without a unanimous vote by all bondholders and instead requiring a specific supermajority consensus, there is greater probability that restructuring can occur and the investors compensated. Previous literature has studied the consequences of CAC inclusion on borrowing costs. In contrast, this thesis examines the ex ante utility optimizing decision making process of sovereign borrowers as they decide the voting threshold in their CACs for bondholders’ approval of a restructuring. In addition, we empirically examine issuespecific characteristics, domestic economic conditions, and global and emerging market credit conditions to determine the factors that affect a sovereign’s decision to issue with a specific voting threshold.

Keywords:  Department of Economics
Stanford Department of Economics
collective action clause
majority action clause
emerging market debt
sovereign debt
International Monetary Fund
Sovereign Debt Restructuring Mechanism
Thesis
Advisor: Taylor John B.