Email: tamara.l.trafton@vanderbilt.edu

Vanderbilt University

Cell phone: 719-325-9690

Department of Economics

Office phone: 615-322-2410

VU Station B 351819

http://sites.google.com/site/tamaraltrafton/

Nashville, TN 37235

Graduate Education

Vanderbilt University, Department of Economics

Ph.D. Candidate in Economics

Expected completion date: May 2010

Dissertation: “From Fundraising to Fair Trade: An Analysis of the New Face of Charitable Giving”

Thesis Committee and References

Professor Myrna Wooders (Primary Advisor): mryna.wooders@vanderbilt.edu, 615-343-0461

Professor Mikhael Shor: mike.shor@owen.vanderbilt.edu, 615- 343-4334, 615-218-9763 (cell)

Professor James Foster: fosterje@gwu.edu, 202- 994-8195

Professor Tong Li: tong.li@vanderbilt.edu, 615-322-3582

Professor Gregory Huffman (Teaching): gregory.w.huffman@vanderbilt.edu, 615-343-2468

Undergraduate Education

University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, B.A. in Economics, summa cum laude, 2004

Research and Teaching Fields

Primary: Behavioral Economics

Secondary: Experimental Economics, Public Economics, Development Economics

Honors and Fellowships

Social Science Dissertation Fellowship, Vanderbilt College of Arts and Science, 2009-2010

College of Arts and Science Summer Research Award, Vanderbilt, 2008

Harold Sterling Graduate Scholarship, Vanderbilt, 2004-2009

Graduate Fellowship/Assistantship, Vanderbilt Department of Economics, 2004-2009

Household International Research Support Award, Vanderbilt Department of Economics, 2007 and 2008

Rendigs Fels Award for Excellence in Teaching, Vanderbilt Department of Economics, 2006

Outstanding Senior in the Social Sciences and Outstanding Senior in Economics, UCCS, 2004

Colorado Scholars Award, University of Colorado, 2001-2004

Elizabeth Hoffman-Brian Binger Scholarship, UCCS, 2002-2004

Regents’ Scholarship and Chancellor’s Scholarship, University of Colorado, 2000-2001

Teaching Experience

Vanderbilt University, Instructor

Introductory Microeconomics: Summers 2006, 2007, 2009

Economic Statistics: Fall 2007

Vanderbilt University, Teaching Assistant

International Trade and History of Thought: Spring 2009

Intermediate Macroeconomics: Fall 2005, Spring 2007

Graduate Macroeconomics: Spring 2006

University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, Teaching Assistant

Introductory Microeconomics: Spring 2004, Spring 2003

Intermediate Macroeconomics: Spring 2003 

Research Papers

“Shop ‘til Poverty Drops?  Charitable Giving Through Gift Catalogues” [Job Market Paper]

Nonprofit organizations are increasingly offering donors the ability to choose the allocation of their donations through charitable gift catalogues – catalogues containing descriptions, pictures, and prices (in the form of suggested donations) of goods and services these organizations provide to recipients.  Utilizing data from laboratory experiments, I analyze the effects of offering a gift catalogue to potential donors, as well as differentiate between two salient components of a catalogue – choice and prices.  Findings indicate that among students, choice and prices each have a negative effect on giving.  Yet by combining the two components a nonprofit can offer a donor the chance to “purchase” a gift rather than make a donation.  This distinction in mental accounting leads to a positive interaction effect and provides a potential channel through which donations may be increased overall.  However, in this experimental setting, the positive interaction effect does not fully offset the two negatives.  When examining the behavior of a more diverse sample, the overall effect of a charitable gift catalogue is less clear, though choice, prices, and their combination still lead to interesting changes in giving behavior.  The reasons for such findings are analyzed, an intuitive model is provided, and implications are discussed.

“Social Outcome Measurement”

Measurement has long been discussed in the field of Economics with respect to poverty, though many of the measures put forth satisfy desirable properties relevant to social outcome analysis in a variety of settings.  Whether concerned with a firm’s “triple bottom line,” a nonprofit’s social impact, or a government’s sustainable development initiatives, the work of the poverty measurement literature can be adapted to produce quality measures for internal or external audit.  This paper links Alkire and Foster’s (2008) multidimensional poverty measurement approach to the literature on social responsibility and provides examples of both calculation and potential application of this measure to quality analysis broadly defined. 

Work in Progress

“Raising the Stakes without Breaking the Bank” (with Mikhael Shor)

If people overweight the probability of unlikely events as Prospect Theory (1979) would suggest, even a small probability of a large payment may be sufficient to encourage risk behavior similar to that elicited when the probability of payment is one.  If so, then a payment mechanism that utilizes high stakes with a low probability of payment would provide a relatively low-cost, justifiable alternative to a traditional high stakes mechanism while still capturing the risk aversion encouraged by such a mechanism.  We study the possibility of raising the stakes without breaking the bank utilizing the Holt-Laury (2002) instrument. 

“Choice Overload in Medical Decision-Making” (with Tibor Besedes, Cary Deck, Sudipta Sarangi, and Mikhael Shor)

When individuals are faced with numerous choices, the cost of choosing may cause them to refrain from making a choice (Iyengar and Lepper, 2000) or to make a suboptimal choice (Besedes, Deck, Sarangi, and Shor, 2009).  This project examines choice overload in an environment that parallels medical decision-making, particularly with respect to prescription drug plan choice, to examine patterns among suboptimal choices. 

“Retail Charity: The Effects of Bundling Private and Charitable Goods”

Recent years have witnessed a new trend in nonprofit solicitation methods:  the bundling of private and charitable goods.  For example, one can shop at the Hunger Site and donate food while purchasing clothing, or one can donate to World Vision’s Maximum Impact Fund and receive a stuffed animal.  But what are the effects on total giving when private and charitable goods are bundled?  Through experiments, this project will begin to answer that question. 

“A Theory of Warm-Glow Spending”

Many goods on the market today could be classified as social goods – goods that provide consumers with a tangible consumption benefit as well as an intangible warm-and-fuzzy feeling from the knowledge that their production was conducted in a socially responsible manner.  In this project, I will include social goods in a traditional model containing only private and public goods as well as analyze the effects of this inclusion on the consumption of each of the three types of goods. 

Other Research Experience and Employment

Vanderbilt University

Research Assistant for Professor Mikhael Shor, 2008

Research Assistant for Professor Peter Rousseau, 2006

        University of Colorado, Colorado Springs

Primary Researcher on an air travel demand analysis project for the Colorado Springs Airport, 2003

Research Assistant for Professor Thomas Zwirlein and Professor Fred Crowley, Summer & Fall 2002

Research Assistant for Professor Paul Ballantyne, Fall 2002

Professional Activities

Referee

Journal of Economic History

Journal of Public Economic Theory

Presentations of Research

“Shop ‘til Poverty Drops: Charitable Giving Through Gift Catalogues”

        Southern Economic Association Meetings, November 2009 (upcoming)

        Economic Science Association Meetings, November 2009 (upcoming)

        Economic Science Association International Conference, June 2009

“Social Outcome Measurement”

        Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative Workshop, June 2009

“The Populists had a Point?”

        Economic History Association Meetings, poster session, September 2006

“Air Travel Demand Analysis”

        Colorado Springs Airport, November 2003

        Colorado Springs Airport, May 2003