Does the Phi Gamma Delta Academic Achievement Award Affect the Fraternity\u27s Ability to Attract Future Donors and Volunteers?

The Phi Gamma Delta Educational Foundation, which supports the Phi Gamma Delta Fraternity, operates a scholarship program for new members known as the Academic Achievement Award, or Triple A Scholarship. The Fraternity’s recent and projected growth prompted the organization to consider changes to the program. In order to better evaluate changing the program, this study estimates the impact of the Triple A Scholarship program on two behaviors of graduate members – becoming a donor or becoming a volunteer. More specifically, the study addresses the following two questions: Does receiving a Triple A Scholarship make a member more or less likely to be a future donor to the Fraternity or Foundation? Does receiving a Triple A Scholarship make a member more or less likely to be a volunteer (within the organization)? Data for the analysis was obtained from the organization’s membership database, including all members who joined from July 1, 1998 – June 30, 2010, capturing the 24,267 men who had joined since the scholarship’s inception. Data included the individual’s volunteer and donor history, Triple A Scholarship information, class year, and school attended. School and chapter characteristics were added to individual data and include incoming freshmen characteristics, tuition, enrollment, athletic conference, chapter scholarship recipient data and information on chapters which started or closed during the time period. The analysis of data included t‐tests for significance of individual and institutional characteristics and a logit regression model for both donating and volunteering. Using this model, individuals who received a Triple A Scholarship were found to be more likely to be donors. Several other variables were also found to be significant predictors of donating behavior including the individual’s age, if he served as an undergraduate officer, the percent of scholarship recipients in his chapter and if he attended a school which is part of certain athletic conferences. Schools which were part of other athletic conferences were found to be significant predictors of an individual not donating, as was being a part of a chapter which had closed. Likewise, being a chapter officer and age were significant predictors of being a volunteer, although receiving a Triple A Scholarship was not found to be significant. Individuals from schools which had a high percentage of scholarship recipients, those from certain athletic conferences and those who were part of a newer chapter were also found to be significant predictors. Those from chapters which had closed, schools with a high percentage of high ACT scores (30‐36) and certain other athletic conferences were found to be significant predictors of someone not being a volunteer. While receiving a Triple A Scholarship is one significant predictor of future donors’ behavior, it should not be the lone consideration in how to modify the program in the future. Given historical data, it is unlikely that these donors will completely cover the cost of the program over time. However, the analysis shows that members who received Triple A Scholarships, were chapter officers or were from chapters with a high percentage of Triple A recipients are more likely to donate. This presents an opportunity for the Educational Foundation to better approach and attract new donors

THE COST STRUCTURE OF MICROFINANCE INSTITUTIONS IN EASTERN EUROPE AND CENTRAL ASIA

Microfinance institutions are important, particularly in developing countries, because they expand the frontier of financial intermediation by providing loans to those traditionally excluded from formal financial markets. This paper presents the first systematic statistical examination of the performance of MFIs operating in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. A cost function is estimated for MFIs in the region from 1999-2004. First, the presence of subsidies is found to be associated with higher MFI costs. When output is measured as the number of loans made, we find that MFIs become more efficient over time and that MFIs involved in the provision of group loans and loans to women have lower costs. However, when output is measured as volume of loans rather than their number, this last finding is reversed. This may be due to the fact that such loans are smaller in size; thus for a given volume more loans must be made.Eastern Europe, banking, microfinance, efficiency

Testing for Hypothetical Bias in Contingent Valuation Using a Latent Choice Multinomial Logit Model

The most persistently troubling empirical result in the contingent valuation method literature is the tendency for hypothetical willingness to pay to overestimate real willingness to pay. We suggest a new approach to test and correct for hypothetical bias using a latent choice multinomial logit (LCMNL) model. To develop this model, we extend Dempster, Laird, and Rubin’s (1977) work on the EM algorithm to the estimation of a multinomial logit model with missing information on categorical membership. Using data on both the quality of water in the Catawba River in North Carolina and the preservation of Saginaw wetlands in Michigan, we find two types of “yes” responders in both data sets. We suggest that one set of yes responses are yea-sayers who suffer from hypothetical bias and answer yes to the hypothetical question but would not pay the bid amount if it were real. The second group does not suffer from hypothetical bias and would pay the bid amount if it were real.C25, P230, Q51

Specification Search and Levels of Significance in Econometric Models

This paper describes the problem specification searches pose for inference, presents the results of some simulations for purposes of illustration, and uses the bootstrapping procedure to give a better estimate of statistical significance than a standard t-test. The value of the illustrations of specification searches is that they help demonstrate the severity of the problem. The examples presented here illustrate that in most cases, a researcher can undertake specification search and report a statistically significant result regardless of whether the variables in a regression equation are actually related. The bootstrap procedure used to analyze the specification searches does provide another way to examine the true statistical significance of empirical results. Two different specification searches are examined: a "drop insignificant coefficients" search and a "biggest t-ratio" search. Both are shown to lead to larger than reported standard errors. In general, standard errors get larger if a specification search has taken place, but exactly how much larger must be determined on a case-by-case basis.

Circular orbits and spin in black-hole initial data

The construction of initial data for black-hole binaries usually involves the choice of free parameters that define the spins of the black holes and essentially the eccentricity of the orbit. Such parameters must be chosen carefully to yield initial data with the desired physical properties. In this paper, we examine these choices in detail for the quasiequilibrium method coupled to apparent-horizon/quasiequilibrium boundary conditions. First, we compare two independent criteria for choosing the orbital frequency, the "Komar-mass condition" and the "effective-potential method," and find excellent agreement. Second, we implement quasi-local measures of the spin of the individual holes, calibrate these with corotating binaries, and revisit the construction of non-spinning black hole binaries. Higher-order effects, beyond those considered in earlier work, turn out to be important. Without those, supposedly non-spinning black holes have appreciable quasi-local spin; furthermore, the Komar-mass condition and effective potential method agree only when these higher-order effects are taken into account. We compute a new sequence of quasi-circular orbits for non-spinning black-hole binaries, and determine the innermost stable circular orbit of this sequence.Comment: 24 pages, 17 figures, accepted for publication in Physical Review D, revtex4; Fixed error in computing proper separation and updated figures and tables accordingly, added reference to Sec. IV.A, fixed minor error in Sec. IV.B, added new data to Tables IV and V, fixed 1 reference, fixed error in Eq. (A7b), included minor changes from PRD editin

The Demand for Bolivian Tin

No abstrac

Estimation of a selectivity model with misclassified selection

Despite the great interest in models of self-selection and models with misclassification, there have been few studies combining the two. Notable exceptions are given by McCarthy, Millimet, and Roy and Shiu. None of these models have been developed in a contingent valuation setting that we are interested in. The goal of this note is to add to this literature by presenting a model for estimating willingness to pay using data collected through a contingent valuation survey. We examine the case of a selectivity model in which the outcome equation is interval censored but the decision indicator is not observed

THE COST STRUCTURE OF MICROFINANCE INSTITUTIONS IN EASTERN EUROPE AND CENTRAL ASIA

Microfinance institutions are important, particularly in developing countries, because they expand the frontier of financial intermediation by providing loans to those traditionally excluded from formal financial markets. This paper presents the first systematic statistical examination of the performance of MFIs operating in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. A cost function is estimated for MFIs in the region from 1999-2004. First, the presence of subsidies is found to be associated with higher MFI costs. When output is measured as the number of loans made, we find that MFIs become more efficient over time and that MFIs involved in the provision of group loans and loans to women have lower costs. However, when output is measured as volume of loans rather than their number, this last finding is reversed. This may be due to the fact that such loans are smaller in size; thus for a given volume more loans must be made.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/40195/3/wp809.pd