This dissertation investigates the role of fiscal policy on economic activity by analyzing the response of major macroeconomic variables to innovations to the average marginal income tax rate (AMTR) measures in the U.K. by employing vector autoregressive (VAR) models. We identify these...

This dissertation relates the information contained in past trading volume to investor sentiment, and investigates its ability in predicting stock returns. Investor sentiment here refers to the enthusiasm of irrational investors on an asset, relative to that of rational investors. Motivated by...

This project examines the relationship between patterns of crime and the development of the oil and gas extraction industry in the coastal regions of Louisiana. The suggestion of a link between these phenomena has often been made, but little systematic research has been conducted to determine if...

This dissertation consists of essays relating to the three important real estate research topics: spatial statistics, mortgages, and real estate investment trusts (REITs). In the first essay, Spatial Distribution of Retail Sales, we apply retail gravity models to examine the spatial distribution...

The Hausman test is used in applied economic work as a test of misspecification. It is most commonly thought of (wrongly some would say) as a test of whether one or more explanatory variables in a regression model is endogenous. There are several versions of the test available with modern...

The executive compensation literature argues that executives generally value stock options at less than market value because of suboptimal ownership and risk aversion. Implicit in this finding is the assumption that executives are, like shareholders, price takers. That is, they have no ability...

This dissertation consists of three essays that focus on a Bayesian estimation of stochasticcost frontiers for electric generation plants. This research gives insight into the changingdevelopment of the electric generation market and could serve to inform both private investmentand public policy...

Stein-rule estimators, also known as shrinkage estimators, combine sample and non-sample information in a way that improves the precision of the estimation process or the quality of subsequent predictions. A Stein-rule estimator is a weighted average of a restricted and an unrestricted...

Economic theory is subject to continual analysis. While theories themselves are sometimes widely accepted, nuances of theory are persistently scrutinized. Researchers have not isolated this debate from a simply theoretic standpoint. Empirical methods in microeconomics also provide a forum for...

Bayesian estimation has gained ground after Markov Chain Monte Carlo process made it possible to sample from exact posterior distributions. This research aims at contributing to the ongoing debate about the relative virtues of the Frequentist and Bayesian theories by concentrating on the...