Regional Economics Commons^™

An Inferentially Robust Look At Two Competing Explanations For The Surge In Unauthorized Migration From Central America, Nick Santos

Dissertations

The last 8 years have seen a dramatic increase in the flow of Central American apprehensions by the U.S. Border Patrol. Explanations for this surge in apprehensions have been split between two leading hypotheses. Most academic scholars, immigrant advocates, progressive media outlets, and human rights organizations identify poverty and violence (the Poverty and Violence Hypothesis) in Central America as the primary triggers responsible. In contrast, while most government officials, conservative think tanks, and the agencies that work in the immigration and border enforcement realm admit poverty and violence may underlie some decisions to migrate, they instead blame lax U.S. immigration …

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 …

Natural Disasters In Latin America: The Role Of Disaster Type And Productive Sector On The Urban-Rural Income Gap And Rural To Urban Migration, Madeline Alice Messick

Dissertations

This research provides insight into the impact of natural disasters as drivers of rural to urban migration in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). Disasters of varying types are predicted to have differing impacts on the productive sectors of agriculture, industry, and services; which due to the concentration of the various productive sectors in either urban or rural areas, subsequently changes the urban-rural wage differential. Changes to the wage differential (as measured by the urban-rural income gap) are predicted to lead to movement between urban and rural areas until a new equilibrium wage is reached.

This dissertation first identifies a …

The Influence Of The Electric Supply Industry On Economic Growth In Less Developed Countries, Edward Richard Bee

Dissertations

This study measures the impact that electrical outages have on manufacturing production in 135 less developed countries using stochastic frontier analysis and data from World Bank’s Investment Climate surveys. Outages of electricity, for firms with and without backup power sources, are the most frequently cited constraint on manufacturing growth in these surveys.

Outages are shown to reduce output below the production frontier by almost five percent in Africa and by a lower percentage in South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Middle East and North Africa. Production response to outages is quadratic in form. Outages also increase labor cost, reduce exports …

Preferential Trade Agreements And Quality Of Government In Sub-Saharan Africa, Sharon Camara

Dissertations

Objectives. Sub-Saharan African (SSA) nations have made concerted attempts at economic integration and openness with use of preferential trade agreements (PTAs) beginning in the latter half of the 1990s. These changes could result in increases in trade and growth. The World Bank’s Good Governance indicators are designed to assess the quality of institutions in a given country. The objective is to assess the impact of PTAs and Good Governance indicators on trade in SSA nations. Methods. Data on trade y was generated based on exports defined by the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Direction of Trade statistics, and both OLS and …

What Will The Neighbors Think? Perceptions Of Failure Intolerance On Individual Entrepreneurial Intention In The Rural Midwest, Brock M. Stout

Dissertations

Entrepreneurship is increasingly considered the most efficacious economic development intervention, but employing research-informed efforts is important. Extensive literature links the perception of a local culture’s intolerance of business failure to extinguishing of entrepreneurial intention in a community. Some research refutes that link. This study investigated the influence of perceived failure intolerance (PFI) on entrepreneurial intention—and the influence of self-efficacy on perceived failure intolerance—in the rural Midwestern United States. The study employed a modified Delphi methodology to analyze the decision-making processes of potential entrepreneurs as interpreted by experts in rural entrepreneurship. The study provides data about the interaction of human capital …

Essays On Export Destination Decisions And Spillovers From Inward Fdi: Evidence From Chilean Manufacturing Plants, Ivan A. Duran Diaz

Dissertations

This dissertation examines the relationship between destination country characteristics and Chilean firm characteristics on the export destination decisions of Chilean firms. Additionally, it explores the impact generated by inward foreign direct investment (FDI) on Chilean firms' export decisions, wages, and productivity.

For the first study, a random coefficients logit approach is employed to model export likelihood to a particular destination country. From this, estimates of export substitution elasticities among destination countries are obtained, given changes in some of their macroeconomic variables such as GDP. Both destination country and the Chilean firms' characteristics are shown to be relevant in the export …

An Evaluation Of The Renaissance Zone Programs Of Michigan, Yuanlei Zhu

Dissertations

This dissertation analyzes whether the Renaissance Zone (RZ) programs in the state of Michigan are effective in helping distressed urban areas. The unique ES202 data permits us to use both establishment level data and aggregated zip level data to examine the impact of RZ programs on the establishment number and the firms' employment, real wage, and life duration. Based upon the presumption that different firms are sensitive to the tax incentives in different ways, this study examines the impact on all firms, on new firms, dead firms, and existing firms, on manufacturing and service firms, and on large and small …