By Wesley Cash The recent proliferation of Chinese foreign aid in Africa has raised many concerns about China’s potentially exploitative economic and political intentions. This paper empirically tests the effectiveness of Chinese foreign aid by measuring its effect on child labor participation in developing countries. Using a difference-in-differences-like identification strategy at the subnational level, I Read More
Riding with Charlie: Public Transportation Policy and its Impact on Businesses and Road Safety in Massachusetts
By Pedro Farias Can public transportation help local businesses and save lives and costs? My thesis seeks to understand this dual question by considering a natural experiment in Boston. From March 2014 to March 2016, the MBTA expanded public transportation service on weekends from 12:30am to 2:30am for certain routes. With data on MBTA service, Read More
Changing Climate, Changing Behavior: Evaluating the Impact of Observability and Framing on Carbon Offset Donations
By Anli Chen Climate change is an urgent global issue that requires collective effort from organizations and individuals alike to overcome. Carbon offsets, while an imperfect solution, are one of the most high-impact and low-barrier ways every individual can contribute. Yet, they are relatively unknown and extremely underutilized. My behavioral economics thesis tackles that challenge Read More