Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

College As Capability Enhancement, Cristina Lee

CMC Senior Theses

In this thesis I wanted to apply the Sen’s framework in Development as Freedom to college campuses. In my experience at Claremont McKenna College, I have seen how some students are able to take advantage of the resources better than others. Given that we were all accepted by the same admissions office, I always questioned why did some students know how to take advantage of the system. In order to explore this, I first discuss Sen’s capability approach. Then, I show how the capability approach is more comprehensive than social networking theory and William Deresiewicz’s account on elite colleges. Finally, …

Strengthening The M&E System Of Peace Corps Colombia, Samuel Burke

Capstone Collection

In 1961, when the Peace Corps was established, Colombia was the first country chosen to receive volunteers. The program ran for 20 years, with volunteers working all over the country in various sectors. Then in 1981, due to the increasing violence from the guerilla civil war, the US government decided to withdraw the volunteers and suspend the Colombia program. After a 29-year hiatus, at the request of the Colombian government, the Peace Corps was invited back to Colombia in 2010.

The Peace Corps Colombia post currently has two programs, Practical English for Success (PES), established first; and, Community Economic Development …

The Potential Of Vizhinjam Port As A Regional Hub: A Network Analysis : A Feasibility Analysis From A Network Perspective, Pratichi Rajan Mallick

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Essays On The Impact Of Exchange Rate Movements On Stock Return And Country Output, Junnan Zhao

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Exchange rate movements are widely believed to be a major source of uncertainty at both micro- and macro-economic levels. At the microeconomic level, corporate managers controlling risk and investors seeking to hedge their portfolios are both obviously interested in estimates of a firm’s exchange rate exposure ̶ i.e., how much of the value of a firm will be affected by exchange rate movements. At the macroeconomic level, a currency appreciation may have a contractionary effect on a country's output.

Chapter 1 tests whether the launch of the euro around 1999 significantly reduced stock market volatility and exchange rate risk exposure …

Essays In Financial Development And Income Inequality, Samuel M. Jung

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation consists of three essays of original research. Chapter 1 is a survey of the literature on the theoretical and empirical interactions among financial development, economic growth, and income inequality.

Chapter 2 describes empirical research on the relationship between financial development and income inequality based on Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) method using a Chinese provincial dataset between 1998 and 2014. The empirical findings support the notion that well-developed financial markets increase income inequality in China. After adding a year dummy for 2001 to examine the impact of China’s entry into the World Trade Organization, which caused the financial …

Essays On Growth And Input Misallocation In China, Wenya Wang

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

My thesis consists of three chapters that contribute to the study of input misallocation and TFP growth in China.

In Chapter 2, I compare the misallocation of intermediate goods to those of capital and labor, which have been extensively studied in the literature. To measure misallocation, I compute the dispersion of marginal products of intermediate goods across firms, and the potential output gains by eliminating this dispersion in China Industrial Enterprise Survey (CIES) data. Although the within-industry dispersion of marginal products of intermediates is smaller than that of capital and labor, gross output and value added gains from reallocating intermediate …

Effects Of Upward Football Reclassification On Revenues, Football Attendance, And Enrollment, Charles Bell

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

With an ever increasing chasm between the have and have nots in college athletics, athletic directors and university administrators view reclassification as a way to increase financial standing and gain valuable exposure for their school despite mixed findings by recent studies. The process of reclassification costs schools sizable financial and labor investments detracting from their academic endeavors. The schools at the highest level of collegiate football competition enjoy constant national television exposure for their school resulting in many direct and indirect benefits. A repeated measures ANOVA was utilized to assess the change in athletic department revenues, student enrollment and football …

The Effects Of Tax Increment Financing On Assessed Land Values, Burdette Edward Fullerton Ii

Dissertations

Public policy debate regarding the use of economic development incentives is active and growing with a focus on the costs and benefits to communities around the country. Communities grant economic development incentives that encourage real estate development, such as tax increment financing, without knowing if the growth of land value or building type valuation inside of tax increment areas accelerate faster than areas outside of tax increment districts. Without the knowledge of how tax increment financing influences land values, communities risk the misallocation of resources from public entities, such as schools and libraries to private entities. In an era of …

Three Essays On International Economics And Finance, Juan Antonio Montecino

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation studies the macroeconomic and social impacts of two increasingly common macroeconomic policies: restrictions on international capital mobility -- capital controls -- and so-called unconventional monetary policy -- often referred to as “quantitative easing.” The consensus view is that capital controls can effectively lengthen the maturity composition of capital inflows and increase the independence of monetary policy but are not generally effective at reducing net inflows and influencing the real exchange rate. The first essay presents empirical evidence that although capital controls may not directly affect the long-run equilibrium level of the real exchange rate, they may enable disequilibria …

Social Health Insurance And Maternal And Child Health Outcomes In Developing Countries: The Case Of Ghana, Ama Agyeiwaa Abrokwah

Dissertations

About 25% of all maternal deaths occur during pregnancy; 99% of these maternal deaths occur in developing countries and half of these occur in Sub-Saharan Africa (WHO 2015). Two of the eight Millennium Development Goals are to reduce infant mortality and improve maternal and child health outcomes. To improve health outcomes and reduce the financial burden on households, a number of developing countries, including Ghana, Botswana, and Croatia, have introduced social health insurance programs which are heavily subsidized. This dissertation is a collection of three essays evaluating how maternal and child health care-seeking behavior, utilization and outcomes changed as a …

Individual And Household-Level Effects Of Energy Poverty On Human Development, Brandon Bridge

Economics ETDs

This study investigates some of the predictors of energy poverty, the interrelationships between different expressions of energy poverty, and the human development impacts of energy poverty on primarily rural individuals and households in an underdeveloped country. It uses data from four rounds of Nicaragua's Living Standards Measurement Survey, and examines the effects of energy poverty on income, education, and health.

Chapter 1 provides background information on energy poverty in general, as well as the specific situation that has developed in Nicaragua. It also provides a modeling framework, both conceptual and mathematical, for the ways in which energy poverty impacts human …

Culture, Inner-City Education And Improving Economic Growth In Birmingham, Alabama, Leroy Abrahams

Capstone Collection

Perhaps the greatest reminder of the economic inequities in American society is the drastic deficiencies in educational outcomes, based on class and race. Birmingham, Alabama, vividly portrays this reality. Families with means send their children to private schools and/or concentrate in the suburbs, leaving largely poor, and oftentimes, predominantly minority in densely populated crime-ridden areas with suboptimal schooling. The schooling patterns are clearly reflected in the economic outcomes, though Black are a majority in the city they are vastly underrepresented in the middle to upper middle class, while grossly overrepresented among those in poverty. These inequities are often mirrored in …

Income Shocks And The Acceptance Of Intimate Partner Violence In Indonesia, Matthew N. Krupoff

Master's Theses

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a pervasive issue affecting 1 in 3 women worldwide. Despite the negative welfare impacts, it is still seen as acceptable in some parts of the world, even amongst women. This paper examines how elastic these accepting attitudes towards IPV are to changing economic conditions. Specifically, this paper focuses on changes in intra-household resources from negative shocks to male-sourced income. The setting and context takes place in coastal communities in Indonesia, where fishing is a main source ofincome generated primarily by men. This paper uses satellite-derived fishing conditions to measure how women's attitudes towards IPV change …

Do Marketing Strategies Impact Condom Sales In Uganda?, Meyhar Mohammed

Master's Theses

What attracts people to buy condoms? HIV/AIDS remain one of the biggest health dangers of the world, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. A lot of efforts have been pursued in the past two decades to drastically reduce prevalence of HIV and increase awareness about preventive mechanisms. In order to prevent relapse of success achieved so far, it is important to recognize transformation of consumer behavior due to growth in social networks, education and awareness over time. There are a lot of behavioral triggers captured by social marketing interventions in the field of public health. In an attempt to investigate the role …

Competitive Mothers: An Experimental Study Of Female Competitiveness And Polygamy In Togo (West Africa), Aminata Cissokho

Master's Theses

Are women in a patriarchal society like Togo as competitive as men? How does being a parent, in a polygamous vs. monogamous marriage and having high income affect one’s willingness to compete? With an incentivized experiment, we explore whether there are gender differences in selecting into competitive environments, especially when the incentives switch from cash to voucher. This experiment is conducted in Togo, West Africa, with 428 subjects including females-males, parent-non parent. Overall, the findings reveal no significant differences between the females and males’ willingness to compete. Female parents are more competitive than male parents regardless of the incentive. Subjects …

Aspirations As A Component Of Life Satisfaction: A Look At Female Microfinance Borrowers In Oaxaca, Mexico, Joseph E. Kemler

Master's Theses

This research is an extension to the Oaxaca Hope Project by B. Wydick and T.J. Lybbert. How does an individual gauge her own satisfaction with life? Previous research has noted that many domains make up overall life satisfaction, i.e. career satisfaction, family life satisfaction & social life satisfaction. A burgeoning topic in this regard is the role that aspirations play in life satisfaction. Using survey data from female microfinance borrowers in Oaxaca, Mexico this project attempts to analyze the affect previous aspirations have on life satisfaction. By creating an “aspirational window” we objectively attempt to gauge the relationship between “high” …

Financing And Productivity: Evidence From Indian Manufacturing Industry, Tingyi Wu

Master's Theses

India grows rapidly in recent years, not to mention its high-technology industry. What are secrets behind this fast-growing situation? This paper intends to find the answer using a firm-level panel data in India and examine the loan-productivity relationship via both contemporaneous and lagged models. I find positive and statistically significant results that loans play an important role in firms’ performances.

Generating Prevalence Estimates Of Sensitive Behaviors Through List Randomization: Survey Experiment Among Indian Males, Abha Indurkar

Master's Theses

Survey respondents may under-report or misreport sensitive behaviors due to social desirability bias. List randomization is an indirect way of asking questions which allows respondents to answer sensitive questions without the surveyor knowing their actual response. This has emerged as a new technique to ask sensitive questions as it reduces respondent’s discomfort while reporting sensitive behaviors. In this study, we apply list randomization to generate prevalence estimates of sensitive behaviors and perception related to homosexuality, molestation of women and notion of partner purity in the sample of young, college educated Indian males. Our findings are consistent with the literature on …

Ambiguity Aversion: Adoption, Uptake, And Trends, Adam Franklin

Master's Theses

What is ambiguity aversion and what is its role as a determinant of technology adoption? This study develops and implements a novel ambiguity preference instrument in the context of an ongoing RCT pilot program in southwest Uganda promoting adoption of an improved variety of sweet potato. No correlation between ambiguity aversion and crop adoption is observed, although it is suspected that RCT treatment arms including supply- and demand-side information reduced the ambiguity of the new variety, probably overcoming any ambiguity-preference-related constraints and clouding the picture. Methodological lessons learned regarding the development and implementation of an apporopriate ambiguity preference measure point …

An Analysis Of Income Inequality Reduction In Brazil Under President Lula Da Silva, Victoria Rose Belcher

Senior Theses

This thesis analyzes trends in income inequality reduction across different regions of Brazil from 2000 to 2010. This period was selected because it was a period of consistent economic growth and national inequality reduction, as measured by the GINI Index, as well as a period that witnessed the introduction of new government policies by President Lula da Silva. This thesis provides extensive background information about Lula’s presidency and income inequality in Brazil before conducting an economic analysis of the trends in income inequality reduction through the country. This thesis concludes that the trend of inequality reduction favored certain regions of …

Unemployment, Does It Really Hurt?, Claudia Vargas

Theses and Dissertations

This paper analyzes the consequences of changes in the unemployment rate in Colombia on the level of education attained for adolescents. Increases in the unemployment rate are associated with an increase in the average number of years of education. No significant effect was found for men of the same age.

In Pawn: Kurdish Economic Development In The Context Of Conflict, Stephen E. Mcavene Iii

International Development, Community and Environment (IDCE)

In this paper the author examines the struggle of the Kurdish people for self-determined social, political, and economic development in the whirlwind of conflict in the Middle East. It uses a case study of how a Kurdish minority in Iraq interact with multiple stakeholders in their struggle for nationhood, and implications of these interactions for overall Kurdish social and economic development. Studies on economic development while interested in social, economic and political aspect of development, are less concerned with the implications of right to self-determination on development; the unique case of the Kurdish struggle provides an opportunity to expand the …

A Tanzanian Woman's Place Is On Top: An Exploration Of Women's Participation In Kilimanjaro's Trekking Tourism Industry, Margeaux Prinster

International Development, Community and Environment (IDCE)

While high poverty rates persist for women in Tanzania, the growing trekking tourism industry surrounding Mount Kilimanjaro and its resulting demand for labor presents these impoverished women with a potential avenue for economic empowerment. This paper examines the national and local realities of women’s work in Tanzania, analyzing culturally informed gendered patterns of employment against the colonial and sexist histories of tourism and commercial mountaineering on Mount Kilimanjaro to identify barriers to women’s economic participation in Kilimanjaro’s trekking tourism industry. This analysis is followed by a cross-cultural comparison with Nepal, focusing specifically on women’s barriers to participation in commercial mountaineering, …

The Effects Of Gentrification: Inhabitants, Education, And Displacement, Marilyn Pineda

Honors College Theses

Locally and internationally, cities that face decades of disinvestment and neglect at one point experience a resurgence and revival in that location. A city’s resurgence and revival is seen in the form of new houses, businesses, and the migration of middle to upper middle class individuals is known as gentrification. Subjectively, gentrification is beneficial to those who are home owners because they can sell their houses for a higher price than what they bought it for; it is beneficial to the landlord who is able to increase the rents of units (Atkinson 2002). In light of all this, while the …

Delta Hands For Hope: A Force For Reconciliation And Sustainable Development In The Delta?, Mary D. Travis

Honors Theses

This case study focuses on the question of whether Delta Hands for Hope, a distinctive, possibly unique faith-based organization, is able to facilitate racial reconciliation and sustainable community development in the Delta community of Shaw. If so, is it a potential model for sustainable development for other communities of the Delta and beyond? This thesis builds on existing literature about sustainable development and development in the Mississippi Delta. The original, empirical research is based on Grounded Theory methodology, a participant/observer perspective, and data gathered through in-depth, open-ended interviews. This research work suggests that racial division is pervasive in every area …

The Impact Of Commercial Banking Development On Economic Growth: A Principal Component Analysis Of Association Between Banking Industry And Economic Growth In Europe, Hugh L. Davis Iii

Dissertations

There are significant differences in the economic growth trajectories of Western, Central and Eastern Europe since the beginning of the democratic movements of the early 1990s. It may be observed that the more developed the region, the lower the growth rate. There are a number of explanations for this growth rate variance, e.g. cultural, resources, institutional and/or political. An explanation this research is pursuing is institutional - the correlation between banking development and economic growth. More specifically, does banking development have a greater impact on growth where economic development begins at a lower level?

Very little research has been directed …

Trends In U.S. Tea Imports: 1991-2015, Evan Kennedy

Honors Theses

Tea is the second most popular beverage in the world, and over the past two decades it has experienced a newfound popularity in the United States. Over this time period, ready-to-drink and loose-leaf tea has increased in popularity, whereas tea bags and instant tea declined in popularity. Since the United States produces almost no tea itself, an increase in consumption requires increased imports. Therefore, this paper examines U.S. import trends as a means to begin an examination of consumption. Ten countries (Argentina, Canada, China, Germany, India, Japan, Kenya, Sri Lanka, the United Kingdom, and Vietnam) provide approximately 80% of the …

Master's Tools And The Master's House: A Historical Analysis Exploring The Myth Of Educating For Democracy In The United States, Timothy Scott

Doctoral Dissertations

Over the past forty-years, neoliberal education reform policies in the U.S. have spurred significant resistance, often galvanized by claims that such policies undermine public education as a vital institution of U.S. democracy. Within this narrative, many activists call to “save our schools” and return them to a time when public schools served the common good. With these narratives in mind, I explore the foundational and persistent power structures that characterize the U.S. as a means to reveal the fundamental purpose of its public education system. The questions that guide my research include: (1) With an understanding that capitalism, white supremacy, …

The Impacts Of Foreign Labor Migration Of Men On Women's Empowerment In Nepal, Pratistha Joshi Rajkarnikar

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation looks into the changes in the lives of Nepalese women due to the rapidly increasing foreign labor migration of men. Literature on migration from Nepal mostly focuses on economic gains made through remittance inflows. The changes in intra-household power relations and the transformations in women’s lives, due to the male-dominated nature of Nepalese migration, are largely neglected. My study fills this gap, by examining women’s experiences, as they assume the role of household heads, financial managers and single parents, in a society that has historically suppressed their freedom. I specifically focus on the changes in women’s work responsibilities, …

Production Of Energy And Environmental Protection As A Prerequisite For Sustainable Development, Diana Baus

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper explains why renewable energy is a prerequisite for sustainable development. The development of renewable energy sources is important because renewable energy sources have a very important role in reducing emissions of carbon dioxide (CO₂) into the atmosphere, eradicate poverty and increase the employment rate. In the first section the paper introduces renewable energy sources. The focus is on the function of solar energy, wind power, biomass, geothermal energy, and hydroelectric energy and their implementation globally. The second part of the paper elaborates on the economic, political, and social aspects for the development of renewable energy sources. …