Digital Commons Network^™

Ethnic Minority Owned And Serving Grocers In Morgantown And Solidarity Economies, Bane B. Clements-Smart, Rissell L. Velarde Vila, Cameron G. Rishworth

Undergraduate Scholarship

This project sought to build off previous research within the Center for Resilient Communities on grocers and solidarity economies, by learning about grocers owned by minority ethnic groups and that serve minority ethnic groups through offering products for cuisines and cooking unavailable through large, mainstream grocery chains such as Walmart, Kroger, or Giant Eagle. These stores also offer a cultural space where people from minority ethnic groups can connect and build community through a sense of home and familiarity provided by these spaces, not easily found elsewhere in Morgantown.

Techno-Economic Analysis And Optimization Of Hydrogen And Mechanical Energy Storage Systems, Pavitra Senthamilselvan Sengalani

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

The increasing significance of renewable energy sources is thrusting the load cycling of fossil-fueled power plants (FFPP), designed to operate under nominal-load conditions. Integration of energy storage systems (ESS) with the FFPPs such as hydrogen energy storage (HES) and mechanical energy storage facility such as compressed air energy storage (CAES) shows the potential to minimize the levelized cost of electricity during high demand scenarios and also minimize the negative impacts of off-design FFPP operation. The deployment of energy storage facilities at the FFPP level have considerable potential advantages as they can be exploited within the existing equipment items and facilities …

Non-Monetary Economies: A Study On Different Governing Principles, Richard Perry Vest Ii

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This thesis examines a new economic system with a focus on non-monetary (primarily automation) aspects. Currency has been used in exchange for goods and services and this exchange has often resulted in benefits gained by any given individual. What if that wasn’t the case? How might society function if it was not influenced by currency? This thesis explores this hypothetical concept of an economy without currency with a focus given to automation. Using utility and production functions, discussion is given on how supply and demand functions behave in a non-monetary economy, how governing policy could be handled, and how society …

Recalling The Georgic: Land, Labor, And Literature In American Ecological Consciousness, Sam Horrocks

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This dissertation argues that environmentalism and the environmental humanities are limited by an overinvestment in the discursive mode of pastoral, which provides the ecological logic of industrial urbanization by viewing the environment from the perspective of a leisured and alienated spectator. The pastoral mode enables environmental injustice by separating the realms of ecology and economy through a conventional elision of issues of labor and economics, rendering environmentalism unable to effect change within the spheres most important to ameliorating the pollution crisis. The pastoral mode thus frustrates the overarching goal of ecocriticism and environmentalism: we seek an ontological reunion of nature …

Evaluation Of Process And Economic Feasibility Of Implementing A Topping Cycle Cogeneration System, Unique Karki

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Industrial applications that require steam for their end-uses generally utilize steam boilers that are at higher size than what is typically required. Similarly, gas turbine-based power plants corroborate the gas turbine system and eventually relieve the exhaust into the atmosphere. These facilities include food, paper, chemicals, refining, and primary metal manufacturing industries. This research focuses on the scope of a topping cycle combined heat and power (CHP) system by pushing the load on the boiler to a higher limit, or a gas turbine operation in place of a boiler system for a topping cycle CHP and its economic feasibility by …

Appalachian Economic Futures, Dewayne Barton, John Deskins, Paul Corbit Brown, William Hal Gorby, Jill Moles Mullins, Nicholas F. Stump, Matt Winans, Brenden E. Mcneil, Eloise Elliott, Chris Haddox, E Gordon Gee, Eddie Brzostek, Audra Slocum, Trevor Mckenzie, Tom Hansell

Exhibit Panels

When people talk about the future of Appalachia, they typically mean economic futures: What will happen to coal jobs? How will Appalachia diversify its economy? What about poverty? Stereotypes about our region represent our people as disinterested in education, and hostile to innovation, technology, and sustainability. We see a different story. This part of the exhibit looks at ways that Appalachians are taking their strong sense of culture, their linguistic distinctiveness, and their relationship to the natural world to imagine new futures in diverse industries, sustainable practices, and stronger education systems.

A Data Envelopment Analysis Of West Virginia School Districts, Eduardo Minuci, Amir B. Ferreira Neto, Joshua Hall

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

West Virginia schools are consistently below the national average on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Using Data Envelopment Analysis, we estimate the technical efficiency of West Virginia school districts. We find less variation in technical efficiency in West Virginia than in similar studies conducted in other states. This appears to be because of state policy imposing homogeneity of input usage. Due to the limited variation in technical efficiency across districts, we cannot analyze how non-school inputs such as socioeconomic factors affect technical efficiency across districts. Summary statistics organized by county economic status, however, suggest that socioeconomic status plays a …

Intravenous Thrombolysis Before Endovascular Therapy For Large Vessel Strokes Can Lead To Significantly Higher Hospital Costs Without Improving Outcomes, Ansaar T. Rai, Sohyun Boo, Chelsea Buseman, Amelia K. Adcock, Abdul R. Tarabishy, Maurice M. Miller, Thomas D. Roberts, Jennifer R. Domico, Jeffrey S. Carpenter

Clinical and Translational Science Institute

Background Limited efficacy of IV recombinant tissue plasminogen activator (rt-PA) for large vessel occlusions (LVO) raises doubts about its utility prior to endovascular therapy. Purpose To compare outcomes and hospital costs for anterior circulation LVOs (middle cerebral artery, internal carotid artery terminus (ICA-T)) treated with either primary endovascular therapy alone (EV-Only) or bridging therapy (IV+EV)). Methods A single-center retrospective analysis was performed. Clinical and demographic data were collected prospectively and relevant cost data were obtained for each patient in the study. Results 90 consecutive patients were divided into EV-Only (n=52) and IV+EV (n=38) groups. There was no difference in demographics, …

Wildlife Economics The Significance Of Economic Impacts Of Wildlife Associated Activities, Caleb Anthony Stair

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

No abstract provided.

Evaluating Crime As A Negative Externality Of Hosting Mega-Events: Econometric Analysis Of The 2012 London Summer Olympics, Nicholas Le

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

Analysis of the benefits and the drawbacks of hosting large-scale sporting events like the Olympics or World Cup frequently ignore the effects of crime due to its relatively small economic impact in comparison to employment and consumption effects. Literature has frequently tied sporting events and tourism to crime, in addition to observing proximity effects on crime during sporting events. This research seeks to confirm both by implementing a difference-in-difference regression that can show whether crime increased during the Olympics, in particular in London boroughs which hosted venues for the Games. Ultimately, the research concludes that crime in London as a …

Development And Evaluation Of An Economic Model For A Libyan Oil Field Development With An Epsa Agreement, Mohamed S Benzeglam

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

No abstract provided.

Why The U.S. Coal Industry And Its Jobs Are Not Coming Back, James M. Van Nostrand

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Adaptive Economic And Ecological Forest Management Under Risk, Joseph Buongiorno, Mo Zhou

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Background

Forest managers must deal with inherently stochastic ecological and economic processes. The future growth of trees is uncertain, and so is their value. The randomness of low-impact, high frequency or rare catastrophic shocks in forest growth has significant implications in shaping the mix of tree species and the forest landscape. In addition, the fluctuations of wood prices influence greatly forest revenues.

Methods

Markov decision process models (MDPs) offer a rigorous and practical way of developing optimum management strategies, given these multiple sources of risk.

Results

Examples illustrate how such management guidelines are obtained with MDPs for combined ecological and …

Three Essays On Trading By Members Of Congress, Serkan Karadas

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

My dissertation examines the information content of stock trades by members of Congress (politicians) in three separate essays. In my first essay, based on approximately 62,000 common stock transactions over the 2004--2010 period, I present evidence that past firm-level trading activity by politicians predicts future firm-level stock returns, and this prediction is stronger for the pre-recession period and for small firms. By constructing buy-minus-sell transactions-based portfolios, I document that the portfolios of Republicans outperform those of Democrats. Also, being a powerful member of Congress is associated with substantially higher abnormal returns for Republicans, but not for Democrats. Among powerful Republicans, …

Mountain Top Eco-Industrial Park: An Eco-Industrial, Renewable Energy Approach For Industrial Park Development, Jing Chu

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This project applies the concepts of industrial ecology and recreational gateway development to the redesign of an existing industrial park - Mountain Top Industrial Park in Grant County, West Virginia. The location of the existing industrial park, in close proximity to the CSX railroad and the future Corridor H expressway corridor, lends itself to eco-industrial development and may function as a touristic gateway to the region. The site is at the center of an `energy' complex: Mount Storm Power Plant and former surface mines. Extractive industries and energy production will be a theme within the design project. An Eco-Industrial Park …

Essays On Industrial Agglomeration And Input-Output Linkages, Zheng Tian

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Industrial agglomeration is an important subject in the field of regional economics. It is an economic phenomenon with two dimensions---space and industry. These two dimensions call for research that can take both spatial and industry factors into consideration regarding industrial agglomeration. Despite the advance of economic theories on agglomeration, empirical studies that satisfactorily incorporate spatial and industrial dimensions are very few. My research aims to enrich the existing methodology for empirical studies by combining spatial econometrics and the input-output model to investigate the effects of input-output linkages on industrial agglomeration.;In this research I propose two methods to integrate spatial econometrics …

Three Essays On Institutions And Development In Sub-Saharan Africa, Amanda M. Mandzik

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

As a region, sub-Saharan Africa lags behind the rest of the world in both human development and economic growth. However, a portion of the development literature suggests that institutions may play a role in explaining, and perhaps changing, the outcomes that are observed in these countries. Therefore, this dissertation explores how institutions have shaped and continue to shape the health and economic outcomes of this region. In Chapter 2, jointly with Andrew Young, we seek to explain the correlation between high HIV prevalence rates and the Christian share of the population that contrasts with low HIV prevalence rates observed with …

Examination Of Factors Associated With Obesity, Physical Activity And Income In Metropolitan Areas Of The United States, Ahadu T. Tekle

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

The prevalence of obesity has increased significantly in the past three decades. Obesity and inadequate physical activity are the major contributors to health problems. In addition to understanding the contribution of biological and psychological factors in the growth of obesity rates, there is a growing interest in understanding the impact of environmental factors on obesity. This study examines the relationship between obesity, socioeconomic factors, environmental factors and physical activity. The study is focused on metropolitan areas and relied on metropolitan county level built environment, natural amenities and outdoor recreational opportunities measures. Individual level socioeconomic and location information is from the …

Three Essays On Institutions, Religion, And Economic Development, Hossein Radmard

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This dissertation consists of three essays that provide empirical evidence on the importance of institutions, informal institutions and particularly religion in economic development. In the first chapter, the relationship between religious adherence rate in the U.S. counties and entrepreneurship is examined. After controlling for spatial dependencies, results indicate that more religious counties, meaning counties with higher rate of religious membership, have lower entrepreneurial potentials. Chapter 2 investigates the relevance of institutional quality in efficiency of public spending. This study is delivered in the state level. By using a nonparametric method, efficiency of public spending is calculated and then its relationship …

Dialectics Of Rural Change: A Political Economy Of Livelihoods And Land Use And Land Cover Change In Rural Western Kenya, Naomi Yieko Shanguhyia

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This study examines the political economy of livelihoods and land use and land cover change in rural western Kenya during a period of economic change. The research findings are presented in three stand-alone papers. The first paper examines the initiatives and policies implemented by the state in the past three decades of neoliberal economic change and the implications for rural development. Policy documents and data obtained from interviews and surveys were used to examine how a shift in policies impacted three sectors of rural development: agriculture, infrastructure and commerce- in Vihiga County. The results indicate two political-economic moments that redefined …

Three Essays On Forecasting In Nonlinear Models, Scott T. Murdoch

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Nonlinear models have many applications in the economic and financial fields. The following works focus on their use for forecasting. Neural networks, in conjunction with an Affine Term Structure Model, are used to discover possible yield curve arbitrage opportunities. A G/ARCH model is employed to test and forecast the conditional variance of state-level employment growth. A Space-Time Autoregressive (STAR) model is applied to state employment growth to ensure that any measure of volatility in the series is not misdirected as employment movements between neighboring states.

Three Essays On Economic Growth And Natural Resources, Anne W. Walker

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This dissertation is a collection of papers examining the relationship between resource intensity and economic growth in the Appalachian region of the United States. The first chapter develops a homogenous sample of counties within the Appalachian region and uses that sample to investigate how coal resources impact long-run per capita income growth. The Appalachian Regional Commission's definition of the Appalachian region is the one used most often by researchers, politicians, and the popular press. The uncritical use of this definition of Appalachia raises issues of both selection bias and excess heterogeneity in regression analysis of Appalachian income and growth. The …

Entrepreneurship, Institutions, And The Informal Economy, Travis C. Wiseman

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This dissertation comprises three essays which investigate the empirical relationships between institutions (formal and informal), entrepreneurial outcomes (productive and unproductive), and shadow economy size at the U.S. state-level. Chapter 1 opens with some discussion of the topics explored here and provides an overview of important results from each of the essays. In Chapter 2, the first of the empirical essays, I focus on U.S. shadow economies, providing estimates of shadow economy size for 50 U.S. states over the period 1997 to 2008 as a foundation for analysis in the subsequent chapter. Chapter 3 focuses on the relationship between entrepreneurship, shadow …

The Production, Value, And Reduction Responsibility Of Carbon Emissions Through Electricity Consumption Of Manufacturing Industries In South Korea And Thailand, Medhawin Kitikun

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This dissertation provides a new method of measuring efforts by manufacturing industries to reduce their emissions by curtailing electricity consumption. Employing comprehensive firm-level data from the National Manufacture Annual Surveys of South Korea and Thailand, I construct the measure from estimates of revenue functions by industry. The data consists of firms from more than 20 industries in each year from 1982 to 2005 for Korea and from 2001 to 2008 for Thailand. With a total of more than two million observations, I estimate revenue functions for each industry and year. Here, I use three inputs: number of employees(L), fixed asset …

Three Essays On Institutions, Financial Markets And Foreign Direct Investment, Tuan Viet Le

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This dissertation is composed of three essays in financial economics and development economics. The underlying theme in three essays is about the impact of institution quality on financial markets and foreign direct investment (FDI). There are five chapters included in this dissertation. Chapter one is the introduction. Chapter two of my dissertation investigates the connection between freedom of the press and equity returns in emerging market firms. Freedom of the press is argued to affect systematic risk in financial markets and thus, has impact on returns of financial assets. The study reveals that there is significant connection between freedom of …

Land As A Renewable Resource: Integrating Climate, Energy, And Profitability Goals Using An Agent-Based Netlogo Model, Inocencio Rodriguez

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

The objectives of this study center over the course of the beef production life cycle as a management strategy to optimize the financial and natural resource endowment on farms at the county level based on the data available. Although the application is to West Virginia, implications can be derived for other areas with similar resource endowments. The beef farms located in adjacent locations within a county are identified as suppliers of inputs to the farm of interest (or contracting farm) in order to provide the basic foundation for agglomeration economies.;Both an intertemporal component and a spatial component are involved since …

Ssa's Development Delay: Three Essays On The Monetary System, The International Trade And Property Rights, Julie Lohi

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This dissertation focuses on the issues of economic performances in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). It includes three essays on the monetary system, the international trade and property rights.;The first chapter discusses the inflation dynamics across different exchange rate regime groups in SSA. In particular, a comparative analysis is conducted between the CFA franc currency union countries and the non-members of SSA to see whether the CFA franc countries exhibit lower inflation in the short and the long run compared to other countries. This chapter also assesses the money supply growth, output growth and money velocity growth as the sources of inflation …

Essays On The Economics Of Student Achievement, Amy F. Higginbotham Godfrey

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Parents, lawmakers, and economists are all keenly interested in what affects student performance. This dissertation explores factors influencing student achievement in West Virginia with special attention devoted to public education resources and gender. Politicians and many parents of school age children believe increased levels of education funding or resources result in higher student achievement. Chapters 2 and 3 delve into this topic by exploring student achievement at different grade levels in West Virginia. The first public education funding or resource change to be analyzed occurred during a time period when the base for public education financing was expanding and funding …

The Three W'S Of Hazardous Waste: Who, Why, And Where?, Christa Dean Jensen

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

In the late 1960s and 1970s, amid changing attitudes about the environment and emerging sustainability concerns, countries around the world began regulating multiple aspects of hazardous waste. Initial regulations, and those occurring since, all share the broader goals of curbing hazardous waste generation and regulating hazardous waste trade, but with few signs of progress. Using input-output analysis and spatial interaction modeling, this dissertation analyzes various dimensions of the hazardous waste problem in the United States and the United Kingdom. The overall objective is to develop methods to answer the following questions: 1) who is generating hazardous waste; 2) why is …

Essays On Trade And Foreign Direct Investment Costs And Migration, Eugene Bempong Nyantakyi

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This dissertation consists of three essays on trade and investment costs and migration. The first paper documents how timeliness induces U.S. parent firms to adjust their trade activities with affiliates located abroad, and the extent to which these adjustments change according to the time sensitivity of the industry in which the multinational enterprise (MNE) operates. The results show that parent firms operating in manufacturing are sensitive to shipping time. Long shipping lags reduce parent firms' import from (export to) affiliates. At the sectoral level, there exists some heterogeneity in MNE's response to time. When MNEs are ranked on a spectrum …