Economics Commons^™

Part 2: The State Of Education, Regional Studies Institute, Old Dominion University

State of the Region Reports: Hampton Roads

(First Paragraph) Few things are more important to adults in Hampton Roads than the quality of their K-12 schools. These schools, and the students within their classrooms, represent the fondest hopes of this generation for a prosperous future. Many citizens and parents are willing to expend countless hours helping to maintain the quality of their schools and, to the extent they are able, make them even better. Pity the political leader who comes to be viewed as "anti-education." From the latest related statewide initiatives to more localized concerns, K-12 schools are always a focal point of the news in Hampton …

Part 3: The State Of The Regional Economy, Regional Studies Institute, Old Dominion University

State of the Region Reports: Hampton Roads

(First Paragraph) Many factors come into play when predicting the future of the Hampton Roads economy. Defense spending, non-defense-sector growth and a commitment to collaboration among private and public high-tech industries are three very large variables that contribute to the region's pulse and prospects for long-term health. All of these factors, as we will see here, are interconnected. Per capita income, often used to measure a region's economic well-being, should continue to exhibit "baseline improvement" in Hampton Roads, but if the standard of living is to rise above average, some changes would need to be made to the region's economic …

Part 5: The State Of Tourism, Regional Studies Institute, Old Dominion University

State of the Region Reports: Hampton Roads

(First Paragraph) If Virginia is for lovers, then Hampton Roads is for lovers of vacations. From the historic streets of Colonial Williamsburg to the surf and sand of modern-day Virginia Beach, this region offers visitors a wide variety of enticing attractions.

Part 4: The State Of The Military, Regional Studies Institute, Old Dominion University

State of the Region Reports: Hampton Roads

(First Paragraph) From the sprawling Naval Station Norfolk, home port of the Atlantic Fleet, to Fort Eustis, the Peninsula's largest military installation, Hampton Roads has long been known for it's sizable population of Department of Defense personnel and diversity of military bases. In all, more than 100,000 active-duty personnel are stationed in Hampton Roads, approximately 80 percent of whom serve in the U.S. Navy. While Norfolk is no longer considered soley a "Navy town," it continues to be home to the largest naval base in the world.

Part 6: The State Of Government, Regional Studies Institute, Old Dominion University

State of the Region Reports: Hampton Roads

(First Paragraph) With- count them- nearly 100 governmental units in the cities and counties that comprise Hampton Roads, are our citizens being served efficiently and responsibly?

Part 8: The State Of Transportation, Regional Studies Institute, Old Dominion University

State of the Region Reports: Hampton Roads

(First Paragraph) What road do we take- literally and figuratively- to help solve our traffic congestion woes?

Part 9: The State Of The Workforce, Regional Studies Institute, Old Dominion University

State of the Region Reports: Hampton Roads

(First paragraph) Is the workforce as good (or as bad) as they say?

Part 7: The State Of Technology, Regional Studies Institute, Old Dominion University

State of the Region Reports: Hampton Roads

(First Paragraph) What will it take for us to compete in the high tech arena?

Part 10: The State Of Health, Regional Studies Institute, Old Dominion University

State of the Region Reports: Hampton Roads

As a region, Hampton Roads has worked hard to increase the number and quality of its medical facilities. The merger of Sentara and Tidewater Health Care sealed Sentara's position as the region's largest health care provider and forced it to rise to the challenge of offering excellent, efficient medical care. It has proven itself by attaining a ranking of 6th among all of the health networks in the nation, its third consecutive year in the top 10. Only two other health care systems have been named to the top 10 list for this many years. In addition, Sentara Norfolk General …

Approximation Model Building For Reliability & Maintainability Characteristics Of Reusable Launch Vehicles, Resit Unal, W. Douglas Morris, Nancy H. White, Roger A. Lepsch, Richard W. Brown

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

This paper describes the development of parametric models for estimating operational reliability and maintainability characteristics for reusable launch vehicle concepts, based on vehicle size and technology support level. A reliability and maintainability analysis tool (RMAT) and response surface methods are utilized to build parametric approximation models for rapidly estimating operational reliability and maintainability characteristics such as mission completion reliability. These models that approximate RMAT, can then be utilized for fast analysis of operational requirements, for lifecycle cost estimating and for multidisciplinary design optimization.

Comparative Study Of Economic Adjustment And Housing Quality Of Migrants And Natives In The State Of Virginia, Bayram Unal

Sociology & Criminal Justice Theses & Dissertations

This research has directed attention towards comparing and understanding the characteristics of both native and migrant populations and both recent and long-term migrant populations in the state of Virginia. The research question is: how does migrant population differ from native population? And how do recent migrants differ from long-term migrants in terms of their employment status, occupation, income, home ownership, quality of housing and amount of rent. This study utilizes data from the 5 percent sample of the U.S. 1990 Census. Cross tabulation and analysis of variance are used to compare migrant with native population and recent migrants with long-term …

The Revolution In Higher Education, James V. Koch

Economics Faculty Publications

Joseph Schumpeter, the Austrian born economist and social historian who spent a major part of his academic career at Harvard, was a cogent observer of how societies develop. His Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy is still considered a classic. Schumpeter spoke of "perennial gales of creative destruction" (often technological) that shock societies and force change. The advent of electricity and the coming of the automobile illustrate technologies that created new power arrangements and destroyed or modified existing institutions. Higher education is now in the midst of a Schumpeterian "gale of creative destruction"--a revolution, many say. After almost 150 years of reliance …

Market Reaction To Seasoned Equity Offerings: The Relevance Of Leverage, Growth Opportunities, And Corporate Structure, Mojib U. Ahmed

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

Empirical work on the market's reaction to seasoned equity offerings has rarely considered the impact of the issuing firm's leverage level or its corporate structure. This work is an attempt to include these parameters in order to better understand the market's reaction to such issue announcements.

The current finance literature recognizes the fact that leverage plays an important role in assessing the value of the firm. Leverage has both negative and positive impacts on the value of a firm (McConnell and Servaes, 1995), and thus, has both negative and positive impacts on the market's reaction to seasoned equity offerings. This …

Measurement Of Hospital Performance: Environmental And Organizational Factors Associated With Cost, Debra Kay Dierksmeier Anderson

Health Services Research Dissertations

As U.S. health care expenditures top the $1 trillion mark, there is increased interest in measuring the performance of health care providers. For bottom line oriented payors such as government and business, the focus is on measuring cost. As hospitals account for over one-third of health care expenses, hospital cost per admission is a common measure of performance.

Many environmental and organizational factors come into play in determining hospital cost per admission. This research examines several of these factors, using Raymond Zammuto's model of organizational effectiveness assessment. Using Zammuto's framework, this research looks at the relationship of social, physical, and …

Relative Gains Problem And Case Studies Of Economic Cooperation In East Asia, Ping Deng

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

Relative gains problem basically means unequal cooperative payoffs disproportionately favoring partners. With the relative gains problem widely accepted as a serious impediment to international cooperation, some scholars have theoretically argued or modeled several conditions that are most likely to foster a state's sensitivity to relative gains and thus substantially affect the prospects for cooperation. But little empirical work has been done to date. The central objective of this dissertation is to test whether those theoretical propositions can be supported by empirical evidence. For this purpose, we have deducted three hypotheses: (1) If a state faces military threat and zero-sum political …

Essay I. Intra-Industry Contagion And Competitive Effects Associated With Corporate Liquidation Announcements: Does Shareholder Governance Influence The Results? Essay Ii. Investors' Pricing Of Exchange Rate Risk In U. S. Firms That File For Bankruptcy, J. Terry Ray

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

Essay I. Intra-industry contagion and competitive effects associated with corporate liquidation announcements: Does shareholder governance influence the results? This essay extends earlier research by investigating the role shareholder governance may play in the abnormal stock returns of the liquidating firms' competitors. The empirical model used for analyzing the abnormal returns includes variables to capture the influence of: leverage, Tobin's q, the Herfindahl index, Book Equity-to-Market Equity ratio, the level of institutional stock ownership, and the level of stock ownership by insiders.

The conclusion is leverage of the liquidating firm as well as its competitors is the major factor affecting the …

Institutions, Developmental Alliances, And Economic Development In Korea And Brazil (1950-1985), Charles Paul Winebarger

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

This paper compares the development of Korea and Brazil, 1950-85. These newly industrialized countries developed at above-average rates among less developed countries. Korea developed more rapidly than Brazil. The paper contends that institutions, interest groups (especially firms) and the state, enter into developmental alliances. Alliances affect policies. Policies, then, affect development.

Findings reveal interesting trends in the 1950s' democracies of the cases. Both countries had semi-autonomous states, equivocally committed to industrialization. Industry was the growth point in each. Korea used local firms to industrialize; Brazil used foreign firms. In both cases, the state allied itself with firms. Policy mostly favored …

Is Money Growth Still A Useful Indicator Of Inflation?, Levent Camlibel

Economics Theses & Dissertations

This thesis examines the linkages among the monetary aggregates, inflation, and the economy through vector auto regression techniques. Multivariate Granger causality tests, variance decompositions and impulse response functions are utilized to examine causal relationships among key economic variables. In 1987, the Federal open Market Committee (FOMC) decided not to establish a specific target range for M1 growth . Since then, the broader M2 measure of money has been the preeminent variable used in implementing monetary policy; however, the results indicate that M1 can be used in predicting inflation and M2 can be used in predicting real GDP. This suggests that …

Downsizing America In The Twentieth Century: A Sociological And Theoretical Analysis Of The Shrinking Middle Class, Terreea Lynne Adams

Institute for the Humanities Theses

Downsizing is the process by which a firm decreases its number of employees, even during times of a strong economy, with the stated purpose of generating greater efficiency, productivity and of course, profit. The downsizing trend in the United States during the past three decades has resulted in an enormous shift in the structure of our society. Various theorists, sociologists and economists employ differing ways of looking at this downsizing trend and its effects on the largest segment of the population; that is, the middle class.

lndications of a healthy economy are low levels of unemployment and poverty-. Downsizing involves …

Lower Chesapeake Maritime Enterprise: 1781-1812, D. Dennis Duff

History Theses & Dissertations

The American Revolutionary War, officially concluded by the Treaty of Paris of 1783, forever changed American maritime enterprise. An examination of the response of Lower Chesapeake merchants to elimination of the British monopoly on American seagoing commerce reveals that Virginia shipping activity recovered quickly after the conflict, then expanded and prospered until the War of 1812. In addition to propelling the Commonwealth's post-war economic resurgence, Virginia's prosperous foreign trading interests influenced political decisions on Constitutional ratification, establishment of Confederation period and early national commercial policies, and diplomatic initiatives to strengthen American overseas exchange.

Principal sources include customs records of the …

Social And Economic Opportunity In Seventeenth-Century Charles County, Maryland, Garett William Hughes

History Theses & Dissertations

This study explores social and economic opportunity within Charles County in the context of the seventeenth-century and the founding of the Maryland colony. By illustrating the strong cross-Atlantic ties between England and the Chesapeake region, as well as the impact that a high population turnover rate and unsteady tobacco economy had upon the Maryland colony, this study first establishes the environment that those settlers who chose to immigrate to the Chesapeake inhabited. Further, by utilizing community connections, personal relations, and the legal system, the men and women of Charles County developed new methods in which to access opportunity. The source …

Economic Interdependence Along A Colonial Frontier: Capitalism And The New River Valley, 1745-1789, B. Scott Crawford

History Theses & Dissertations

Historians have generally placed the beginning of capitalism in the United States in the early- to mid-nineteenth century. This assumes that the industrialization of the New England states fostered in a modern economic environment for the country as a whole. However, evidence of modern economic principles existed on the Virginia frontier as early as the mid-eighteenth century. As frontier settlers aspired to emulate eastern society, they not only sought to recreate a lifestyle similar to the one they left behind, but also set up similar governing practices, which in turn created social stratification similar to that which existed in the …

A Historical, Theoretical, And Empirical Study Of Ppp Using Traditional And Alternative Methodologies, Kerry E. Clendenon

Economics Theses & Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Effects Of Subsidies On Public Transit Long-Run Costs, Kofi Obeng, Wayne K. Talley, Christopher Colburn

Economics Faculty Publications

This paper investigates sources of public transit long-run cost increases attributable to transit subsidies. The sources include wage, vehicle capital price and service increases. Service expansion is found to be the major source. Transit cost increases related to subsidies are classified as input price, output and finance effects of these subsidies. Transit costs are more responsive to federal operating subsidies, followed in declining order by local operating, state operating and capital subsidies, respectively.

Tobacco And Its Role In The Life Of The Confederacy, D. T. Smith

History Theses & Dissertations

This study examines the role that tobacco played in influencing Confederate policy during the American Civil War. Surprisingly, very little research has been done on this subject; historians have virtually ignored the influence of tobacco upon Southern economic interests between 1850 and 1870.

The southern tobacco-producing states grew 439,183,561 pounds of raw tobacco in 1860. Southern manufactured tobacco was worth $21,820,535 in 1860, and along with other agricultural products, especially cotton, played an important economic, political, and diplomatic role in the life of the Confederacy. The tobacco industry represented a very strong interest group in the Upper South during the …

Japan Looks At An Uncertain China: The Role Of Japan's Aid To China, Yixin Yang

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

This thesis discusses the role the Japanese aid has played in accommodating the structural change of Sino-Japanese economic relations and in dealing with the economic and political crisis that has jeopardized their bilateral relations and Japan's own national interest. Japan's early resumption of economic aid to China after Tiananmen reflects how aid philosophy differs from that of most of the other Western aid donors. The conclusions are that Japan's large loan to China has played a vital role in maintaining and strengthening Sino-Japanese economic relations, that the aid has made the interdependent relations between the two countries an asymmetric one, …

In The Shadow Of Oriental Culture: A Study Of The Impact Of Confucianism On Japan's Economic Development After World War Ii, Xuedong Xu

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

Japan's fast economic growth after World War II can be ascribed to different factors. This study seeks to determine whether the cultural factor, more specifically Confucianism in Japanese version, has constituted the dynamism behind the success stories of Japan. The study approaches the problem by examining the Confucian doctrine and original works of important Japanese philosophers concerning the Confucian ethics and values, which are recrystallized into new organizational patterns in industrial corporation. While the period after World War II is the focus of the study, the unique features of Japanese industry like "Life-time Employment" and "Groupism" are reviewed to determine …

Information Technology And Wealth: Cybernetics, History And Economics, Elin Whitney-Smith

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Capitalism developed where and when it did because there was high information access. There was high information access because of a major advance in information technology--the press. Where the technology was not controlled by the "powers that be" there was economic growth and a shift in the entire social structure. Where it was controlled there was no structural change and there was economic ruin. The development of capitalism is a major step change in economic growth. It is also a major change in the way people organize themselves into groups.

Major step changes in the growth and in the organization …

Mathews County Shipbuilding Patterns, 1780-1860, Peter Jennings Wrike

History Theses & Dissertations

This thesis examines the volume and characteristics of a Chesapeake Bay county's shipbuilding activity to assess its impact on American waterborne commerce. The thesis proposes that this county built a significant number of fast sailing vessels in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Previous works on American shipbuilding as well as regional histories have overlooked this county and concentrated on nearby large ports such as Norfolk and Baltimore. This thesis suggests these ports acted more as vessel brokers to the maritime industry than manufacturers and that this county was, among other small bay counties, a major contributor to that …

The Role Of The Court Of Justice In European Integration, Frances M. Jacobson

History Theses & Dissertations

This study examines the role of the Court of Justice in the major issues of European integration: dismantling technical barriers to the free flow of goods, protecting human rights within the European Community, and facilitating the free movement of capital, people and services. Success or failure of the Court is measured by whether the member states have implemented its rulings and whether the rulings have aided or hindered the development of a European internal market.

Specific actions of the Court of Justice are analyzed and placed within the context of European integration. The study begins with the European Coal and …