Honours Students Poster

Locking down Exports
Jonah Heyl

Canadian exports dropped by nearly 30 % in March of 2020 before shapely recovering. Which industries were most impacted, and how can the government smooth-out export shocks? To examine the first question, I develop a novel measure of industry complexity based on centrality in inter-industry flows. Using a sample of Canadian export data to all […]

The Impact of the ‘Black Lives Matter’ Protests on the 2020 US Presidential Election
Joyce Law

Can protests lead to political change by influencing voting behaviour in subsequent elections? My thesis examines whether the ‘Black Lives Matter’ (BLM) protests helped the Democratic presidential candidate in the 2020 US election. Using an instrumental variables strategy with rainfall, I find that non-violent BLM protests increased the Democratic vote share in swing states in […]

The Long-Run Impacts of Hurricanes on Educational Attainment in Puerto Rico
Felipe Grosso

Are there long-term negative educational effects that stem from hurricanes? Does living through hurricanes during key educational years (6 to 9 yrs.) entail worse long-term educational outcomes? In my honors thesis, I explore these questions focusing on Puerto Rico, an understudied territory subject to extreme climate risk. I found that, on average, hurricanes have little […]

Sanctuary Policy and Higher Education: Evidence from the United States
Jin Wang

Can sanctuary policy shield Hispanic residents from education interruptions amid uncertainty? From 2007 to 2019, the immigrant community in the U.S. experienced various degrees of tension and hostility due to racial profiling and the political atmosphere, culminating during the 45th presidency. Many states cooperate with federal immigration enforcement agencies (ICE) to identify and deport undocumented […]

Gender Inequality in Working from Home during the COVID-19 pandemic
Jessica Zhong

One of the most obvious impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the labor force is the dramatic increase in employees working remotely. As many nations placed lockdown orders, K-12 schools temporarily shut down, and the children’s education was relocated to the internet. As a result, working parents who worked from home had to care for […]

Internet Access, Campaign Spending, and Election Outcomes: Evidence from Peruvian Municipal Elections
Bruno Belevan

Since 2007, Peru has experienced an exponential and unequal increase in internet infrastructure and connectivity across districts. My research explores the effect of an increase in internet access on the level of competition in municipal elections. I constructed a novel panel data set with electoral, mobile internet infrastructure, and census data from 2010 to 2018. […]

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 Columbia
Yongli 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 […]