Recently, aid effectiveness has become a popular topic in the literature. Generally, it is measured by instrumental measures of well-being, specifically, GDP per capita. This paper uses a substantive approach, pioneered by Amartya Sen, to evaluate aid effectiveness. Substantive measures attempt to measure welfare directly. Specifically, I use infrastructure as measured by telephone lines per 100 people, life expectancy, economic diversification as measured by agriculture as a percentage of GDP, and education as measured by enrollment in primary school, as substantive measures of well-being.

Bond Vigilantes are bond investors who protest structural government debt by selling bonds, increasing real yields. This increases the costs for government to borrow, allegedly causing a decrease in expenditures and ultimately a decrease in structural deficits. Models are presented which capture this effect, and offer evidence that these mechanisms have occurred over the past 50 years.

Educational equality has been an important and relevant issue in recent years, especially as tuition increases at colleges and universities make it increasingly difficult for low and middleincome families to afford education for their children. There are even more issues of educational equality that come into play once a student matriculates at a chosen school. This paper focuses on this area, expanding on existing literature that details family income’s impact on undergraduate behavior.

This paper examines referee bias in the Major League Soccer (MLS), particularly looking at referees’ decisions regarding penalty kicks. After analyzing the 520 penalty kicks sanctioned since the inception of the MLS, this study ascertains that referees’ display a considerable bias favoring the home team when awarding the initial penalty kick of a game. Additionally, this study demonstrates that in matches with more than one penalty kick, the penalties are disproportionately awarded to each team, suggesting that referees are compensating or atoning for their initial calls.

This paper builds on recent research utilizing real time datasets in order to assess the forecasting utility of consumer sentiment indexes in the United Kingdom. Academic researchers have consistently found that consumer confidence indexes accurately predict consumer spending in the near term. Few of these examinations, however, have utilized out of sample forecasting and only one has incorporated real time data.

Every year the National Football League has a draft selection process to recruit new talent. Despite the overwhelming amount of analysis performed on players, bad draft picks happen every year. Little research has previously been done to determine whether player performance is predictable at the time ofthe NFL Draft. Rafferty and Johnson chartered new territory in 2008 with their study entitled Is the NFL Draft a Crap Shoot? The Case of Wide Receivers.

Firms pay workers using a variety of different pay structures. The structure that governs executive pay in many instances is a tournament pay structure. This paper examines the applicability of a tournament pay structure to lower wage workers by examining the effort and risk responses of players to tournament incentives and the role these responses play in determining the tournament’s outcome. Players from 19 different tournaments are observed on a hand by hand basis. It is found that players adjust effort and risk taking levels but only in response to certain incentives.