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
2020
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Climate Finance and Green Bond Evolution: Informing Policy with Machine Learning Text Analytics August 4, 2020
Explores the evolution of themes associated with climate finance and green bonds to identify opportunities to enhance public-private cooperation and facilitate policymaking.
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Three Essays In Health Policy and Economics: Surprise Out-of-Network Medical Bills and Out-of-Network Health Care Provider Payment in the United States July 16, 2020
Three essays addressing surprise out-of-network medical bills and out-of-network health care provider payment.
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Not All Housing Is Created Equal: A Mixed Methods Analysis of the Well-Being of Adults in Permanent Supportive Housing in Los Angeles County June 19, 2020
Explores the relationship between living environment, subjective well-being and objective well-being outcomes, for a cohort of participants in the Housing for Health's Permanent Supportive Housing program in Los Angeles.
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Public Health and Safety Consequences of Liberalizing Drug Laws: Insights from Cannabis Legalization June 15, 2020
Evaluates past policy changes surrounding national legalization of cannabis and identifies feasible policy responses for contemporary or anticipated issues.
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Fulfilling Clandestiny: Reframing the "Crime-Terror Nexus" by Exploring Conditions of Insurgent and Criminal Organizations' Origins, Incentives, and Strategic Pivots June 15, 2020
Explores the fundamental relationship and underlying incentives that drive criminal and ideological strategies and operations.
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Improving the Air Force Medical Service's Expeditionary Medical Support System: A Simulation Approach: Analysis of Mass-Casualty Combat and Disaster Relief Scenarios June 3, 2020
Uses a simulation tool to analyze the Air Force's Expeditionary Medical Support System to see how it performs, what changes can be made, and the specific impacts on overall patient outcomes for different patient streams.
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The Unforeseen Consequences of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on Society: A Systematic Review of Regulatory Gaps Generated by AI in the U.S. June 2, 2020
Explores how artificial intelligence (AI) influences U.S. public policy, what gaps exist due to AI methods and applications and examines what trends and insights are emerging that can help stakeholders plan for the future.
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Building Better Games for National Security Policy Analysis: Towards a Social Scientific Approach April 7, 2020
Proposes an approach to game design grounded in logics of inquiry from the social sciences.
2019
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Promotion, Turnover and Satisfaction in the Army Civilian Workforce: An Analysis of Features of Occupation Ladders and Employee Perspectives of the Work Environment December 27, 2019
Explores the relationships between promotion, turnover, employee satisfaction, and the positioning and movement of people in an occupation.
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Taxpayers' Misperceptions and Two Novel Behavioral Interventions to Counter Tax Evasion December 27, 2019
Explores intervention opportunities for tax evasion, focusing on the behavioral aspects of tax evasion, specifically, on perceptions about tax evasion and key elements of the U.S. federal tax system.
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People First: Improving Equitability of Air Force Recruiting Operations December 24, 2019
Explores concerns at the Air Force Recruiting Service regarding an imbalance in workloads among their enlisted accessions recruiters, which could negatively influence both recruiter morale and aggregate production of high-quality recruits.
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A Need for Speed? Identifying the Effects of Space Acquisition Timelines on Space Deterrence and Conflict Outcomes December 24, 2019
Investigates the link between acquisition timelines and space conflict using a mixed-methods approach of game-theoretic modeling and case study analysis.
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Indian Summer: Three Essays on Heatwave Vulnerability, Estimation and Adaptation December 23, 2019
Explores how future heatwaves in India may vary over time and geography and estimate the impact they might have on mortality.
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Mainland Strikes and U.S. Military Strategy Towards China: Historical Cases, Interviews, and a Scenario-Based Survey of American National Security Elites December 20, 2019
Presents three complementary research approaches focused on investigating the willingness of an American president and his advisors to authorize conventional strikes on the Chinese mainland during wartime.
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Understanding Home and Community-Based Long-Term Services and Supports: An Evaluation of Medicaid's Balancing Incentive Program September 24, 2019
Explores home and community-based services as a way to curb long-term services and supports spending growth through an evaluation of Medicaid's most recent rebalancing effort — the Balancing Incentive Program.
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Three Essays on Minority and Immigrant Outcomes in a New Era of Immigration Enforcement: Evidence from Los Angeles September 13, 2019
Seeks to disentangle the structural factors that affect levels of economic and social integration of minority and immigrant populations.
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The Criminal Justice System and More Lenient Drug Policy: Three Case Studies on California's Changes to How Its Criminal Justice System Addresses Drug Use April 15, 2019
Explores California's recent liberal policies, mostly associated to drug-related crimes, to provide implications for future policymaking.
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Three Essays on Health Financing in Sub-Saharan Africa: Health Shocks, Health Insurance Uptake, and Financial Risk Protection April 12, 2019
Series of three essays on health financing in Sub-Saharan Africa using quantitative and comparative case study methods.
2018
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Three Essays in Health Economics: Towards Alternative Payment Models for High-Value, High-Cost Medical Treatments December 17, 2018
Tests how two different payment models could help address the uncertainty about clinical benefits and the high upfront cost of some emerging therapies.
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Improving Health Decisions and Outcomes for Chronic Diseases: The Impact of Incentives and Information October 11, 2018
Assesses the impact of policies designed to address the treatment and prevention of chronic using a range of causal inference and quantitative methods.
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Three Essays on Economic Growth and Human Welfare October 11, 2018
Examines the influence of macroeconomic factors on individual welfare.
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Preventing Deviations from Presidential Term Limits in Low- and Middle-Income Democracies October 11, 2018
Examines the broader theme of deviations from presidential term limits.
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Ammonia Emissions from Industrial Hog Farming: Efficacy of Voluntary Control Strategies October 1, 2018
This dissertation explores the externality of ammonia emissions from the Iowa hog industry and investigates the possible impact of voluntary environmental policies to encourage ammonia control technology adoption.
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Long-Term Effects of Wartime Sexual Violence on Women and Families: The Case of Northern Uganda September 21, 2018
This dissertation studies the enduring effects of wartime sexual violence on Ugandan women and explore its ripple effects on families.
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Treatment Not Custody: Process and Impact Evaluation of the Santa Monica Homeless Community Court September 18, 2018
This dissertation is a process and impact evaluation of the Santa Monica Homeless Community Court.