The Distribution of Inheritances and Its Impact on Wealth Inequality

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Parker Rogers and Richard Evans, Department of Economics The purpose of this project was to estimate a function that describes who are the recipients of inheritances among different age and income groups and to incorporate that function into a dynamic macroeconomic model to simulate the effects of inheritances on wealth inequality in the United States. […]

International Trade Simulation

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Jeff Clawson and Kerk Phillips, Department of Economics Introduction For the past year, this project has involved taking a trade simulation model, recreating it in a modern programming language and making it freely available through the Open Source Policy Center (OSPC). The program takes real world population data provided by the user and then simulates […]

Exact Nonparametric Inference for a Binary Endogenous Regressor

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Joseph Cooprider and Brigham Frandsen, Department of Economics When there is endogeneity in an economic model, basic ordinary least squares regression analysis breaks down. Our assumptions for the model collapse so we cannot infer causality without bias in our estimations. Therefore, use of an instrumental variable is necessary. However, if instruments are weak, sample sizes […]

Overcoming Under-Reporting: Known Measurement Error

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Shumway, Adam Overcoming Under-Reporting: Known Measurement Error Faculty Mentor: Dr. Joseph Price, Economics Department Introduction This project evaluates the feasibility of overcoming measurement error by using predictors for participation. Several national surveys under-represent actual program participation; some actual participants in government welfare programs, for example, fail to truthfully report participation when asked. Using data from […]

Integration of Microsimulation Model Into Dynamic Scoring Model

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Rytting, Chris Integration of Microsimulation Model Into Dynamic Scoring Model Faculty Mentor: Richard Evans, Economics We integrated individual tax rates produced by a microsimulation tax policy model with a dynamic general equilibrium tax policy model. We can use this to conduct macroeconomic analysis or score hypothetical tax policies. This approach captures the rich heterogeneity, realistic […]

The Effect of the NSF Grant on Future Academic and Career Outcomes

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Eastmond, Tanner The Effect of the NSF Grant on Future Academic and Career Outcomes Faculty Mentor: Dr. Joseph Price, Economics Introduction The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency created by Congress in 1950 with the stated mission “to promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare.” This […]

Flexible Censored Interval Regression with Experimental Applications

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Daniel Walton and James McDonald, Economics Department Introduction Interval censored data, or grouped data, appears in well-established measurement techniques employed in many economic situations, including experimental economics. Estimation of parameters of models using these data de- pends critically on the model specification and method of estimation. Some methods can yield inconsistent and biased estimators when […]

The Distributional Effects of Redistributional Tax Policy: A Dynamic Tax Scoring Model

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Isaac Swift and Kerk Phillips, Economics Department Introduction In 2013 French economist Thomas Piketty, one of the leading experts on inequality, published a book titled Capital in the Twenty-First Century. This book quickly became a bestseller and received worldwide attention. In his book Piketty described data that he had carefully collected on income and wealth […]

Quantile Treatment Effects with Endogeneity: A Monte Carlo Comparison of 3 Quantile IV Estimators

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Alexander Poulsen and Brigham Frandsen, Economics Introduction Quantile instrumental variables estimators are a relatively new development in the econometric literature. Modern quantile regression was introduced in Koenker and Basset (1978), and has been used in many important applications in which researchers are interested in learning about the effects of variables on the distribution of an […]

A Macroeconomic Model for Dynamic Tax Scoring Analyzing Income Tax Cuts

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Evan Magnusson and Richard Evans, Economics Department Introduction The goal of this project was to analyze the consequences of income tax cuts on government revenues. We did so using a large overlapping generations (OLG) model. This model was calibrated to closely match the distribution of labor, income, and wealth in the U.S. economy across both […]