Digital Commons Network^™

Measuring The Impacts Of Health Care On Rural Counties: Hospitals And Clinics In Preston County, Alyse Schrecongost

Regional Research Institute Working Papers

Quality health care systems are important to a community’s health interests, but they also play an important role in a community’s economic vitality. This paper reviews some
contemporary challenges facing rural health care systems due to changes in the health care industry, the health insurance industry, the national economy, and reforms of social benefit
programs. Using Preston County, West Virginia as a case study, the paper illustrates the link between rural economic vitality and quality, accessible healthcare systems. Furthermore, this
paper demonstrates the need for active community involvement in local health care decisionmaking processes. It also provides a variety of …

Entrepreneurs And Entrepreneurial Development In State-Owned Enterprises Reform In China: Problems And Corruption, Baiwei Fu

Masters Culminating Experiences (1993-2011)

The report focuses on microeconomic reform in China, especially on entrepreneur problems and corruption in State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs). China has about 145,000 SOEs employing 113 million people. State enterprises account for 70 percent of fixed assets but only 34 percent of industrial output. The total state enterprise debt is greater than China’s bank deposit base. In some cases, SOEs are unable to afford to pay worker salaries or make pension payments. Reforms caused large-scale lay-offs and plant closures in recent years.

Entrepreneurs’ corruption contributes negative effects to SOE reform. Corruption is one way of getting around political control and poor …

Economic Conditions And Welfare Reform, Sheldon Danziger Editor

Upjohn Press

The relationship between welfare caseloads and the economy is one of the key issues addressed in this book. Using the most current data available, a group of the nation's leading researchers examines the effects of welfare reform prior to and after enactment of the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA).

Who's Not Working And Why: Employment, Cognitive Skills, Wages, And The Changing U.S. Labor Market, Frederic L. Pryor, D. L. Schaffer

Economics Faculty Works

Over the Last Quarter-Century, the U.S. labor market has experienced some disturbing trends. Despite apparent economic prosperity, joblessness among less-educated prime-age males is rising and, in addition, an increasing number of university graduates are taking "high-school jobs." Moreover, except for a thin layer of university-educated workers, most in the labor force are experiencing stagnating or falling real wages. Simultaneously, the inequality of wages is increasing within most groups. Using an entirely new approach that takes account of the cognitive skills of U.S. workers and the detailed occupational structure of the labor force, Frederic L. Pryor and David L. Schaffer explore …

Change, Consolidation, And Competition In Health Care Markets, Martin Gaynor, Deborah Haas-Wilson

Economics: Faculty Publications

The health care industry is being transformed. Large firms are merging and acquiring other firms. Alliances and contractual relations between players in this market are shifting rapidly. Within the next few years, many markets are predicted to be dominated by a few large firms. Antitrust enforcement authorities like the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission, as well as courts and legislators at both the federal and state levels, are struggling with the implications of these changes for the nature and consequences of competition in health care markets. In this paper we summarize the nature of the changes in …

Economic Currents: The State Of The State Economy, Alan Clayton-Matthews

Public Policy and Public Affairs Faculty Publication Series

The state and national economies are now feeling the brunt of the global economic crisis. So far, the pattern of events in the Commonwealth has mirrored that of the nation. This is not surprising, since the source of the problem — the global slowdown and financial uncertainty — is an external shock that affects all the nation’s regions through international trade and financial markets.

Relative Cohort Size: Source Of A Unifying Theory Of Global Fertility Transition, Diane J. Macunovich

Center for Policy Research

Using United Nations estimates of age structure and vital rates for nearly 200 nations at five-year intervals from 1950 through 1995, this paper demonstrates how changes in relative cohort size appear to have affected patterns of fertility across nations since 1950--not just in developed countries, but perhaps even more importantly in countries as they pass through the demographic transition. The increase in relative cohort size (defined as the proportion of the population aged 15 to 24 relative to that aged 25 to 59) which occurs as a result of declining mortality rates among children and young adults during the demographic …

An Empirical Study Of The Relationship Between Democracy And Prosperity, Yujie Zhang

Masters Culminating Experiences (1993-2011)

Per capita wealth is far from evenly distributed in all countries of this world. For example, in 1992, real GDP per capita in Japan was about $15,105 (constant dollar using chain index). The corresponding measure for India was $1,282, or about 8.5% that of Japan. While the disparities are large in an absolute sense, they are small in comparison to the richest and poorest countries in the world. Are the rich countries and poor countries developing at the same rate? Have the poor countries shown any signs of catching up? What factors are correlated with the economic prosperity?

This paper …

Will Aging Baby Boomers Bust The Federal Budget?, Ronald Lee, Jonathan Skinner

Dartmouth Scholarship

The authors analyze in three steps the influence of the projected mortality decline on the long-run finances of the Social Security System. First, mortality decline adds person years of life which are distributed across the life cycle. The interaction of this distribution with the age distribution of taxes minus benefits determines the steady state financial consequences of mortality decline. Second, examination of past mortality trends in the United State and of international trends in low mortality populations, suggests that mortality will decline much faster than foreseen by the SSA's forecasts. Third, based on work on stochastic demographic forecasting, stochastic forecasts …

Will The Real Adam Smith Please Stand Up?: Teaching Social Economics In The Principles Course, Jonathan B. Wight

Economics Faculty Publications

Part of the difficulty of introducing social economics into the principles course is the perception that social economics is anathema to mainstream economics. As noted by Warren Samuels, however, "neoclassical economics is already a form of social economics" despite its "pretensions of methodological individualism and value-neutrality". Heilbroner also makes the case that the " ... the preponderance of great economists were aware of economics as explanation systems of particular socio-economic formations." Like it or not, economists err in omitting from their models what McCloskey calls "S" variables--variables representing the "social embeddedness" of values which direct human choices.

Cash Constraints And Business Start-Ups: Deutschmarks Versus Dollars, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Harvey Rosen

Center for Policy Research

In this paper we analyze microdata to explore differences in the rates at which American and German workers leave their salaried jobs to become self-employed. We document that the rate of self-employment is lower in Germany than in the U.S., and the rate of transition from wage-earning to self-employment is lower as well. We find evidence that German workers face liquidity constraints that are more severe than those of their American counterparts. Further, the difference in transition rates cannot be attributed to observable differences between German and American workers.

Environmental Clean-Up And Property Price Change, Emily Aronow

Honors Papers

In my experiment, I am trying to find the value, to Lorain County property owners, of cleaning up the Black River which runs through Lorain County. This study involves a number of property variables, a number of neighborhood variables, and the environmental variables. The hedonic price function takes this general form:
Property Price = c + β1Property Characteristics + β2Neighborhood Characteristics + β3Environmentai Characteristics + u.

This equation says that the price of a piece of property is a function of several things: the characteristics of the property, the characteristics of the neighborhood it's in, and the characteristics of the …

Investment In Human Capital: Review Of "The State And The Family: A Comparative Analysis Of Family Policies In Industrialized Countries" By A.H. Gauthier, Ellen B. Magenheim

Economics Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Legal U.S. Immigration: Influences On Gender, Age, And Skill Composition, Michael J. Greenwood, John M. Mcdowell

Upjohn Press

The authors develop empirical models that enable them to examine the influence of two important determinants - source country characteristics and U.S. immigration policy - on the gender, age, and skills of immigrants coming to America.

When Is Transition Over?, Annette N. Brown Editor

Upjohn Press

The transition process in which a country moves from a planned economy to a market economy offers a unique opportunity for economists and policymakers to observe and understand the effects of major institutional, legal, and political changes on economic systems. But one feature of the process that has not been considered until now is when is the process over? When has a transition progressed far enough to ensure that a market system will survive and mature? Are there institutional, economic, and political standards that countries reach that measure the level of transition attained or, indeed, show that they have completed …

A Woman's Field Is Made At Night: Gendered Land Rights And Norms In Burkina Faso, Michael Kevane, Leslie C. Gray

Economics

Gendered social norms and institutions are important determinants of agricultural activities in southwestern Burkina Faso. This paper argues that gendered land tenure, in particular, has effects on equity and efficiency. The usual view of women as holders of secondary, or indirect, rights to land must be supplemented by a more nuanced understanding of tenure. Women's rights are in fact considerably more complex than the simple right to fields from their husbands. First, women's rights to property obtained from men may be coupled with other rights and obligations. In many ethnic groups, women have share rights to the harvest of their …

The Role Of Relative Cohort Size And Relative Income In The Demographic Transition, Diane J. Macunovich

Center for Policy Research

This paper summarizes the results of other analyses by the author with regard to the importance of relative cohort size (RCS) in determining male relative income (the income of young adults relative to prime-age workers) and general patterns of economic growth, and in turn influencing fertility in the currently more-developed nations. It then goes on to demonstrate that these same effects appear to have been operating in all of the 100-odd nations which have experienced the fertility transition since 1950. Parameter estimates based on the experience of all 189 countries identified by the United Nations between 1950 and 1995 are …

Looking At Communities And Markets, Lan Cao

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Supervising The International Financial System, Joseph P. Daniels

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Disability Management Perspectives: Developing Accommodating Work Environments Through Disability Management, Rochelle Virginia Habeck, H. Allan Hunt

Periodical Articles

No abstract provided.

Analysis Of The Status Of Women Faculty In The United States Since The Enactment Of Equality Legislation In The 1970s: What Do The Numbers Suggest?, Annie M. Stith-Willis

Theses and Dissertations

The primary research question is: What changes have occurred in the status of women faculty members in higher education in the United States from 1974 to 1995. Status is determined by evaluating differences by sex in: the number of faculty, the tenure status, the average salary, the average salary by faculty rank, the percent of faculty to percent of earned doctoral degrees, and the percent of faculty to percent of enrolled students in higher education. The period since the enactment of equality legislation in the 19705 in the United States provides a time frame for this research. The ongoing legislative …

An Economic Analysis Of Child Care: Bias, Refinement, And Powerful Insight, Ben Fritz

University Avenue Undergraduate Journal of Economics

This paper considers the various ways in which the child care market operates (and fails), both in reality and in terms of economic models. Economic theory shows that child care should have a significant impact on women's’ decision to enter the labor market, and I consider whether this is true in practice, as well as how the child care market operates compared to the demonstrated need. Economic analysis shows that child care has a significant impact on women’s participation in the labor force, both in theory and in practice.

Comparative Analysis Of Max-Planck Gesellschaft And Akademie Der Wissenschften In The Years 1945-1989, Victoria Kats

University Avenue Undergraduate Journal of Economics

The Realm of Science claims to be an autonomous entity, governed by its own rules and institutions. In practice it is difficult to test the extent to which different enveloping political systems affect economics of basic research, as too many cultural and historical differences would distort such a comparison. Unique historical circumstances make East and West Germany the best available ground for setting up an experiment with both experimental and control groups within societies and organizations. Testing the influence of socialistic pressure on economic performance of scientific institutions, the analysis of East German Academy of Sciences and West German Max …

Housing Market Study: City Of Lansing, George A. Erickcek, Gove Associates Inc., W.E. Upjohn Institute For Employment Research

Reports

No abstract provided.

Participation In And The Choice Of Providers Of Adult Education Activities, Kevin Hollenbeck

Reports

No abstract provided.

Internet Resource Management And Pricing, Christopher J. Clark

Theses : Honours

Originally conceived and funded as a research project, the Internet has grown into a commercial, global and integrated service network. This has changed the nature of traffic on the Internet with the increasing use of things like video conferencing and time critical transactions. These forms of Internet usage place high demands on bandwidth. Added to this is the fact that the number of users is increasing at a dramatic rate and shows no signs of slowing. This is leading to a 'tragedy of the commons' where endemic congestion will reduce the value of the Internet to everyone. It also implies …

Bourdieu's Concept Of Social Capital : An Examination Of His Broader Theoretical Framework And The Concept's Applications And Implications For Australian Social Policy, Dawn Marie Atkin

Theses : Honours

The concept of social capital is investigated in this thesis both in its theoretical and potential social policy environment Pierre Bourdicu 's 'Theory of Practice' provides the theoretical frame within which this concept is investigated. A variety of texts, with a particular focus on Australian publications, provide the basis for further application analysis. This is primarily a textual research therefore data gathering procedures were library based. Being a theoretical analysis of the current status of social capital, as it relates to prospective social policy reform in Australia, this thesis both collates and contributes to a body of knowledge regarding the …

Privatisation Of Kenya Ports Authority : Its Socio-Economic Impact, Mwambire Alii

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Analysis Of The Problems Of Productivity And Performance Of The Port Of Assab Eritrea, Araia Weldeselassie Simon

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Multimodal Transport And Trade Facilitation : Implications In The Chinese Context, Guibin Xu

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.