Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Political Dynasties, Business, And Poverty In The Philippines, Ronald U. Mendoza, Jurel K. Yap, Gabrielle Ann S. Mendoza, Leonardo M. Jaminola Iii, Erica Celine Yu

Ateneo School of Government Publications

Despite studies finding a link between political dynasty prevalence and poverty; empirical evidence in the Philippines shows that the relationship between dynastic concentration and underdevelopment is not the same across regions. We argue that an independent economic elite and high levels of economic activity; typically found in Luzon; affect the poverty and development impact of political dynasties. Local socioeconomic contexts shape the opportunities for predatory behavior among politicians and their relationships with economic elites. Using novel survey data on business-government linkages as well as an extensive dataset on local government leadership in the Philippines spanning 2004 to 2016; we find …

French Bilateral Aid To Mali: Examining The Donor-Recipient Relationship’S Effect On Development, Hazel R. Carson

Senior Projects Spring 2022

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

New Institutional Economics: Political Institutions And Divergent Development In Costa Rica And Honduras, Maynor Alberto Loaisiga Bojorge

Honors Projects

For most of their histories, Costa Rica and Honduras were primarily agricultural societies with little economic diversification. However, around 1990, after the implementation of Washington Consensus reforms, the economies of both nations began to diverge. Costa Rica’s economy rapidly expanded for the following 30 years, while Honduras remained stagnant. Through a New Institutional Economics approach, I argue that institutional differences between Costa Rica and Honduras are responsible for the impressive economic growth Costa Rica has been able to achieve in the past few decades. Specifically, early political developments in Costa Rica have deeply imbedded relatively egalitarian values into the population, …

Putting The ‘D’ Into The Oecd – The Dac In The Cold War Years, Richard Woodward

Books/Book Chapters

This chapter charts the DAC’s Cold War history. During this period the DAC established much of the institutional and intellectual scaffolding of international development cooperation. Moreover, participation in the DAC also orchestrated a quiet revolution in the identities of its members, forging them into an imagined community of donors in which the supply of development assistance came to be seen as a routine function of modern industrialised states. Although the Cold War provided the overarching backdrop, the chapter also teases out some of the other key features of the landscape inhabited by the DAC and how they constrained and enabled …

Canadian Banks And Imperialism In The English-Speaking Caribbean, Tamanisha J. John

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Canadian banks have been important components of an imperialist system since at least the 19^th century. However, their long and rich history of operating as purely exploitative entities in the English-speaking Caribbean region is often overlooked— leading to many incomplete and conflicting narratives about Canada’s role within the global system. I argue that Canada is an imperial actor that exerts agency in supporting a Canadian banking oligopoly both within Canada and in the English-speaking Caribbean. Insufficient attention is given to these Canadian banks, especially considering the power they have wielded in the Caribbean over the centuries. By analyzing the …

Institutions, Structural Policies, And Economic Development: Evaluating The Interrelationships Between Rule Spaces For Developing Countries, Jordan Pattison

Student Summer Scholars Manuscripts

Research on long term economic development has consolidated around the central role of economic and political institutions. Within these institutional spaces, structural policies represent a subset of incentive structures with their own effects on economic behavior. To capture the separate effects of both institutional environments and structural policies, we construct an Institutional Index (II) and a Structural Policy Index (SPI) to evaluate their effects on income levels and short term growth rates for non-high-income states. This paper finds that both the II and SPI predict variations in income levels between non-high-income states, with the II producing a larger and more …

Remittances And Development: Local Empowerment And National Dependency, Abby Foy

International Political Economy Theses

Remittances, or money that is sent by a migrant to their home country, have been increasingly viewed as a potential way to economically develop low to middle income countries. Presently, the level of remittances sent is higher than that of official developmental aid. Considering that remittances are private capital utilized by locals, the intervention of a non-profit or large international financial organization to spur developmental projects is perhaps not needed. For countries that are reliant on remittances, there are a considerable number of tradeoffs associated with this inflow of capital. Firstly, although difficult to quantify on a large scale, remittances …

Projects Of Economic And Social Development In The Global South: The 20th And 21st-Century Developmental Trends And Their Impacts, Malachi Okechi Chukwu

2020 Symposium Posters

In the 1950’s Western countries promised to promote economic development in the underdeveloped world. However, the Global South remains behind, trapped in abject poverty. Eurocentric literature produced by mainstream scholars of economic growth in the past seven decades has continually promoted Structural Adjustment Programs and Millennium Development Goals designed to improve the Global South. Tragically, each of the West’s prescribed economic models failed at the expense of people of the Global South. The failure of Western promised growth led to an opportunity for China to offer an alternative model. Additionally, the long-term effects of the prescribed models of development have …

The Decline Of American Entrepreneurship: An Analysis Of Causes Of Macro Market Trends And A Changing American Economic System, Owen Flomberg

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

The Nuances Of Capital Controls In Economic Development: Argentina And Chile, Reagan A. Shane

Global Tides

In this paper, I analyze the ways that capital controls affect growth and economic development in developing countries and emerging market economies and use the historical evidence of Chile and Argentina to demonstrate how countries may experience the effects of capital controls in different proportions. I then review additional academic literature and historical evidence in Chile and Argentina to determine what factors seem to determine the success or failure of capital control strategies. I find two influential factors in the determination of whether implementation of capital controls helps or hurts economic growth and development. The first is whether capital controls …

Migration And Neoliberalism: Do Diasporas Facilitate Pro-Market Policies At Home? Policies, Veronika Elizebeth Gillis

Senior Projects Spring 2020

The recent shift in migration literature towards a focus on migrant sending countries has been characterized by a negative impact of remittances on human rights and other political institutions. Furthering this literature, we claim that remittances increase neoliberal reforms in migrant sending countries. Given the multiplicity of incentives to support neoliberal policies on the part of the migrant, the remittance receiver, and the sending country’s government, we expect the remittance share of GDP to positively influence the presence of neoliberal policies in the migrant-sending country. Using the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom Index as a proxy for neoliberalism, we implement an …

Escaping The Snowstorm: Legal Rights And Economics In The Developing World, Zane Tolchinsky

CMC Senior Theses

In this thesis, I seek to provide a framework for developing nations making policy-decisions about legal rights, as in the realm of Rawlsian ideal theory, prescriptions for governments not living in conditions of moderate scarcity is lacking. I first springboard off Stephen Holmes and Cass R. Sunstein’s conclusion that “all legal rights are positive,” from their book, The Cost of Rights, to argue for the value of considering the economic implications of rights protections. I then propose that Holmes and Sunstein’s conclusion means that we can think of legal rights as goods to be purchased by governments. Next, I …

Us And The Cold War In Latin America, Thomas Field

Publications

The Cold War in Latin America had marked consequences for the region’s political and economic evolution. From the origins of US fears of Latin American Communism in the early 20th century to the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, regional actors played central roles in the drama. Seeking to maximize economic benefit while maintaining independence with regard to foreign policy, Latin Americans employed an eclectic combination of liberal and anti-imperialist discourses, balancing frequent calls for anti-Communist hemispheric unity with periodic diplomatic entreaties to the Soviet bloc and the nonaligned Third World. Meanwhile, US Cold War policies toward …

Demystifying Poverty In Tourism: Looking Into Pro-Poor Tourism In India, Sara Burke

International Political Economy Theses

Poverty and tourism have a unique relationship; poverty can serve as a form of tourism or poverty can create barriers that hinder the development of the tourism sector. There is no better example of the complicated interplay between poverty and tourism than India. The use of Pro-Poor Tourism (PPT) as a methodological lense that can be applied to any form of tourism shows howthe poor can benefit from the sector. This International Political Economy thesis is broken into three parts: a context section, a case study, and a policy proposal. The first part will focus on Pro-Poor Tourism in an …

The Wealth Of Nations And The Advancement Of Collective Security, Kerry Daniel Good

Senior Honors Theses

This thesis will address the economic development of countries from the strategic perspective of the United States, and consider how this development will progress overlaid in the context of the Chinese framework for the projection of national power. Using an inter-disciplinary approach, this research will synthesize sources on national security policy and economics, while seeking a Christian apologetic framework to answer these questions: How can the United States promote the economic development of countries in the Asia-Pacific region using a biblical economic-development model, as a part of its national strategy? This thesis focuses on some of the political and socio-economic …

Evaluating Ethiopia’S Development Progress, Sambath Jayapregasham, Matthäus Schuster, Ruben Tjon-A-Meeuw

Undergraduate Economic Review

Ethiopia, Africa’s second most-populated nation is well on its way to becoming one of its wealthiest nations as it charges forward on its path to development. The big question is whether this growth is sustainable. To tackle this question, we will discuss its development strategy using a popular comparison to that of China. We will then offer an appraisal of the current state of the country. Finally, we will evaluate the future of Ethiopia, as it continues its current path – evaluating the potential upsides and risks it faces moving forward.

Resource Nationalism And Energy Integration In Latin America: The Paradox Of Populism, Brian Hollingsworth

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the relationship between resource nationalism and energy integration, and uses Bolivia and Brazil as a test case. Essentially, does resource nationalism affect energy integration? The findings nest within more expansive questions on international political economy and export-driven models of development. Why do populist regimes, historically operating under an economic nationalist cum protectionist paradigm, simultaneously pursue policies of economic integration? What is the relationship between resource nationalists and open markets, especially in the hydrocarbons sector? What is the relationship between populists, who are typically resource nationalists, and their decision to choose policies of energy integration?

The most common …

The Impact Of Transboundary Water Management On Human Security In Developing States, Meadow Poplawsky

Summer Research

In recent years, the subject of “water wars” has been often repeated in news cycles as the next major world crisis, and water has been projected as potentially the source of the next world war due to growing world population and increasing scarcity of water resources due to climate change and increasing water use. This study aimed to consider whether major conflict over water is possible within the coming decades and how interactions between developing states who share rivers will impact the lives of those who live in these river basins, using the lens of human security. To study this …

The Role Of Conflict In Sub-Saharan Africa, Samy Lemos

CMC Senior Theses

Sub-Saharan Africa is the provider of many critical natural resources. With such resources, one would expect these countries to have thriving economies. Why is the opposite case true? To answer such a question, this paper examines a few critical causes that may justify the current economic situation these African countries are experiencing. Specifically, the paper observes the economic impact of civil war and terrorist conflict in sub-Saharan Africa from 1971 to 2016. To explore the changes in GDP per capita for all these years, this thesis sheds light on three independent variables: year of conflict, education level, and foreign direct …

Winning The Virtuous Battle, But Losing The War? The Tradeoffs Of Humanitarian Aid And Its Impact On Human Development, Sierra Miller

International Political Economy Theses

This paper addresses the question of what conditions best enable recipient countries to harness humanitarian aid to create long term human development. In an examination of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, and the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami in Sri Lanka, it becomes clear that the conditions that limit humanitarian aid’s potential for human development are more apparent than those that enable it. Political conflict, instability, inequalities, and social divisions in the recipient countries contribute to the limited effect of humanitarian aid on development, but institutional weakness, inconsistency, and competition within the international humanitarian aid community have a larger impact on …

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 …

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.

Slavery, Migration, And Local Development In The Western Us, Colin Q. Sharpe

Theses and Dissertations

This paper examines the effects of migration from eastern slave states in the 19th century on the subsequent development of counties in the Western US. I find that increased migration from slave states has a large, statistically significant negative effect on 2010 income, and no significant effect on racial inequality or overall income inequality. These findings are robust to a variety of specifications, including controls for geographic factors, state fixed effects, and various county level social and economic conditions. Data on individual migrants suggest that the cause of the negative income effect is the lower average human capital endowment of …

Colonial And Post-Colonial Origins Of Agrarian Development: The Case Of Two Punjabs, Shahram Azhar

Doctoral Dissertations

This study explores the colonial and post-colonial origins of agrarian development by looking at the role of historical institutions, class formations and the state (ICS) in shaping the process. It contributes to the “divergence debates” in economics, which make an attempt to explain the ‘fundamental causes’ of divergence between countries. While one strand of the divergence literature presents the process as being functional to ‘geography’, a second strand focuses on the institutional legacies of colonialism; what is common to both sets of explanations, however, is the view that future outcomes are completely pre-determined by one or another time-invariant factor, leading …

Challenges Of Respecting Riparian Rights Around Hydroelectric Dams In Cameroon Since 1949, Séverin Nwaha

Journal for the Advancement of Developing Economies

The impact of electric energy on socio-economic development has attracted the attention of all categories of people in society. This is because of the role power plays in the economic and industrial sectors of any country. Public authorities seem to be more concerned with protecting capitalist interests at the detriment of the riparian population. Despite regulations and legal provisions, authorities are still not able to implement a rigorous policy in this sector in Cameroon due to administrative bottle necks, among other factors. Furthermore, the existence of multiple regulatory and management bodies creates confusion. Legislation related to this issue is usually …

Structural Transformation, Culture, And Women’S Labor Force Participation In Turkey, Yasemin Dildar

Doctoral Dissertations

Turkey has experienced important structural and social changes that would be expected to facilitate women’s participation in market work. Social attitudes toward working women have changed in recent years; women are becoming more educated; they are getting married at a later age; and fertility rates are declining. Despite these factors, women’s labor force participation rates are very low in comparison to the countries at a similar development stage. This dissertation analyzes the underlying causes of low female labor force participation in Turkey. In addition to a background chapter (Chapter 2) analyzing structural transformation and employment generation patterns, the dissertation has …

Um Pós-Escrito Do Artigo “Avaliando O Modelo De Governança Das Agências Reguladoras” À Luz Dos Acontecimentos Recentes No Brasil., Lucia Helena Salgado, Eduardo Pedral Fiuza

Lucia Helena Salgado

Procuramos salientar as principais razões pelas quais o tema da qualidade da governança das instituições deve ocupar lugar de destaque nas agendas de políticas públicas. O conceito de governança aqui é o utilizado na literatura de economia da regulação de foco empírico e com viés normativo, que segue a velha tradição da teoria economia de proposição de políticas públicas para a solução de falhas de mercado. “Governança” é uma elipse de expressão mais ampla, significando “normas de governança de boa (ou alta) qualidade”, cujos princípios basilares são transparência, participação social e prestação de contas. a questão de pesquisa, que motiva …

Public Actors In Private Markets: Toward A Developmental Finance State, Robert Hockett, Saule Omarova

Saule T. Omarova

The recent financial crisis brought into sharp relief fundamental questions about the social function and purpose of the financial system, including its relation to the “real” economy. This Article argues that, to answer these questions, we must recapture a distinctively American view of the proper relations among state, financial market, and development. This programmatic vision – captured in what we call a “developmental finance state” – is based on three key propositions: (1) that economic and social development is not an “end-state” but a continuing national policy priority; (2) that the modalities of finance are the most potent means of …

Removing The Rust: Comparative Post-Industrial Revitalization In Buffalo, Cleveland, And Pittsburgh, Scott Nicholas Duryea

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

This study seeks to understand the differences in post-industrial redevelopment among the cities of Buffalo, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh. Part of the so-called "rust belt," these three cities experienced industrial decline from the 1960s through the 1980s, largely as a result of the economic globalization of heavy industry. Intensive manufacturing and output had come to a screeching halt, unemployment skyrocketed, outmigration ensued, and each metropolitan area faced formidable challenges to convert to service-oriented industries. Over the past twenty years, these cities, and the regions that encompass them, have begun to redevelop, although unevenly. At a glance, the Pittsburgh region appears to …

State Failure And Political Instability: The Impact Of Educational Attainment In Africa, Jesse D. Neugarten

Undergraduate Economic Review

I investigate the role of educational attainment on state failure and political stability across the African continent. For the empirical analysis, I estimate a Linear Probability Model (LPM) for State Failure by Ordinary Least Squares (OLS). I hypothesize that differences in educational attainment in Africa can explain differences in political stability and state failure. Furthermore, I believe that this effect has persisted over time and that early educational attainment in the late colonial and early independence era is a significant determinant of state affairs in more recent times. I find that early secondary educational attainment explains higher state stability, while …