BUSINESS PROJECT SUMMARIES
SPRING 2025
Christopher Kilby
Economics
裡橖眻畦 School of Business
Together with Professor Simon Hug (University of Geneva) and Joshua Fjelstul (University of Oslo), I have put together a database on United Nations General Assembly decision-making. This is described in our forthcoming article "Decision-Making in the United Nations General Assembly: A Comprehensive Database of Resolution-related Decisions" in the journal The Review of International Organizations. UN voting is used widely in academic and policy research to assess the geopolitical alignment of countries. The older database ours replaces has been downloaded over 100,000 times.
The current database covers 1.2 million votes from 1946 to 2023. We plan to update this database annually to include new UN decisions and to fill in gaps in the existing data. This involves collecting data from UN documents (typically searchable .pdf files) and possibly some limited programming.
The student researcher will enter data for the last complete UN regular session and fill-in missing data from earlier sessions. Most of this involves searching in .pdf files and then copying and pasting into Excel files. There are often judgement calls needed (for example: Is the vote related to a draft resolution or not?) but I will provide detailed instructions to guide these judgements. Basic familiarity with Excel and Word is needed. If any coding is required, I can provide a tutorial. The most critical requirement is attention to detail.
This work is best suited to students with an interest in international politics (e.g., considering a political science or economics major) and those who might be interested in independent research later in their undergraduate career.
Chris Jeffords
Economics
裡橖眻畦 School of Business
The typical approach to teaching supply-and-demand analysis in an introductory economics course involves building the foundation of both sides of the market (e.g., buyers and sellers) as they interact with each other through a transaction. This is extended to include the possibility that the supply and/or demand curves can shift due to a change in some factor(s). For example, a demand curve might increase if folks develop a stronger preference for the product across time. Alternatively, a supply curve might decrease if the costs of production grow across time. These distinct changes have predictable effects on the price of the product and quantity purchased. While this is a useful framework for discussing how different factors within markets will impact transactions, the methodology falls short when students are presented instead with a change in the price of the product, the quantity purchased, or both. While some factors changed, these may be hidden from the presentation for a variety of reasons. I thus propose a new type of analysis called The Equilibrium Crosshairs. By applying the notation of a compass to an updated framework, this approach encompasses the original method, and thus offers students a more robust analytical framework. To further explore the benefits (costs) of this framework over the original, this project has four distinct parts. First, we fully develop the crosshairs under an exhaustive list of circumstances. Second, we create a simple set of analytical exercises to be used as the basis of an experiment on a convenience sample of students in introductory economics courses. Third, (with IRB guidance, of course), we run said experiment on said convenience sample to assess the effectiveness of the crosshairs. Fourth, we maintain a record of the entire process to generate a paper for publication in a general interest teaching economics journal.
Based on the four parts discussed in the project description, the student will generally have the following responsibilities (many of which will be shared with me):
- Researching and formulating specific scenarios that can be analyzed using both the traditional and crosshairs approaches.
- Based on (1), create cogent analytical exercises to be used as the basis of a convenience sample experiment through students in introductory economics courses in VSB and CLAS.
- Communicate with 裡橖眻畦s IRB, and leadership within VSB and CLAS to gain the necessary level of permission(s) to run the experiment(s) developed in (2), and then implement the experiment(s).
- Maintain vigorous and detailed records of parts 1-3 noted above and serve as the lead co-author on a peer-reviewed publication highlighting the teaching pros and cons of the crosshairs approach relative to the pros and cons of the traditional approach.
- It is possible that this project might extend beyond the timeline of the First-Year Match Program. Applicants should be willing to continue working in the lab through the end of 2025 (with stipend).
Kyoung Yong Kim
Management and Operations
裡橖眻畦 School of Business
Employee ownership refers to the ownership of company stock by employees (Sesil et al. 2003, p. 96) and is a widespread management practice in many countries (Kim & Patel, 2024). Scholars of employee ownership posit that it encourages positive employee attitudes (e.g., organizational identification), and behaviors (e.g., group cooperation), ultimately enhancing firm performance and survival (Blasi et al., 1996; Kim & Patel, 2021). Over the past few decades, extensive research has been conducted on the relationship between employee ownership and firm performance, consistently showing a positive association. A recent meta-analysis by O'Boyle and his colleagues (2016), summarizing the findings of over 100 studies, confirmed that employee ownership has a positive impact on firm performance.
Despite significant advances in the employee ownership literature, a key conundrum remains unresolved. Specifically, the issue of self-selection raised by Blasi et al. (1996, p. 62) has not been thoroughly investigated in existing studies. This issue pertains to whether higher-quality employees are more or less attracted to firms with employee ownership plans. Addressing this self-selection issue is critical because it will determine whether firms with employee ownership plans (i.e., ESOP firms) can accumulate higher levels of human capital, which contribute to organizational financial performance. Therefore, in this project, I aim to examine whether and how employees' human capital is associated with firms' employee stock ownership practices. Theorizing and empirically uncovering this relationship would represent a significant theoretical contribution to the literature.
The Match student research assistant will carry out literature searches, design surveys, perform statistical analysis, and conduct data entry. The student will work closely with the research team to design and develop surveys and questionnaires that align with our study objectives. Attention to detail and a good grasp of research methods will be crucial in creating effective survey tools. The student will be responsible for collecting, entering, and maintaining research data in an orderly fashion to ensure data accuracy and accessibility. Although the student may be asked to perform statistical analyses using appropriate software, proficiency in statistical methods is not required, as they will have the opportunity to learn how to use the software.