All Pardee RAND students complete a policy-relevant dissertation aimed at tackling the most pressing policy issues facing the world.
Learn moreMany Pardee RAND dissertations are partially or fully funded through endowed dissertation awards and other prizes.
Learn moreExplores the U.S. capability to handle the Arctic Search and Rescue (SAR) Agreement, a landmark treaty that gives the U.S. responsibility for conducting SAR in a slice of territory that surrounds Alaska and stretches to the North Pole.
Explores the extent of a possible retirement wave within the Air Force civilian workforce and which areas are most likely to be affected.
Examines the U.S. defense acquisition workforce growth initiative and estimates how it has influenced overall cohort-level retention rates.
Examines conversations and attitudes about mental health in Twitter discourse.
Three essays exploring large discrepancies between different panel datasets of cross-country estimates of gross domestic product.
Addresses a need in the guidance for a rapidly-expanding wellness market.
Explores the competitiveness of India's domestic manufacturing across the supply chain; barriers and enablers to developing a domestic industry; and the cost of industrial policy support.
Offers a prospective analysis of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the anticipated security consequences of climate change.
Addresses American symphony orchestras and the unusual economic challenges they face, which are shared by many performing arts organizations.
Assesses China's past and current efforts towards preventing and controlling air pollution and conducts a mathematical simulation to illustrate the potential effectiveness of the government's proposed Action Plan and consequences of noncompliance.
This dissertation presents the results of three studies that investigate how law enforcement uses electronic surveillance.
Explores arts participation as a means of broader civic and social engagement facilitating immigrants' integration into the United States.
Explores single-payer proposals and estimates health care spending under single-payer alternatives in the United States.
Provides estimates of the number and rate of workplace fatalities for 215 countries from 1989-2013 using data from the International Labor Organization.
Examines how the US Department of Defense acquisition bureaucracy responds to unforeseen conflicts and adversaries by making immediate procurement investments.
Uses a mix of both quantitative and qualitative methods to help policy makers identify sources of innovation in the knowledge-based economy and to best leverage these sources for regional economic growth.
Analyzes determinants of obesity and a cash transfer policy to alleviate poverty and its effects on obesity.
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.
