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Part 3: The Scourge Of Opioids In The Commonwealth, Center For Economic Analysis And Policy, Old Dominion University

State of the Commonwealth Reports

Opioid-related deaths have skyrocketed in the Commonwealth and the United States. Almost three-quarters of those who abuse opioids start with a legitimate prescription. We investigate the rise of fentanyl as the primary cause of overdose fatalities and compare opioid practices in the United States with other industrialized countries. We estimate the costs of the opioid crisis and ask what steps can be taken to help those currently addicted and to prevent future deaths.

Part 6: Time To Go Regional Or Mega?, Center For Economic Analysis And Policy, Old Dominion University

State of the Commonwealth Reports

Interest in regional cooperation is rising again in the Commonwealth. We discuss the benefits of regionalism and examine the rise of megaregions in the United States. We ask whether there is a Richmond-Hampton Roads megaregion in the making.

Accounting For Locational, Temporal, And Physical Similarity Of Residential Sales In Mass Appraisal Modeling: The Development And Application Of Geographically, Temporally, And Characteristically Weighted Regression, Paul E. Bidanset, Michael Mccord, John R. Lombard, Peadar Davis, William J. Mccluskey

School of Public Service Faculty Publications

Geographically weighted regression (GWR) has been recognized in the assessment community as a viable automated valuation model (AVM) to help overcome, at least in part, modeling hurdles associated with location, such as spatial heterogeneity and spatial autocorrelation of error terms. Although previous researchers have adjusted the GWR weights matrix to also weight by time of sale or by structural similarity of properties in AVMs, the research described in this paper is the first that has done so by all three dimensions (i.e., location, structural similarity, and time of sale) simultaneously. Using 24 years of single-family residential sales in Fairfax, Virginia, …

How Do The Trans-Pacific Economies Affect The Usa? An Industrial Sector Approach, Takeshi Yagihashi, David D. Selover

Economics Faculty Publications

This paper studies how the Trans-Pacific region affects the US economy in terms of business cycle transmission. We use a large data set consisting of disaggregated sectoral industrial production indexes from selected countries in the region and employ a factor-augmented vector autoregression (FAVAR) approach to analyze the transmission of shocks in different industries. We find that a positive output shock in the entire Trans-Pacific region has positive effects on the majority of US manufacturing sectors. We also find that sectoral shocks in five sectors of the Trans-Pacific region have a large impact on the overall US economy. Three of the …

Politics Below The Surface: A Political Ecology Of Mineral Rights And Land Tenure Struggles In Appalachia And The Andes, Lindsay Shade

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

This dissertation examines how confusion and lack of access to information about subsurface property rights facilitates the rapid acquisition of mineral rights by mining interests, leaving those who live 'above the surface' to contend with complicated corporate and bureaucratic apparatuses. The research focuses on the first proposed state-run large scale mining project in Ecuador, believed to contain copper ores, and on the natural gas hydrofracking industry in three counties in north central West Virginia. Qualitative and visual methods, including mapping, are employed to determine (i.) how the geography of subsurface ownership patterns is changing, (ii.) links between changes in subsurface …

Natural Resource, Regional Growth, And Human Capital Accumulation, Na Zuo

Theses and Dissertations--Agricultural Economics

The dissertation research will comprise three essays on the topic of the resource curse hypothesis and its mechanisms. The phenomenon of low economic growth in resource-rich regions is recognized as the “resource curse”. These essays will contribute to an understanding of the regional resource-growth relation within a nation.

Essay one tests the resource curse hypothesis at the U.S. state level. With a system of equations model, I decompose the overall resource effect to account for the two leading explanations — crowding-out and institution effects, thus investigate whether the institutions mediate the crowding-out effects. I did not find evidence of an …

The Economic Impact Of City-County Consolidations: A Synthetic Control Approach, Joshua C. Hall, Josh Matti, Yang Zhou

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

Although more rapid development is a primary motivation behind city-county consolidations, relatively few empirical papers explore the actual impact of consolidation on development. This study uses the synthetic control method (SCM) to examine the long-term impact of city-county consolidations on per capita income, population, and employment. The results from the three cases explored indicate that consolidation does not guarantee development and can actually have negative effects. Additionally, the effects vary based upon the county, time horizon, and development measure.

Geography, Trade, And Macroeconomics, Hao Guo

Theses and Dissertations--Economics

This dissertation studies the effects of external integration and internal liberalization on the economic geography within a country when regions within the country have different access to the world market.

The first paper introduces internal geography into the Melitz (2003) model to examine how external and internal liberalizations affect the economic geography within a country. By dividing a country into a coastal region and an inland region, the model shows that trade leads the coastal region have a higher than proportional share of industry, and causes firms in the coastal region to be larger and more productive than firms in …

The End Of The Three Percent Rule: How Structural Changes In The U.S. Economy Have Impacted Economic Growth, Maxwell J. Urman

CMC Senior Theses

Using data from government sources (FRED, BEA, BLS), the thesis explores the underlying reasons for declining U.S. economic growth. A long standing trend of annual 3% growth no longer seems to hold true for the economy. The paper summarizes current theory as to why the growth has slowed and finds new explanations by analyzing the various major industries which make up GDP. The results show that sectoral shifts in employment from high paying industries to low paying industries help to explain a significant portion of the decline in national growth rates. The decline in growth is primarily driven by about …

The Interconnection Of The Great Recession, Income Disparity, Segregated Metropolitan Districts, And Their Significance To All In The U.S., Marcellus Demer

CMC Senior Theses

In the United States, nobody can survive without depending on the income of oneself or of those that support them. Thus, economic opportunity and its skewed availability is pertinent to everyone. With income inequality in the United States measured in the early 2010s reaching some of the highest estimates among nations around the globe, people seek to investigate the forces behind this phenomenon and reverse it. This paper focuses on some of the many cycles and structures that exist to reinforce the challenges of achieving economic equality. Specifically, I extrapolate data to measure the correlations between the Great Recession and …

Institutional Development: Interpreting The Russian Case, Joshua W. Rooney

CMC Senior Theses

A fundamental question to both historians and development economists is why countries today are able to reach and maintain such starkly different economic outcomes. Popular explanations include geographic and climatological features, short-term policy decisions, and economic institutions. This paper looks at the importance of violence and social pressure in the transformation and conservation of political and economic institutions in Russia. It finds that several major historical legacies including serfdom, Mongol dominance, Orthodoxy, and authoritarianism significantly influence both the past a present institutional setting. Furthermore, such legacies have proven to be major obstructions to the emergence of economic liberalism.

(Anti)Poverty Measures Exposed, Francine J. Lipman

Scholarly Works

Few economic indicators have more salience and pervasive financial impact on everyday lives in the United States than poverty measures. Nevertheless, policymakers, researchers, advocates, and legislators generally do not understand the details of poverty measure mechanics. These detailed mechanics shape and reshape poverty measures and the too often uninformed responses and remedies. This Article will build a bridge from personal portraits of families living in poverty to the resource allocations that failed them by exposing the specific detailed mechanics underlying the Census Bureau’s official (OPM) and supplemental poverty measures (SPM). Too often, when we confront the problem of poverty, the …

Workers' Compensation: Analysis For Its Second Century, H. Allan Hunt, Marcus Dillender

Upjohn Press

Hunt and Dillender review the status of workers' compensation programs on three critical performance areas: 1) the adequacy of compensation for those disabled in the workplace, 2) return-to-work performance for injured workers, and 3) prevention of disabling injury and disease.

The Stem Dilemma: Skills That Matter To Regions, Fran Stewart

Upjohn Press

Fran Stewart dives into the murky waters where education and economic goals meet to confront several key issues facing policymakers and educators, including the role of public investment in human capital, the types of human capital investment that provide the greatest public return, and whether those investments should vary by region.

She shows that not all high-paying jobs require STEM skills; that not all good-paying, highly skilled STEM jobs require college degrees; and that "soft skills" are important for STEM as well as other high-paying jobs.

The Role Of Distance In College Undermatching, Lois Miller, Humberto Barreto

School of Business and Leadership Working Papers

This paper explores factors explaining why so many high-achieving, low-income students apply to and enroll at universities with relatively low academic standards, despite generous financial aid packages and evidence that these students would be successful at colleges that are more selective. Amazon’s Mechanical Turk was used to gather data, and the entire file is freely available at academic.depauw.edu/hbarreto_web/working. A probit analysis confirms an established result that low-income students are more likely to undermatch. The key result is that as the distance between a student’s home and the university they attend increases, the probability that the student will undermatch decreases. At …

Supplementary Studies In Rio Grande Valley History, Milo Kearney, Anthony K. Knopp, Antonio Zavaleta, Thomas Daniel Knight

Studies in Rio Grande Valley Regional History Series

Corrupted, a poem / Tom Emrick -- Primal Matamoros : ancient refuge among the Estuaries of the Rio Bravo / Craig H. Roell -- U.S.-Mexico relations during the establishment of the American Consulate in Matamoros : 1826-1842 / Melisa C. Galvan -- Captain King’s Cotton : the Civil War blockade-running adventures of Richard King and Mifflin Kenedy / Walter E. Wilson -- The sad saga of John V. Singer / Norman Rozeff -- Ulster and the Texas-Mexico Border : John McAllen and his family / Thomas Daniel Knight -- Joseph Kleiber and his letter press book / Anthony K. Knopp …

Towards An Intellectual History Of Evolutionary Economics: Competition And Struggle Versus Cooperation And Mutual Aid, John B. Hall, Svetlana Kirdina-Chandler

Economics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Our inquiry considers the origins of Evolutionary Economics by reintroducing a debate that took place in Russia in the 19th and early 20th century. Responses to Charles Darwin’s The origin of Species are considered, especially critiques stressing Darwin’s emphasis upon competition and struggle in natural selection, that can be traced directly to Thomas Robert Malthus. Considering challenging contributions made by several Russian scholars, we place special emphasis upon Peter Kropotkin’s focus on cooperation and “mutual aid” in natural selection and evolution. We then speculate upon the commonality found in the evolutionary views advanced by Kropotkin and his American contemporary, Thorstein …

The Strategic Potential Of Community-Based Hybrid Models: The Case Of Global Business Services In Africa, Stephan Manning, Chacko G. Kannothra, Nichole K. Wissman-Weber

Management and Marketing Faculty Publication Series

As a latecomer economy, Africa faces persistent difficulties with catching up in global markets. This study examines the strategic potential of community-based hybrid models, which balance market profitability with social impact in local communities. Focusing on the global business services industry in Kenya and South Africa, and the practice of ‘impact sourcing’ – hiring and training of disadvantaged staff servicing business clients – we find that while regular providers struggle to compete with global peers, hybrid model adopters manage to access underutilized labor pools through community organizations, and target less competitive niche client markets. We further identify key industry, institutional …

The Economic Impact Of The Marine Leisure Industry On Cork Harbour, Aisling Conway Lenihan, Helen Mcguirk

Publications

This report, commissioned by the Cool Route Project,presents the economic impact of the Marine Leisure Industry in Cork Harbour. The Cool Route Project, funded byInterreg VB1funding, “investigates all aspects of the practical logistics and business potential to establish a bi-directional yacht cruising route along the western offshore areas of the Northern Periphery Area, stretching from Co. Cork in the South of Ireland, to the UK (Northern Ireland and Western Scotland) and onwards to the Faroe Islands and Norway”(Cool Route 2017).Led by theCork Institute of Technology (CIT), the Project partners, also include the Royal Cork Yacht Club, Donegal County Council, Derry …

The Economic Impacts Of Forest Timber Methods In Washington State: A Hedonic Approach, Kaleb Javier

All Master's Theses

Washington State is one of the nation’s leaders in timber production. This paper establishes literature gap regarding the economic impacts of forest timber management methods. In this research, I employ a data set of 170,141 home sales across eleven counties of western Washington to estimate the impact that even-age and uneven-age forest cutting methods have on the local real-estate market. I estimate two sets of hedonic fixed effect regression models to control for omitted variable bias and spatial autocorrelation. The results show statistically significant impacts on property values for both cutting methods, adding important information for forest managers.

An Econometric History Of Philippine Trade: 1810–1899, Luisito C. Abueg

DLSU Business & Economics Review

An econometric “verification” of historical accounts of Philippine international trade and economic liberalization during the 19th century using econometric analysis to correlate historical accounts from official and other historical sources from Spanish era of Filipinas (majority of Luzon and Visayas trading centers). This paper also aims to assess macroeconomic trends and institutional analyses of Philippine colonial trade of the 19th century (with consequences to the 20th century Philippine economic development experience) using the perspective of econometric methodology.

Does Tort Reform Affect The Market For Lawyers? Evidence From The U.S States., Ablaye Camara

Wayne State University Dissertations

This paper investigates the determinants of the market for lawyers with a focus on demand variables including tort reform laws. In this study, I used the Feasible Generalized Least Squared method and a Panel Corrected Standard Error method, with year and State identifiers applied to a panel of U.S states, to estimate the determinants of the Number of Lawyers. I also used the Fixed Effect model with year and state identifiers to evaluate the effects of these determinants on the Earnings of Lawyers.

The findings show that the Lagged Number of Lawyers and the Lagged Alternative Earnings are both significant …

Homeowner Preferences After September 11th, A Microdata Approach, Adam Nowak, Juan Sayago-Gomez

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

The existence of homeowner preferences - specifically homeowner preferences for neighbors -is fundamental to economic models of sorting. This paper investigates whether or not the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 (9/11) impacted local preferences for Arab neighbors. We test for changes in preferences using a differences-in-differences approach in a hedonic pricing model. Relative to sales before 9/11, we find properties within 0.1 miles of an Arab homeowner sold at a 1.4% discount in the 180 days after 9/11. The results are robust to a number of specifications including time horizon, event date, distance, time, alternative ethnic groups, and the …

How Much Does Talent Matter? Evidence From The Brazilian Formal Cultural Industry, Ricardo Da Silva Freguglia, Amir Borges Ferreira Neto

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

The goal of this paper is to evaluate how much does talent – the individual non-observed characteristics – matter to explain the wage differences between workers from the cultural industry and workers from other formal industries in Brazil. To do so we use the data from 2003 to 2008 of the Rais-Migra – MTE, which is a true panel of formal workers from Brazil, and use fixed effects estimators to capture the talent measure and the Blinder (1973) and Oaxaca (1973) decomposition to seek for evidences of wage difference. The results imply that the talent is important in the determination …

Trade Cluster Impacts On Southern Border Transportation Costs, Ernesto Duarte Ronquillo

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This Thesis develops a fixed effect model to analyze the impact of trade clusters on transportation costs. CIF/FOB ratios are utilized as the measures for transportation costs. Grubel-Lloyd and Herfindahl-Hirschman indexes are utilized as variables that identify trade clusters. The focus of this study encompasses four custom districts (El Paso, Laredo, Nogales, and San Diego) located on the southern border of the United-States over the period of 1995-2015. Driscoll-Kraay robust standard errors are calculated for each estimated model. The 9/11 terrorist attack effects are taken into account in the fixed effect model. Empirical results suggest that trade clusters have a …

Mexican Migration Flows To The United States: A State-To-State Panel Data Analysis Of The Consular Identification Card From 2011 To 2014, Jesus Elias Mendoza Hernandez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This analysis explores migration flows from Mexico to the United States at the state level. This study finds empirical evidence to support the idea that social and economic factors can help predict state-to-state migration flows. Using an alternative measure of migration flows, the Matricula Consular de Alta Seguridad (Consular Identification Card) data from 2011 to 2014, a panel data model is constructed from yearly data to analyze the effects of different determinants of migration flows. The migration flows' determinants analyzed are distance, established immigrant networks in the United States, the US and Mexican states' business cycles, populations, and crime rates, …

Private Stakeholders’ Perception On Leveraging Provider Payment Methods For Both Public And Private Sectors To Help Meet National Health Goals In Myanmar, Nay Nyi Nyi Lwin

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

Myanmar has committed to achieving universal health coverage (UHC) by 2030. With a poor economy and scarce resource, the government alone cannot achieve UHC without the collaboration of private stakeholders which has an increasing role in the health sector with evolving political and administrative circumstances. To uplift equitable access to essential quality health care services with financial risk protection and efficiency, the country is eager to know a suitable mix of provider payment methods which can be used as key levers to support achieving UHC goals. This study is designed to explore the private stakeholders' perception on leveraging provider payment …

Technical Efficiency Of Public District Hospitals In Vietnam, Thi Binh Lam

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

The objectives of this study aimed to evaluate the Technical Efficiency of public district hospitals in Vietnam and to determine factors affecting the hospitals' efficiency. Input-Oriented Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model was applied to estimate the technical efficiency scores among 52 public district hospitals in 6 provinces of Vietnam in 2014. Then, Tobit regression model was employed to explore the determinant factors. Results of the DEA indicated that there were considerable variations of efficiency scores in terms of return to scale assumptions. The average variable return to scale technical efficiency (VRSTE) and constant return to scale technical efficiency (CRSTE) were …

ระดับค่าจ้างที่แตกต่างกันในพื้นที่ความหนาแน่นกรุงเทพมหานครผ่านเว็บไซต์หางานออนไลน์, จุมพล กูลโท

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

แนวคิดเศรษฐศาสตร์จุลภาคเชื่อว่าศักยภาพของพื้นที่จะส่งผลโดยตรงกับค่าแรงของแรงงานในพื้นที่ด้วย การวิจัยครั้งนี้จึงมีวัตถุประสงค์เพื่อ1) แสดงให้เห็นการเกิดขึ้นของ Intra-Urban Wage Premium ในแต่ละย่านของกรุงเทพมหานคร 2) ศึกษาลักษณะของเมืองว่าเอื้อต่อการเกิด Intra-Urban Wage Premium และ 3) ศึกษาผลกระทบกับประสบการณ์ทำงานที่เกิดจากการทำงานในย่านพื้นที่ต่างๆ โดยงานวิจัยชิ้นนี้เป็นการนำข้อมูลจากบัญชีผู้ใช้งานในเว็บไซต์หางานออนไลน์ การวิเคราะห์จะต่อยอดด้วยการนำชื่อบริษัทจากประวัติงานของผู้ใช้บริการมาค้นหาตำแหน่งพิกัดสถานที่ผ่าน Google Map เพื่อ 1) ระบุย่านพื้นที่ของสถานที่ตั้งบริษัท โดยผู้วิจัยทำการแบ่งย่านเมืองทั้งสิ้น 8 เขตเมือง ตามความหนาแน่นของการจ้างงานและระดับเงินเดือนของปี 2558 (49,730 ตำแหน่งงาน) และ 2) เพื่อระบุลักษณะของเมือง (Urban Characters) ที่บริษัทตั้งอยู่ ผ่านฐานข้อมูล GoodWalk Score โดยศูนย์ออกแบบและพัฒนาเมือง (UddC) จุฬาลงกรณ์มหาวิทยาลัย และเลือกใช้ตัวแบบ Mincer's Equation ในการวิเคราะห์ผู้ที่ตัดสินใจเปลี่ยนงานใหม่ในปี พ.ศ. 2559 (3,652 ราย) ผลการศึกษาพบว่า 1) การเกิดขึ้นของ Intra-Urban Wage Premium จะมีความเข้มข้นสูงในย่านสีลม-สาทร และอโศก-เพชรบุรี มากตามลำดับ 2) ลักษณะเมืองที่เอื้อให้การเข้าถึงพื้นที่ด้วยการเดินเท้า (GoodWalk Score) จะช่วยส่งเสริมให้เกิดการเพิ่มขึ้นของระดับค่าจ้างโดยเฉลี่ยภายในพื้นที่ อีกทั้ง 3) ประสบการณ์ของแรงงานที่เคยทำงานในเขตที่มีความเข้มข้นของการเป็นเมืองสูงจะช่วยให้ได้รับ Intra-Urban Wage Premium จากการเข้าทำงานใหม่สูงสอดคล้องกัน

เศรษฐศาสตร์การเมืองว่าด้วยกลุ่มทุนระบบรางในไทย, อดิศักดิ์ สายประเสริฐ

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

วิทยานิพนธ์เล่มนี้ต้องการศึกษาพัฒนาการของกลุ่มทุนระบบรางในไทย ตั้งแต่ปี พ.ศ. 2398 ซึ่งเป็นปีที่เศรษฐกิจไทยเข้าเป็นส่วนหนึ่งของระบบทุนนิยมโลก จนถึงปี พ.ศ. 2558 เพื่อวิเคราะห์ปฏิสัมพันธ์ระหว่างรัฐกับกลุ่มทุนที่มีบทบาทนำและลักษณะการสะสมทุน โดยการสร้างกรอบการวิเคราะห์จากงานเขียนทางด้านเศรษฐศาสตร์การเมือง ประกอบไปด้วย แนวคิดว่าด้วยการนำของรัฐในระบบราง (Theory of State Domination of Railways) แนวคิดม้าสามขา (Tripod Structure) ของ Suehiro Akira และงานของ J. Allen Whitt ซึ่งจะแบ่งกลุ่มทุนระบบรางในแต่ละยุคตามบทบาทการนำออกเป็น 3 กลุ่ม ได้แก่ กลุ่มทุนโดยรัฐ กลุ่มทุนเอกชนภายในประเทศ และกลุ่มทุนต่างชาติ จากการศึกษา พบว่า เริ่มแรกกลุ่มทุนที่มีบทบาทนำในระบบราง คือ กลุ่มทุนต่างชาติซึ่งเป็นข้าราชการที่มีความรู้ในด้านการสำรวจ และ กลุ่มทุนโดยรัฐซึ่งได้ว่าจ้างชาวต่างชาติที่มีความรู้ระบบรางมาเป็นข้าราชการ จนกระทั่งเมื่อสิ้นสุดสัญญาสัมปทานจึงทำให้กลุ่มทุนเอกชนหมดบทบาทในระบบรางไป กลุ่มทุนโดยรัฐจึงเป็นผู้ผูกขาดระบบรางและเข้าบริหารกิจการรางแทนกลุ่มทุนเอกชน แต่กลับประสบปัญหาการขาดทุนและการขยายระบบรางที่ล่าช้า เนื่องจากการขาดแคลนเงินในการขยายเส้นทาง ทำให้ต้องกู้เงินจากกลุ่มทุนการเงินระหว่างประเทศ ซึ่งถือเป็นการเปิดโอกาสให้กลุ่มทุนต่างชาติกลับมามีบทบาทในระบบรางไทยในการกำหนดเงื่อนไขที่มาพร้อมกับเงินกู้ นอกจากนั้นกลุ่มทุนต่างชาติเป็นผู้รับสัมปทานระบบรางในกรุงเทพเพื่อแก้ไขปัญหาการจราจรที่ติดขัด แต่ปัญหาในการก่อสร้างที่ล่าช้าได้นำไปสู่ความขัดแย้งระหว่างกลุ่มทุนโดยรัฐกับกลุ่มทุนเอกชนจนก่อสร้างไม่สำเร็จทุกโครงการ ในทางตรงกันข้าม เมื่อรัฐได้ให้สัมปทานระบบรางกับกลุ่มทุนภายในประเทศไม่ว่าจะเป็นกลุ่มทุนโดยรัฐหรือเอกชน กลับผลักดันโครงการจนสามารถเปิดให้บริการได้สำเร็จ แม้ว่าจะมีปัญหาการก่อสร้างที่ล่าช้า การเปลี่ยนแปลงเส้นทางก่อสร้าง หรือประสบปัญหาวิกฤตเศรษฐกิจในปี พ.ศ. 2540 จนบริษัทผู้รับสัมปทานล้มละลายก็ตาม