Corruption, Income Inequality, and Subsequent Economic Growth

This paper attempts to untangle the link between corruption and income inequality with subsequent economic growth. It uses standard OLS multiple regression analysis and data from 134 countries over a ten year time frame to test the hypothesis that after controlling for corruption, income inequality will be less significant in explaining subsequent growth rates. Perhaps it is not income equality that fosters economic growth, but rather a decrease in corruption that causes both economic growth and greater equality. This study yields some expected findings in support of well-established variables and concludes that inequality harms growth even after controlling for corruption

Three Essays on Urban Consumer Service Firms: Evidence from Yelp

This dissertation explores questions related to consumer services using Yelp data from the Phoenix area. Chapter 1 explores competition. Competition is a key feature of the market process assumed to improve market outcomes. But how strong is the relationship between competition and positive consumer experiences, and how does the relationship vary across space? This chapter explores these questions by exploiting Yelp data from thousands of restaurants in the Phoenix area. After controlling for restaurant characteristics, census tract level demographics, census tract fixed effects, and sub-industry fixed effects, the results are consistent with spatial competition positively affecting consumer experiences. Chapter 2 considers where these consumer service firms are located. The chapter analyzes the spatial concentration of a variety of consumer services firms in the Phoenix, AZ area using geo-referenced Yelp data from over 29,000 establishments. Results from a K-density approach indicate substantial localization and service differentiation among localized firms. Firm concentration varies across service cost and quality; higher quality/cost establishments tend to cluster. Chapter 3 explores the influence of emotional cues on consumer behavior. Using nearly 1 million Yelp reviews from the Phoenix area, I empirically test for the presence of loss aversion and reference-dependent preferences in reviewer behavior. Consistent with loss aversion, unexpected losses lead to worse reviews while there is no effect for unexpected wins. The results also reflect reference-dependent preferences since wins and losses in games predicted to be close do not impact reviewer behavior

Factors Explaining Obesity in the Midwest: Evidence from Data

This paper attempts to determine the factors explaining obesity in the Midwest by using standard OLS multiple regression analysis and cross-sectional data. We examine independent variables related to built environment and determine effects on obesity. This study finds that some factors influencing calories consumed, such as percent of restaurants that are fast food, are consistent with the prior literature. However, other factors, such as the number of fast food restaurants per 1000 people, yield surprising results. The results of this study suggest that obesity is a multifaceted issue that is not close to being fully explained

The Spatial Distribution of Urban Consumer Service Firms: Evidence from Yelp Reviews

A growing literature employs distance-based measures of localization to assess the spatial distribution of firms with a focus on manufacturing across a country. We analyze the spatial concentration of a variety of consumer services firms in the Phoenix, AZ area using geo-referenced Yelp data from over 29,000 establishments. Results from a K-density approach indicate substantial localization and service differentiation among localized firms. Firm concentration varies across service cost and quality; higher quality/cost establishments tend to cluster. Our results further understanding of the modern urban landscape as cities are increasingly centers of consumption

The Economic Impact of City-County Consolidations: A Synthetic Control Approach

Although more rapid development is a primary motivation behind city-county consolidations, few empirical studies explore the impact of consolidation on economic development. No studies look at government consolidation in the United States using modern causal inference methods. We use the synthetic control method (SCM) to examine the long-term impact of city-county consolidations on per capita income, population, and employment. The results from the three cases explored indicate that consolidation does not guarantee development and actually can have negative effects. Additionally, consolidation can deepen the urban-rural divide by accelerating the decline of rural populations relative to those of urban areas. The effects vary based upon the county, time horizon and development measure. The results are robust to placebo test simulations and counterfactuals constructed only from counties with earlier failed consolidation attempts. Our results highlight how public choice considerations surrounding the implementation of governmental consolidations are crucial to outcomes and can help inform any subsequent city-county consolidation attempts

Multi-messenger searches via IceCube’s high-energy neutrinos and gravitational-wave detections of LIGO/Virgo

We summarize initial results for high-energy neutrino counterpart searches coinciding with gravitational-wave events in LIGO/Virgo\u27s GWTC-2 catalog using IceCube\u27s neutrino triggers. We did not find any statistically significant high-energy neutrino counterpart and derived upper limits on the time-integrated neutrino emission on Earth as well as the isotropic equivalent energy emitted in high-energy neutrinos for each event

In-situ estimation of ice crystal properties at the South Pole using LED calibration data from the IceCube Neutrino Observatory

The IceCube Neutrino Observatory instruments about 1 km3 of deep, glacial ice at the geographic South Pole using 5160 photomultipliers to detect Cherenkov light emitted by charged relativistic particles. A unexpected light propagation effect observed by the experiment is an anisotropic attenuation, which is aligned with the local flow direction of the ice. Birefringent light propagation has been examined as a possible explanation for this effect. The predictions of a first-principles birefringence model developed for this purpose, in particular curved light trajectories resulting from asymmetric diffusion, provide a qualitatively good match to the main features of the data. This in turn allows us to deduce ice crystal properties. Since the wavelength of the detected light is short compared to the crystal size, these crystal properties do not only include the crystal orientation fabric, but also the average crystal size and shape, as a function of depth. By adding small empirical corrections to this first-principles model, a quantitatively accurate description of the optical properties of the IceCube glacial ice is obtained. In this paper, we present the experimental signature of ice optical anisotropy observed in IceCube LED calibration data, the theory and parametrization of the birefringence effect, the fitting procedures of these parameterizations to experimental data as well as the inferred crystal properties.</p