Digital Commons Network^™

Economic Evaluation Of Air Pollution Reduction Of Phase I Power Plants In West Virginia: An Output Distance Function Approach, Huilan Li

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Air pollutants from coal-fired power plants are nonmarket environmental bads. Title IV of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments (CAAA) sets the stage for the dirtiest power plants to reduce emissions of SO2 and NO x in two phases. Title IV allocates plants SO2 allowances as a variation of "pollution rights" based on averaged historical emission levels and allows free-trade of allowances. This is the world's first large scale pollutant trading market. Trading allows for improved efficiency, flexibility, and reduced pollution.;This study employs the output distance function approach to evaluate the pollution reduction behavior and efficiency of West Virginia power …

A National Estimate Of The Cost Of Illness In Parkinson's Disease Using Retrospective Data Analysis, Katherine Anderson

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

The purpose of this study was to estimate the cost of illness of Parkinson’s disease in the United States. Direct medical expenditures, with the exception of nursing home costs, were estimated using data from the 1999-2003 Medical Expenditures Panel Survey Household Component (MEPS-HC). Nursing home costs were estimated using the Medical Expenditures Panel Survey Nursing Home Component (MEPS-NHC). Indirect costs for lost productivity due to missed work or bed-days (morbidity) were estimated using the MEPS-HC and the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Indirect costs for lost productivity due to death (mortality) were estimated using the National Vital Statistics System.

Direct …

A Socioeconomic And Spatial Analysis Of Obesity In West Virginia: Policy Implications, Anura Kumara Amarasinghe

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This dissertation integrates both theoretical and empirical insights to facilitate understanding of the current obesity epidemic in WV given heterogeneity in socioeconomic, demographic and built environment characteristics of the state. In meeting this objective, county-level and individual-level health demand analyses using secondary data sources were conducted. County-level obesity differences were studied using spatial and non-spatial random and fixed effects frameworks under a panel data structure. Individual health demand was investigated by recursive estimation of individual health responses to ordered self-assessed health (SAH) in terms of lifestyle choices, socioeconomic, demographic and built environment characteristics using Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) …

Network Effects And Spatial Autoregression In Mode Choice Models: Three Essays In Urban Transportation Economics, Frank Goetzke

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Network analysis in transportation economics has traditionally focused on congestion as a negative externality stemming from supply-side capacity constraints. In my first paper paper, an analytical mode choice model is developed to examine the demand-side network effects. The assumption behind the approach is that, because of social network effects, the utility of people taking the mode increases with its mode share. It is found that social network effects change the modal aggregate demand curve for the mode to an inverted u-shape. This result has far-reaching policy consequences, since multiple equilibria become a possibility, causing positive externalities and path-dependency.;Transportation planners have …

Modeling Small Business Growth, Migration Behavior, Local Public Services And Household Income In Appalachia: A Spatial Simultaneous Equations Approach, Gebremeskel H. Gebremariam

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

In an effort to analyze the interdependences among small business growth, migration behavior, local public services, and median household income, this study developed a simultaneous-equation system under the assumptions of profit maximization of firm and utility maximization of households as well as the neoclassical assumption of equilibrium growth in a partial lag-adjustment growth-equilibrium framework. This model is an extension of the "jobs follow people or people follow jobs" literature and it improved previous models in the growth-equilibrium tradition by explicitly modeling local government and regional income in the growth process. It also explicitly modeled gross in-migration and gross out-migration separately …

An Analysis Of Institutions, Economic Freedom, And The Quality Of Life, Nathan J. Ashby

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

The impact of economic freedom on the quality of life is the subject of interest for this dissertation. Three separate studies are conducted. The first of these studies in Chapter 2 analyzes the impact of economic freedom on the quality of life in an international panel data study between 1985 and 2000. It is found that economic freedom and in particular well-defined property rights and limited regulation lead to improvement in the quality of life using the Index of Human Progress, an index made up income, health and education indicators, and access to modern technology for individuals in a given …

Adolescent Alcohol Use And Educational Outcomes, Wesley A. Austin

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

There is some controversy over whether adolescent alcohol use has deleterious causal effects on educational outcomes. In particular, does drinking reduce academic performance and school enrollment rates and increase truancy, or does the observed negative correlation between drinking and educational outcomes merely reflect common unobservable factors? This dissertation sheds further light on the issue by estimating the causal impacts of alcohol use on various educational outcomes. Specifically, an instrumental variables model is estimated to study the effects of several drinking measures on grades, school enrollment and absenteeism.

Three Essays In Environmental Markets: Dynamic Behavior, Market Interactions, Policy Implications, Irene Margaret Xiarchos

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

In order to induce or support voluntary environmental behavior, the mechanisms of existing and possible environmental markets must be understood. This dissertation analyzes two issues related to voluntary environmental behavior: (i) The reactions of firms over the long term to stakeholder concerns about the environment (essay one). (ii) Interactions between recycled and primary markets for metals (essays two and three).;Although these essays consider different phenomena, they are underlain by common factors: the exploration of behavior in environmental markets, the importance of profit as a motivation for firms' actions, the centrality of the role of information, and the necessity to look …

The Chipped Stone Tool Industries Of Blackman Eddy, Belize, Matthew Patrick Yacubic

Theses and Dissertations

One of the most significant finds at the site of Blackman Eddy, Belize, is a series of superimposed structures that date between 1200 B.C.-A.D. 600 (calibrated). Because it was continuously occupied for over 1800 years, this site provides a unique opportunity to examine long-term socio-economic changes in the eastern Maya lowlands. This thesis is a diachronic study of the chipped stone tool artifacts of Blackman Eddy using technological, attribute, and use-wear analysis. The data collected for this study were examined to see what types of raw materials were used in tool production, what types of tools were produced, how they …

Factors That Impact Development: Foreign Aid And The Millennium Development Goals, Jill Irwin

Student Work

The topic of development in poor countries has recently gained attention and support in part due to the 2000 Millennium Declaration adopted by all United Nations members. Included in the declaration are eight Millennium Development Goals (MDG) which aim at improving global development and are to be achieved by 2015. Due to time restrictions it is important to find effective and efficient ways to improve the issues addressed by the goals. This paper studies foreign aid’s effect on the Millennium Development Goals by using ordinary least squares regression over a time period from 1980 to 2001. This study also investigates …

Assessing The Economic Impacts Of Transportation Improvement Projects, Andrew L. Stewart

Theses and Dissertations

In that a transportation system can influence an economy for good or bad a system that enhances economic vitality becomes a crucial element in maintaining or developing economic prosperity. To provide a methodology to include economic development impacts of transportation improvement projects in the decision making process and the tools and alternatives available are here explored. Primary contributions of this document are results of a literature review, transportation professional and decision maker survey, economic modeling tool evaluation, and development of approach alternatives. The following thesis introduces the purpose and need for the given research, the procedure that was followed, the …

The Economics Of Childbearing: Three Essays, Andrea Kutinova

Doctoral Dissertations

Expenditure programs, business cycles, and government interventions can affect many decisions surrounding the birth of a child. For example, public insurance programs such as Medicaid have the potential to increase the utilization of prenatal care. This, in turn, may lead to better infant and maternal health outcomes. Given the high and increasing number of pregnant women covered by Medicaid, the effectiveness of the program in promoting prenatal care use and improving health needs to be evaluated. Also, the impacts of business cycles on childbearing are of interest to policymakers. For example, does unemployment substantially affect the decision to conceive a …

Non-Linear Aspects Of Financial Integration: An Analysis Of The Real Interest Rate Parity For Southeast Asian Economies, Fabricio Linhares

Doctoral Dissertations

This study assesses the extent to which selected economies in Southeast Asia are financially integrated among themselves and internationally, and investigates whether financial integration in the region increased following the deregulation of their markets over the 1980's and early 1990's. The analysis is carried out by examining the relationship between ex post real interest rates over 1970-2005. Following the work of Meese and Rogoff (1988), countries are considered financially integrated based on the stationarity property of their real interest rate differentials. Conclusions are drawn from a confirmatory analysis, which contrasts results from unit root tests, with and without structural breaks, …

Family Structure, The State Children's Health Insurance Program (Schip) And Child Outcomes, Minghua Li

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation consists of three separate but interrelated essays that investigate how family structure and public policy are linked to health and developmental child outcomes. Each essay employs two or three waves of the National Survey of America's Families (NSAF) as the primary data source. The first essay broadly investigates how family structure, including the less typical non-traditional families such as single father and grandparent households, are related to a wide of array of child outcomes with a focus on the interplay of parent-child gender. The results from this study show that children in single father families have better health …

Three Essays On International Trade: Strategic Trade Policies, Intra-Industry Trade, And Income Convergence, Aziz Ibrahim Saglam

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This dissertation illustrates the effects of managerial delegation on strategic trade policies and the relationship between intra-industry trade and income convergence. In the first essay strategic trade policy under duopoly is investigated in a multistage game model with endogenous timing of trade policy. The analysis also includes the separation of ownership and management for each firm. The study is integrated in a single analytical framework. The results show that in the subgame perfect equilibrium of the trade policy game, the home government commits not to use countervailing duties: the home government sets its tariff and production subsidy at stage one …

Incidence Of Ticket Taxes And Fees In United States Domestic Air Travel, Joakim Karlsson

Master's Theses and Capstones

The United States is currently witnessing a vigorous debate on public funding of air transportation and the role of taxes and fees levied on airline tickets. Yet, there is remarkably little economic literature on taxation in the U.S. airline industry. Analysis of a large sample of tickets for travel in the continental United States shows that the effective tax rate has increased from 11% in 1993 to 16% in 2005. While the tax structure and levels have changed over time, this increase is largely due to a historical decline.

The theory of tax incidence asserts that economic incidence is a …

Cape Wind: Public Values And Perceptions Application Of Contingent Valuation Method, Eric Steltzer

Master's Theses and Capstones

The Cape Wind proposal to build 130 turbines in Nantucket sound has been a central figure in development of renewable energy in New England. The aim of this study was two fold. First, the contingent valuation method was used to estimate an economic value the public has on policy for the preservation of Nantucket sound, within the scopes of the project. The second goal was to identify lessons that could be learned from the Cape Wind proposal and applied to future renewable energy projects in New England.

Results revealed that the public has a positive economic value for a policy …

Three Essays On Political Regimes, Military Spending, And Economic *Growth, Pavel A. Yakovlev

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This dissertation is a collection of essays on the issues in political and defense economics. Chapter 1 gives a brief introduction to the role that political and institutional arrangements play in affecting government policy and economic well-being. The second chapter examines how different political regimes and military manpower systems affect the value of life in military conflicts. The results in Chapter 2 show that democracies suffer lower battlefield casualties than dictatorships. Also noteworthy is that more volunteer based armies, per capita income, and economic freedom lead to lower battlefield deaths. Thus, political and economic liberties are found to increase the …

Predicting Inflation, And The Relationship Between Financial Integration, Financial *Development And Economic *Growth, Lillian T. Kamal

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Three essays are presented. The first essay re-visits the P* model (developed by Hallman, Porter and Small, 1991) with an application to US data. The central idea behind the P* model is that the price level is determined by the money stock, output and velocity. This study brings together criticisms of the P* model together in an attempt to address the major concerns with an improvement upon the existing model. A horse race is then run between the original P* model, two variant P* models, and three other models---an atheoretic naive AR process and an ARMA process as well as …

Three Essays On Ipo, Liquidity, And Corporate Governance, Saurav Roychoudhury

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

The first essay looks at the issue of long run performance of initial public offerings (IPOs). We provide a liquidity based explanation for why certain IPOs underperform in the long run. By separating IPOs into sub-samples based on excess liquidity, considered relative to benchmarks based on size, we find that IPO underperformance from 1993 to 2005 differs significantly based on the excess liquidity of an IPO. In general, positive excess liquidity portfolios tend to underperform compared to negative excess liquidity portfolios one to two years after the initial post IPO portfolio formation period. A potential explanation of the magnitude and …

The Politics And Economics Of Health: A Cross-National Comparison Of Civic Engagement And Health Status, Suzanne J. Wood

School of Public Service Theses & Dissertations

Over the past two decades, various structural modifications associated with the provision of national health and its systems have been undertaken. The preponderance of liberalization experiences have occurred in the absence of epidemiological, political, or social considerations associated with adoption and implementation. Often, financial and political manipulation by international organizations and powerful foreign governments has served as the impetus for fundamental shifts leading to an asymmetrical distribution of resources by population density, geography, and along various socio-cultural boundaries. Consequently, structural adjustments have resulted in unpredictable and divergent outcomes with regard to health status. The question of whether or not health …