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.
Dissertations by Date
2008
-
Life, Livelihood, and Long Term Well-being: The Effect of Mortality Risks and Land Reforms on Human Capital Investments in India June 13, 2008
Evaluates factors including household preferences, resource constraints, and background factors such as risks and economic shocks in determining childhood investments in rural India.
-
Three Papers in International Health Policy: Modeling the Links Between Economics and Epidemiology June 2, 2008
Discusses the benefits of linking epidemiological modeling with international health resource allocation decisions and examines experimental models of influenza outbreak and antiretroviral policy in India.
-
An Examination of the Relationship Between Usage and Operating and Support Costs for Air Force Aircraft April 10, 2008
Examines the relationship between operating and support costs and usage of Air Force aircraft, in order to improve resource allocation.
-
Essays on Environmental Determinants of Health Behaviors and Outcomes March 17, 2008
The four essays in this dissertation examine alcohol and food environments in relation to excessive drinking among adolescents and adults, weight gain trends among sociodemograhic groups, and the effect of retail food establishments on obesity.
-
Hazard Abatement as a Function of Firm Size: The Effects of Internal Firm Characteristics and External Incentives March 2, 2008
Through surveys and analysis, the author examines which factors influence firms to manage hazards in the workplace. The author finds that the likelihood of hazard abatement actions increases with firm size and industry risk levels.
2007
-
The Role of Public and Private Litigation in the Enforcement of Securities Laws in the United States September 19, 2007
The author conducted a broad, empirical study of the overlapping public and private mechanisms that enforce federal securities laws, and analyzed corporate governance reforms that litigators have required defendant firms to adopt.
-
Getting the Policies Right: The Prioritization and Sequencing of Policies in Post-Conflict Countries September 3, 2007
Examines how to prioritize and sequence political, social, and economic policies in post-conflict countries to sustain peace and reduce the risk of violence reoccurring.
-
Improving Decision-making Systems for Decentralized Primary Education Delivery in Pakistan August 21, 2007
Investigates the design and implementation of General Pervaiz Musharraf's avowed decentralization initiative.
-
A Good Start in Life: Revisiting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Outcomes At and After Birth August 21, 2007
Develops a method to assess racial and ethnic disparities in birth outcomes and shows that the importance of risk factors and birth outcome measures varies by race/ethnicity, gender, and time.
-
Developing a Safety Net for Ukraine August 19, 2007
Explores issues of development of social safety nets in countries in transition and looks at whether reducing social security expenditures to stimulate economic growth policy is an effective way to combat poverty in such countries.
-
From the Outside In: Shaping the International Criminal Court August 14, 2007
Assess current U.S. policy regarding the International Criminal Court and discusses the effectiveness of other, perhaps more robust, policies.
-
Accelerating the Adoption of Clinical IT Among the Healthcare Providers in US: Strategies & Policies June 18, 2007
Analyzes the process of adopting clinical health information technology in hospitals and healthcare systems and derives policy strategies that could promote nationwide adoption.
-
Private Firms Working in the Public Interest: Is the Financial Statement Audit Broken? June 17, 2007
Explores the root causes of recent accounting scandals and develops a model that suggests there may well be socially suboptimal levels of audit intensity, even among the best audit firms.
-
Overcoming the ''Resource Curse'': Prioritizing Policy Interventions in Countries with Large Extractive Industries June 14, 2007
Develops guidelines regarding the design and management of policies to mitigate the political and economic risks that often accompany natural resource windfalls in less-developed countries.
-
Confronting the Challenges of Student Engagement: A Case Study of a School-Based Intervention June 4, 2007
Evaluates the influence of a cross-age tutoring program on intermediate student engagement outcomes, including attendance, school attitudes, disciplinary issues, and achievement (e.g., grades, standardized test scores).
-
Carry That Weight: Improving European Strategic Airlift Capabilities June 4, 2007
Addresses the shortfall between the strategic airlift capabilities that the European Union needs to fulfill its ambition to be a credible security actor and the capabilities available to the major European nations.
-
Agrarian Households in Semi-Arid Tropics: Evaluating Policy Options May 24, 2007
This paper identifies which interventions succeed most in preserving smallholders' household wealth. The livestock intervention is the most cost-effective one, and the employment guarantee scheme provides substantial asset protection.
-
Robust Decisions and Deep Uncertainty: An Application of Real Options to Public and Private Investment in Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies February 27, 2007
This dissertation assesses the prospects for private-sector investment in hydrogen and fuel cell technologies using an innovative application of real options analysis. Its goal is to identify investment strategies that are robust against alternative futures and to assess the trade-offs of various policy instruments.
-
Navigating the Information Revolution: Choices for Laggard Countries February 20, 2007
The information revolution (IR) has been uneven, resulting in a “digital divide.” Lagging countries need the means to move ahead if they are to access the benefits that IR offers and not suffer the consequences of being left out. This analysis develops a road map for policymakers in lagging countries and discusses specific tools to understand what drives the information revolution.
-
RFID in the Retail Sector: A Methodology for Analysis of Policy Proposals and Their Implications for Privacy, Economic Efficiency and Security February 16, 2007
There has been considerable policy discussion about the use of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), a low cost and potentially covert method of remotely retrieving stored information, especially in the retail sector. The author constructs a qualitative framework for analyzing these policies and develops a simple economic model showing that all the assessed policies involve substantial tradeoffs in firms’ and individual behaviors.
-
Balancing Two Lives: The Relationship of Activation, Pay, and Retention Among U.S. Air Force Reserve Pilots January 31, 2007
This dissertation analyzes whether the increased activation of reserve pilots negatively affects their earnings and retention rates. The author develops a theoretical model for how an individual might behave when choosing between reserve activation time and civilian employment opportunities. The insights from this model provide the basis for two empirical analyses. The results of both analyses suggest that positive income and retention impacts are associated with increased activation service.
-
Incorporating Traffic Enforcement Racial Profiling Analyses into Police Department Early Intervention Systems January 26, 2007
There is a growing interest in estimating the use of racial profiling at the officer level and incorporating the results into Early Intervention (EI) systems that can identify potential problem officers. This study summarizes the key implications of incorporating racial profiling analyses into an EI system and improves upon existing methods that estimate the use of race in stop, search, and DUI arrest decisions.
2006
-
An International Comparison of Obesity in Older Adults: Effects and Risk Factors November 16, 2006
Drawing from nationally representative samples of the non-institutionalized populations ages 50 and above in ten European countries, this dissertation examines two issues related to obesity in older Europeans: effects of excessive body weight on health, utilization of medical care, and labor force participation; and risk factors for obesity and environmental and societal variation across European countries.
-
Aircraft Modifications: Assessing the Current State of Air Force Aircraft Modifications and the Implications for Future Military Capability November 1, 2006
This dissertation describes the current complex Air Force aircraft modification policy in a succinct yet thorough manner, and uses this understanding to direct a quantitative analysis in an attempt to refine future policy to better serve Air Force needs.
-
Assessing the Effects of Parental Decisions About School Type and Involvement on Early Elementary Education October 31, 2006
This study examines how school choice and greater parental involvement affect elementary-level student achievement. The author found that academic expectations by parents for their children and children’s reading at home both have robust correlations with reading and math scores, but active school involvement by parents has no correlation with reading scores and very little association with math scores.