Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Wasted Space: Using Parking Lots & Vacant Land To Improve Neighborhood Completeness, Ryan Martyn

Hatfield Graduate Journal of Public Affairs

This study conducts a spatial analysis of Portland, Oregon, focusing on leveraging underutilized areas like parking lots and vacant land—termed "wasted space"—to improve the city's completeness. Central to this investigation is the concept of a "complete neighborhood," characterized by access to daily necessities within convenient active transportation trip. This comprehensive idea encompasses walkability, equitable access to services, and sustainability.

This paper aims to redefine the concept of a complete neighborhood with precision and delve into its implications. The research looks at five regional, town, and neighborhood centers as defined by the city of Portland. These centers act as pivotal hubs …

Cognitive And Economic Development, John Luke Gallup

OHSU-PSU School of Public Health Annual Conference

A burgeoning literature finds that early childhood risk factors have large causal effects on individuals' cognitive development, education and earnings, but has not assessed the impact on the economy as a whole.

Cognitive ability is the foundation of human capital and the capacity to learn. The risk factors for poor cognitive development are very high in many countries. Each risk factor also causes child mortality, making child survival a viable proxy for good cognitive development conditions. The cognitive development of current workers happened decades earlier when they were children, providing a predetermined correlate. Controlling for country characteristics, income levels and …

An On-Ramp To Financial Inclusion: Measuring The Impact Of Mercy Corps' Community Investment Trust Program On Minority Investors, Lexi Yokote

University Honors Theses

Mercy Corps' Community Investment Trust (CIT) was launched in 2017 as a low-risk real estate investment and education initiative. The program is now working to replicate this in cities across the United States. However, it has not been able to collect much feedback from existing investors about their experiences and needs. This paper will use primary and secondary research in the form of a literature review and original surveys to collect information about investor demographics, attitudes toward the CIT and investing, risk perceptions, and future investment plans. The results show that U.S.-born versus foreign-born status, ethnicity, and gender affect the …

Designing The Future: The Influence Of Lloyd J. Reynolds On American Product Innovation, Bander Qadan

University Honors Theses

This research inquiry will explore how critical advances in American design products and consumerism can be traced back to the late Lloyd J. Reynolds and the silent yet powerful influence he has had on a generation of students, such as the innovative pioneer, Steve Jobs. Lloyd J. Reynolds was a renowned calligrapher and teacher at Reed College. The inquiry is structured chronologically, leading to Apple's 2022 valuation of about two trillion dollars. Four significant areas will be examined to trace this trajectory. Firstly, the paper examines the effects of calligraphy/typography on Lloyd J. Reynolds. Secondly, it delves into Steve Jobs’ …

Zoning Out: Urban Agriculture, Sustainability, And Development In Portland, Oregon, Brian Elliott

Philosophy Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper examines the recent history of urban planning policy in and around Portland, Oregon with respect to efforts to enhance local agriculture. Despite recent and ongoing efforts to promote distribution and direct sale of local food products in the city, I argue that the dominant effect of the Urban Growth Boundary (UGB) in place since the 1970s has been to push agricultural production further from the most populous areas of the city. Whereas the UGB at present cannot include areas zoned specifically for agricultural use, I argue that it must reformed to allow for "agricultural reserves" within the boundary. …

Oregon Highway Cost Allocation Study: Carbon Tax Issue Paper, Portland State University. College Of Urban And Public Affairs. Northwest Economic Research Center

Northwest Economic Research Center Publications and Reports

The basic insight behind carbon pricing is not new, and is based in mainstream economic theory. If market interactions are leading to the overuse of resources outside of the market, imposing a price on the overused resource will bring it into the market and increase efficiency. Currently, the negative impacts associated with the release of carbon through fossil fuel combustion is not incorporated into the market. By imposing a price on carbon, fossil fuel consumers are incentivized to reduce their fuel usage. This reduction in fuel demand is not necessarily associated with lower economic output. In fact, depending on the …

Ariège’S Development Conundrum, Alan Thomas Devenish

Dissertations and Theses

Since the latter half of the nineteenth century, industrialization and modernization have strongly shaped the development of the French department Ariège. Over the last roughly 150 years, Ariège has seen its population decline from a quarter million to 150,00. Its traditional agrarian economy has been remade for competition on global markets, and the department has relied on tourism to bring in revenue where other traditional industries have failed to do so. In this thesis I identify the European Union and French policies that continue to guide Ariège's development through subsidies and regulation. I explain the origins and effects of modernization …

The Effectiveness Of Public Development Banks: Designing Good Impact Evaluations, Alessandro Maffioli, Cesar M. Rodriguez

Economics Faculty Publications and Presentations

PDB programs have become a fundamental ingredient of productive development policy strategies in most emerging economies. Although the overall need for these interventions is rarely questioned, academics and policymakers often debate their effectiveness, as well as the optimal approaches and instruments necessary to implement them. Therefore, the need to produce rigorous evaluations of PDBs has become increasingly relevant for both government and civil society (see Chapter 2).

This chapter presents the main concepts and operational arguments regarding the execution of indepth impact evaluations of PDB initiatives and instruments. For a more practical approach, these arguments are presented with examples of …

Economic Development And Gender Equality: Is There A Gender Kuznets Curve?, Joshua Eastin, Aseem Prakash

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

This research note examines the relationship between economic development and gender equality. Drawing on the concept of the Kuznets curve, the authors hypothesize that the relationship between economic development and gender inequality is curvilinear (S shaped), with three distinct stages. In the first stage, economic development improves gender equality because it enables greater female labor-force participation. An independent income stream increases women's intrahousehold bargaining power. The opportunity to develop human capital confers greater political and social recognition. In the second stage, labor-force stratification and gender discrimination encourage divergent male/female income trajectories, which decrease the opportunity costs of female labor-force withdrawal …

Pearl District Market Study, Thomas Potiowsky, Scott Stewart

Northwest Economic Research Center Publications and Reports

Economic viability assessment of the Pearl District in Portland, including descriptions of demography, industry, and office space supply and demand.

System Dynamics Implementation Of A Model Of Population And Resource Dynamics With Adaptation, Takuro Uehara, Yoko Nagase, Wayne Wakeland

Systems Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

We build and analyze a dynamic ecological economic model that incorporates endogenous innovation on input substitutability. The use of the system dynamics method allows us to depart from conventional equilibrium thinking and conduct an out-of-equilibrium (adaptation) analysis. Simulation results show that while improvement in input substitutability will expand an economy, this change alone may not improve sustainability measured by indicators such as utility-per-capita and natural resource stock. It could, however, be possible that in combination with other technological progress, improvement in input substitutability will contribute to sustainable development. Sensitivity analysis also indicates a possible complication with the use of exogenous …

A Systems Approach To Ecological Economic Models Developed Progressively In Three Interwoven Articles, Takuro Uehara

Dissertations and Theses

My dissertation develops and analyzes ecological economic models to study the complex dynamics of an ecological economic system (EES) and investigate various conditions and measures which can sustain a developing economy over the long term in view of resilience and sustainability. Because of the intrinsic complexity of the system, I take a systems approach, using economics as the foundation for the basic structure of an ecological economic model, and system dynamics as the method to build and analyze such a complex ecological economic model. Throughout my dissertation, the model developed by Brander and Taylor (1998) is adopted as a baseline …

Thirlwall's Law And Krugman's 45-Degree Rule: Mathematically Identical, Mutually Exclusive, Karl Garbacik

Economics Undergraduate Honors Theses

Thirlwall's Law and the 45-degree rule, originally formulated by Krugman, are radically different interpretations of the same statistical regularity. This statistical regularity is that a country's long-run growth rate will approximate to the ratio of that country's export growth to its import elasticity of demand. Thirlwall's Law falls under a Post-Keynesian framework which is primarily a demand-side model. The 45-degree rule relies on a supply-side interpretation, a result of its neoclassical origins. This thesis seeks to answer two questions. The first is, are the members of the Post-Keynesian and neoclassical communities working on each of these theories aware of the …

What Makes Developing Asia Resilient In A Financially Globalized World?, Hiro Ito, Juthathip Jongwanich, Akiko Terada-Hagiwara

Economics Faculty Publications and Presentations

The pullbacks of capital inflows to developing Asia following the onset of the global financial crisis in 2008 have brought renewed attention to the role and benefits of financial globalization. A number of notable distinctions between the current global crisis and the Asian financial crisis have become evident. Solid domestic institutions, especially in the financial sector; swift policy responses; and a sound macroeconomic environment with adequate reserves have helped the region to manage well the adverse impacts of the global crisis. Empirical analysis examining the link between capital account openness and output volatility reveals that a developing country with a …

Climate, Water Navigability, And Economic Development, Andrew D. Mellinger, Jeffrey D. Sachs, John Luke Gallup

Economics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Geographic information systems (GIS) data was used on a global scale to examine the relationship between climate (ecozones), water navigability, and economic development in terms of GDP per capita. GDP per capita and the spatial density of economic activity measured as GDP per km2 are high in temperate ecozones and in regions proximate to the sea (within 100 km of the ocean or a sea-navigable waterway). Temperate ecozones proximate to the sea account for 8 percent of the world’s inhabited land area, 23 percent of the world’s population, and 53 percent of the world’s GDP. The GDP densities in temperate …

Evaluating Modernization And Dependency Explanations Of The Unequal Distribution Of Income In Developing Countries, Paul Timothy Shattuck

Dissertations and Theses

This paper tests two different theoretical explanations of the causes of the unequal distribution of income in less developed countries using data from circa 1990. There are several reasons for examining this much-studied topic. First, as described in the previous research findings chapter below, there is no consensus in the literature regarding the relative effects of modernization and dependency variables on income inequality. Determining the independent effects of the two models is still an open ended question. Second, the availability of more recent data provides us with an opportunity to check the possibility that previous findings were partly due to …

"Energy Resources", Harrison Scott Brown

Special Collections: Oregon Public Speakers

With: Salter, C. L. The urban enigma.

A Descriptive Study Of Participants In The Evergreen Community Organization, Douglas Edward Lehrman, Janet R. Abrams

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this study is to present a descriptive analysis of the active participants in a voluntary association concerned with community development. This analysis will focus upon description and discussion of the socio-demographic characteristics of the active members of the organization. Some of the attitudinal factors which operated to motivate and sustain participation in the organization will also be examined. Before proceeding with discussion of the theoretical background for the study, the community and its history relative to development of the organization will be described.