Other Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration Commons^™

Footing The Bill: An Empirical Look At The Correlation Between Campaign Contributions And Councilor Votes On Split Tax Rates In Massachusetts, Tristan Laliberte

Masters Theses

The current literature regarding the relationship between campaign contributions and roll call voting by elected officials has primarily focused on the congressional level. This study begins to fill the holes in this topic by utilizing city councilor contributions from likely business owners and their stance on tax classification in their respective communities. In this study, I examine contribution data from municipal officials in fourteen communities in Massachusetts as well as the expressed opinions made by city councilors in the 2018 tax classification hearings in order to test the theories that (1) there is a correlation between the actions of political …

Food Insecurity At A Four-Year College Campus, Danielle Corrado

School of Public Policy Capstones

This paper, through an adaption of the United States Department of Agriculture Adult Food Security survey tool, aims to identify food insecurity rates at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the demographic characteristics associated with food insecurity, potential financial factors that contribute and predict food insecurity rates, and the relationship between food insecurity and academic performance. Lastly, this paper examines on and off campus resources available to students and students perception of food insecurity before college as compared to actual food security status in college.

Access To Technology And Student Academic Achievement: Empirical Evidence From Nepal, Palista Kharel

School of Public Policy Capstones

My research explores the linkage between access to technology and student academic achievement in Nepal. I measure access to technology using four proxies: availability of electricity, radio, TV and computer at home. I measure academic achievement using student test scores in the Grade 10 national level examinations.

My results indicate that students with access to electricity, radio, TV and computer at home, have higher average test scores overall. Particularly, access to a computer has the largest positive effect on a student’s academic achievement. Simple OLS regression results suggest that those with access to a computer score 64 points higher than …

Curating Heritage In The Digital Age: An Exploration Of How America’S National Heritage Areas Are Using Technology To Share Their Stories, Desiree Demski-Hamelin

School of Public Policy Capstones

Research Question

This capstone project answers the following two primary research questions: 1) how are America’s National Heritage Areas (NHAs) using technology to share their stories, and 2) what types of information are NHAs using technology to share? Additional secondary research questions are outlined in the Methodology section.

Data Source

Primary data was collected from the websites and social media accounts of each of the forty-eight active NHAs in the United States as of April 2018.

Methodology

Systematic observational content analysis of the websites and social media accounts was conducted by the author. Two rating schemes were developed to assess …

The Abandoned Shipwrecks Act In Florida, Tyler Wolanin

School of Public Policy Capstones

The Abandoned Shipwrecks Act is a 1988 federal law that grants states jurisdiction over abandoned shipwrecks in their territorial waters. The intention of the law is to allow states to form historic preservation regimes to protect historic shipwrecks from looters and salvagers. One of the most important beneficiaries of this law is the state of Florida, with the longest coastline in the continental United States and a history of attempts to protect historic shipwrecks.

This law has been criticized since inception for removing the profit incentive for salvors to discover new shipwrecks. The Act has been subjected to a considerable …

Adolescents’ Soda Consumption In Mexico Before And After The Sugar-Sweetened Beverages Tax: Results From National Health And Nutrition Surveys, Estefania Martí Malvido

School of Public Policy Capstones

In 2014 Mexico implemented a national tax on sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) as a public health strategy. Over the last decades, obesity has significantly increased among adolescents (12-19 years). In addition, the consumption of high-energy beverages among adolescents more than doubled from 1999 to 2006. The current study investigates the relationship between the SSBs tax and the caloric soda consumption in the Mexican adolescent population utilizing cross-sectional data from two nationally representative nutrition surveys. One from 2012 which took place before the tax was implemented and one conducted in 2016, two years after tax implementation.

Results show a positive association between …

Transformative Learning Facilitated Dialogue: As A Tool For Social Change An Autoethnography, Leslie A. Saulsberry

Doctoral Dissertations

It is my goal, through this autoethnography, to take you through a reflective journey and present to you my personal theory of how facilitated dialogue in the context of transformative learning, critical reflection, systems thinking, shared vision, and holarchy can create a paradigm shift in our personal consciousness, decisions, behaviors, practice, and social policies—social change. My objective is to show how each theory is like a stepping-stone in the path towards social change. The purpose of this living work is to offer an alternative way of creating a healthy and whole society by exploring how facilitated dialogue can lead to …

The Network Society From Knowledge To Policy

Jane E. Fountain

No abstract provided.

Notes On The Impact Of Research On The Development Of Egovernment, Jane E. Fountain

Jane E. Fountain

In this article, the author sketches three dimensions of a research program that would have significant impact on European politics, economy and society. First, the design and political development of institutions is central to a mature research program, given the role played by these structures and systems in the capacity and behaviour of governments. Second, civil servants are the human actors within institutions who are the agents of change, the designers of the particularised elements of policy design and implementation, and the “nodes” of networked governance. Third, inequality reduction is one of the central tasks of a democratic society.

These …

Social Capital: Its Relationship To Innovation In Science And Technology, Jane E. Fountain

Jane E. Fountain

This paper argues that social capital is a necessary, although not sufficient, enabler of effective public-private partnerships and of a new, more collaborative style of innovation policy, although its significance for science and technology policy, has yet to be assimilated by most policy-makers. The network structure of the biotechnology industry in the United States and the regional-based industrial system in Silicon Valley, California are used to show how social capital affects innovation in science and technology. Two US national policy programs - the Advanced Technology Program and the Manufacturing Extension Partnership - make evident the growing importance of network development. …

Economic Development Policies Industrial Development Commissions State Of Massachusetts, Umass Amherst Center Economic Development

Center for Economic Development Technical Reports

This report explores the potential economic policies the state of Massachusetts can put into place to grow its industrial development. The report examines the geography and economy of the region, the labor market, demographic shifts, the size of the community, and the structure of the local government.