Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Is Microfinance The Best Tool For Empowerment? Analysis Of Efficiency Of Developing Economies’S Microfinance Institutions In Empowering Women Using Data Envelopment Analysis Meta Frontier Technology, Beryl Isiji

Honors Theses

Poverty is still prevalent in developing economies, although the proportion of people living below the international poverty line ($1.90 a day) decreased by 24.6% between 1990 and 2013 according to World Bank. Women are more likely than men to live in poverty due to minimal access to resources. Microfinance institutions (MFIs) lend small funds to women thereby empowering them, encouraging entrepreneurship and creating creditworthiness.

This thesis examines the effect of MFIs on gender inequality via women empowerment by calculating output-oriented Data Envelopment Analysis using the meta frontier technology, and relating the efficiency results to the Gender Inequality Index (GII) obtained …

An Empirical Analysis Of Climatic, Geographic, And Cultural Determinants Of International Tourism, Ethan Straus

Honors Theses

Each year, billions of people visit different countries all around the world. For many of those countries, tourism is their primary industry, leading to millions of jobs and dollars in revenue. It is expected that by 2020 total International Tourism Receipts will reach 2 trillion US dollars annually. Currently, tourism employs an estimated 200 million people around the world. With the continued progression of climate change, the tourism industry is facing a newfound threat. Global temperatures and the seal level are both expected to rise significantly by the end of the century. Additionally, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has …