Digital Commons Network^™

Intergenerational Transfer Of Human Capital Among Immigrant Families, Kelsey Hample

Honors Projects

While immigrants in the United States tend to earn less than comparable natives, their children close the earnings gap. The purpose of this study is to determine how differences in intergenerational transfer of human capital between immigrant families and native families affect different earning outcomes for respondents of each group. Specifically, this study uses a human capital framework to analyze both the direct effect of parental education on respondent earnings and the indirect effect on earnings by first affecting respondent education, which in turn affects respondent earnings. Data from the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth allows background variables within …

The Eternal Flame: Politics Of The Olympic Games, Alyssa Gunstrom

Honors Capstones

Capstone submitted as a graduation requirement for the BSU Honors Program.

Innovation And Entrepreneurship: The New Drift In Federal Policy, Mark Muro

Brookings Scholar Lecture Series

Several defining characteristics will shape the post‐Great Recession economy:The “next” economy will be export‐oriented, lower‐carbon, and innovation‐fueled The next economy will also be metropolitan‐led:Which means regions belong at the center of national innovation and entrepreneurship policy. There is no single American economy, but a network of 366 metropolitan economies that compete with other economic regions around the world

The Effects Of Returns To Education On The Decision To Stay Or To Leave Secondary School?: An Empirical Study Of Brazil, Rudy Herrera Mármol

Economics Honors Projects

I use the Mincerian wage equation to estimate the returns to education in Brazil from 2002 to 2008. I then use these estimates as variables that affect the decision made by potential students of whether to stay in school for one additional year. I use annually collected household survey data (PNAD) from the Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics (IBGE). Results indicate that returns to education have an effect on every student's decision. Although the relationship is positive, my analysis suggests that students make their decision to stay or leave school based on schooling degrees rather than on individual grades.

Banking For The Rich: A Case Study, Cindy Shuck

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Microfinance in China can be unexpectedly described by an old Chinese proverb that literally translates “Dongshi, the ugly maiden, furrows her brow.” In this story, a famous Chinese beauty, Xishi, falls ill and as a result begins to clutch her stomach and furrow her brow in pain. Despite her sickness and her anguished expression, everyone continues to comment on her breathtaking beauty. One day her neighbor, another maiden named Dongshi who is known for her ugliness, notices Xishi’s facial expression and, taking note of everyone’s comments about her everlasting beauty, decides that in order to be beautiful she should imitate …

Austerity, Abundance, And The Investor States: The Political Economy Of Sovereign Wealth Funds, Manda Shemirani

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) are not new, but their foreign investment created concerns among many states in 2005 and 2006. Many policy makers argued that the ownership of foreign governments in specific areas may expose their countries to various risks. The concerns in the United States were from a national security perspective, while Europe was more worried about the lack of reciprocity and established standards. The political economy literature lacks a suitable framework for the study of investor states. The mainstream economic view contends that SWFs are a result of balance of payments surpluses and are used for economic smoothing …

Finding Latino/As: Library Tools To Discover And Mine Social Data And Statistics For Latino/Hispanic Populations In The United States, Marisol Ramos, Shikha Sharma

UConn Library Presentations

The purpose of this presentation is to clarify the difference between Data Mining from Mining for Data when searching for information about the United States Latino/Hispanic American population and what tools are available at the Homer Babbidge Libraries for our faculty and students doing this type of research.

This presentation was part of the Puerto Rican and Latino Studies Institute's Terturlia series, March 31, 2010.

Estimating Economic Activity From Space, Tilottama Ghosh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Accurate estimates of the magnitude and spatial distribution of both formal and informal economic activity is necessary to achieve various social and economic goals of societies and countries at different levels of analysis. However, collection of data on economic variables, especially of national and sub-national income levels is problematic due to various shortcomings in the data collection process. Additionally, the informal economy estimates are often excluded from official statistics. Thus, developing alternative methods for estimating these economic activities may prove to be useful and necessary. This research demonstrates the potential of developing spatially explicit estimates of economic activity from nighttime …

Where The Ends Don’T Meet: Measuring Poverty And Self-Sufficiency Among Oregon’S Families, Melissa Rowe, Sheila A. Martin, Danan Gu, Webb Sprague

Institute of Metropolitan Studies Publications

This report uses the Self-Sufficiency Standard developed by Dr. Diana Pearce at the University of Washington to analyze the extent to which Oregon households earn enough money to meet their basic needs without a public subsidy. This standard, a vast improvement on the federal poverty level, accounts for differences in the cost of living based on family structure, age of children, and county of residence. Dr. Pearce has defined the income required to meet basic needs for every county in Oregon and a number of household types. A large number of Oregon households not considered poor by the federal poverty …

Learning Sustainable Development: Chimeneas De La Esperanza, Miriam V. Mollan Gundersen

Social Sciences

Social inequality and environmental degradation are motivating informed young people into action and connecting impoverished regions of the world with students in more developed nations. This Social Sciences senior project is to analyze an alternative development model designed by a group of Californian university students. The project, named Chimeneas de la Esperanza, is designed to help impoverished Nicaraguan women start a ceramics business. The major hurdle of this mission is to establish a market for the ceramics product. Energy efficient ceramic stoves and smoke ventilating chimneys would benefit the community and avoid an impacted crafts market. The project encompasses ideas …

Financial Exchange Rates And International Currency Exposures, Philip R. Lane, Jay C. Shambaugh

Dartmouth Scholarship

In order to gain a better empirical understanding of the international financial implications of currency movements, we construct a database of international currency exposures for a large panel of countries over 1990-2004. We show that trade-weighted exchange rate indices are insufficient to understand the financial impact of currency movements and that our currency measures have high explanatory power for the valuation term in net foreign asset dynamics. Exchange rate valuation shocks are sizable, not quickly reversed, and may entail substantial wealth redistributions. Further, we show that many developing countries have substantially reduced their negative foreign currency positions over the last …

New Mexico Labor Market Review 02-04-2010, New Mexico Department Of Workforce Solutions

Historic Publications

The New Mexico Labor Market Review is a monthly publication presenting statistical data and analysis on labor market conditions throughout New Mexico. Issues examine statewide and regional trends in employment, unemployment, labor force estimates, industry activity, wages, occupational demand, and related economic conditions, often accompanied by feature articles on topics affecting the state’s economy. This issue covers December 2009.

Notes On Poverty Traps And Appalachia, Steven Durlauf

University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research Discussion Paper Series

In these notes, I provide some general ideas on how to conceptualize poverty traps and speculate on their applicability to understanding Appalachian poverty. My goal is to stimulate thinking on Appalachia that exploits contemporary perspectives in economics on the sources of persistent poverty and inequality. To do this, I focus on both the theory of poverty traps as well as issues in the econometric assessment of their empirical salience.

5th Annual Economic Outlook Conference 2010, University Of New Mexico Bureau Of Business And Economic Research

BBER Publications

This paper published the outlook for the New Mexico Economy in 2010; data series for non-farm employment, personal income, and employment growth for New Mexico in previous quarters as well as population projections are available in the report's summary and following diagrams.

What About These Children? Assessing Poverty Among The ‘Hidden Population’ Of Multiracial Children In Single-Mother Families, Jenifer Bratter, Sarah Damaske

University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research Discussion Paper Series

Capturing the conditions of children of color living in single-parent families has become more complex due to the growing presence of interracial households. This analysis assesses the size and poverty status of single-female headed families housing multiracial children. Using data from the 2000 Census, we find that 9 percent of female-headed families house either children who are classified with more than one race or are classified as a single race different than their mother’s compared to only 3 percent of married couple families. Logistic regression analyses assessing the odds of poverty status for families finds that being a multiracial family …

Mapping Energy Poverty In Huntington, West Virginia, Elizabeth Anne Callicoat

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Energy poverty is a growing phenomenon culminating from the combination of low to mid household income, deteriorating housing structures and rising household energy costs. Energy prices are increasing for all households, but the burden is proportionally larger for those with low to mid income. These groups must sacrifice to afford energy and are often unable or do not have the autonomy to make structural improvements, especially if they rent their home. Data on residential dwellings from the Cabell County Tax Assessor? Office were used within a geographic information system to map where energy poverty likely exists within the city limits …

Contribution Of Tertiary Education To Human Capital Development, Labour Market And Skills In The State Of Victoria, Australia, Ellen Hazelkorn

Articles

This chapter examines how effectively TAFE Institutes and universities in the State of Victoria contribute to meeting the social and economic needs of the population in terms of opportunities to study and relevance of the qualifications offered. It identifies some key achievements and areas for improvement. The chapter closes with a series of recommendations that include the need for a greater system approach to tertiary education in order to support sustainable regional development and the role that the State of Victoria can play in this strategy.

Gis-Based Estimation Of Marginal Implicit Prices Of Housing Amenities: The Case Of High Ground And Stagnant Streams, Arthur J. Caplan

Applied Economics Faculty Publications

We use GIS and econometric methods to estimate the marginal implicit values of environmental amenities associated with residential land parcels in the mountain town of Logan, Utah. Amenities include proximity to open spaces (such as parks, golf courses and lakes), commercial zones, major roads, streams, and general visibility of surrounding topography in the valley as determined by the elevation of the land parcel. The amenity value estimates are corrected for spatial autocorrelation. We find spatially dependent relationships between (1) a parcel’s value and its elevation, and (2) a parcel’s value and its adjacency to a stagnant stream. To our knowledge, …

Can Weak Substitution Be Rehabilitated?, V. Kerry Smith, Mary F. Evans, H. Spencer Banzhaf, Christine Poulos

CMC Faculty Publications and Research

This paper develops a graphical analysis and an analytical model that demonstrate how weak substitution can be used for non-market valuation. Weak complementarity and weak substitution represent preference restrictions that allow us to develop equivalent price changes to describe quantity or quality changes in non-market goods. The price changes are Hicksian equivalents in that they yield the same utility changes as would the quantity or quality changes. After discussion of several potential applications of weak substitution, the paper develops the parallel between the restriction and recent strategies from modeling differentiated goods.

Family Change And Poverty In Appalachia, Daniel Lichter, Lisa Cimbulak

University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research Discussion Paper Series

The current economic and political climate provides a vivid contrast with the circumstances of the 1990s, when the passage of the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) ushered in welfare reform during a period of unprecedented economic expansion and job growth (Blank 2002; Ziliak 2009). This legislation sought to “end the dependence of needy parents on government benefits by promoting job preparation, work, and marriage.” Among PRWORA’s goals were to reduce out-of-wedlock births and encourage the formation of two-parent families. For most states, much of the initial emphasis on self-sufficiency was placed on “work first” programs (i.e., …

Sustainability Initiatives In East Bayside Neighborhood Portland, Maine, Garvan Donegan, Henry Heyburn, Caitlyn Horose, Matt Klebes, Jennifer Riley, Damon Yakovleff, New England Environmental Finance Center

Planning

This is a bundle containing research on sustainability initiatives that could be implemented in the East Bayside neighborhood of Portland, ME. These six essays were prepared by the Spring, 2010 Sustainable Communities Class known as CPD 602 at the University of Southern Maine. The class is part of the core curriculum of the Community Planning and Development program of the Muskie School of Public Service at the university. The instructor for the class was Samuel Merrill, Ph. D. who is also director of the New England Environmental Finance Center at the University. These papers were prepared in conjunction with Alan …

Advancing Individual And Societal Development At The Community Level: Role Of Ngo Microcredit And Leadership Training, Denise M. Lucy, Jayati Ghosh, Edward Kujawa

Collected Faculty Scholarship

In many countries throughout the world micro-credit loans are utilized to empower women by seeking to reduce the poverty of families and communities. Originally Non-governmental organizations’ (NGO) microcredit programs focused on funding women’s businesses. In so doing, NGOs encourage and support women’s empowerment leading to community building, as well as to advancing women’s individual gender equity. This descriptive study is based upon interviews of 100 women who participated in microcredit loan programs run by a Bangladeshi NGO, entitled, Nari Uddog Kendra (NUK). The case study examines the participation and impact of NUK’s business development and leadership training programs. The study …

Economic Impact Analysis Of School Facility Construction, Wright State University, Center For Urban And Public Affairs

Economic Development

In 2009, Huber Heights City Schools contracted with the Center for Urban & Public Affairs (CUPA) to conduct the economic impact analysis of new school construction on the local economy. For this study, CUPA used IMPLAN, a tool for economic impact assessment to estimate the direct, indirect, and induced impacts of the $159.1 million1 school facility construction project on the local (zip code 45424) and the regional economy (Montgomery, Greene, and Miami counties). It should be noted that these impacts are estimated for the project as a whole and not estimated for each year of the 32‐month construction period.

Construction …

2010 American Incentive System Almanac, Don P. Diffine Ph.D.

Belden Center Monographs

No abstract provided.

Incubation Push Or Business Pull? Investigating The Geography Of Us Business Incubators, Haifeng Qian, Kingsley E. Haynes

Regional Research Institute Working Papers

The primary purposes of this paper are to present the geographic distribution of US business incubators and to explore geographically bounded factors that influence the location of business incubators. Our data show that US business incubators are unevenly distributed across the urban/rural division, states, as well as counties. Factor analysis identifies three common factors from 27 demographic, social, and economic variables drawn from publicly available data at the county level. These factors include agglomeration, welfare, and business/entrepreneurship. The results of binominal logistic regressions suggest that incubators are more likely to be found in counties with high levels of agglomeration but …

Part 3: Sizing Up The Competition: Hampton Roads Versus Other East Coast Container Ports, Regional Studies Institute, Old Dominion University

State of the Region Reports: Hampton Roads

Over the past decade, the Port of Virginia has slipped to third place on the East Coast behind Savannah, Ga. Perhaps we can reverse this by means of Norfolk Southern Corp.’s Heartland Corridor and the recent lease acquisition of the APM Maersk facility in Portsmouth.

Sustainable Economic Development In Energy Rich Economies: A Regional Approach, Hodjat Ghadimi

Regional Research Institute Working Papers

There is an extensive literature on or relating to development issues of energy rich economies – particularly those in the developing world. While national-level studies abound, the analyses of these economies at a regional level or with a regional and spatial perspective are scarce. Generally, a bottom up regional approach to development and the value of insights that regional models and comparative regional studies provide have not received sufficient attention in the field of development economics. Analyzing development sustainability in energy rich economies at a regional scale may provide insights not otherwise possible. National scale studies and models are mostly …

Geography Of Business Incubator Formation In The United States, Junbo Yu, Mark Middleton, Randall Jackson

Regional Research Institute Working Papers

The geography of business incubators has seldom been examined against the public aspirations and beliefs that incubators should either inhabit economically distressed areas to alleviate unemployment and poverty (in the case of empowerment business incubators) or proliferate in technologically capable regions to adequately unleash and exploit local high-technology potentials (in the case of technology business incubators). In this paper, the geographic distribution of 719 U.S. business incubators, which are located in 465 out of the 3,141 counties, is examined drawing upon a newly built incubator population database. In addition, the location factors underlying the formation of business incubators are also …

Integrated Overview, Case-Studies And Analysis: Income Inequality In Latin America, Post-1980, Aaron R. Campbell

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis provides an integrated overview on the historical and contemporary literature dedicated to the study of within-country income inequality in Latin America.

The central hypothesis of this report is that there are underlying factors that drive the persistent levels of high within-country inequality experienced by Latin American countries. We study two countries, Brazil and Bolivia, through the process of reform and growth, and note the effects on the labor markets.

Using all available statistics and the wealth of knowledge compiled since the early 1980s, this study identifies those trends, and the factors that cause them to reappear in numerous …

Paul Krugman: Kontribusi Dan Kontroversinya, Maddaremmeng A. Panennungi

Jurnal Ekonomi dan Pembangunan Indonesia

This study isaimed toinvestigate the contribution and controversies of Nobel Prize Winner in Economics in 2008, Paul R. Krugman, in economics field and in the society as a whole. Literature survey method isapplied in thisstudy. It isfound that the Krugman's contribution in theinternational trade is substantial for the development of international trade theory. He is also contributing to development of economic geography. In addition, his contribution to the international finance is also very important eventhough it is not recognized by the Nobel Committee. Out of the economic fields as his main contribution is his capability in bringing the economics into …