Economics Commons^™

Cnh: Fine-Scale Dynamics Of Human Adaptation In Coupled Natural And Social Systems: An Integrated Computational Approach Applied To Three Fisheries, James A. Wilson, James Acheson, Robert Steneck, Yong Chen, Teresa R. Johnson

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

The purpose of this project is to gain a better understanding of the way competition between individual fishermen lead to the emergence of private incentives and informal social arrangements that are (or are not) consistent with conservation of the resource. These informal arrangements and incentives are important because they help us understand the extent to which private interests might strengthen or weaken on-going resource management and, consequently, the sustainability of coupled human and natural systems. The broad hypothesis driving the study is that the informal social structure that emerges from competitive interactions among fishermen reflects the particular circumstances of the …

Tvet As An Important Factor In Country’S Economic Development, Margarita Pavlova

Practical Social and Industrial Research Symposium

In this keynote speech, Dr Pavlova will bring together a number of strategic development areas for Hong Kong as stated in the 2014 Chief Executive’s Policy Address. These areas include economic development, innovation and technology industries, vocational education and environmental protection.

Energy Production, Distribution, And Pollution Controls: Combining Engineering And Economic Analysis To Enhance Efficiency And Policy Design, David F. Perkis

Open Access Dissertations

Three published articles are presented which focus on enhancing various aspects of the energy supply chain. While each paper adopts a different methodology, all three combine engineering data and/or techniques with economic analysis to improve efficiency or policy design within energy markets. ^ The first paper combines a chemical engineering plant design model with an economic assessment of product enhancements within an ethanol production facility. While a new chemical process is shown to achieve greater ethanol yields, the animal feed by-products are denatured and decrease in value due to the degradation of a key nutritional amino acid. Overall, yield increases …

Land Rights Among Subsistence Farmers: An Examination Of Madagascar’S Land Reform And Prevailing Systems Of Land Tenure In Betafo, Taylor Crowl

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

In Madagascar, legal systems of land tenure have been inaccessible for the vast majority of the rural population. This has stranded millions of subsistence farmers in a sense of insecurity, as they lack legal rights for the property that they have farmed for generations. Madagascar’s land reform, launched in 2005, attempted to change these exclusionary tenure practices. This reform —known as the Plan National Foncier—created land certificates and local land offices in an attempt to make legal land tenure financially, geographically, and logistically accessible to the local population. This study discusses the successes, failures, and unforeseen consequences of Madagascar’s land …

Planetary Improvement: Discourses And Practices Of Green Capitalism In The Cleantech Space, Jesse Adam Goldstein

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

There is money to be made in saving the planet. A whole host of actors, such as investors, entrepreneurs, engineers, and policy makers have mobilized around our ecological problems, seeking to innovate new `green' and `clean' technologies that can serve a rapidly changing environment. The presumption that such technologies are both necessary and necessarily profitable anchors visions of a `green' capitalism that can and must be brought into existence.

However, just as free markets have never been all that free, why should we presume that green capitalism would be all that green? Instead of attempting to arbit whether or not …

The Effect Of Income On Health After Hurricane Katrina, Jang Wook Lee

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

There is a large literature that documents a positive correlation between income and a variety of measures of good health. This correlation may reflect causality in both directions and may also reflect omitted "third variables" that are positively related to income and health. In my dissertation, I employ an exogenous negative shock to income due to a natural disaster to estimate the true causal impact of income on health. The shock I will use is Hurricane Katrina, which severely damaged counties in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana in August 2005. I use these treatment counties and a variety of alternative sets …

Promoting Renewable Energy Generation In The United States: The Debate Over Renewable Portfolio Standards, Joe Cerne

Economics Theses

Incentivizing renewable energy growth in the 21^st century is, and will continue to be, a highly debated topic. As of late, legislative initiatives have prompted the enactment of various renewable portfolio standards aimed at stimulating renewable energy growth. Using data regarding each state’s energy production, this paper finds that there is no significant change in renewable energy output following the initiation of a renewable portfolio standard. We conclude that renewable energy growth is virtually unaffected by renewable portfolio standards and as such, we agree with much of the literature implying other means are necessary in order to adequately shift …

Municipal Recycling In Waterville: A Choice Experiment, Katharine V. Eddy, Alec A. Finigan

Journal of Environmental and Resource Economics at Colby

The city of Waterville, Maine has experienced many struggles with establishing an economically and socially beneficial method for collecting recyclables from residents. In 2006, the town made the choice to terminate its curbside recycling pickup and open the Skills facility, where residents were able to transport there recyclables and dispose of them at the facility. This proved to also not be economically beneficial and the town ended this option for residents in 2012. The motivation behind establishing a new recycling program in Waterville is making Waterville more environmentally friendly, the creation of jobs for residents in the trash collecting business, …

Rescuing Economics From The Discipline: The Green Learning Community, Michael Daley, Owen Grumbling, Richard B. Peterson

Business Faculty Publications

Undergraduate economics is poised for reform because of readily available data and multimedia content. However, we argue that deep reform is needed to teach complex contemporary problems. This requires including institutional and historical content and restructuring the classroom to facilitate interdisciplinary pedagogy. Using Colander’s (2006) analysis of reform as a starting point, we review the economics literature to identify alternative approaches and interdisciplinary pedagogy. The Green Learning Community is introduced as an intentional approach that links economics, humanities and environmental studies and provides first-year students adequate time to study, reflect upon, and internalize economic assumptions, models, values, and interdisciplinary insights.

Global Economic Impacts Of Shoreline Degradation: A Socioeconomic Analysis, Alexa Brockamp

Global Honors Theses

Shoreline Degradation is an economically important issue, which damages coastal tourism economies, and causes shifts in flows of tourist capital. Shifts in flows of tourist capital have the potential to cause shifts in economic power relationships between nations. Governments and planning agencies should acknowledge the inherent dependence of coastal tourism economies on shoreline health and water quality, and conceptions framing the two issues as dichotomous are destructive – causing urban decisions to be made as if environmental and economic interests are mutually exclusive. It is important that such perceptions shift in order to maintain healthy coastal economies. Additionally, the socio- …

An Empirical Exploration Of The Effects Of Natural Gas Prices On Solar Energy Growth, Jeffrey Walton

Economics Theses

This paper analyzes the relationship between natural gas prices and solar installation in the past ten years. The point is to explain how the fluctuations in natural gas prices have effected solar installation. Briefly, natural gas prices from three to five years ago have a positive coefficient on solar installation in the current period, meaning that as the natural gas price three to five years ago increases, solar installation today increases. In course of the analysis, we find that the Goldilocks theory holds true and a natural gas price range from $4 to $6 leads to the highest level of …

Water In The 21st Century, Grayson Michael Shor

Social Sciences

The aim of this research project is to provide a comprehensive and global analysis of water use in order to provide the reader with a comprehensive grasp of current and impending issues. The included five (5) chapters discuss water distribution, conservation, purification, law, international development, economic debates, ethical consideration, as well as educated estimations of the effects water related issues may cause in the next one-hundred years.

Cost Benefit Analysis Of The Keystone Xl Pipeline, Daniel Carr

Honors Theses

The Keystone XL pipeline is one of the most controversial topics in North America over the last five years. The debate is based on the trade‐off between Canadian oil sands as a usable energy resource and the environmental effects associated with the extraction and refining of the oil. The green house gasses emitted from the extraction and refining of oil sands produces several environmental concerns that make the proposed pipeline controversial. On the other hand, Canadian oil companies see a significant benefit from the ability of Canadian oil reaching international markets. TransCanada, a 79.99 percent owner of the pipeline, conducted …

Investment In Technology & Voluntary Simplicity: Exploring Opportunities For Energy-Efficiency In The Us Residential Sector, Elaine Charlebois

Honors Scholar Theses

This work examines alternative approaches for middle-class Americans to make lifestyle changes to promote energy efficiency. The US residential sector poses a significant opportunity for improvement in efficiency which will lead to electricity and carbon savings, further leading to long-term cost savings for each household.

A way to think about energy savings is by considering two radically different approaches: voluntary simplicity or investment in technology. Investments in technology include retrofits for existing homes and building new homes more efficiently, both focusing on aspects such as heating and cooling, insulation, water use and water heating, lighting, and appliances. Voluntary simplicity is …

Spreading The Char: The Importance Of Local Compatibility In The Diffusion Of Biochar Systems To The Smallholder Agriculture Community Context, Laura C. V. Munoz

Pomona Senior Theses

This thesis enters the context of smallholder agriculture communities in the developing world. It explores the potentials of biochar and what biochar systems could bring to the smallholder communities while simultaneously bringing environmental benefits. It then acknowledges the challenges of diffusion –the spreading of an unfamiliar innovation. It seeks to answer the question of what will make diffusion of biochar systems more successful in the smallholder context, fixating on the characteristic of compatibility as well as the role local community members can play in making a new biochar system more visible to the rest of the communities.

The Impact Of World Bank’S Conditionality-Ownership Hybrid On Forest Management In Cameroon: Policy Hybridity In International Dependence Development, Asongayi Venard

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Many developing countries depend on the World Bank for development assistance, which the Bank often provides with policy reform conditions. Resistance to World Bank’s conditionality caused the Bank to posit “ownership” as a country’s real assent to its development policies. The combination of ownership and conditionality invalidates the neocolonial, false-paradigm and dualism theses in explaining the international dependence development model. This study explains this model by investigating how the relationship between conditionality and ownership in the context of this model impacts forest management in Cameroon.

Integrating theoretical and methodological insights mainly from political science, economics, geosciences, and sociology, the study …

Issue Brief: Asset Management For Stormwater, New England Environmental Finance Center, Sustainable Communities Learning Network

Sustainable Communities Capacity Building

Asset management is a strategic approach to maintaining and sustaining infrastructure in order to meet the needs of the community at the lowest overall life cycle cost. This approach helps communities know how and where to prioritize limited funds in order to achieve the greatest benefit. Often applied to drinking water and wastewater infrastructure, this method is well suited to managing any assets, including stormwater systems.

This issue brief is intended to introduce local governments to the asset management process and to show how it can be applied in managing stormwater assets. It was adapted from an appendix written by …

Arizona's Vulnerable Populations, Jonathan G.S. Koppell, Warren Prostollo, Jay Kittle, Arlan Colton, Kim Demarchi, Darryl Dobras, Susan Goldsmith, Billie Fidlin, Jim Holoway, Tara Jackson, Rita Maguire, Elizabeth Mcnamee, Patrick Mcwhortor, Ray Newton, Pat Norris, Steve Pedigo, Scott Rhodes, Fred Rosenfed, Chad Sampson, David Snider, Bob Strain, Marissa Theisen, Devan Wastchak, Terri Wogan, Larry Woods, Antonia Adams-Clement, Nina Babich, Andrea Banks, Eric Bjorklund, Luke Black, Luis De La Cruz-Parra, Richard Fabes, Felicia Ganther, Joseph Garcia, Maria Harper-Marinick, Kevin Hengehold, Lane Kenworthy, Julie Knapp, Kelly Mcgowan, Ray Ostos, Kathleen Perales, Suzanne Pfister, Michael S. Shafer, Julia Grace Smith, Ed Strong, Cynthia Zwick

Publications from President Jonathan G.S. Koppell

Arizona’s vulnerable populations are struggling on a daily basis but usually do so in silence, undetected by traditional radar and rankings, often unaware themselves of their high risk for being pushed or pulled into a full crisis. Ineligible for financial assistance under strict eligibility guidelines, they don’t qualify as poor because vulnerable populations are not yet in full crisis. To be clear, this report is not about the “poor,” at least not in the limited sense of the word. It is about our underemployed wage earners, our single-parent households, our deployed or returning military members, our under-educated and unskilled workforce, …

Energizing Europe: The Geopolitics Of Energy Security And Energy Diversification In The European Union, Gabriel Alfredo Uribe

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Europe has always had an interesting relationship with Russia, be it social, political, or economic. From the days of the Cold War, when there was the ideological battle of communism versus capitalism, with the alliance of NATO representing a front against the Iron Curtain, certain remnants of this dynamic have still survived. Russia has not always had the best of relations with the European Union (EU), which has not made it easy for the EU to have fully functioning foreign relations with them. This is problematic specifically because of the importance that Russia has on EU energy security, as it …

Population, Progeny And Power: Analyzing Population Growth, Family Planning And The Factors That Contribute To High Child Bearing Rates In Kizanda Village, Tanzania, Jade Enright

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The population growth rate is reaching an astounding level in Tanzania and Eastern Africa. It is applying increasing pressure on things like social services, land availability, job opportunities, conservation and localized resources. This study looks at the perceptions of both men and women surrounding social and environmental factors contributing to the high population growth rate. It looks more specifically at factors including childbearing, birth control methods and their effectiveness, and how the birth rate correlates with changing quality of life. This study was conducted in Kizanda Village in the West Usambara Mountains of Northern Tanzania, a region following the trend …

Powering Rural Transformation: Solar Pv In Rural Uganda., Matt Piggins

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The intent of this study was to understand the role that solar PV plays in the process of rural electrification, what barriers exist in the PV market, and how the Rural Electrification Agency is bringing down those barriers. Moreover, I sought to understand solar PV’s development impact in rural areas and how people in rural regions of Uganda are using the technology, especially those at the bottom of the economic pyramid. Additionally, I sought to understand if PV is a financially viable option for the rural poor or if it is only obtainable by the rural upper and middle class. …

Tabasará Libre: A Case Study Of Development And Indigenous Rights, Katharine Evans

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Since the 1960s, indigenous groups in Panama have been fighting to maintain their land and ways of life against the growing threat and reality of national development. This study uses the Barro Blanco Hydroelectric Power Project as a case study to examine the consequences of development and the ultimate role that development plays in indigenous marginalization and assimilation. Data was collected through interview, participatory observation, and outside research over the course of a three week period. Findings include the role the government, legislation, and the public have played in this fight.

Coastal And Ocean Economic Summaries Of The Coastal States 2014, Pat Johnston

Publications

The following summaries of the ocean and coastal economies were prepared by the National Ocean Economics Program as a companion the State of the U.S. Ocean and Coastal Economies 2014. The U.S. report, its appendices, and these state summary reports are available on the NOEP website at www.OceanEconomics.org/download.

Slides: “Human Sustainability” In Natural Resources Industries: The New Frontier In Compliance, Social Responsibility, Disclosure, And Transparency, T. Markus Funk

Natural Resource Industries and the Sustainability Challenge (Martz Winter Symposium, February 27-28)

Presenter: T. Markus Funk, Partner, Perkins Coie

21 slides

Economic Impact Of The Commercial Fisheries On Local County Economies From Catch In All California National Marine Sanctuaries 2010, 2011 And 2012, Vernon R. Leeworthy, Desiree Jerome, Kelsey Schueler

Working Papers

This report estimates the economic impact of commercial fishing within all California National Marine Sanctuaries (CA NMS) according to the California Ocean Fish Harvester Economic Model (COFHE). The methodology applies county multipliers to estimates of harvest revenue from CA NMS in order to calculate output, income, value added and employment. This report also describes a profile of the commercial fish industry in the CA NMS. CA NMS includes all existing National Marine Sanctuary sites in California: Channel Islands (CINMS), Monterey Bay (MBNMS), Cordell Bank (CBNMS) and Gulf of the Farallones (GFNMS).

The three-year average for 2010 to 2012 finds that …

Compatibility Between Business And The Environment: Examples From A Case Study Of Patagonia, Ellesha Gasperini

International Political Economy Theses

A relatively new concept, corporate environmentalism refers to the action corporations are taking to become more conscience of their environmental impacts. Using a case study of the company Patagonia, the dual motivations that exist for it and other companies to adopt more environmentally friendly policies are used to argue that environmental responsibility in business is possible. These motivations are values and beliefs held by those inside a company and financial gains found in corporate sustainability. Although there still exist many barriers, such as financial markets, lacking consumer education, and global complexity, businesses are taking steps to overcome these obstacles. The …

The Domestic Natural Gas Shortage In China, Ting Guo

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

This thesis analyzes the domestic shortage in the Chinese natural gas market. Both the domestic supply and demand of natural gas are growing fast in China. However, the supply cannot catch up with the demand. Under the present pricing mechanism, the Chinese natural gas market cannot get the equilibrium by itself. Expensive imports are inadequate to fill the increasing gap between the domestic demand and supply. Therefore, the shortage problem occurs. Since the energy gap can result in the arrested development of economics, the shortage problem need to be solved. This thesis gives three suggestions to solve the problem: the …

Residential Electricity Demand In Arkansas, Ileana M. Resendez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This study analyzes residential electricity demand in Arkansas. Explanatory variables utilized include real per capita income, residential electricity price, heating degree days, cooling degree days, and residential natural gas price. The results indicate that the income effect dominates the substitution effect given a real personal income increase and a decline in real electricity rates in the state of Arkansas during the period under study.

Environmental Degradation: Key Challenge To Sustainable Economic Development In The Niger Delta, Christian Udogadi Duru

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Bold

Solar Pv Power Generation Forecasting Using Hybrid Intelligent Algorithms And Uncertainty Quantification Based On Bootstrap Confidence Intervals, Donna Alhakeem

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This Thesis focuses on short-term photovoltaic forecasting (STPVF) for the power generation of a solar PV system using probabilistic forecasts and deterministic forecasts. Uncertainty estimation, in the form of a probabilistic forecast, is emphasized in this Thesis to quantify the uncertainties of the deterministic forecasts. Two hybrid intelligent models are proposed in two separate chapters to perform the STPVF. In Chapter 4, the framework of the deterministic proposed hybrid intelligent model is presented, which is a combination of wavelet transform (WT) that is a data filtering technique and a soft computing model (SCM) that is generalized regression neural network (GRNN). …