Theses and Dissertations from UMD

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New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM

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Increasing Charitable Giving Using Subsidies: Theory and Experiments
(2024) Higgs, Zed; Uler, Neslihan; Agricultural and Resource Economics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
This dissertation combines theoretical analysis with economic experiments to advance our understanding of why people give. In particular, this dissertation focuses on the use of subsidies for giving---e.g., rebates and matches---as a tool for increasing charitable giving. The research included in this dissertation provides important guidance to charitable organizations seeking to design fundraisers optimally to maximize charitable receipts. Furthermore, this research also provides important guidance to policy-makers seeking to better understand the interplay between tax policy and charitable giving. The results of this dissertation can contribute to more effective fundraising campaigns and more efficient tax policy. Chapter 1 challenges the well-established result among existing experimental studies that donations are significantly more responsive to matches than to rebates. In previous experimental studies the budget sets available to subjects under rebates are constrained relative to those available under matches, biasing estimates of the rebate-price elasticity. We conduct a novel experiment that removes the constraint under rebates, producing equal budget sets for price-equivalent rebates and matches. Contrary to previous studies, we find dramatically smaller differences in donations under price-equivalent matches and rebates. More importantly, we find no statistical difference between our estimated rebate- and match-price elasticities. Furthermore, we show that the constraint under rebates affects the entire distribution of observed behavior, not only the behavior of individuals for whom the constraint is binding. This chapter contributes to theories of charitable giving and has important implications for tax policy. Chapter 2 studies how donor uncertainty affects their response to match subsidies in the context of charitable giving. It explores whether donors are responsive to exogenous changes in the probability of receiving a match. I develop a theoretical model of giving that incorporates uncertainty around matches. I demonstrate the model is capable of explaining the discrepancies in match-price elasticities of giving observed across previous field experiments and observational studies. I then derive testable hypotheses from the model, and design and run an economic experiment to test these hypotheses. The results of my experiment provide clear evidence that donors are responsive to changes in the probability of receiving a match. As a result, the same donor may respond differently to match subsidies depending on the setting. This work identifies an important aspect of donor decision making, contributing to a better understanding of why people give. It has important implications for theories of giving, the optimal design of fundraisers, and tax policy. Chapter 3 builds on Chapter 2 to continue studying how donor uncertainty affects their response to match subsidies in the context of charitable giving. It explores whether donors are responsive to endogenous changes in the probability of receiving a match resulting from changes in fundraiser characteristics. The results provide strong evidence supporting the notion that changes in fundraiser characteristics can affect donors' beliefs about the probability of receiving a match, in turn affecting their donation decisions and the observed response to match subsidies. The effectiveness of a match subsidy varies depending on the characteristics of the fundraiser, so that the optimal fundraising strategy varies across fundraisers. This chapter provides new guidance for fundraisers interested in increasing charitable donations through the use of match subsidies.
Essays on the Cognitive Foundations of Economics
(2024) Yegane, Ece; Masatlioglu, Yusufcan; Economics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
In Chapter 1, I model a decision maker who observes available alternatives according to a list and stochastically forgets some alternatives. Each time the decision maker observes an item in the list, she recalls previous alternatives with some probability, conditional on those alternatives being recalled until this point. The decision maker maximizes a preference relation over the set of alternatives she can recall. I show that if every available alternative is chosen with strictly positive probability, the preference order and the list order must coincide in any limited memory representation. Under the full support assumption, the preference ordering, the list ordering and the memory parameters are uniquely identified up to the ranking of the two least preferred alternatives. I provide conditions on observable choice probabilities that characterize the model under the full support assumption. I then apply our model to study the pricing problem of a monopolist who faces consumers with limited memory. I show that when the probability of forgetting is high, the monopolist is better off charging a lower price than the optimal price in the perfect memory case. In Chapter 2, Yusufcan Masatlioglu and I study how the allocation of attention to different options and the accessibility of options from memory affect decision making. To distinguish between attention and memory, we propose a two-stage stochastic consideration set formation process. An alternative enters the decision maker’s consideration set if it is investigated in the initial attention stage and is remembered in the subsequent recall stage. In the initial attention stage, the decision maker investigates each available alternative with some alternative-specific probability. In the recall stage, the decision maker recalls each alternative that she investigated in the attention stage with some probability. The probability of recalling an alternative depends on the memorability of the alternative and its position in the order of investigation in the attention stage. Investigating an alternative more recently enhances the probability of recalling it. The decision maker chooses the option that maximizes her preference relation over her consideration set. Under the assumption that the investigation of alternatives is observable, we provide testable implications on choice behavior and show that the revealed preference, attention parameters and memory parameters can be uniquely identified from observable repeated choices.
Microeconomic Model Analyses
(2023) Ellis, Keaton Hyuckmin Kweon; Ozbay, Erkut; Economics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
The first chapter, joint with Dr. Shachar Kariv and Professor Erkut Ozbay, compares thepredictive performance of a standard economic model to a variety of machine learning models by presenting nearly 1,000 subjects with a consumer decision problem – the selection of a bundle of contingent commodities from a budget set. Our dataset allows us to compare predictions at the individual level and relate them to the consistency of individual decisions with revealed preference axioms. Using dual measures of completeness and restrictiveness from Fudenberg et al. (2022a,b), we show that the economic model outperforms all machine learning models, with a wider margin as choices align more with an underlying preference ordering. The second chapter, joint with Professor Emel Filiz-Ozbay and Erkut Ozbay, empirically investigates the consideration and choice functions behaviors of individuals under uncertainty. Our design elicits these functions by repeating the decisions repeatedly questioning subjects in a rich lottery domain and, hence, allows subjects to reveal their stochastic or deterministic consideration and choice. Since most subjects act stochastically in both consideration and choice decisions, we focus on testing well-known axioms defined for such behavior. Our analysis includes individual-level testing of the logit model (Brady and Rehbeck (2016)), and the axioms of monotonic attention (Cattaneo et al. (2020)), and attention overload (Cattaneo et al. (2021)) for the consideration data. For the choice data, we test properties including the independence of irrelevant alternatives (Luce (1959)), regularity (Block et al. (1959)) and consistency with the attribute rule (Gul et al. (2014)). The third chapter, joint with Dr. Shachar Kariv and Professor Erkut Ozbay, extends work frmo the first chapter. We make use of rich individual-level data sets from three budgetary choice environments. The environments provide a strong test of both the intra-economic model comparisons, as well as a comparison between economic models and machine learning models. Overall, we find that the extension from two goods to three goods does not greatly reduce completeness, but does greatly increase the restrictiveness. Both standard and behavioral economic models see larger increases in restrictiveness compared to machine learning models, and a lower drop in completeness when moving from two goods to three goods. Surprisingly, there is no additional drop in completeness when moving from choice under risk to choice under ambiguity in this environment; the completeness and restrictiveness scores of all models are nearly identical across the two domains, and the minor differences that are present favor models under ambiguity. We interpret these results as favorable for standard economic models in rich choice environments: absent external factors, economic models with one parameter detailing risk preferences are sufficient to capture individual-level behavior of choice under risk and choice under ambiguity. Additionally, these models are more restrictive than machine learning models; along with the high completeness, this result indicates that the assumptions of EUT and SEU capture the regularities in choice under risk and ambiguity.
Essays on Speculation, Joint Bidding, and Dynamic Entry in Auctions
(2023) Deng, Shanglyu; Ausubel, Lawrence; Economics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
This dissertation consists of three essays on auction design. In Chapter 1, I provide an introduction for the following chapters. In Chapter 2, I examine speculation in procurement auctions, where speculators may have the incentive to acquire items from multiple sellers prior to the auction in order to increase their market power and reduce competition during the auction. I show that the profitability of the speculation scheme hinges on the auction format: Speculation always generates a positive expected profit in second-price auctions but could be unprofitable in first-price auctions. This comparison in profitability is driven by different competition patterns in the two auction mechanisms. In terms of welfare, speculation causes private value destruction and harms efficiency. Sellers benefit from the acquisition offer made by the speculator. Therefore, speculation comes at the expense of the auctioneer. In Chapter 3, I consider a procurement setting where suppliers may be functionally complementary, meaning they need to collaborate to complete a complex project. I compare two methods for incorporating complementary firms into procurement auctions: allowing them to bid jointly or using combinatorial auctions, such as the VCG auction, to coordinate their collaboration. The joint bidding approach leads to a double marginalization problem, as the prime contractor must elicit private cost information from subcontractors, and then submit a bid on behalf of the group. Consequently, the joint bidding approach often underperforms the VCG auction in several aspects, including efficiency, procurement price, and support for small businesses. Chapter 4 presents both theoretical and empirical analyses for recurring auctions. Auctions for durable assets, such as land, house, or artwork, are commonly recurring, as the seller often holds a subsequent auction after a previous attempt fails. Theoretical results show that recurring auctions outperform single-round auctions in terms of efficiency and revenue when potential buyers face costly entry. This occurs because recurring auctions allow potential buyers with different values to enter at different times, which generates savings in entry costs and increases the overall probability of sale. Additionally, optimal reserve price sequences are derived for recurring auctions based on whether the seller aims to maximize efficiency or revenue. In the empirical analysis, the theory is applied to home foreclosure auctions in China, where foreclosed homes are auctioned up to three times in a row. The study identifies the structural parameters in a recurring auction model and compares the observed recurring auctions to counterfactual single-round auctions. The results are in line with theoretical predictions, showing a significant improvement in efficiency and revenue for recurring auctions over single-round auctions. Using the optimal reserve price sequences derived from our model can further enhance the performance of recurring auctions in practice.
Evolution and Current Practices of Ride Services
(2021) Noh, Daehoon; Tunca, Tunay I; Business and Management: Decision & Information Technologies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
In the past decade we have seen a rapid transformation in the ride service market with the advent of decentralized Ride Hailing (RH) services (e.g., Uber, Lyft), who gained significant market share at the expense of traditional Vertically Integrated (VI) taxi companies.However, it is not clear what the endgame of this competition between these two models will be. What is more, the current development of driverless car technology, which leads to another form of Vertically Integrated service model, is posing further questions on how the industry will shape in the future. In the first chapter, we analyze this question by game-theoretically modeling entry and competition between decentralized Ride Hailing and Vertically Integrated ride services. First, by comparing monopoly models, we find that due to the advantage of centralization, the VI model is more efficient in increasing firm profits, reducing delays and increasing social welfare compared to the RH model. However, in competition, the RH firm predominantly reverses this disadvantage, and gains the upper hand in the market with lower delays, higher market share, and higher profits due to its flexibility in setting its supply compared to the VI firm, which projects the success of the ride-hailing firms compared to the traditional taxi model. Furthermore, the entry of the RH firm into the market always improves social welfare, while the entry of an inefficient VI firm may reduce industry service levels and surprisingly decrease social despite introducing competition. Our results suggest that entry of a costly self-driving car technology may in fact hurt the industry as a whole and social welfare in a market that is served predominantly by a ride-hailing company, and this technology should be approached carefully by the industry and the regulators. In the second chapter, we examine the effect of offering ride distance information to the drivers in the ride-hailing two-sided market.This is of our interest because currently, the drivers cannot observe the riders' destination. However the leading companies in the ride-hailing business such as Uber and Lyft are experimenting the effect of offering this information to the drivers, but the effect is yet uncertain. It may introduce efficiency, or it may aggravate the cherry picking behavior which will be detrimental to the firm. We develop a game theoretical model of (i) a ride-hailing firm where the drivers do not observe the riders' ride distance (the unobservable case), and (ii) where they can observe (the observable case). We compare the two cases to determine when it would benefit the ride-hailing firm to offer this information to the drivers. We also compare consumer surplus and social welfare to see if the firm's decision may be in conflict with the social planner's. Our main finding is that when consumers are patient, the drivers' cherry picking behavior introduces efficiency to the operations of the observable case, making it optimal for the firm to offer observability to the drivers. However as consumers become impatient, this cherry picking behavior becomes burdensome for the observable case, and thus the firm's optimal decision is to not give observability. Furthermore, under certain parameter regions, the firm's decisions are in conflict with the social planner's objective, thus the government may need to devise a policy to maximize social welfare.
ADOPTION, IMPACT EVALUATION, AND TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY OF IRON BIOFORTIFIED BEAN PRODUCTION IN RWANDA
(2020) Funes, Jose Elias; Sun, Laixiang; Geography; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Micronutrient malnutrition, also known as hidden hunger, is a public health problem in many developing countries. Hidden hunger limits cognitive and physical development of children and increases both children’s and adults’ susceptibility to infectious diseases. The most common outcome of iron deficiency is anemia and in Rwanda, iron micronutrient malnutrition is highly pervasive. Thirty seven percent of children under five years of age and nearly 20 percent of women of childbearing age suffer from anemia in the country. Since 2012, HarvestPlus and its partners have been intensively disseminating iron biofortified common beans (Phaseolus Vulgaris) (IBB) varieties to help alleviate iron deficiency in Rwanda. On one hand, Rwandan farmers may be uncertain about the economic returns of this new technology owing to insufficient knowledge about the types and costs of inputs needed, the yield distribution, expected market prices, and the demand for the produce. On the other hand, policy makers and donors cannot observe the outcomes that bean farmers would experience under all treatments of the IBB program. The counterfactual outcomes that a bean farming household would have experienced under other treatments are not observable. In this context, this dissertation uses a multiprong analytical framework to: 1) analyze how peer interactions, households and farm characteristics, as well as regional factors influence smallholder farming households’ decisions to grow IBB varieties, 2) evaluate the impact of the IBB program on Rwandan farmer’s livelihoods, focusing on the outcomes of yields and incomes for beneficiary households, and 3) estimate the impact of the IBB program on smallholder farming households’ technical efficiency. The spatial econometric results indicate spatial interdependence in smallholder farming households' decisions to adopt IBB. In addition to the directly targeted beneficiaries, the spatial parameters from the econometric analysis suggest that the biofortification program affected non-beneficiaries as well. This finding indicates that (1) a household is more likely to grow IBB if the household is near other early IBB adopters who informed them about the nutritional and yield benefits of IBB technology and (2) the propensity of a household to grow IBB varies with the characteristics of neighboring farmers. The impact evaluation analysis supports the hypothesis that IBB growers had significantly higher yields and incomes, as compared to farmers that grew non-biofortified beans, whether improved or traditional. In addition, the impact assessment shows that farmers who grew iron biofortified varieties were relatively more efficient and obtained greater bean production than the control group.
THE CONTRASTING EFFECTS OF SOCIAL CAPITAL ON NONVIOLENT RESISTANCE: EVIDENCE FROM PERU
(2020) CORONADO-CASTELLANOS, PAVEL; Birnir, Johanna; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
This dissertation develops a model to understand the joint role of social capital and nonviolent resistance campaigns to obtain concessions and changes in public goods provision in new democracies and in democracies with weak party systems. The factors that explain variation in effectiveness among nonviolent campaigns have been understudied. By adding social capital to the analysis, this dissertation contributes to filling this theoretical and empirical void. I use data from Perú to provide empirical support to my theory. In Chapter 2, a micro-level theory of nonviolent campaigns is developed. This theory argues that by making cooperation easier, social capital increases the levels of participation in nonviolent campaigns, thereby making concessions more likely. A novel result of this theory is that it shows that social capital is a key feature of social life that can help to generate disruptive collective actions but also to prevent the use of such disruptive means. Thus, under some circumstances, social capital can help to reduce the observed disruptive actions. Chapters 3 and 4 test the theoretical propositions derived in Chapter 2 using Peruvian data. Chapter 3 finds that social capital has a negative statistically significant effect on some types of nonviolent campaigns but positive effects on other types of nonviolent campaigns. Chapter 3 also provides evidence that peasant communities’ organizations in the first half of the 20th century were product of persistence effects of early colonial extractive institutions (i.e. the mining mita) with colonial revolts as important channels of persistence. Chapter 4 shows that nonviolent campaigns and social capital form a positive interactive relationship to affect the provision of public goods at the local level. Social capital makes more likely nonviolent campaign’s success. Chapter 5 summarizes the main conclusions of this dissertation.
Marriages Made in Silico: Essays on Social Norms, Technology Adoption, and Institutions in Online Matrimonial Matching Platforms
(2020) Karmegam, Sabari Rajan; Gopal, Anandasivam; Business and Management: Decision & Information Technologies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Online matrimonial platforms have emerged as a way to take the highly institutionalized process of arranged marriages online while preserving the offline social, cultural, and gender norms. While there is a rich body of empirical work on online dating, the corresponding literature on online matrimonial platforms is sparse. My dissertation seeks to fill this gap. In my first essay, I look at mobile adoption's role in online matrimonial platforms' engagement and matching outcomes. The analysis shows that unlike the dating market where the market's transaction costs are eased by the ubiquity and personal nature of the mobile device for all users, here subgroups associated with strong endogamous preferences benefit with mobile adoption. My work extends the mobile ecosystem study to the societal context where institutional norms take precedence and influence mobile adoption outcomes. In my second essay, I study how the search frictions, social norms, and disempowerment that results from the gender skew in online matching platforms can be mitigated by using appropriate market design. I use a quasi-experimental methodology by relying on two interventions designed by the platform to reduce women's cognitive load. The interventions improved the overall well-being of women on platforms. My work here aims to increase awareness on the role platforms needs to play to improve women's well-being while ensuring that online platforms do not unravel. In my third essay, I look at whether the sanctity of institutional norms and traditional markers of status - involvement of multiple stakeholders through parental involvement and social norms related to endogamy and gender roles are retained in online matrimonial platforms. I find that "platformization" leads to institutional unbundling, with outcomes guided by more liberal ethos. This essay extends the platform literature on institutional contexts and shows that transition to online settings may not be seamless. My dissertation thus contributes to the literature on Information Systems by highlighting the need to consider the societal, cultural, and gender norms to further our understanding of the market design and technology adoption in highly institutionalized contexts.
Essays on Multi-Dimensional Obviously Regret-Proof Mechanisms
(2020) Lin, Tzu-Yao; Ausubel, Lawrence M; Economics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
This dissertation study strategically simple mechanisms for problems of multi-dimensional allocation. Strategic simplicity is crucial to make mechanisms robust to avoid mistakes and manipulation. However, the current literature on the analysis and implementation of strategically simple mechanisms is limited, especially for markets with many goods and services. This dissertation fills this gap with three complementary but stand-alone chapters. In Chapter 1, we identify and formalize the criteria for strategic simplicity. Then we combine those criteria into a new solution concept and propose a new class of mechanism that satisfies these criteria. In Chapter 2, we analyze the cost of enforcing this new notion of simplicity. In Chapter 3, we show that the new mechanism is a good candidate in an application with substantial welfare implications. The solution concept we propose in Chapter 1 is called obvious regret-proofness (ORP). It describes conditions that regulate both the extensive form of a dynamic game and the communication between the auctioneer and the bidders. Those conditions make sure that there is a simple rule for bidders to determine his best action each time he is called to play. Also, it is easy for the bidder to understand and to verify that he will not regret choosing this action because the optimality of this action does not depend on the choices of other bidders. We then translate those requirements into auction rules and propose a new class of mechanisms called Persistent Exit Descending (PED) mechanisms. Then in Chapter 2, we analyze the cost of pursuing strategic simplicity by implementing the PED mechanism. We first show that for an efficient strategy-proof mechanism, the allocation and payment to a bidder can be dependent on the reports of other bidders. This influence is monotonic and mutual. Therefore, the externality of a bidder’s choice can be internalized. In contrast, the influence in PED implementable mechanisms is restricted once the reports of other bidders exceed some certain thresholds. Moreover, the influence can only be one-sided, which means that if a bidder has influence over the other bidder, only if that bidder cannot influence him. Lacking the channel to influence, the decision of a bidder cannot take into account his externality to other bidders. This is the primary source of welfare loss in a PED mechanism. In Chapter 3, we show that the PED mechanism proposed in Chapter 1 is a good candidate for land assembly problems. It has the properties that most of the land assembly mechanisms in the literature fail to have, but are fundamental to land assembly problems. First, it is strategically simple. Second, its allocation rule is combinatorial. Third, it can assign non-monetary compensations to a bidder. Finally, it fully respects the owners' property rights, and it is ex-post individual rational. We then tailor the PED mechanism to the land assembly problem and apply the analytical framework from Chapter 2 to discuss the advantages and limitations of using the PED mechanism in land assembly problems.
Campaigning Via LPs: Solving Blotto and Beyond
(2019) Seddighin, Saeed; Hajiaghayi, MohammadTaghi; Computer Science; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
The competition between the Republican and the Democrat nominees in the U.S presidential election is known as Colonel Blotto in game theory. In the classical Colonel Blotto game -- introduced by Borel in 1921 -- two colonels simultaneously distribute their troops across multiple battlefields. The outcome of each battlefield is determined by a winner-take-all rule, independently of other battlefields. In the original formulation, the goal of each colonel is to win as many battlefields as possible. The Colonel Blotto game and its extensions have been used in a wide range of applications from political campaigns (exemplified by the U.S presidential election) to marketing campaigns, from (innovative) technology competitions, to sports competitions. For almost a century, there have been persistent efforts for finding the optimal strategies of the Colonel Blotto game, however it was left unanswered whether the optimal strategies are polynomially tractable. In this thesis, we present several algorithms for solving Blotto games in polynomial time and will discuss their applications in practice.

Theses and Dissertations from UMD

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