Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

“The Real Cost Of Mining: How Digging For Rare Earth Metals Could Pose A Greater Cost Than Evs Can Save”, Brahim Khalil Yatim

Honors Theses and Capstones

The Paris Climate Agreement proposes to have 20% of all road transport vehicles be electric by the year 2030. Implementation of this policy is critical to help obtain a 2 degrees Celsius reduction in the increase of global temperatures by 2030. This paper dives into the true costs of taking on a project that large scale. This study finds that though the benefits of this project would result in a 351,785,600 tons of GHG saved by the electric conversion there are significant environmental and human costs associated with the mining necessary to complete the agreement's goal. With current technologies and …

Theoretical Concepts Of The Competitiveness Of The National Economy, G. K. Sultanova

International Relations: Politics, Economics, Law

The article explores and summarizes the theoretical concepts of competitiveness of the national economy. Based on a review of economic theories, the author describes the evolution of factors that determine the competitiveness of nations. The author concludes that in the scientific literature there are many conflicting views regarding the meaning and definition of the concept of competitiveness. However, the opinion of many scientists coincides that competitiveness is determined by the efficiency and productivity of the economy, and is a means of improving the welfare of the nation.

A Cross-Cultural Examination Of The Effect Of Employer Support On Employee Productivity, Shawn Tuman, Haley Lipton

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

The purpose of this creative, collaborative, capstone project is to conduct a cross-cultural examination of the effect of employer support on employee productivity by compiling, examining, and synthesizing conclusions from existing research. In a world of growing globalization and technological innovation, the speed of productivity is often the cornerstone that differentiates successful businesses from unsuccessful businesses, providing a competitive advantage to the quick while the others fall behind. Often this increased level of efficiency comes at a cost beyond the price of the product and the salary of employees, a deeper, psychological cost. By reviewing research focused in the United …

Why Not Mexico? Policy Recommendations For A Globally-Oriented Economic Strategy, Víctor Manuel Hernández-Rodríguez

CMC Senior Theses

Mexico, one of the world’s largest economies and an increasingly relevant actor in international affairs, is at a crucial point in defining its future policy course. Given the uncertainty surrounding the global economy, as well as the political situation in Mexico, it is important to have a clear vision for policy going forward. This thesis offers a foundation for a national economic strategy with a long-term vision, upon which future administrations can build as appropriate to maximize on the country’s economic potential. The task is undertaken through a three-part approach. First, a thorough and analytical overview of the country’s economic …

Does Privatization Improve Productivity? Empirical Evidence From Ethiopia, Tadesse Wodajo, Dawit Senbet

International Journal of African Development

Theoretically, it is posited that privatization enables the private sector to play a dominant role in the economy by enhancing competition, productivity and efficiency. When evaluated using these criteria, privatization of the manufacturing industries has failed in Ethiopia. Our empirical results show that, at best, privatization did not result in improving productivity, and at worst, it led to a decline in productivity. We argue that the main reason for this outcome is the unique economic and business environment prevailing in Ethiopia, which does not allow the standard economic assumptions of market competition to hold. Ethiopia’s ‘private sector’ can be described …

What Drives Economic Growth? A Look Into Structural Transformation And Export Diversification, Dany Bahar

Brookings Scholar Lecture Series

As part of the Brookings Scholar Lecture Series, Brookings Mountain West invites you to a lecture titled "What drives economic growth? A look into structural transformation and export diversification" by Brookings Fellow in Global Economy and Development, Dany Bahar.

About 60 percent of cross-country income differences can be explained by productivity differences. In the long-run, productivity is what best explains economic growth and welfare. This lecture seeks to understand the drivers of economic and productivity growth for countries, and in particular, the role of structural transformation and diversification. The lecture will draw on work by other scholars as well as …

Endogenous R&D And Intellectual Property Laws In Developed And Emerging Economies, Aniruddha Bagchi, Abhra Roy

Abhra Roy

The incentive of providing protection of intellectual property has been analyzed, both for an emerging economy as well as for a developed economy. The optimal patent length and the optimal patent breadth within a country are found to be positively related to each other for a fixed structure of laws abroad. Moreover, a country can respond to stronger patent protection abroad by weakening its patent protection under certain circumstances and by strengthening its patent protection under other circumstances. These results depend upon the curvature of the R&D production function. Finally, we investigate the impact of an increase in the willingness-to-pay …

Innovation And Productivity: Evidence From China, Jingying Xu

Honors Theses

This paper investigates a lesser-known effect of innovation on the productivity of manufacturing firms in China using data that cover more than 330,000 firms across 40 sectors from 1998 to 2008. Innovation plays a key role in the productivity of firms and it matters for all types of firms, new as well as established. The ratio of new product output to the firm’s total outputs is used to measure innovation ability in this paper. A higher ratio is expected to have a positive impact on a firm’s productivity since new products are likely to be more differentiated than old products …

Foreign Direct Investment And Local Firm Productivity: Evidence From Thailand, Sasima Wongseree

Doctoral Dissertations

Abstract The enormous costs incurred to government for foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows raised question whether its benefits are worthwhile. In this dissertation, I use productivity estimates as outcomes to explore the direct and indirect impacts of FDI inflows on local firms in manufacturing sector of Thailand during 2001 to 2006.

Chapter 1, I introduce the overview of the entire dissertation.

Chapter 2, I briefly reviewed investment climates and FDI conditions in Thailand. Then I constructed a comprehensive firm-level dataset from several data sources for FDI examination. The main dataset offers quantity and capacity outputs along with revenues at product-level. …

Export Decisions Of Services Firms Between Agglomeration Effects And Market-Entry Costs, Henk Lm Kox

Henk LM Kox

Internal Trade And Aggregate Productivity, Trevor Tombe, Jennifer Winter

Trevor Tombe

The positive link between international trade and productivity is well established. However, research on magnitude and consequences of internal trade barriers, which inhibit the efficient geographic distribution of production within a country, is limited. Unique Canadian data provides an ideal opportunity to measure the magnitude - and impact on productivity - of barriers to internal trade. Using a flexible, micro-founded approach, we measure internal trade barriers between Canadian provinces. We find between-province trade costs average 30%, rising to nearly 50% in poor regions, net of distance effects. We then adapt a new-trade model to estimate the productivity impact of these …

Endogenous R&D And Intellectual Property Laws In Developed And Emerging Economies, Aniruddha Bagchi, Abhra Roy

Aniruddha Bagchi

Impacts Of Formal Financing On The Development Of The Sudanese Agricultural Sector, Issam A.W. Mohamed Professor

Professor Issam A.W. Mohamed

The agricultural sector of Sudan is faced by many problems. In the irrigated schemes, the government who officially owns most of them there are entrenched managerial problems that brewed for more than six decades. Moreover, the privatization policies of those schemes provoked many outcries and protests. Large schemes like Gezira have collapsed, this year 2011, only 10% of its over one million hectares were cultivated. The rainfed farming is not different with lack of machineries, shortages of available labor and high priced agricultural inputs, it is not expected to fare better than the irrigated schemes. However, even if those problems …

Effects Of Investment On Macroeconomic Variables In The Sudanese Economy, Professor Issam A.W. Mohamed

Professor Issam A.W. Mohamed

Most developing and underdeveloped countries beside Sudan suffer from the low levels of income in addition to the low savings that are result from the lack of sophisticated savings channels. Hence, the investment depends on the individual's abilities on self savings, where the investment is considered as major motivating vehicle for economic activity due to its direct correlation with the capital accumulation process that increases the productivity capacity for the national economy and creating job opportunities and achieving economic development. Subsequently, the importance of the investment comes from effective role that can be practiced on the national product. The present …

Exports And Productivity Selection Effects For Dutch Firms, Henk Lm Kox, Hugo Rojas Romogosa

Henk LM Kox