Economics Commons^™

Policy Coherence And Private Sector Development In Egypt: Aligning Governance Reforms With Development Finance, Shereef El Tanahi

Theses and Dissertations

Despite record volumes of development finance flowing into Egypt, the private sector, particularly its micro, small, and medium enterprises, has yet to experience the broad-based growth these investments were designed to catalyze. Between 2020 and 2025, international development partners committed more than 15.6 billion dollars to Egypt's private sector, yet private investment remains a modest share of the national economy, and most domestic firms continue to face severe barriers to credit.

This thesis argues that the answer lies not in the volume of capital mobilized, but in the coherence of the policies that govern how that capital reaches firms. The …

Horizontal Regulatory Barriers In International Trade: Evidence From Electric Plugs, Yuan Mei, Mingzhi (Jimmy) Xu

Research Collection School Of Economics

Domestic policies regulating the horizontal dimensions of product differentiation can impede international trade and have become a major concern in contemporary trade negotiations. We estimate trade frictions associated with incompatible designs of electric plugs, a well-known example of a horizontal regulatory barrier. Our findings indicate that fewer electronic devices are exported to destinations with incompatible electric plugs, and this effect operates through both the extensive margin and the intensive margin of exports. These results are further corroborated by an online survey of Chinese electronics exporters. Moreover, incompatible plugs are associated with lower average quality of exported electronic devices, suggesting that …

From Disaster To Resilience: Developing Smart Settlements In The Himalayas, Keshav Bhattarai, Ambika P. Adhikari

Himalayan Research Papers Archive

Nepal’s catastrophic 26 August 2026 Bhote Koshi–Trishuli flood should be understood not only as a humanitarian tragedy but also as a potentially major turning point in updating national settlement and reconstruction policy. Engineers and scientists have described the floods as a glacier–bedrock collapse that triggered an ice-rock avalanche and debris flow. As per the live updates on September 7, 2026, the total death toll was 1,355, and 4,996 people were missing (The Hindu, 2026). Indian and Nepali rescuers worked urgently to locate and rescue people buried under hydropower tunnels, buildings, mud, and landslide debris.

UN News reported on September 3, …

Average Earnings Of Undergraduate Certificate Graduates In The Mountain West, 2024, Devin Streuter, Kahlen Coss, Kevin Yang, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Higher Education

This fact sheet presents data on the average earnings of undergraduate certificate program graduates in 2024 dollars compared to the average earnings of high school (HS) graduates in five Mountain West states: Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah. The fact sheet reports information on the number of undergraduate certificate programs, number of graduates, the most popular certificate programs, and earnings premiums for each state. Published by Open Campus in collaboration with The Higher Education Analytics (HEA) Group, the fact sheet reports data originally published through the “Certificate Earnings Explorer."

Do Nonprofit Ratings Help Donors Make Better Decisions?, Ashraf Haque

Center for Policy Research

Nonprofit organizations depend on donations to fulfill their missions, but donors choosing among 1.8 million U.S. public charities often lack the time or capacity to evaluate which organizations are actually performing well. This brief summarizes findings from a study that used a five-year panel dataset of over one million nonprofit-year records from GuideStar (2014–2018) to examine how transparency seal ratings affect donation behavior. The author finds that having any GuideStar seal increases donations by about 7% compared to having no seal, and that platinum-rated nonprofits receive 34% more in donations than unrated organizations, regardless of actual organizational quality. Donors do …

Can The Safety Net Support Families Through Childbirth?, Hyojeong Kim, Colleen Heflin, Taryn Morrissey

Center for Policy Research

Childbirth is a life event that often disrupts maternal employment and household earnings just as family expenses increase. In the United States, families do not have access to a national paid parental leave program and must rely on a patchwork of safety net programs that were not designed specifically to support households during pregnancy and the immediate postpartum period. This brief uses linked administrative data from the Virginia Longitudinal Data System (2016–2021) to describe changes in household earnings and social welfare benefits before and after childbirth among low-income mothers receiving the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) or Temporary Assistance for …

Trapped In Transition: Structural Change And Political Dynamics In Middle-Income Countries, Gabriel Duvidovich

Dissertations and Theses

The middle-income trap literature has examined why relatively few middle-income countries transition to high-income status. A range of explanations has been proposed, but the political dimension has often been overlooked. Studies that take a political perspective often focus on institutional form rather than the state’s ability to effectively implement policy. This study addresses this gap by bringing political capacity to the center of the analysis. It argues that political capacity appears important for the productive upgrading required for sustained growth in middle-income economies and shapes economic growth trajectories across countries at different income levels.

The empirical analysis uses country-period panel …

Gross Metropolitan Product (Gmp) And Gross State Product (Gsp) In The Mountain West, 2024, Devin Streuter, Phillip Seo, Zafeen Boulware, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Economic Development & Workforce

This fact sheet presents 2024 Gross Metropolitan Product (GMP) and Gross State Product (GSP) data for five Mountain West states: Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah, and selected metros in these states. The data are derived from a report by the United States Conference of Mayors titled, “U.S. Metro Economies Annual Report and Forecast June 2025."

Bridging Fiscal Sustainability And Health Equity: A Policy Analysis Of California’S Healthcare Coverage Safeguards, Guadalupe Castaneda Martinez

Master's Projects and Capstones

Without structural policy intervention, approximately 4.6 million Californians remain at risk of being uninsured by 2030, worsening racial and ethnic health disparities and hospital uncompensated care burdens. This policy analysis advocates for a hybrid universal coverage model combining sliding-scale subsidies (California Senate Bill 78) with full-scope Medi-Cal expansion for all income-eligible residents regardless of legal status (California Assembly Bill 133). The framework relies on existing funding mechanisms, including the Managed Care Organization tax and the Health Care Affordability Reserve Fund. Comparative analysis indicates that market-only subsidies leave severe equity gaps, whereas immediate single-payer transitions pose substantial fiscal and administrative risks. …

Lessons From Tanzania’S Ujamaa For Smart Settlements In Nepal: Social Justice And Economic Development, Keshav Bhattarai, Ambika P. Adhikari

Himalayan Research Papers Archive

Nepal’s constitutional commitment to a “socialism-oriented” state places social justice, equitable access to resources and housing, and protection of marginalized populations at the center of national development discourse. However, persistent landlessness, informal settlements, unemployment, youth outmigration, and unequal access to infrastructure reveal a significant gap between constitutional aspirations and socioeconomic realities.

This article examines lessons Nepal can draw from Tanzania’s experience with Ujamaa, the African socialist development model initiated by President Nyerere in 1967. Using comparative policy analysis, published research, official documents, and exploratory field observations from selected Tanzanian locations, including the capital and villages in the Iringa Region, the …

State Investments In Childcare In The Mountain West, 2026, Sophia Booth, Yiselle Olivas Ruiz, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Economic Development & Workforce

This fact sheet presents data on state investments in childcare and preschool programs in the five Mountain West states of Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah. BabyCenter’s 2026 analysis, “These are the best and worst states for childcare,” includes state-level data on childcare accessibility, affordability, public investment, and overall childcare rankings for all 50 states. This fact sheet focuses on childcare spaces per child, income spent on childcare, and state investment per child.

Should We Flee? The Mortality And Economic Impacts Of Hurricane Evacuation Orders, Lucas Kaplan

Center for Policy Research

I estimate the mortality and county-level regional economic impacts of hurricane evacuation orders using a novel instrumental variables framework. Relative to similarly affected but non-evacuated areas, evacuated counties experience fewer deaths but lower personal income, employment, and business establishments into the second year following the storm, likely stemming from delayed returns in wealthier neighborhoods. I then develop a threshold decision rule that balances the mortality benefits against these persistent economic costs and apply this framework to orders issued from 2016–2022. Incorporating these persistent economic costs alters policy evaluation: the largest orders generate net benefits that dwarf their costs, but the …

Most Affordable And Fastest-Growing Cities In The Mountain West, 2026, Cason Noll, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Cities & Metros

This fact sheet presents data on the most affordable and fastest-growing cities among the five Mountain West states of Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah. The data are sourced from MoneyLion’s “50 Most Affordable, Fastest-Growing Cities” report, which analyzed and ranked U.S. cities by the most affordable places with large population growth. This fact sheet focuses on the 10 Mountain West cities that ranked within the top 50 and their corresponding 5-year population growth rate, median household income, annual cost of living for both homeowners and renters, and the leftover savings available at the end of the year for …

An Introduction To The China Land Sales Data Set: The Universe Of Land-Use-Right Transfers In China 2000-2022, Yilin Hou, Lin Li, Qiang Ren

Center for Policy Research

The China Land Sales Data Set (2000-2022) includes the universe of land-use-right sales in China in the first 23 years of the 21st century, a period of the fastest mass urbanization and intense infrastructure construction in China’s history, that accompanied the rapid growth of China’s economy and household income. For this reason, this data set carries substance in many ways for anyone who needs to understand the occurrences in China of that period. The phrase “land sale” refers to the transfer of land-use right from the state as the sole owner of urban land to any individual, firm or entity …

The Effect Of Retention Threat On Student Learning Gains: Evidence From Ohio, Sarah Souders, Robert Bifulco

Center for Policy Research

Grade retention policies create incentives for students to make adequate progress ahead of evaluation. The threat of retention thus has the potential to affect all students’ academic outcomes, increasing achievement especially among students with test scores near the retention policy’s threshold. By using unique data from Ohio which allows us to implement a regression discontinuity design, we find that students exposed to the threat of retention in Grade 3 experience larger learning gains than students who are not under retention threat. Gains in Grade 3 English Language Arts (ELA) are 0.077 SD and although effects partially fade over time, positive …

Impacts Of Climate Hazards On Employment And Earnings By Hazard Type, Industry, Race, And Ethnicity, Dania V. Francis, Keren M. Horn

Sustainable Solutions Lab

We examine the relationship between climate-related disasters and subsequent county-level aggregate employment and earnings. We combine earnings and employment data from 2000 to 2023 with data on disasters to estimate local projection impulse response functions relating extreme disaster events to cumulative percent changes in employment and earnings. On average, disasters appear to reduce employment growth three to five years post disaster. There are small positive impacts on earnings. These results are largely driven by responses to hurricanes and tropical storms. Key rebuilding industries such as construction see short-term gains in employment that turn to losses in the longer-term that are …

Expanding The Cognitive Attentional Standards Platform Through Artificial Influence Assessment (Aia): Rationale, Development, And Measurement Design, Delante Clark

Graduate Scholarship and Creative Works

Artificial intelligence is increasingly shaping how individuals access information, make decisions, and interact with digital environments. The Cognitive Attentional Standards Platform (C.A.S.) was developed to assess attention related harms, cognitive safety, digital autonomy, and platform influence across digital systems (Clark, 2026). However, the growth of generative AI, conversational agents, and algorithmic decision support technologies has introduced new forms of influence that may not be fully captured by existing assessment domains. This paper proposes the Artificial Influence Assessment (AIA) as an expansion of the C.A.S. framework designed to measure AI mediated influence on cognition, behavior, autonomy, and information processing. Drawing on …

Governing Algorithmic Attention: Attention Safeguard Models And The Cognitive Attentional Standard As System Level Interventions In Human Computer Interaction, Behavioral Economics, And Artificial Intelligence, Delante Clark

Graduate Scholarship and Creative Works

Algorithmic recommendation systems and interface designs shape attention by combining visually salient cues with uncertain reward timing and low friction interaction. These conditions can sustain anticipatory checking, extend time on task, and reduce natural disengagement points through patterns such as infinite scrolling and autoplay. This paper synthesizes research across neuroscience, human computer interaction, behavioral economics, and artificial intelligence to argue that attention capture is a predictable outcome of incentive driven design rather than an individual failure of self regulation. It advances the Attention Safeguard Models and the Cognitive Attentional Standard as system level interventions that regulate exposure conditions, pacing, and …

Parental Gender Bias In Youth Employment Standards: Evidence From Upper Egypt, Mahmoud Saeed

Theses and Dissertations

Youth unemployment remains a critical challenge in Egypt, with female labor force participation among the lowest globally. While structural factors such as limited job creation and public sector contraction are well-documented, the role of family-level decision-making in constraining women's labor market entry has received limited quantitative attention. This thesis examines parental gender bias in employment standards in Upper Egypt, investigating whether and how parents impose systematically different job requirements for daughters compared to sons. Using primary survey data from 17,284 unemployed youth aged 18-35 across six governorates, paired with responses from their parents, this study analyzes parental preferences across six …

Determinants Of Corporal Punishment And Severe Physical Punishment In Egypt: A Mixed-Methods Analysis For Child Protection Policy, Marwa Moustafa Nassef

Theses and Dissertations

Corporal punishment (CP) and severe physical punishment (SPP) remain a major public health, child rights, and child protection policy concern. In Egypt, despite legislative reforms, survey-weighted analysis of the 2021 Egypt Family Health Survey (EFHS) 2021 (CAPMAS, 2022) reveals prevalence rates of 60.5% for CP and 27.4% for SPP among children aged 1–14 (author’s calculations using EFHS-2021, n=7623), yet evidence distinguishing the determinants of routine corporal punishment from escalation to severe physical punishment remains limited in low- and middle-income contexts. Guided by Bronfenbrenner’s ecological framework, this mixed-methods study identifies key drivers of CP and its escalation to SPP among Egyptian …

Beyond Emergency: Charting Pathways To Sustainable Development In Fragile And Conflict-Affected Settings: A Case Study Of Yemen, Sharif Abdurabu Salem Farid Alsahbool

Theses and Dissertations

For nearly a decade, Yemen's eastern governorates of Hadramawt, Shabwah, and Al‑Mahrah have been relatively stable, yet the international aid system has kept delivering short‑term humanitarian relief like food baskets and water trucking instead of shifting to sustainable development that could rebuild people's lives, create jobs, fix infrastructure, and strengthen local government. This thesis investigates why this transition has taken so long. Based on 21 interviews with government officials, international NGO staff, and local NGO managers in these three governorates, the study develops a new way of understanding the problem. It introduces three ideas: the 'emergency mentality', which is a …

News Media Coverage Of Measure Ula: How The Story Of La’S Big Project To Address Homelessness And Affordable Housing Got Sidetracked By The Story Of Big Real Estate, Christopher R. Martin

Faculty Publications

“Measure ULA,” named after United to House LA, was approved by voters in Los Angeles in 2022 to create a dedicated, long-term funding source for solutions to homelessness in LA, including funding the construction of affordable homes and preventing homelessness by helping tenants stay in their homes. The funding would come from a new tax on the most expensive real estate transactions in L.A. (i.e., mansion tax), and would affect fewer than 4% of all property transactions. At the end of three years of local news coverage about Measure ULA from the Los Angeles Times and LAist, the news audience …

The Impact Of Corruption On Private Investment In The Mena Region: An Empirical Study On The Period Of 1996-2023, Mohamed A. El Regdawy

Theses and Dissertations

This study aims to examine and understand empirically the impact of corruption on private investment in the MENA region during the period of 1996-2023, as private investment is a key enabler for sustainable economic growth. To better understand such a relationship, a Pooled Mean Group estimator was implemented to figure out this relationship in both the short run and long run. The findings confirm that in the long run, within the context of MENA, corruption was used as a tool to overcome the lack of quality in the regulations that were supposed to enable the role of the private sector. …

The Role Of Bank Portfolio Heterogeneity In The Fiscal Stimulus Policy In Indonesia, Michael Kusuma, Brigitha Mega Rebeca

BISNIS & BIROKRASI: Jurnal Ilmu Administrasi dan Organisasi

Fiscal stimulus transmission is often hindered by banking frictions from risk-averse behavior and channel specialization. To evaluate the fiscal stimulus policy in Indonesia, this study introduces a modified Input-Output (I-O) framework integrated with bank portfolio-based shock vectors. This approach captures banking frictions by incorporating institution-specific portfolio weights into the macro-simulation framework, providing a more realistic assessment than standard uniform-transmission assumptions. Three scenarios are simulated (policy design, interim realization, and expansionary response) to assess the macroeconomic impacts of credit concentration. The results reveal a significant gap between the initial policy design and its actual realization, generating an economic opportunity loss of …

Uneven Ranks: Geographic Deepening Of The All-Volunteer Force, Christine Hogestyn

Master in Public Policy Theses

Who is enlisting in Fiscal Year 2025, and what state-level characteristics are associated with military enlistment rates, service selection, and recruit quality? This study documents the geographic landscape of U.S. military accessions during a period of recruiting recovery, filling a gap in the literature by providing a current, empirical description of who enlists and from where in today’s All-Volunteer Force. Drawing on personnel data from the Department of War, the U.S. Census and Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates, and a federal dataset of military installations, I analyze 203,987 new accessions across the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps from …

Big Game License Fees—Seeking Price Optimization Equity, Chip E. Miller, Brian Vander Naald

Atlantic Marketing Association Proceedings

No abstract provided.

Welcome Tilly Norwood: Forecasting Hollywood’S Ai Policy Futures, Samuel P. Rooker

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

In late 2025, weekly trade publication Variety Magazine reported on the announcement of a new acting talent in Hollywood: Tilly Norwood. Norwood is an industry outsider and the pet project of Eline Van der Velden, who unveiled the actress’ existence to the world at the Zurich Film Festival. The announcement quickly gained media coverage while Van der Velden has since faced cyclical backlash from Hollywood trade unions, which does not seem entirely without reason. Tilly Norwood is a digital persona, a generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) program, designed by Van der Velden’s novel AI talent studio, Xicoia, to become the next …

Empirical Results From The Eliminations Of Municipal Minimum Parking Requirements, David A. Griffith

Honors Theses

Minimum Parking Requirements (MPR) are municipal zoning ordinances mandating a set number of off-street parking spaces for new developments. Since the 1950s, MPR has been the near-universal way American municipalities supply parking, though growing criticisms since the late 1990s have targeted the policy for distorting development patterns, imposing high costs, and subsidizing personal vehicle use. Beginning in the early 2010s and increasingly in the early 2020s, cities and counties across the United States have moved to reform or eliminate MPR. This paper is the first empirical study of the economic effects of these removals. Using a two-way fixed-effects difference-in-differences OLS …

Gme As A Healthcare And Economic Driver In Southern Nevada, Tripp Umbach

Policy Briefs and Reports

In early 2025, the Nevada Health and Bioscience Corporation (NHBC) commissioned Tripp Umbach to conduct a comprehensive study examining the current state and future expansion of physician training and retention in Southern Nevada. The approach recommended in this report is rooted in strategic partnerships among medical institutions, proven funding approaches, and needed policy changes. Tripp Umbach, a nationally renowned private consultancy specializing in medical education expansion strategies, reviewed data, conducted interviews, and developed recommendations to expand GME, highlighting its profound economic impact in Southern Nevada.

Credential Shortages In Higher Education Programs In Mountain West Metro Areas, 2024, Isabelle G. Graham, Kristian Thymianos, Olivia K. Cheche, William E. Brown Jr.

Economic Development & Workforce

This fact sheet reports data on workforce demand for middle-skills jobs across five high-paying occupational categories: healthcare, management, blue-collar, protective services, and STEM. The Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce report, “Missed Opportunities: Credential Shortages in Programs Aligned with High-Paying Middle-Skills Jobs in 55 US Metro Areas,” includes metro-level data on 55 metro areas in the United States in 2024.2 This fact sheet focuses on data for five Mountain West metro areas, including Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, CO; Las-Vegas-Henderson-Paradise, NV; Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, AZ; Salt Lake City, UT; and Tucson, AZ.