In an era where college undergraduates are spending five dollars on a cup of coffee and ten dollars on avocado toast, now seems like an appropriate time to reevaluate these questions:
• Are current college undergraduates interested in the idea of saving for retirement?
• Do they have realistic expectations about how much money they need to save in order to live comfortably during retirement?
• Are there differences in expectations between people who are interested in saving for retirement using traditional means and people who are interested in saving for retirement using the extreme-saving FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) method?

This paper examines students’ interest in the idea of saving for retirement through a series of lenses: demographics, financial retirement literacy, and expressed commitment to save for retirement. I hypothesized that traditional retirement expected savers and FIRE expected savers, who correctly answer financial retirement literacy questions, are realistic about how much money they will need to save in order to live comfortably during retirement. To investigate this, a survey was sent out to two ASU Tempe campus business classes; 171 completed responses were analyzed. The statistical analysis of the unfiltered survey results showed three findings, but one finding stood out the most: Students who know what a 401k is (Question 5 in Exhibit 1) are significantly more likely to plan on saving for retirement, when compared to students who don’t know what a 401k is.

When filtering survey results to only show responses from students who know what a 401k is, median responses show that traditional retirement expected savers are somewhat realistic with their retirement savings expectations, while FIRE expected savers are not realistic with their retirement savings expectations.

Ninety-five employees across three market leading Mexican-based corporations were interviewed to empirically evaluate the level of leadership and teamwork found within the organizations. Employees interviewed ranged in hierarchal ranking from upper-management, middle to lower management, and bluecollar positions. Based on the interviews, employees were judged on four essential characteristics of leadership and three essential traits of teamwork. Each element was scored out of five (=1 not exhibited, =2 rarely exhibited, =3 somewhat exhibited, =4 often exhibited, =5 always exhibited) and summed to compose an overall score for each of the values. Leadership and teamwork were defined using globalized oriented standards to compare how Mexican companies would be assessed if they were to enter international competition. The paper finds that high levels of productivity exists even with deficits of leadership and teamwork are present. It concludes that the managerial strategy is successful due to the culturally accepted behaviors of the Mexican society. It proposes that as Mexico continues to become a more globalized nation, the cultural mannerism will directly contradict working philosophies common to developed nations. Additionally, it suggests that if certain cultural practices were eliminated, Mexico would experience faster assimilation into the global market sphere.

The following paper consists of a review of sovereign debt sustainability economics and IMF debt sustainability frameworks, as well as a historical case study of Greece and a variable suggestion for the IMF to improve baseline assumptions. The purpose of this paper is to review the current methodology of perceiving debt and improve upon it in the face of an increasingly indebted global economy. Thus, this paper suggests the IMF adopt the variable calculated in Reinhart and Rogoff (2009) as a new benchmark for determining debt sustainability of market access countries. Through an exploration of the most recent Greek crisis, as well as modern Greek financial and political history, the author of this paper contends the IMF should reduce the broadness of the MAC DSA, as it will make for better debt sustainability projections and assumptions in implementing debt program policy.

Agent Based modeling has been used in computer science to simulate complex phenomena. The introduction of Agent Based Models into the field of economics (Agent Based Computational Economics ACE) is not new, however work on making model environments simpler to design for individuals without a background in computer science or computer engineering is a constantly evolving topic. The issue is a trade off of how much is handled by the framework and how much control the modeler has, as well as what tools exist to allow the user to develop insights from the behavior of the model. The solutions looked at in this thesis are the construction of a simplified grammar for model construction, the design of an economic based library to assist in ACE modeling, and examples of how to construct interactive models.

The situation in the Euro-Zone is fluctuating daily with various efforts to curb the contagion of certain Euro-Zone member states. In the effort to focus on the greater macroeconomic and social impact of the Euro-Zone, this paper concentrates on the history of the Euro-Zone, the causes of the crisis, outlines potential solutions, discusses individual perspectives on the issue, and describes a prediction for the future of the Euro-Zone.

In order to better understand how the national legislative body works, this research examines the factors that influence the level of productivity in the U.S. Congress. By mapping these characteristics into the classical framework of an economic production function, this model serves to produce a more transparent image of the aspects of Members of Congress that are desirable to form a productive legislative body.

Through a literature review, this thesis investigates the United States corporate tax policy and how it relates to U.S. competitiveness. The purpose of this paper is to briefly review the corporate income tax policy in the United States, analyze the impact of the tax rate on the national and international economy, compare the U.S. competitiveness relative to OECD nations, and explore reform proposals. It is found that the U.S. tax policy's complex structure, coupled with its high stated tax rate, diminishes the competitiveness of the U.S., and that the adoption of tax policy reform proposals, such as the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, would promote future growth and ensure that America is a tenacious competitor.

The first section of this thesis covers the welfare state and a brief history of private charity in the United States over the past century, both explaining and describing their growth and decline. The second section outlines the historical evolution of the Food Stamp Program since the John F. Kennedy presidency to SNAP under the Obama administration. The third and final section specifically discusses the current food assistance program called SNAP and the potential reforms that can be made to the governmental program as well as reforms made to encourage private charity.

For the average person, the criminal justice system can be a bureaucratic and confusing process. It is for exactly these reasons, many defendants will choose to spend exorbitant amounts of money to prove their innocence or hide their guilt. Therefore, when thinking from an economic perspective, one begins to wonder whether or not the vast amounts of money allocated to building a legal defense, actually have statistical impact on the outcome of the sentence. Or, if perhaps it is the characteristics of the defendant, the case, or the judge that truly account for the determination of the final verdict.