Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Contribution Of The South Carolina Technical College System To Human Capital, Labor Force Participation, And Employment, Justin Land

Senior Theses

This thesis assesses the economic impact of the South Carolina Technical College System by applying a counterfactual analysis method to the study of human capital development and labor force growth from 2010-2019. Data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) are used to estimate the average years of schooling attained by a South Carolinian during the period and the counterfactual average were the Technical College System to not exist. This result is then combined with probit regression models of labor force participation and employment to estimate the Technical College System’s contribution to the labor …

Dynamic Micropolitans In The Mountain West, 2015-2021, Annie Vong, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Cities & Metros

This fact sheet examines data exploring micropolitan ranking, gross domestic product (GDP) growth, employment growth, and average annual pay growth for micropolitan areas in the Mountain West. The original report includes economic growth data on 536 micropolitan areas across the United States from 2015 to 2021.

Information And Communication Technologies And Employment In The Services Sector: The Case Of The Economic Community Of West African States, Kossi Naita Edem, Kokou Dzifa

Young African Leaders Journal of Development

The rise of information and communication technologies is a channel for job creation in the ECOWAS services sector because they make work more efficient and are a source of innovation. In this article, we analyse the impact of information and communication technologies on employment in the services sector in ECOWAS. In contrast to their ambiguous impact on employment in countries with a fairly high ICT penetration rate, we rather expect the internet to have a potentially positive impact on employment in the service sub-sectors of education, health, distribution, transport & communication and finance & insurance. Furthermore, most of the control …

Growth In High-Paying Jobs: Mountain West Metros, Joshua Padilla, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Economic Development & Workforce

This fact sheet examines data from a Stessa report titled, “U.S. Cities with the Largest Growth in High-Paying Jobs.” Data are presented for 25 metros in the Mountain West (Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah).

The Employment Effects Of Mobile Internet In Developing Countries, Gaurav Chiplunkar, Pinelopi K. Goldberg

Discussion Papers

We examine the employment effects of 3G mobile internet expansion in developing countries. We find that 3G significantly increases the labor force participation rate of women and the employment rates of both men and women. Our results suggest that 3G affects the type of jobs and there is a distinct gender dimension to these effects. Men transition away from unpaid agricultural work into operating small agricultural enterprises, while women take more unpaid jobs, especially in agriculture, and operate more small businesses in all sectors. Both men and women are more likely to work in wage jobs in the service sector.

Northwest Arkansas State Of The Region 2022, Mervin Jebaraj

State of the Northwest Arkansas Region Report

The State of the Northwest Arkansas Region Report is an annual publication, commissioned by the Northwest Arkansas Council, that serves as a tool for evaluating economic performance. In July 2018, the Northwest Arkansas Council created a new blueprint for development in which Northwest Arkansas is benchmarked with other contemporary, high-performing regions, namely Austin, Des Moines, Madison, Durham-Chapel Hill, Raleigh and Provo-Orem.

The 2022 report compares Northwest Arkansas with these geographies in gross domestic product, employment, unemployment, establishment growth, median household income, average annual wages, poverty, educational attainment, research and development, homeownership costs, commuting time, and average domestic airfares. The following …

Housing Affordability For Top Occupations In Nevada Metros, 2022, Kristian Thymianos, Elia Del Carmen Solano-Patricio, Ally M. Beckwith, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Housing & Real Estate

This fact sheet combines housing and employment data from the National Housing Conference (NHC) and the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to examine housing affordability for the 10 most common occupations in the Las Vegas-Henderson-Paradise, NV and the Reno-Sparks, NV metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) in Quarter 1 of 2022.

Tech Innovation Capacity In Mountain West Metros, Ally M. Beckwith, William E. Brown Jr.

Economic Development & Workforce

This fact sheet highlights data on the tech innovation capacity in Mountain West metropolitan areas, as originally reported in 2019 by Robert D. Atkinson, Mark Muro, and Jacob Whiton from the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program. Tech innovation is defined as advanced industries that are America’s 50 high-R&D, high-STEM manufacturing, energy, and services industries ranging from aerospace and automobile manufacturing to solar electricity generation to internet publishing to bio-tech. Tech innovation is essential to the future of America’s economy. However, “superstar” metropolitan areas creating a regional imbalance within the innovation sector. The Brookings report examines metropolitan areas that are potential …

Free Trade Agreements And Women’S Employment Likelihood: The Case Of Malaysia, Lexie A. Judd

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Entrepreneurship And Job Creation In Rural Subsaharan Africa: A Case Study Of Selected Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurs In Nigeria And Kenya, Terhemen Justine Agabo, Jackson Akor

Young African Leaders Journal of Development

The bulk of the poor in sub-Saharan Africa live in rural areas and Entrepreneurship is often used as a tool to curb poverty across communities. This study investigates the impact of entrepreneurship on employment and economic livelihoods in selected rural communities in Nigeria and Kenya using a Theory of Change framework. Acombination of descriptive and exploratory techniques was used to analyze the data gathered from interviews conducted among 40 respondents comprising Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurs working in rural communities and residents of the selected communities. Findings show that entrepreneurship contributes to the employment of locals in the communities, especially in …

Covid-19: Payment Protection Program (Ppp) Loan Impact In The Mountain West, Eshaan Vakil, Elia Del Carmen Solano-Patricio, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Economic Development & Workforce

This fact sheet summarizes the impact of COVID-19 relief loans on small businesses in 5 Mountain West states: Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah. Using data reported by the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), researchers at Brookings report, “across metro areas, COVID-19 relief loans are helping some places more than others.” This fact sheet explores the geographic distribution of PPP loans in 20 “very large,” “large,” “midsize,” and “small” metropolitan statistical areas (MSA) in the Mountain West.

The Future Of Work In The Mountain West, Ember Smith, Caitlin Saladino, William E. Brown

Economic Development & Workforce

This Fact Sheet highlights the potential net job growth in the Mountain West states (Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado) and automation employment implications in each county in the region as detailed in The future of work in America: People and places, today and tomorrow, a report by the McKinsey Global Institute.

A Case For The Congo: How Can Education And Agriculture Lead To Economic Development?, Arthur Kilongo

Senior Projects Spring 2020

Since its independence from Belgium in 1960 until this point in time, the Democratic Republic of the Congo has more than often experienced violence and political instability that have prevented the creation of a stable economy and functional political system. As a result, quality education and high paying jobs are scarce in the DR Congo today, resulting in poverty to the extent where many people in the country live on less than $1.90 per day. According to the International Labour Organization, as many as 68.7% of Congolese worked in agriculture in 2019. This paper investigates how education and training can …

Economic Growth In Mountain West Metropolitan Areas, Ember Smith, Caitlin Saladino, William E. Brown

Economic Development & Workforce

This Fact Sheet highlights trends in America’s economic progress, demonstrating how four metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) in the Mountain West region (Salt Lake City, Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, Las Vegas-Henderson-Paradise, and Denver-Aurora-Lakewood) fared from 2016 to 2017 and from 2007 to 2017 compared to the national economy and the 100 largest metropolitan economies.

Bowling Green Business: The Incentives Inciting Economic Growth, Paul Garbarino

Honors Projects

This paper analyzes the different factors and incentives influencing company and business site selection decision making. Policy incentives offered by governments for businesses, such as tax exemptions and reductions, subsidies, and promises of quality community life are evaluated for their effectiveness. This paper focuses on the City of Bowling Green, OH as a case study on what attracts businesses into local, smaller municipalities. Three manufacturer's within the Bowling Green jurisdiction are closely evaluated to determine what factors, including location, labor force, and quality of life, influenced their decisions to operate in Bowling Green.

Rethinking Retirement For The 21st Century, Stephen C. Russo

Major Papers

Canada’s labour force has been gradually growing older in recent decades. An aging labour force creates significant problems for the country and the future growth of our economy. With an aging labour force, comes the need to start rethinking how Canadians look at retirement in the 21^st century and how both the government and private sector can contribute solutions to adapting to an older workforce. This problem is not unique to Canada, most of the industrialized west has been or will begin to experience the same demographic shift as we are in Canada. The main challenge this paper examines …

The Effects Of Destruction: A Macroeconomic Story, Kara Riesing

Theses and Dissertations--Economics

Destructive events such as natural disasters and terrorist attacks occur not only in developing economies but also developed economies. Consequently, the response of these economies has been observed in case of both type of events. This dissertation is a collection of essays regarding natural disasters, terrorist attacks and the macroeconomy. Specifically, I examine the response of local labor markets that reflect a wide spectrum of economies, but also have a safety-net in the form of being part of a developed country in the aftermath of a violent tornado. Further, I explore the heterogeneity in the economies response to natural disasters …

Past, Present And Future Of Maine's Pulp And Paper Industry, Ariel Listo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The pulp and paper industry has historically been of paramount importance for the state of Maine, both from cultural and economic perspectives. The industry has been a vital part of the forest products economy and a large contributor to employment and state gross domestic product (GDP). However, the number of pulp and paper mills in Maine has declined sharply in the last few decades, deeply harming employment levels, local economies and the forest products sector of the most heavily forested state in the nation. This phenomenon has sparked efforts to understand the factors behind the downfall of Maine's pulp and …

Vocational Training Programs And Youth Labor Market Outcomes: Evidence From Nepal, S Chakravarty, M Lundberg, Plamen Nikolov, J Zenker

Economics Faculty Scholarship

Lack of skills is arguably one of the most important determinants of high levels of unemployment and poverty. In response, policymakers often initiate vocational training programs in efforts to enhance skill formation among the youth. Using a regression-discontinuity design, we examine a large youth training intervention in Nepal. We find, twelve months after the start of the training program, that the intervention generated an increase in non-farm employment of 10 percentage points (ITT estimates) and up to 31 percentage points for program compliers (LATE estimates). We also detect sizable gains in monthly earnings largely driven by women who start self-employment …

[Review Of The Book Employment And Development: A New Review Of Evidence, By David Turnham], Gary S. Fields

Gary S Fields

[Excerpt] I first encountered David Turnham’s work after majoring in labor economics in undergraduate and graduate school and spending a year in Nairobi studying and modeling the labor market there. The atmosphere in Kenya was crackling with intellectual excitement: John Harris and Michael Todaro had just showed how the solution to urban unemployment might be rural development, George Johnson had demonstrated that earnings function analysis ‘worked’ despite doubts about the quality of developing country data and the applicability of developed country concepts, Dharam Ghai was developing the basic human needs approach to development, and Joe Stiglitz was formulating efficiency wage …

The Rise Of Technology And Its Influence On Labor Market Outcomes, Maja K. Thomas

Gettysburg Economic Review

Technological progress has significantly changed the inputs and production processes utilized by firms. Such shifts have led to warnings throughout the past few decades that substantial numbers of jobs, particularly things belonging to the middle class, would be eliminated and replaced by technology. This paper examines the validity of this argument by estimating the impact of technology investment on local labor markets during that period. I find evidence for a positive, rather than negative, relationship between technology and employment. Furthermore, my estimates suggest there exists a complementary relationship between technology investment and growth in labor opportunities, rather than a substitution …

From The Fair Labor Standards Act To Individual State Minimum Wages: Measuring State Minimum Wages And Economic Performance, Adam Charles Carafotes

Senior Projects Spring 2017

This project will analyze the historical foundation of the minimum wage in the United States prior to the first federal wage enactment in 1938 to the current federal wage as well as individual state wages. This paper will offer a historical overview along with economic ideology in determining appropriate minimum wage floors on state and federal levels of the economy. The question of raising either state or federal minimum wages has drawn great importance in the eyes of our country and in the eyes of economic thinkers, policymakers, and individuals. The minimum wage has been the backbone for working individuals …

Employment And Economic Growth In Costa Rica, Gary S. Fields

Gary S Fields

Costa Rica’s economic growth in the last 25 years has had favorable labor market and income distribution consequences. Overall, employment growth kept pace with labor force growth, the mix of jobs improved, real wages rose, and relative inequality and absolute poverty fell. But during the economic crisis of 1980-82, when real per capita income plummeted, labor market conditions deteriorated markedly: unemployment doubled, employment composition worsened, and real wages fell by 40%. Growth, labor market conditions, and income distribution have moved together.

Challenges And Policy Lessons For The Growth-Employment-Poverty Nexus In Developing Countries, Gary S. Fields

Gary S Fields

Productivity growth and structural change are generally considered to be important determinants of economic growth. However recent research revealed that they do not necessarily lead to higher growth and employment rates. Recent studies, drawing on data from developing countries, showed that only the “right” kind of productivity growth resulted in higher employment rates. Enterprises in Africa and Latin America caught up in matters of technology; however, this process resulted in a substitution of employment by technology. The same is true for structural change; only the “right” kind of structural change caused more growth and employment. Whereas in Asia, labour shifted …

Employment And Development In The Developing World: Taking Stock Of What Research Can Teach Us, Gary S. Fields

Gary S Fields

Productivity growth and structural change are generally considered to be important determinants of economic growth. However recent research revealed that they do not necessarily lead to higher growth and employment rates. Recent studies, drawing on data from developing countries, showed that only the “right” kind of productivity growth resulted in higher employment rates. Enterprises in Africa and Latin America caught up in matters of technology; however, this process resulted in a substitution of employment by technology. The same is true for structural change; only the “right” kind of structural change caused more growth and employment. Whereas in Asia, labour shifted …

Aid, Growth And Jobs, Gary S. Fields

Gary S Fields

Various development objectives are worthy, but one objective merits special attention: reducing the scourge of absolute economic misery in the world. This study focuses on an important but relatively underemphasized approach to poverty reduction: helping the poor earn more in the labour market for the work they do, so that they can buy the goods and services they need to move up out of poverty. The core of the study is divided into three sections: defining the global poverty challenge and the world’s employment problem, presenting policy options for improving employment outcomes for the poor, and suggesting ways of choosing …

Changing Labor Market Conditions And Economic Development In Hong Kong, The Republic Of Korea, Singapore, And Taiwan, China, Gary S. Fields

Gary S Fields

In the newly industrializing economies (NIEs) of Hong Kong, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan (China), the entire working population has benefited from labor market institutions. The East Asian NIEs attained and maintained generally full employment, improved their job mixes, raised real earnings, and lowered their rates of poverty. This article reaches two principal conclusions. First, labor market conditions continued to improve in all four economies in the 1980s at rates remarkably similar to their rates of aggregate economic growth. Second, labor market repression was not a major factor in the growth experiences of these economies in the 1980s. …

An Evaluation Of Competitive Industrial Structure And Regional Manufacturing Employment Change., Joshua Drucker

Joshua Drucker

Human Capital, Employment And Subjective-Objective Poverty: A Micro Case Study Of Nepal, Tejesh Pradhan

Masters Theses

This thesis derives an alternative subjective-objective poverty line (SPL) using self-reported qualitative assessments of perceived adequacy for different categories of consumption namely, food, housing and clothing. Modeling the probability of reporting that actual consumption in each category is adequate, I find that actual measures of consumption are highly significant predictors of perceived consumption adequacy. The perceived adequacy for different consumption components respond more elastically to spending on the corresponding category of goods than to that on other types. The results suggest that the implied subjective poverty lines and regional profiles are different from those predicted by popular objective methods.

This …

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 …