Growth and Development Commons^™

Growth In Sub Saharan Africa, 2000-2011, Sherrie Choong

Economics Master's Theses

This paper examines the economic growth in Sub Saharan Africa, 2000-2012 and if China is the cause for the recent growth. By looking at the 10 fastest growing Sub Saharan Africa countries and 10 slowest growing Sub Saharan Africa, all trades and FDI with China is observed in order to answer if Sub Saharan Africa depends on China for growth. Due to limitation of data, all data used are secondary and abstracted from various publications such as World Bank, IMF, government publications and scholar articles.

Medical Metropolis: The Impacts Of The Healthcare Industry On Rochester, Minnesota, Agata J. Miszczyk

Honors Projects

Specialized-function cities are dominated by one or two related industries that comprise the majority of the economic base of the area. Rochester, Minnesota is a prime example of such a city. The case of Rochester challenges much of conventional theory regarding economic diversification and spillovers of different economic systems. This case study presents new ideas regarding these spillovers and the success of specializations, as well as provides an in-depth analysis of the affect the Mayo Clinic - a premier medical facility – has on the local infrastructure and economy. This study illustrates how the healthcare industry has shaped Rochester's urban form ...

Incentives To Improve Economic Conditions: A Field Experiment In Medellin, Colombia, Lauren Skora

Master Theses

The motivation for this research is to replicate the Oakland based Family Independence Initiative (FII) and to test the components of this model. The FII program claims its success stems from a bottom-up approach structured around setting life-improving goals, mutual support groups, and small monetary incentives to achieve results. As the popularity of this program continues to gain momentum in the United States, we designed a field experiment to measure the impact of incentives on goal achievement and economic conditions as well as the overall impact of the FII model. We enrolled close to 200 small business owners in four ...

Inclusive Business: Using For-Profit Business Models To Address Global Poverty, Samuel James Conner

Senior Honors Papers

Due to the rise of globalization, modernization, and the Internet revolution, awareness of global poverty has expanded, making its eradication a chief goal of the global development community for the twenty-first century. Though corporations are often expected to participate in social and community development initiatives without regard for profits, this paper presents inclusive business as a way for businesses to profitably engage impoverished segments of society. Inclusive businesses seek to expand their consumer bases or strengthen their supply chains by moving into new markets among the poor that have limited access to global markets and remain largely untapped. The research ...

Information And Communication Technologies Implications For Social And Economic Development, Wilson Halder

Master's Level Graduate Research Conference

This presentation examines issues surrounding broadband based ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) and the implications for the role of the government, the private sector, the community and academia in supporting the utilization of broadband (internet connectivity) for social and economic development. The study being presented aims to identify key topic areas and questions for further collaborative research and to inform government policy development for an accessible and ubiquitous broadband infrastructure across both urban and rural regions. Living in the society of the Information Age, connectivity has become as vital as hydro, electricity and the roads and bridges that we move ...

Cash-In-Hand, Wives-In-Power: An Exploratory Analysis Of Microfinance In Jordan, Lauren Pugh

Master Theses

Microfinance is an economic policy complimentary to advancing female empowerment. Empowerment is particularly relevant in patriarchic Islamic contexts in the Middle East, however little research exists. Due to counterfactual creation and inconsistent empowerment measurement, the true impact is debated. This research proposes intra-spousal decision-making outcomes as the appropriate proxy to empowerment and uses a nuanced approach of counterfactual creation by utilizing responses from previous microfinance borrowers. Survey data from a Jordanian MFI is used to examine the endogeneity story and cash-in-hand effects on intra-spousal decision-making outcomes. An instrumental variable estimation technique finds a weak link between microfinance and empowerment.

Inflation Targeting And Growth: The Role Of The Tradable Sector, Luis Monroy Gómez Franco

Undergraduate Economic Review

This paper provides an analytical explanation to the empirical association between monetary policy conducted according to the inflation targeting (IT) framework and the appreciation of the exchange rate, relating it to the literature on the effects of the exchange rate on growth. A two sector small open economy model is developed in which the behavior of the non tradable inflation and the nominal exchange rate are analyzed. The results indicate that the response to inflation variance under the IT regime causes the appreciation trend. Since this trend is not reversed immediately, increasing returns in the tradable sector affect capital accumulation.

Mountain Monitor-4th Quarter 2012, Kenan Fikri, Mark Muro

Mountain Monitor

Indicators of economic recovery depicted continued progress in the major metropolitan areas of the Mountain West in the fourth quarter of 2012. The region’s employment recovery gained momentum, and solid home-price increases in the region contributed to the nation‘s broader housing recovery. Such inroads bode well for further advances in 2013. At the same time, the region’s output recovery slowed and unemployment refused to budge.

Mountain Monitor-3rd Quarter 2012, Mark Muro, Kenan Fikri

Mountain Monitor

The major metropolitan areas of the Intermountain West finally put the housing bust behind them in the third quarter of 2012 and in most places made solid progress. House prices rose in all 10 major metropolitan markets in the months from June to September for the first time since the recession began. Likewise, output growth accelerated and the unemployment rate continued to fall. Unfortunately none of this prevented the region’s already feeble jobs recovery from slowing.

Issues In The Analysis Of Inequality, Michael R. Smith

Population Change and Lifecourse Strategic Knowledge Cluster Discussion Paper Series/ Un Réseau stratégique de connaissances Changements de population et parcours de vie Document de travail

In spite of data and methodological challenges, research has largely reached the conclusion that earnings inequality has risen in Canada, the US and elsewhere, and that the rise has been mainly driven by large increases at the top of the earnings distribution. Researchers offer two competing explanations for causes of the rising inequality: (1) innovations in information and communication technologies, and (2) institutional changes such as the freezing of the minimum wage, decline in unionization, and the spread of performance-related pay increases. Inequality is influenced by changes in population composition, specifically, the size of cohorts entering the labour market, and ...

A Study Of Corruption, Foreign Aid, And Economic Growth, Amanda Deerfield

Theses and Dissertations--Public Policy Administration

Foreign aid donors increasingly demand that aid is used efficiently and effectively. This study examines the effect of corruption levels, measured by the Corruption Perceptions Index, within a recipient country on the levels of economic growth. A growing literature outlines the mechanisms through which corruption impedes economic growth and is summarized within. Additionally, as longevity gains may result from foreign aid but are not captured in economic growth, this study computes a variable called the Life Quality Indicator (LQI) that combines such gains with economic growth and examines corruption’s effect on LQI growth. As any windfall, foreign aid has ...

Essays In Macroeconomics Of Development, Douwere Eric Grekou

University of Western Ontario - Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis consists of three chapters on macroeconomics of development. The first chapter discusses the impact of educational corruption on economic development. Its main contribution lies in quantifying two channels of educational corruption: a direct channel, whereby incompetent workers affect production due to a misallocation of talent, and a dynamic indirect channel, which can be referred to as a teacher’s effect on the availability of competent agents for production. The results suggest that, for the countries with the highest levels of educational corruption, the losses in output per capita induced by the indirect channel are ten times as large ...

Cohesion Policy Of The European Union: Facilitated By Supranational Institutions And Regional Autonomy Or Hindered By National Sovereignty?, Caitlin Daw

Claremont-UC Undergraduate Research Conference on the European Union

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of Government Policies On Access To Broadband, James Prieger

School of Public Policy Working Papers

With a new focus for federal universal service programs on broadband and the NTIA BTOP funding for broadband adoption projects, recent years have been “exciting times” for those interested in broadband policy aimed at stimulating adoption. While most of the recent programs are still too new to be evaluated rigorously, lessons from older academic study can inform our expectations and lend guidance toward evaluating program success. In this brief work, I review what we know from the last decade and a half of literature on the impact of regulation on broadband adoption, discuss the (mostly woeful) attempts at evaluating adoption ...

Moral Markets And The Problematic Proprietor: How Neoliberal Values Shape Lottery Debates In Nevada, Christopher Wetzel

Occasional Papers

All but seven states have legalized lotteries since New Hampshire ushered in the modern lottery era in 1964. Although casino gaming has been permitted since 1931, Nevada has rejected multiple legislative proposals amend the State Constitution and create a state-run lottery. This paper theorizes the lottery’s absence in Nevada, focusing in particular on the role of the state. Lotteries are distinct from other forms of gaming because states act simultaneously as the operation’s regulator and proprietor. In this case, Nevada’s lottery legalization debates over the last half century reflect the profound moral valence of markets. The state ...

Inconvenient Truth About Boise Public Transportation, Benjamin Case, Kellen Hill, Lexy Leahy, Morgan Porter, Jesse Sonoda

College of Business and Economics Poster Presentations

The Boise-Nampa metropolitan area is growing rapidly, and its transportation system must expand to account for this growth. However, in order for a public transportation system to be effective, citizens must have both the ability and the incentive to make use of it. Our research will focus on the demand for public transit in the Boise-Nampa metropolitan area. First, we will determine current ridership on the existing public transit system, frequency of use, reasons for using mass transit over other alternative modes of transportation, and what attributes of the system make it an attractive option. Next, we will determine what ...

The Impact On The U.S. Economy Of Changes In Wait Times At Ports Of Entry, Bryan Roberts, Nathaniel Heatwole, Dan Wei, Misak Avetisyan, Oswin Chan, Adam Rose, Isaac Maya

Non-published Research Reports

This study estimates the impacts on the U.S. economy of changes in wait times at major Ports of Entry (POEs) due to changes in Customs and Border Protection (CBP) staffing, both increases and decreases. The impacts begin with changes in tourist and business travel expenditures and with changes in freight transportation costs. These changes, in turn, translate into ripple, or multiplier, effects in port regions and the overall U.S. economy. The total impacts of these changes are measured in terms of:

• Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
• Value of time (opportunity costs), and
• Employment, at both regional and national levels ...

Decomposition Of Ireland’S Carbon Emissions From 1990-2010: An Extended Kaya Identity, Tadhg O'Mahony

Articles

In recent decades, Ireland has been an important example of a development pathway where rapid economic growth was accompanied by rising energy demand and increasing carbon emissions. Understanding the driving forces of carbon emissions is necessary for policy formulation and decomposition analysis is widely used for this purpose. This study uses an extended Kaya identity as the scheme and applies the log mean Divisia index (LMDI I) as the decomposition technique. Change in carbon emissions is decomposed from 1990 – 2010 and includes a measure of the effect of renewable energy penetration. Results illustrate that scale effects of affluence and population ...

Do Remittances Improve The Standard Of Living In African Countries?, Yohanna Cerna

DISCOVERY: Georgia State Honors College Undergraduate Research Journal

No abstract provided.

Support For Suburban Growth Management: Lessons From Loudoun County, Virginia, Sidney Turner, Edmund Zolnik, Debasree Das Gupta

Suburban Sustainability

A multilevel approach is adopted to analyze how individual-level and community-level predictors interact to affect support for a specific growth management instrument. The multilevel model specification controls for respondent’s perceptions of local government’s general efficacy in managing growth and local growth rates. Results suggest that support for a specific growth management instrument increases amongst residents who generally support local government efforts to management growth and who live in high-growth communities. The implication is that policymakers who wish to foster support for specific growth instruments ought to target residents who generally support local government’s efforts to manage growth ...