Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

From Trade Deficit In Goods To Trade Surplus In Services: An Eclectic And Extended Gravity Model Approach In Analyzing The Determinants Of Service Trade Of The United States, Tofayel Ahmmad

Masters Theses

This paper employs an eclectic and extended gravity model of trade to assess the most important determinants of real export and import of services of the United States by analyzing US service trade with its 33 partner countries for 15 years. Distance affects US real export of services negatively, but has no influence on US real import of services. A devaluation of the US dollar increases service export of the United States. We find a positive relationship between US goods trade and US service exports. US outward FDI has a positive impact on US real export of services, but has …

Remittances And Economic Growth Determinants In Low, Lower Middle, And Upper Middle Income Countries: A Comparative Study, Md Shahedur Rahaman Chowdhury

Masters Theses

The research uses pooled cross-country times series for the time period 1981-2010 to investigate the impacts of remittances and other economic growth determinants on economic growth of low-income, lower-middle income, and upper-middle income economies. This study divides this 30-year period into six non-overlapping five-year periods. This paper contributes to the literature on remittances, economic growth indicators, and economic growth in novel ways. The research finds that remittances are not associated with the economic growth of low-income economies. However, the research concludes that remittances are positively and significantly related to economic growth of Lower Middle-Income and Upper Middle-Income Economies. Nevertheless, the …

A New Approach To Climate Change: A Consideration Of Ancillary Benefits In Linking Regional Permit Trading Systems, William H. Meyer

Honors Theses and Capstones

In this paper, I investigate the economic efficiency of two major approaches to greenhouse gas reduction, and evaluate their respective benefits. First, I trace the path of action and thinking on addressing climate change from a global to a regional level. Second, I consider the major economic benefits of having a globally-integrated greenhouse gas abatement system. Third, I consider the economic benefits of regional approaches to climate change, with a focus on the ancillary benefits from greenhouse gas abatement. I conclude by reviewing the challenges to linking regional abatement systems into a cohesive network, and suggest a potential future approach …

The Taylor Rule With Real-Time Data And An Analysis Of Its Impact On Historical Policy Analysis, Morgan Mckee

Honors Theses

The Federal Reserve system (the Fed) is the United States monetary policy authority and is mandated by Congress to pursue two goals: 1) maximum sustainable output and employment and 2) stable prices. Among the actions the Fed can take to achieve these goals is the ability to set the target federal funds rate. Simple policy rules that set the level of funds rate in response to changes in economic variables have gained attention as a means to more effective monetary policy. One of the most researched and cited rules is that proposed by economist John Taylor in 1993. Taylor’s rule …

An Economic Analysis Of Mars Exploration And Colonization, Clayton Knappenberger

Honor Scholar Theses

No abstract provided.

Investing In The Arts As A Regional Economic Development Tool: A Case Study Of Suny Buffalo State College Arts Students, Dinash Lal Mpa

Public Administration Master’s Projects

The intent of this study was to determine the financial needs of the art students attending Buffalo State College when considering producing their art. In order to establish this need, this case study required the opinions of arts students on their current and future potential financial circumstances including, prospective income supplementation to produce their art work, ability to produce art work given their current and future financial outlooks, the importance of their financial circumstances in relation to the production of their art, the degree to which they currently or foresee the use of financial products and services to produce their …

Working In Utopia: Locating Marx's "Realm Of Necessity" In The Socialist Futures Of Bellamy And Morris, Kira Braham

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

This project examines two works of nineteenth-century utopian fiction, Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward and William Morris's News from Nowhere, and considers the way in which the organization of work in these imagined post-capitalist futures is guided by their respective philosophies of labor: while Bellamy's utopia is structured by an understanding of labor as primarily a social duty, Morris presents labor as central to the full development and happiness of the individual. These two utopias are read as representative of a fundamental tension within the writings of Marx: while Morris's understanding of labor aligns with the early works of Marx, Bellamy's …

A Critical Review Of Ontario’S Blue Box Program: Identifying And Testing Best Practices In Printed Paper And Packaging Recycling, Calvin Lakhan

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This dissertation undertook a critical review of four recycling policies used in Ontario which are designed to promote household waste diversion and reduce material management costs. These policies include:

1) Municipal funding should be directly tied to program performance relative to their peer group. 2) All municipalities should make investments in recycling promotion and education, and will be reimbursed $1 per household for all recycling promotion and education expenditures

3) Where possible, municipalities should implement pay as you throw schemes for household waste as a means to minimize the amount of material being disposed of in the waste stream.

4) …

The Macroeconomic Effects Of Tax News, Sandeep Kumar Rangaraju

Theses and Dissertations--Economics

This dissertation explores the effect of tax news on national and state-level economic activity.

In the first chapter, I explore the effect of tax news on state economic activity. I estimate a factor-augmented vector autoregression (FAVAR) model, which allows us to consider the possibility that unobserved regional factors --such as credit and fiscal conditions-- might be relevant for modelling the dynamic response of aggregate and state-level economic activity. Tax news is identified as a shock to the implicit tax rate, measured by the yield spread between the one year tax-exempt municipal bond and the one-year taxable Treasury bond. My results …

Cross Sectional Analysis Of The Demand For Prescription Pain Killers, Christopher Reed

Masters Theses

This paper is a cross-sectional analysis of the demand for prescription painkillers. Demand was broken down into illegal adult use of painkillers, illegal adolescent use, and legal prescriptions per capita for each state. Data for 2012 were taken from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) and the National Prescription Audit as well as from other sources such as the Census Bureau. Prescription drug monitoring programs were found to decrease illegal use, while medical marijuana laws and poverty rates increased legal use and use among teens. Both white population and number of officers decreased illegal use among adults, …

Predictive Power Of Aggregate Accounting Earnings Growth For Growth Of Future Gdp, Meng Huang

Masters Theses

Konchitchki and Patatoukas (2014a) suggest that aggregate accounting earnings growth is a significant leading indicator of future nominal Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth in the United Sates, and that earnings growth adds power to contemporaneous GDP growth in predicting future GDP growth. The future GDP growth used in their model is based on the third estimate of GDP for a given quarter, which is released by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) three months after the end of the quarter. My study is also centered on predictability of future GDP growth but it provides a useful extension of the …

The Balloon Analogue Risk Task And Behavioral Correlates In Pigeons, Aaron P. Smith

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

Individuals experience risk ubiquitously, but measuring risk taking is difficult. The balloon analogue risk task (BART) was developed in order to assess risk taking through having subjects press a key that accrues reward but also risk losing all reward with each press. In humans, greater responding in this task is associated with other maladaptive risk taking behaviors. The present research modeled this relationship in pigeons due to their previously shown propensity towards risk taking behavior. Experiment 1 used an unsignaled balloon task in which losing could only occur after 5 pecks. Results showed below optimal performance with greater pecks associated …

Do Democratic Governments Improve Environmental Quality?, Yoonsoo Nam

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

My research question is whether democratic countries improve the environment. This research question is important because many nowadays people are more than ever concerned about environmental quality, and researchers have produced mixed results of democratic governments’ effects on the environment. As an attempt to contribute to this area of research, I implement three different types of heterogeneity in the relationships between democratic countries and environmental quality. These three different types of heterogeneity include different environmental outcomes, separate components of democracy, and countries with different income levels. By using these three different types of heterogeneity, I may better understand the mechanisms …