All Pardee RAND students complete a policy-relevant dissertation aimed at tackling the most pressing policy issues facing the world. Many Pardee RAND dissertations are partially- or fully-funded through endowed dissertation awards and other prizes.
Using secondary data from a performance-based financing project in health facilities, this dissertation examines the concept of work satisfaction among health workers in Bénin.
This study explores the factors that lead to a political leader in Afghanistan being defined as "good," "strong," or "popular" — as well as what needs to be done to improve political leadership for future generations.
Develops a framework to categorize observable signatures, formulate a judgement on whether long-term deception is taking place, and propose additional areas of collection that may yield evidence of in research and development.
This dissertation examines the role of the food environment on sugar-sweetened beverage consumption, describes public opinion toward different nutrition policies, and offers recommendations on how to improve diet and health.
Explores new methods to the study of international technological change and climate policy providing useful insights that can be used for designing a robust architecture of international technological cooperation for climate change mitigation.
Uses a dataset that covers inpatient hospital admissions of a population of commercially insured patients under age 65 from California during 2003-2012, this dissertation makes contributions to the knowledge gap in the literature.
Builds a teenage labor market model and presents evidence regarding five different hypotheses for the decline in employment of 16-19 year olds from 2000 to 2013.
Uses a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods to analyze teacher hiring practices.
Addresses the top five constraints inhibiting the development of the labor markets and the private sector in Burma.
Examines the respective effects on costs and readiness of existing and potential MC-130 aircrew continuation training policies.
Develops a methodology and tool that will allow installation commanders and energy managers the ability to evaluate the cost and effectiveness of various energy investment options.
Addresses the issue of standoff capacity in anti-access/area denial environments using a cost-effectiveness methodology.
Seeks to find ways in which post-traumatic stress disorder treatment utilization and adherence can be improved among servicemembers and veterans.
Examines the feasibility of adopting agricultural unmanned aerial systems in Africa.
Examines how exposure to change talk (CT) during motivational interviewing intervention is related to client behavior change among homeless young adults and how exposure to CT and is related to both substance use and sexual risk behavior outcomes.
Presents three case studies of school districts in California that are working to reform their teacher evaluation policies.
Three essays each of which explores a different perspective on public school district staff turnover.
Three essays that will help policymakers decide who, how and why to test and treat for latent tuberculosis disease infection.
Examines the past, present, and future of end-of-life care in order to shed light on the most effective ways to organize and deliver it.
Explores the steps in the decision-making process higher education institutions go through when establishing an international branch campus and key factors used to evaluate the potential campus.
Uses a variety of social science research methods to explore the use of conflict prevention, cessation, and recovery interventions.
Explores the role of social relationships in the transmission and prevention of HIV among marginalized populations.
Provides a comprehensive Airline Transport Pilot (ATP) supply and demand model and then assesses the current and future ATP supply and demand pipeline, to include the impact on the U.S. military pilot population.
Examines how Robust Decision Making can provide decision support to natural resource planners as they create, evaluate, and deliberate about adaptive strategies.
Provides a perspective on valuing the total monetary cost and the operational monetary and nonmonetary benefits of international pilot training that have not been explored previously.
