Does Artificial Night Light Deter Crime as Well as Natural Daylight? A Test Using Daylight Saving Time (DST) Caroline Luo
Criminals prefer to do their work when it is dark. Therefore both natural daylight and artificial night light could deter potential offenders by increasing the risk that they will be caught. Are the two sources of light substitutes in crime deterrence? My thesis revisits the effect of light on crime by pairing detailed data on […]
The effect of strengthening common law marriage in British ColumbiaYongli Shi
In 2013 B.C. moved the property rights of common law spouses closer to those of married couples. My thesis estimates how this increase in property rights affected people’s choice of marital status in B.C. I use both difference in differences and event study methods to measure the policy effect. I found that couples were less […]
The Politics of Disaster Relief Jaycee Tolentino
Do political considerations influence federal assistance in emergencies? In the United States, the president decides which requests for federal disaster relief are granted or denied. In my honours thesis, I studied whether a humanitarian institution, natural disaster relief, was vulnerable to politicization. I constructed a rich dataset of major weather events and federal disaster […]
Does enhanced illegal immigration enforcement affect the employment of legal migrant workers? Sari Wang
My thesis examines how enhancing enforcement against unauthorized immigration in the United States impacts the employment patterns of legal migrant workers in undocumented labour intensive sectors. I focused upon a case study of the effects of Arizona Senate Bill 1070 on the hiring of H-2A temporary visa workers in agriculture. Using a data-driven approach […]
The effect of the 2013 selective two-child policy on female employment in China Abby Bu
Previous research has shown particularly high life-time childrearing costs for professional women. These costs are a particular problem in developing countries where offsetting government subsidies and regulations are not yet in place. In 2013, China amended its family planning policy to allow some couples to have a second child. I use this natural experiment […]
Who pays for funding cuts? The effect of provincial funding on tuition fees Lindsay Wang
There is a trend of declining real provincial appropriation income and increasing tuition revenues in Canadian post-secondary institutions. This research asks: How does a real funding cut influence the tuition fees paid by different types of students? It also takes the domestic tuition freeze policy effect into consideration. I divide all Canadian higher education institutions […]
Does membership come with privileges? The effect of ETFs on firm value Raphaël Grach
Exchange traded funds (ETFs) are in line to become the next big hit on financial markets. ETFs are a specific category of financial instruments that aim at replicating the performance of an underlying basket of securities. Since they are relatively new, ETFs are met with growing enthusiasm in both academia and in the financial world […]
Does more generous income assistance discourage work? Evidence from Canada Yutong Lu
Policy makers often fear high social assistance benefit levels will have negative employment and labor force participation effects. However, do these negative effects actually exist, and if so, how big are they? My thesis uses new detailed data on social assistance benefit rules and changes across Canada to estimate the effects of social assistance […]