Wharton Research Scholars

Wharton Research Scholars is an intensive one-year research program for a select group of students who are interested in conducting research under the supervision of some of Wharton’s preeminent faculty members. As part of the program, participants complete an honors thesis.

 

 

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Now showing 1 - 10 of 237
  • Publication
    Neighborhood Loyalty or Neighborhood Entrapment? Explaining Unmeasured Sources of Reduced Geographic Mobility
    (2019-05-01) Mishra, Prakash
    This paper develops a simple self-selection utility model for leaving a neighborhood. This opens the door for a simple reduced form approach that leverages a hierarchical Bayesian model to obtain an annualized latent push and pull factor for each neighborhood. Posterior analysis indicates that common predictors of neighborhood quality and inputs to classical utility functions systematically under-predict the number of people who stay in a neighborhood. Such underprediction of out-migration can either be viewed as an unexplained variation due to neighborhood \loyalty" or as financial barriers to mobility. I isolate this residual, referred to as an \inertia," isolated using a quasi-experimental matching method that uses variation in push factor to isolate eects on pull factors. I show the inertia measure can be explained by measures of financial access including distance to a bank branch, local rates of second mortgage, and redevelopment certifications. The residual from these financial measures is shown to correlate with existence of anchor institutions like charter schools. This methodology creates a robust measure of not only the local push- and pull-factors by neighborhood, but also is suggestive of an economic approach to appraising local community strength.
  • Publication
    The Nonprofit Sector: Examining the Paths and Pathways to Leadership Development
    (2008-05-10) Jiang, Lisa
    A changing nonprofit environment, stronger demands for nonprofit services and an impending leadership deficit has caused the nonprofit sector to place an even greater emphasis on leadership and leadership development. This research examines the changes in the sector and the skills required of leaders to adapt to these changes. Interviews with current nonprofit leaders, aspiring leaders and directors of nonprofit management programs shed light on the trends in leadership development, the challenges and opportunities, and recommendations for the sector. Aspiring nonprofit leaders, universities and nonprofit organizations can all play a role in ensuring the future success of the nonprofit sector by developing quality leaders.
  • Publication
    War and Peace in International Islamic Finance
    (2010-05-01) Wang, Shawn
    Islamic Finance is more than an asset class – it is a way of life lived by 1.6 billion Muslims around the world. But its reach goes even further – non-Islamic countries, governments, and businesses, have all invested in or issued Islamic securities for one reason or another. With the ongoing push of globalization of trade and finance, Islamic financial flows, long a localized phenomenon, have become international. The rise of Islamic Finance transactions between the Islamic and Non-Islamic worlds has led to peace between civilizations and war within civilizations. The Islamic and Non-Islamic world are becoming increasingly interdependent and reliant, while within these worlds intense competition and infighting is ensuing – so-called "internecine fights" – in order to see who can be the friendliest to the alien culture while somewhat staying true to their own. Islam has never been particularly united, with Islamic jurisdictions disagreeing and sometimes downright contradicting each other interpreting the same verses of the Quran, but the strains are becoming particularly visible as international flows of money get increasingly diverted to Islamic investments and securities. Islamic Finance is unavoidably prone to conflict. In the non-Islamic world, the appearance of such an abundance of foreign wealth seeking a home has led to an intense competition to play host – with countries slashing tax rates and courting investors in a beggar-thy-neighbor race. This paper examines the rise of International Islamic Finance and discusses how conventional Islamic finance theory is ill-suited to the realities of the global Islamic landscape. Specifically, there is not enough attention paid to the possible areas of conflict that arise in interpretations of Islamic law that pertain to financial transactions. It then looks at examples of how practical issues in Islamic Finance are exposing conflict areas between Islamic and non-Islamic players, but perversely, is building cooperation and understanding between the worlds.
  • Publication
    Implications of an Assigned Devil's Advocate Role in a Negotiations Context
    (2018-01-01) Kasi, Nithya
    This paper seeks to examine the implications of an assigned devil’s advocate role on group dynamics such as group trust, cohesion, and accuracy. 148 participants were recruited through the Wharton Behavioral Lab and randomly assigned to a group of four, either with or without an assigned devil’s advocate. Individually, participants prepared a Lost at Sea survival task. Then, each group was tasked with coming up with a single group solution as preparation for a negotiation against another group, with the assigned devil’s advocates acting as such. The participants then individually reported on perceived group trust and cohesion. This study found that assigned devil’s advocacy has significant effects on group cohesion and accuracy, with the presence of devil’s advocates lowering reported group cohesion levels but enhancing accuracy of group solutions, with no significant impact on reported trust levels. These findings suggest that devil’s advocacy may be more appropriate for one-time group interactions, as opposed to ongoing relationships.
  • Publication
    Vaccine Companies Versus the Retail Investor
    (2021-01-01) Tian, Stephanie
    The price reactions of COVID-19 vaccine development candidate companies are examined in order to explain how prices behave in highly-publicized scenarios and how retail investors are impacted. Findings indicate that retail investors were susceptible to inappropriate timing of the market and sustained losses on average. Various methods of prior analysis and their limitations are introduced including observation of trading volume makeup, event-themed reactions, and financial statement extraction that may guide subsequent navigation of volatile trading landscapes. Portfolio methods of mitigating losses due to lack of information or misinformation are also explained.
  • Publication
    Modeling Discrete-Time Transactions Using the BG/BB Model
    (2008-05-01) Zhang, Harvey Yang
    For a business, it's important to know the repeat purchasing behavior of an existing customer. However, in a non-contractual setting, businesses cannot easily observe whether a customer is still active. The Beta-Geometric/Beta Binomial (BG/BB) model developed by Fader and Hardie in 2004 serves as a natural framework to model these types of behaviors. We further evaluate the BG/BB model by applying two different versions of the model to a dataset of 1975 customers over a period of 16 years to evaluate the predictive abilities of the BG/BB, and compares it with the Binary Logistic Regression model to determine whether the BG/BB model can give accurate forecasts over a long period of time.
  • Publication
    The Oil Sensitivity of Pension Fund Returns
    (2023-01-01) Kim, Sumin
    Admist widespread debate on the necessity for pension fund oil divestments, I show that U.S. public pension fund returns are positively correlated with crude oil returns. I shed light on alternative options to divestment as funds tend to hold relatively smaller positions in oil-sensitive investment and carbon offset prices may not be as costly as anticipated. My evidence on the California Public State Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) reveals that costs for offsetting carbon exposure can be as low as US$10.71 in the case of small cap oil investments. This draws attention to the fact that divestment is not the only method through which pension funds can mitigate climate risk. These results imply that comprehending their exposure and sensitivity to oil returns is a vital task for U.S. public pension funds to best react to the calls for oil divestment while safeguarding their fiduciary duty to produce stable, low risk returns.
  • Publication
    Enterprise Risk Management in Government-Affiliated Organizations
    (2020-01-01) Staso, Beau
    The development of enterprise risk management (ERM) has led organizations to adopt an integrated approach to risk management that aims to recognize risks as both opportunities and threats and focus on optimizing their risk. This paper compares ERM implementation in firms that are government-affiliated and those that are not, finding that publicly affiliated organizations on average are less prepared to appropriately manage risk and seize opportunities related to their objectives. This study also finds that there are significant differences in ERM implementation between industries, firms that face competition are associated with higher risk maturity whether government-affiliated or not, and government entities on average have lower risk maturity.
  • Publication
    How Fast Will Jet Fuel Consumption Rise?
    (2017-01-01) Lo, Erin
    Jet fuel consumption accounts for a growing amount of greenhouse gas emissions and continues to rise with globalization. Due to its increasing share of greenhouse gas emissions, aviation has been thrust into the spotlight as an industry with the potential to abate carbon emissions. Despite collaborative intentions, many countries cannot come to an agreement for aviation standards and greenhouse gas reduction targets. In projecting jet fuel consumption levels in 2030 and 2050, I hope to create the basis upon which discussions for setting jet fuel consumption policy can begin. I use data on oil prices, income per capita, and population to create a model to estimate expected jet fuel consumption while accounting for various stages in economic development. I find that income elasticities for jet fuel consumption are highest in the poorest countries, with the most inelastic demand occurring in the 7,000 to 15,000 GDP per capita range. My research predicts jet fuel consumption levels in 2030 and 2050 will be 39.65% and 95.06% greater than 2013 jet fuel consumption levels, respectively.
  • Publication
    Maximizing and Satisficing in Decision-Making Dyads
    (2013-12-29) Peng, Starry