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NBA Salary and Race
May 10, 2016
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Diversity in Undergraduate Enrollment and Faculty
According to U.S. Census data, since 1955, the total number of students that attend college had a steady growth. The number of black students who are attending college also steadily increased. The rate of diversity growth spiked around 1993. Hispanic student population growth has a steady increase and slowly caught up to the number of black students due to the rise of hispanic immigration to the U.S. There is a significant increase in minority students from 2005-2014. White students have had a growth very similar to the growth of the total student population. The white student body comprises of more than 70% of the total student population in this study. Some schools that have no minority students in 2005 have incorporated diversity into their enrollment in 9 years. However, comparing these numbers side by side, there is a huge gap between the minority student body compared to the white student body. The data compiled of black and hispanic public and private undergraduate enrollees helps us to have a better understanding of minority faculty ratio to the diversity of undergraduate enrollees. By seeing the decline or the growth of minority students in certain states, universities in states seeing growth can hire a Chief Diversity Officer to ensure relatively good ratios of diversity. Why study diversity? It is important to study the balance of diversity of undergraduate enrollment and diversity in faculty because seeing a fair representation of one’s ethnic minority in university faculty promotes participation because it seems like a college education is more obtainable for minority students who were traditionally “left out” of higher levels of education.
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Link to Tableau Visualizations Mario Chajon
Privatization
May 7, 2016
Privatization is the transfer of ownership, property or business from the government to the private sector. Most schools in the country today are owned by the US. Government. Economically speaking, the market for schools is monopoly based, meaning that most of the market consists of the business owned by the government. The issues with a monopoly is that the seller sets the price where the highest amount of profit is made, causing the business to be inefficient. By creating a bigger private sector in the market for schools, a more competitive market structure would arise. Firms would be competing for profits at the lowest price possible for the customer, forcing the firms to be efficient. Theoretically this would be beneficiary to the school system because privatized schools would act as a competitive market, working efficiently to make profits. To test the efficiency of a school we often look at student test performance and college acceptance rates, which clearly seem to be higher for private schools than for public. In theory of dealing with privatization of schools, efficiency would come from improving the resources of the school. Some of these resources would include the quality of teachers, technology available to the students, and smart learning class rooms. According to the theory of competitive market, an improvement in resources will allow the firm to produce a higher output more efficiently.
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Connecticut State Tax Composition
It is important to understand state tax volatility, especially during a negative economic shock as a recession. Coping with fluctuations in state tax collections has become increasingly important. A decline in total state government tax revenue is expected when a recession hits. Therefore, it is evidenced that there is a negative relationship between recession and state total tax revenue. Is the evidence of the real world consistent with this prediction? If so, which how does this affects each state tax composition? In order to answer these questions we created a Tableau visualization and analyze government revenue data collected for each state in the United States. We broke down the data for each state tax composition and focused on income, sales, property and other taxes. Then, we analyzed trends in the percentage difference in average total taxes from the previous year in each state, as well as, year over year percentage change of each state’s tax composition and made a graphical representation of YOY percentage change of each state’s tax composition (Property Tax, Sales Tax, Income Tax and Other Taxes YOY). By analyzing our tableau illustration and graphs, we used Connecticut’s percentage as an example. We also used Stata to run a regression analyses. By investigating all the state tax composition data, our goal is to discover which of the state sub-taxes has the biggest change during and following a recession.
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NFL Wage Discrimination
The purpose of this study was to determine if there is wage discrimination between NFL athletes of different race. We examined numerous NFL players, both black and white, from multiple positions, their career statistics and their salaries. Using data visualization and regression software, our goal was to use the data to determine if white NFL players are paid more than black NFL players or vice versa. Naturally, different positions call for different salaries, so we broke down our data by position. We gathered data for 40 Quarterbacks, 40 running backs and 50 Wide receivers/Tight Ends, all of whom are actively playing in the NFL. The data collected consisted of many performance statistics, the respective 2015 annual salaries of the players, as well as the players’ race and how many years and games the players have played. After visualizing the data and interpreting multiple regressions, we found no evidence that race plays a determining factor in what a player is paid. However, we did find that certain positions are heavily dominated by a specific race. The exact cause for this is unknown, and can possibly be contributed to multiple factors, and could be a topic of interest for a future project.
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School Finance
May 6, 2016
Income Inequality
The gap in income inequality has widened in light of recessions. Long-term and recent trends in median home income, wealth inequality, change in real wages, and union rates display disparities among the high and low ends of distribution.
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Tolls on Highways
Toll roads are being considered as an alternative form of financing in Connecticut and as a method of revenue generation in the midst of a budget crisis. The current state budget deficit sits at $256 million, and is projected to grow significantly through fiscal 2016-2017. (5) This project will determine the positive and negative impacts and associated construction and maintenance costs. It will also analyze nearby states with similar population, traffic, and highway infrastructure. The results will show that toll road implementation requires significant capital and resources, but is a long-term investment that will eventually turn profitable. In the case of Connecticut, the projections are favorable. Our research indicates that the return on investment for a highway reconstruction project would be approximately 97%. This is an excellent return, but the advantages go much further than simple fiscal benefits. By collecting numerous data sets from various studies, specifically a 2010 study by Robert W. Poole Jr., our paper will prove that an investment in toll infrastructure is highly recommended, despite the ongoing budget concerns plaguing Connecticut.
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