Economics Commons^™

Life And Debt For Etsu Graduate Students., Laura Nelson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Through in-depth interviews with 21 participants, this thesis investigates how graduate students at East Tennessee State University feel about their finances. Although all adults, by necessity, have everyday money concerns, this study explores the unique experiences that post-baccalaureate students have with debt, how they talk about it, and what meanings they attach to student loans in their daily lives. This study is novel in that little research to date has examined how graduate students' perceptions of adulthood are connected to their financial situations and their stage in life. For example, saving money is important to this population mainly because it …

Nuestros Niños: Child Care Needs Assessment For The Latino Population In Bloomington-Normal, Andrew Maxwell, Joseph Alustiza, Sean Moore, Mary Stephen, Sanjay Soman, Andrew Kasprzak, Brian Hillery, Kara Harvey, Michael Hotard, Rebecca Bliss, Brandon Curtis, Adrienne Martin, Bishal Kasu, Jessica Aleksy

Community Project Design and Management Reports - Sociology

Immigration from the Latin American nations has become a prominent topic of discussion nationwide. Illinois is, to be sure, not an exception. The Latino population of Bloomington-Normal has grown drastically in recent years. To address these new developments, coalitions and organizations have been formed which endeavor to understand, and even provide for, the needs of this new community. Some hope this may facilitate their contribution to their new neighborhood.

This report is part of a larger needs assessment, which seeks to fulfill that goal of understanding. It examines the need for child care in relation to the Latino population in …

Essays On Intrahousehold Allocation And The Family: Fertility, Child Education, And Nutrition, Alemayehu Azeze Ambel

Dissertations

Understanding the constraints that households face when making decisions on fertility, education, and health is beneficial for effective interventions aimed at enhancing investments in human capital, promoting gender equity, and reducing poverty. This dissertation consists of four essays that analyze the nature, performance, and determinants of fertility, child education, and nutritional status in a developing economy.

The first essay identifies peculiar constraints, including gender preference and income uncertainty that households face when making fertility and schooling choices. The underlying assumption in the theoretical analysis is that in the absence of formal risk and capital markets, households may revert to informal …

Chinese Loyalty To Supervisor Questionnaire Development, Ding-Yu Jiang, Bor-Shuian Cheng, Chi-Ying Cheng, Li-Fang Chou

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Loyalty to supervisor is a prevalent but under-investigated phenomenon in Chinese organizations. One plausible reason for this is the lack of a reliable and valid measure of loyalty in the Chinese context. This study aims to develop a valid measure of Chinese loyalty to supervisor. In Study 1, we identify a four-dimension construct of loyalty to supervisor that consists of 11 sub-dimensions (factors) on the basis of loyalty literature. The four dimensions are: identification with supervisor, task assistance, obedience, and sacrifice for supervisor. In Study 2, a 40-item Chinese loyalty to supervisor scale was developed and examined by three independent …

Does Welfare Reform Work In Rural America? A 7-Year Follow-Up, Ann Tickamyer, Debra Henderson, Barry Tadlock

University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research Discussion Paper Series

Even before the advent of welfare reform, studies of low income working and welfare dependent groups showed that low wage working women are worse off than those who combine welfare with other income sources and that most used a wide variety of livelihood strategies. This is especially the case in poor rural settings where work is scarce and additional obstacles to employment such as lack of transportation and childcare are endemic. Data from a selfadministered survey of users of human service agency programs in four counties in a distressed region of Appalachian Ohio in 1999, 2001, and 2005, provide a …

Concurrent Panel Session 1: Challenges Of Economic Growth & Diversification & Labor Preparation In Las Vegas, Maggie Arias-Petrel, Cedric Crear, Somer Hollingsworth, Mike Majewski, John Restrepo, Mary Riddel, Keith Schwer, Dina Titus

Shaping the Future of Southern Nevada: Economic, Environmental, and Social Sustainability

Moderator: Dr. Mel Jameson, UNLV College of Business Scribe: Angela Moor, UNLV Department of History Conference white paper & Full summary of panel session, 6 pages

Child Labour And Microfinance In Morocco: Using Microfinance To Reduce Child Labour And The Case Of The Al Amana Microfinance Institution, Kristyn Schomp

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Approximately 218 million children are child laborers worldwide. These children work as agricultural workers, prostitutes, handicraft producers, and in virtually in every other form of employment imaginable. But although the problem of child labour has been one of recent international focus, there are still 126 million children involved in some form of hazardous work each year.

The existence of such statistics can be attributed in part to the complex and multi-faceted nature of child labour. Similarly, the reasons for child labour can range from economic and political instability, migration, lack of work, and/or poor school systems. Therefore, the reduction of …

Connected Lives And Embeddedness: Reading Zelizer With Granovetter – A Review And Critique, Deirdre Caputo-Levine, Alwyn Lim, Celine. Wills

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Our concern is to read Viviana Zelizer’s Purchase of Intimacy inrelation to Mark Granovetter’s embeddedness framework. We compare Zelizer’s connected-lives approach to the embeddedness literature in orderto tease out the similarities, differences, and improvements in the wayseconomic sociologists examine the intertwining of economic and socialbehavior. We argue that although Zelizer and Granovetter both focus onthis intermeshing of socioeconomic action, their perspectives reflect theirdiffering starting points: economic transactions or intimate relationships.We believe Zelizer’s connected-lives approach gives fresh insight to thenew economic sociology but we have some reservations regarding hertreatment of reciprocity and power in intimate relationships.

Os Países Latino Americanos E A Convenção Açucareira De Bruxelas De 1902, Heitor Moura Filho

Heitor Moura Filho

The effects of the Brussels Sugar Convention of 1902 on various Latin American countries are analysed: domestic production, exports, imports and prices.

The Apostle Table - Part Iii - Incompetent Endogenous Response Intransitivity, David Randall Jenkins

David Randall Jenkins

The Apostle Table illustrates a New Testament encryption scheme revealed in the Book of Matthew. Specifically, the list of the twelve apostles in Matthew, 10:1-4, points to the Matthew, Chapters 8 and 9, disciple characterizations. The disciples metaphorically characterize the social choice theory aspect of the scripture writers' (ordered relations theory: social choice theory: welfare model) regression. The paper is written in two parts: I. The Exogenous Pressures; and, II. The Endogenous Response. Interestingly, the paper explains why the crucified Jesus could not get off the cross.

From Brown To Busing, Elizabeth Cascio, Nora Gordon, Ethan Lewis, Sarah Reber

University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research Discussion Paper Series

An extensive literature debates the causes and consequences of the desegregation of American schools in the twentieth century. Despite the social importance of desegregation and the magnitude of the literature, we have lacked a comprehensive accounting of the basic facts of school desegregation. This paper uses newly assembled data to document when and how Southern school districts desegregated, as well as the extent of court involvement in the desegregation process over the two full decades after Brown. We also examine heterogeneity in the path to desegregation by district characteristics. The results suggest that the existing quantitative literature, which generally either …

The Role Of Informal Social Networks In Micro-Savings Mobilization, Margaret Lombe, Fred M. Ssewamala

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The influence of informal institutions on economic outcomes for low income individuals and households has received little attention in the United States. Yet, drawing on social capital theory and existing studies from developing countries where informal institutions have been widely used in promoting economic opportunities offamilies in poverty, one would expect these institutions to have positive effects on the economic outcomes of low income individuals in the context of an IDA program. Using a sample of 840 respondents who were enrolled in a community action program, this study assesses the effects of informal networks of social support on performance in …

Resilience In Ecology And Belief, Ram Ranjan

Ram Ranjan

TThis paper explores the crucial linkage between societal risk perception and the survival of threatened ecosystems exhibiting non-linear stock dynamics. Perception of risk over specie’s importance and over its survival chances may be subject to resilience and therefore may differ from actual risks. Whereas, ecosystems stand a better chance of survival if they aren’t stressed beyond their resilience thresholds. When an ecosystem’s sustainability and the subjective perception of risks of their loss are both influenced by the stock of a common natural resource, several resource management outcomes are possible, not all of which may ensure the sustainability of the ecosystem. …

Diabetes Treatments And Moral Hazard, Jonathan Klick, Thomas Stratmann

All Faculty Scholarship

In the face of rising rates of diabetes, many states have passed laws requiring health insurance plans to cover medical treatments for the disease. Although supporters of the mandates expect them to improve the health of diabetics, the mandates have the potential to generate a moral hazard to the extent that medical treatments might displace individual behavioral improvements. Another possibility is that the mandates do little to improve insurance coverage for most individuals, as previous research on benefit mandates has suggested that mandates often duplicate what plans already cover. To examine the effects of these mandates, we employ a triple-differences …

Burnout And Perceived Organisational Support Among Frontline Hospitality Employees, Gabrielle Walters, Michael Raybould

Michael Raybould

This article describes research designed to investigate the relationship between burnout and perceived organisational support (POS) among front-line hospitality employees. Three hundred front-line employees of a multisite hospitality firm were surveyed using an instrument comprising the general survey version of the Maslach Burnout Inventory and the 17-item version of the Survey of Perceived Organisational Support (POS). Significant relationships were found between POS and each of the three burnout dimensions of exhaustion, cynicism and personal efficacy. The findings of this study contribute to the existing academic literature and provide hospitality managers with a better understanding of the factors that contribute to …

Evidence About The Potential Role For Affirmative Action In Higher Education, Braz Camargo, Ralph Stinebrickner, Todd Stinebrickner

University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research Discussion Paper Series

In two recent cases involving the University of Michigan, the Supreme Court examined whether race should be allowed to play an explicit role in the admission decisions of schools. The primary argument in these court cases and others has been that racial diversity strengthens the quality of education offered to all students. Underlying this argument is the notion that educational benefits arise if interactions between students of different races improve preparation for life after college by, among other things, fostering mutual understanding and correcting misperceptions. Then, a fundamental condition necessary for the primary legal argument to be compelling is that …

Transitions Into And Out Of The Wic Program: A Cause For Concern?, Alison Jacknowitz, Laura Tiehen

University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research Discussion Paper Series

Despite the health benefits of participation in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), many eligible households do not participate in WIC during pregnancy and others exit WIC after a child turns one year old. This research uses the first two waves of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (ECLS-B) to advance our understanding of these transitions into and out of WIC. Findings suggest that those who exhibit better economic health across a variety of dimensions are more likely to delay entry into the program or exit after a child turns one year of age.

Oil. Seeking Peace In The Niger Delta: Oil, Natural Gas, And Other Vital Resources, Darren Kew, David L. Phillips

New England Journal of Public Policy

Nigeria’s oil-rich Niger Delta region has seen little benefit from the billions of dollars earned from oil over the last four decades, prompting a growing but disorganized insurgency across the region. Irresponsible oil companies and government officials have reduced the Niger Delta to one of the most polluted environments on earth. Corrupt local and national politicians, many of whom came to power through rigged elections, have colluded to manipulate ethnic divisions amid poverty to loot the region’s wealth. Consequently, the people of the Niger Delta have no formal political voice in Nigeria’s nascent democratic system, increasing the appeal of militias …

Achieving Economic And Ecological Resilience Through Natural Resource Management, Ram Ranjan

Ram Ranjan

Historically, the subsistence based lifestyles of small scale economies (SSEs) have avoided pushing the stock of their natural resources beyond thresholds where their resilience could be lost. However, rising frequencies of natural disasters coupled with a growing outside influence from the developed economies are increasingly putting pressure on the economic and natural resources of these societies. This paper explores the nature and role of inter-linkages between ecological and economic resilience in SSEs towards maintaining long term sustainability in the face of these external influences. It is shown that initial conditions associated with the stock of natural and physical capital could …

Linking Economic Development And Poverty: The Role Of Innovation And Innovation Capacity In The South, Jeremy Hall

University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research Discussion Paper Series

While most economic development research views poverty as a sign of need for development or poverty reduction as an outcome of successful development, this study treats poverty as an independent variable alongside contemporary measures of innovation capacity that reflect state potential for economic development, examining the combined impact of poverty and innovation capacity on economic development outcomes. The study examines the effect poverty has on economic development outcomes given levels of innovation capacity, and the effect poverty has on formation of state innovation capacity. The methodology consists of pooled cross-sectional time-series analysis with panel corrected standard errors with lags. The …

The Globalization Of Journalism Online: A Transatlantic Study Of News Websites And Their International Readers, Neil J. Thurman

Neil Thurman

Some British news websites are attracting larger audiences than their American competitors in US regional and national markets. At the British news websites studied, Americans made up an average of 36 per cent of the total audience with up to another 39 per cent of readers from countries other than the USA. Visibility on portals like the Drudge Report and on indexes such as Google News brings considerable international traffic but is partly dependent on particular genres of story and fast publication times. Few news websites are willing to disclose breakdowns of their large numbers of international readers fearing a …

Medical Malpractice Reform And Physicians In High-Risk Specialties, Jonathan Klick, Thomas Stratmann

All Faculty Scholarship

If medical malpractice reform affects the supply of physicians, the effects will be concentrated in specialties facing high liability exposure. Many doctors are likely to be indifferent regarding reform, because their likelihood of being sued is low. This difference can be exploited to isolate the causal effect of medical malpractice reform on the supply of doctors in high-risk specialties, by using doctors in low-risk specialties as a contemporaneous within-state control group. Using this triple-differences design to control for unobserved effects that correlate with the passage of medical malpractice reform, we show that only caps on noneconomic damages have a statistically …

Religion And Community: Mexican Americans In South Omaha (1900-1980) - Ollas Report No. 4, Maria S. Arbelaez

Latino/Latin American Studies Reports

Mexicans, like all other ethnic groups that created the United States as a nation of immigrants, were adamant in establishing churches of their own. Ethnic religious affiliations were essentially of Judeo-Christian origin and benefited effectively from the tolerance of worship mandated by the Constitution. Freedom of belief was known, demanded, and exercised by all immigrants. For Mexican and other ethnic communities, religious belief and centers of worship were the very heart of their community and identity bonds, their source of strength and reason to persevere in a new society where multiple nationalities, cultures, languages, and ethnicities converged.

This report provides …

The Impact Of Privatization On Economic Growth And Income Inequality In Developing Countries, Samuel Adams

School of Public Service Theses & Dissertations

In the 1960s and 1970s academicians, economists and politicians favored state ownership over private ownership in the production and provision of goods and services. By the end of the 1980s, however, there was a reversal of public policy from state domination of the production and provision of goods and services to private ownership and operation. This was due in part to what the World Bank referred to as "state failure”, which was characterized by inefficient service delivery, unprofitable SOEs, high government debt, and stagnant economic growth rates. Accordingly, privatization caught on in many countries as a policy tool to foster …

Self-Employed, Self-Empowered: Working Women In Benares, Madeline S. Oatman

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

“Economic independence is the password to women’s empowerment.”

Sathi Nair, a Senior Administrative Services official in Andhra Pradesh.

Twenty or so women sit peacefully on a cool cement floor at the Kutumb program center in Benares, India. The room floats like an oasis above the dusty heat of the street, and unobstructed light pours in through a large window. The women, heads bowed, black hair shining, are stitching and measuring, brows furrowed in concentration despite the lull of the lazy afternoon. They have come to learn a skill in order to make extra income, to be around women, exchange advice …

Why Not A Dollar?, Evelyn Murphy

New England Journal of Public Policy

Statisticians point out that women do not yet have quite as many years’ experience in the workforce as men have. It’s true that for the generation that began working in the 1960s, fewer women than men have a steady forty or fifty years of on-the-job experience. So maybe there should be a gap of a few pennies (at most!) to reflect that slight disadvantage. But not 23 cents’ worth! Social scientists hedge their conclusions about what causes that broad gap with disclaimers. They acknowledge that biases exist in their measurements. They admit that they cannot say for sure that differences …

Rethinking Retirement Policy In Massachusetts, Ellen A. Bruce

New England Journal of Public Policy

Women are significantly poorer than men in old age. One major cause of women’s disproportional poverty is retirement income policy that bases pensions and savings incentives on earned income. This paper describes the structure of our retirement policies and argues that some policies should be implemented that are not associated with earned income as a way to both support women’s caregiving roles and insure their economic well-being in old age.

Demographics Comes Of Age As A Key Analytical Tool, Chester Smolski

Smolski Texts

"When last Oct. 16, the U.S. Census Bureau announced that this country's population had reached the 300 million mark, there was considerable hoopla--and rightly so, since we continue to be the third most populated country, home to about one in 20 people in the world."

El Staff Presidencial En México. Del Secretario Particular A Las Oficinas De La Presidencia, J. R. Joel Flores-Mariscal

J. R. Joel Flores-Mariscal

No abstract provided.

Access To The Waterfront: Issues And Solutions Across The Nation, Natalie Springuel, Kathlyn Tenga-Gonzalez, Beth Owen, Kristen Whiting-Grant, Susan White, Paul Anderson

Maine Sea Grant Publications

A tide of demographic and economic change is moving through coastal towns, harbors, and communities throughout the United States. As the various regions and states confront the resulting conflicts over access to beaches, shorelines, and waterways, they are recognizing the need to identify and share tools and solutions.

In December 2006, Maine Sea Grant, with support from Hawaii Sea Grant and an advisory committee from the National Sea Grant network and Coastal Zone Management programs, surveyed over 140 extension professionals, coastal managers, and other individuals to characterize the scope of coastal access issues nationwide and the effects on coastal communities, …