Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

An Analysis Of Ohio's Alternative Energy Portfolio Standard, Joshua A. Laufer

Honors Papers

I performed quantitative analyses and qualitative interpretation of energy policy data, energy production and consumption data, and political data. I collected data on state Renewable Portfolio Standards from the Database for State Incentives for Renewable Energy (DSIRE), energy production and consumption data for the 50 states and Washington D.C. from the Energy Information Agency (EIA), and 1992 presidential election data from the internet. I identify relationships that exist between these different types of variables, and where Ohio fits in the national context of existing energy patterns and policies. There are several conclusions found in the literature that are independently tested …

Strategic Competition Over School Inputs And Outputs, Gary Richard Cohen

Honors Papers

Although public schools are not generally subject to direct competition for students, it is commonly thought that they nonetheless face competition through parents' residential choice. Such competitive effects are likely to depend on the relative proximity of school districts if it is less costly to move short distances than long, or if parents are able to more easily send their children to nearby districts through open enrollment policies. Using panel data for 607 Ohio school districts from 1998 to 2007, I test for strategic interaction over teacher salaries and standardized test scores. I present evidence that Ohio public school districts …

Trade Unions And Green Jobs In The Post-Fordist Economy: Just Rhetoric Or A Fundamental Shift?, Erik Kojola

Honors Papers

This paper looks at green jobs within the context of the new economy and post-Fordism, with a focus on why unions are supporting green jobs and the potential for creating decent employment and unionized jobs in green industries. The simultaneous economic and environmental crises create a window for political and economic change. The direction of green jobs will be determined by larger economic and political trends and will depend on the action of the state and organized labor. Unions are supporting green jobs because it is a way to promote reindustrialization, an active government industrial policy, corporatism and social partnerships. …

The Impact Of Colleges On House Prices In Ohio, Graham Mathieu Johnson

Honors Papers

Using a hedonic pricing model, I estimated the effects of changes in college and university characteristics on house prices in three regions of Ohio. I used cross-sectional housing and census data for the year 2000, compiled by David M. Brasington of Louisiana State University, and college data from Barron’s Profiles of American Colleges 2001. I measured college and university impact within radii ranging from one to two miles around a campus admissions office, allowing for an investigation of how the impact of academic institutions changes with distance. I found that changes in campus size, undergraduate student population, graduate student population, …

Yoga 'Holistic' Exercise In Ohio, Theresa Schmidt

Honors Papers

Yoga is depicted in U.S. popular culture as the sacred practice of an ancient tradition, guaranteed to initiate the western participant into the secrets of health and well being, i.e. a low-impact exercise regimen. However, the yoga that is practiced in the U.S. is often removed from its actual history. The physical practices are regularly isolated from the holistic philosophy and come to be understood as the entirety of yoga and marketed as a "spiritual" form of exercise. This paper will explore literature relevant to these themes and examine the reasons for yoga's popularity and the manner in which it …

Environmental Clean-Up And Property Price Change, Emily Aronow

Honors Papers

In my experiment, I am trying to find the value, to Lorain County property owners, of cleaning up the Black River which runs through Lorain County. This study involves a number of property variables, a number of neighborhood variables, and the environmental variables. The hedonic price function takes this general form:
Property Price = c + β1Property Characteristics + β2Neighborhood Characteristics + β3Environmentai Characteristics + u.

This equation says that the price of a piece of property is a function of several things: the characteristics of the property, the characteristics of the neighborhood it's in, and the characteristics of the …

Perceptions Of Income Inequality: An Exploratory Study, Susanna Henighan Potter

Honors Papers

Household income is one of the most common variables in economic models. Theory and logic tells us that it will influence a whole range of household choices, from the decision to go to school, to the decisions to change jobs or move. Income is also used in range of political science and sociological models. These models use income and relative economic position to explain political and social behavior. On the face of it income seems to be a straightforward concept, once you have included and excluded all relevant income streams. It also seems reasonable to assume that individual households know …

A Geographic Interpretation Of The Agricultural Regions Of Ohio, Margaret Elizabeth Stevens

Honors Papers

The purpose of this thesis is to divide the state of Ohio into agricultural regions, and, so delimited, to describe and interpret these regions in a geographic manner. The basis of division is the use of the land for varying agricultural purposes. These variables are expressed my means of isopleth maps showing acreage percentages of land use. Factors of the natural environment, such as soil, bedrock, climate, topography, and drainage, aid in the interpretation of these regions.