Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Resource Curse: The Cases Of Botswana And Zambia, Audria Crain

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A puzzling correlation has been observed over the last thirty years between slow or negative economic growth and countries with large export dependence on natural resources. This correlation has been dubbed "the resource curse." It has been argued that resource wealth has an inherently negative effect on the economic growth of developing countries. Zambia is such a country in which resource-dependence has been coupled with poor economic performance; Botswana, however, is an important exception to this phenomenon. The question is: Why or how has Botswana surmounted the effects of the resource curse while Zambia has not? A comparative case analysis …

The Global Credit Crisis Of 2007–2009: An Examination Of Some Of The Causes, Chronology, And Unconventional Monetary Tools Employed, Mark P. Culver

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This paper will first examine some of the causes over many years and conditions that evolved that preceded the 2007-2009 credit crisis as well as some of the events that took place in the midst of the crisis. More importantly, this paper will examine how central banks applied the generally prescribed first line defense in the form of conventional monetary policy to its full extent without complete or adequate satisfaction or result. The bulk of the paper is directed at a description and analysis of the unconventional monetary tools, that which has come to be called quantitative easing, that central …

Alexander Hamilton And The National Bank., Bradley Todd Dimmitt

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this manuscript is to explain Alexander Hamilton's idea that a national bank was essential for America's survival. Three key ingredients, clarified through the use of letters and documents, are used to understand the importance of Hamilton's objective: 1) Hamilton's relationship with George Washington, discussed in chapter one; 2) James Madison's and Thomas Jefferson's arguments against Hamilton's ideas, discussed in chapters two and three; and 3) Hamilton's proposal for the bank and his opinion in favor of its constitutionality, including the idea that the necessary and proper clause expands the authority of government, discussed in chapter four.

The …

Estimating Economic Activity From Space, Tilottama Ghosh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Accurate estimates of the magnitude and spatial distribution of both formal and informal economic activity is necessary to achieve various social and economic goals of societies and countries at different levels of analysis. However, collection of data on economic variables, especially of national and sub-national income levels is problematic due to various shortcomings in the data collection process. Additionally, the informal economy estimates are often excluded from official statistics. Thus, developing alternative methods for estimating these economic activities may prove to be useful and necessary. This research demonstrates the potential of developing spatially explicit estimates of economic activity from nighttime …

Three Essays On Differential Games And Resource Economics, Chen Ling

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation consists of three chapters on the topic of differential games and resource economics. The first chapter extends the envelope theorem to the class of discounted infinite horizon differential games that posses locally differentiable Nash equilibria. The theorems cover both the open-loop and feedback information structures, and are applied to a simple analytically solvable linear-quadratic game. The results show that the conventional interpretation of the costate variable as the shadow value of the state variable along the equilibrium path is only valid for feedback Nash equilibria, but not for open-loop Nash equilibria. The specific linear-quadratic structure provides some extra …

Uncertainty, Identification, And Privacy: Experiments In Individual Decision-Making, David Rivenbark

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The alleged privacy paradox states that individuals report high values for personal privacy, while at the same time they report behavior that contradicts a high privacy value. This is a misconception. Reported privacy behaviors are explained by asymmetric subjective beliefs. Beliefs may or may not be uncertain, and non-neutral attitudes towards uncertainty are not necessary to explain behavior. This research was conducted in three related parts. Part one presents an experiment in individual decision making under uncertainty. Ellsberg's canonical two-color choice problem was used to estimate attitudes towards uncertainty. Subjects believed bets on the color ball drawn from Ellsberg's ambiguous …

Asset Distribution And Productivity: Best Practices For Developing This Synergistic Relationship, Wendy Lee Willbanks Wiesner

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Productivity is an essential component of lasting corporate success. It is also a critical ingredient in the recipe for making a vibrant and prosperous community.

Economics recognizes that both capital and labor make contributions to productivity through the functions of investment and production. Enhancements to productivity can be obtained in multiple areas, including technological advancement, corporate expansion, market penetration, and product development. Sustained productivity growth, however, is predicated upon continual process improvement and market innovation.

Identifying precisely "who" and "what" are contributing to productivity is challenging. Because capital and labor interact, it is difficult to determine whether the positive effect …

Modern Slavery: A Regional Focus, Amanda Gould

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Kevin Bales, through his study in Understanding Global Slavery: A Reader, provides an important quantitative analysis on the predictive factors of modern slavery. Upon examining his study though, several issues arise including too few observations for several of the variables and the lack of a regional variable. The author decided to rerun his study with replacements for the problematic variables used previously. Upon obtaining the results from this, the author examined development theory (development is believed to be closely liked to slavery), and began creating an alternative model, which eventually included the addition of a regional variable. This model differed …

How Business Climate And Political Climate Influence Economic Growth And Economic Development In The American States, James H. Black

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Economist Joseph Schumpeter’s examination into the relationships between business cycles and periods of economic expansion defines the government’s role in markets as limited. However, he viewed government intervention as a precursor to improving the levels of economic growth and expanding an individual’s quality of life. This study examines how measures of business and political climate might explain variations in the level of economic growth and development across the states. Economic growth is gauged from the microeconomic perspective of the individual (per capita income) and from the macroeconomic viewpoint of the state’s economy (gross state product). Economic development is defined by …

Behavioral Response To Endogenous Risk In The Laboratory, Shabori Sen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Risk is endogenous when an individual is able to undertake mitigation or self protection actions that reduce the risk that he faces. Most risky environments studied in economics involve endogenous risk. This dissertation studies the conceptual and behavioral implications of introducing endogeneity in the controlled environment of the laboratory. The dissertation consists of three different experiments designed to examine how endogeneity affects risk attitudes and risk perceptions in simple experimental set ups. All three experiments employ a virtual reality scenario where the subject is able to form his own beliefs, based on naturalistic cues provided by the virtual reality experience. …