Economic History Commons^™

A Qualitative Study On The Financial Education Of Young Black Men, Sue M. May

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

Financial literacy awareness is low among young adults, and financial literacy among Black college students is significantly lower than in other groups (Singh, 2018). However, there is little to no research on why financial literacy is so low among young Black men between 18 and 25. Few studies specifically show how financial literacy and decision-making may be related to their family economics and socialization for young Black men. Using Critical Race Theory and Family Financial Socialization theoretical frameworks, this dissertation project examined a sample of seven young self-identified Black men ages 24 to 25 years old in Northern California Bay …

Essays In The Consequences Of Occupational Regulation, Noah J. Trudeau

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Occupational regulation affects many people across many aspects of life. This dissertation research investigates the consequences of occupational regulation across three different areas of study: economic history, urban and regional economics, and health policy.

The first chapter investigates the historic licensing of emigrant agents. In the period following the US Civil War, firms wished to capitalize on the availability of African American labor. To do so they hired emigrant agents, also known as labor agents, to hire and help with the migration of individuals from the South. Faced with out-migration at the hands of the labor force, some southern states …

To Know The Land With Hands And Minds: Negotiating Agricultural Knowledge In Late-Nineteenth-Century New England And Westphalia, Justus Hillebrand

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Ever since the eighteenth century, experts have tried to tell farmers how to farm. The agricultural enlightenment in Europe marked the beginning of a long arc of new experts aiming to change agricultural knowledge and practice. This dissertation analyzes the pivotal period in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century in Germany and the United States when scientists, improvers, and market agents began to develop comprehensive ways to communicate agricultural innovation to farmers. In a functional approach to analyzing the negotiation of agricultural knowledge through its communication in things, words, and practices, this dissertation argues that the process of change …

An Inferentially Robust Look At Two Competing Explanations For The Surge In Unauthorized Migration From Central America, Nick Santos

Dissertations

The last 8 years have seen a dramatic increase in the flow of Central American apprehensions by the U.S. Border Patrol. Explanations for this surge in apprehensions have been split between two leading hypotheses. Most academic scholars, immigrant advocates, progressive media outlets, and human rights organizations identify poverty and violence (the Poverty and Violence Hypothesis) in Central America as the primary triggers responsible. In contrast, while most government officials, conservative think tanks, and the agencies that work in the immigration and border enforcement realm admit poverty and violence may underlie some decisions to migrate, they instead blame lax U.S. immigration …

Are Small Businesses The Framework For A Successful U.S. Economy?, Carson Clevenger

Accounting Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis will investigate the impact of small businesses on the United States’ economy. I will be assessing several impact areas including gross domestic product, employment, and local economy contribution. This thesis will cover a study from the time periods of 1998-2014 of the gross domestic product and employment levels and will use numbers from the years of 2018- present for other impact areas. Furthermore, I will be analyzing certain sectors of the economy, comparing small businesses contribution to corporate contribution, in order to discuss if small businesses are necessary for our country’s successful economy.

The Effects Of Racial Capitalism On Poor White Laborers, Amy Whittaker

Liberal Studies (MA) Final Essays

While always remembering that racial capitalism’s very nature ensures that non-white Americans suffer incomparable racial oppression, this paper will endeavor to expose the devastation caused to American society as a whole by explaining the ways in which racial capitalism destroyed poor white labors ability to participate fully in the economic system and strangled its chances of living the American dream. It is my hope that by discussing the missing piece of the poor white laborers’ experience under racial capitalism will unite poor white laborers and poor black laborers to work together to end racial capitalism, policing, and the carceral system. …

Black Maoism, But Make It Fashion: How The Black Panther Party Utilized Mao Zedong’S Marxist Interpretations In Conjunction With Fashion To Redefine Us Militarism, Chiugo Akujuobi

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis explores the intersections present between the multifaceted, sociopolitical institutions of Marxism and communism with a highlight on their seedling Maoism; the revolutionary organization that is the Black Panther Party; and the art of fashion and processes that create modes of dress, that emblazon dress with identity, meaning, and purpose. The lenses with which these complex topics will showcase themselves and intersect are through militarism and militarization. These lenses and topics of intersection work in tandem to produce an examination of the Black Panther Party’s subversion and redefinition of the practices of militarism and militarization. Specifically, the main point …

Innovation Dynamics Of Cultural Production: Evidence In Rap Lyrics, James M. Zumel Dumlao, Junjie Lei, Emeka Nwosu, Li Yu Oon, Tsai Ling Jeffrey Wong, James Rising, Jesse Anttila-Hughes

Master's Theses

Culture is a driving force in organizing the structure of societies, and is conjoined with economic development. However, quantifying the impact of culture is difficult. Culture manifests itself in cultural production, through art, performance, music, etc. Innovation and influence in cultural production industries partially determines product quality. Using techniques from the “digitized humanities”, we agnostically identify informational distance to describe the spatiotemporal dynamics of innovation and influence in Rap music lyrics. Rap emphasizes lyricism and hometown pride more than other genres of popular music, and is interesting as a globally impactful manifestation of the racially segregated labor market in the …

The Farmers’ Federation: Regional Racial Mythologies As Agricultural Capital, Jama Mcmurtery Grove

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In 1927, the Farmers’ Federation agricultural cooperative in Western North Carolina launched an organization to solicit funds from wealthy donors. The money raised through philanthropic campaigns enabled the cooperative to fund large-scale agricultural projects, which helped members navigate the dramatic agricultural transformations of the early twentieth century. Although the cooperative advocated a progressive program of business-minded, scientific farming, its leadership modified programs to reflect farmer members’ limited resources and the realities of mountain production. As a result, the co-op provided a crucial bridge between white farmers and new methods of agricultural production that reached deep into peoples’ familial and productive …

Analysis Of Unbalanced Growth Caused By Foreign Direct Investment In China’S Regional Economy, Zewen Zheng

Senior Projects Spring 2019

Since reform and opening up in 1979, China’s national economy has grown rapidly, and thenational economic strength has been continuously enhanced. However, the regional economy hasnot grown in a balanced way. Economic imbalances in China’s three regions (eastern, central,and western) has become increasingly large. The eastern region has become the largest beneficiary area for absorption of foreign direct investment (FDI), while the central and westernregions have absorbed less, a trend of “high in the east and low in the west.” Undoubtedly, FDI plays an important role in promoting China’s economic growth and has become an important part of China’s national …

Examination Of United States Housing Data And The Racial Wealth Gap Case Study Of Westchester County, Ny, Ezekiel Nana Demasio

Senior Projects Spring 2019

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

The Spirit Is Willing, But The Flesh Is Weak: Contemporary Pan-Africanism And The Challenges To A United States Of Africa, Adesola Adeyemo

Master's Theses

Establishing a ‘United States of Africa’ to the average individual is deemed as a mythical idea in contemporary Africa, irrespective of the popularity of this idea several years ago. Today, the idea is idealized as overambitious – considering the balkanized state of the continent post-colonialization. Because of this, attempts made since then have favored enforcing regional integration over continental integration. Undeniably, this idea would not have come into being if it wasn’t for the concept of Pan-Africanism - which has for long guided the political and socio-economic policies created on the continent. The goal of this research is …

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 …

The New American Slavery: Capitalism And The Ghettoization Of American Prisons As A Profitable Corporate Business, David A. Liburd

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The labor of enslaved Africans and Black Americans played a large part in the history of colonial America, with the American plantation being the epicenter for all that was to be produced. While the two have never been completely tied together, capitalism and modern day slavery have been linked with one another. Some analysis sees slavery as a remote form of capitalism, a substitute, to an antiquated form of labor in the modern world.

Slave plantations adopted a new concentration in size and management, referred to by W.E. DuBois as a change "from a family institution to an industrial system."1 …

The Economy Of Evangelism In The Colonial American South, Julia Carroll

Masters Theses

Eighteenth-century Methodist evangelism supported, perpetuated, and promoted slavery as requisite for a productive economy in the colonial American South. Religious thought of the First Great Awakening emerged alongside a colonial economy increasingly reliant on chattel slavery for its prosperity. The records of well-traveled celebrity minister and provocateur of the Anglican tradition, George Whitefield, suggest how Calvinist-Methodist evangelicals viewed slavery as necessary to supporting colonial ministerial efforts. Whitefield’s absorption of and immersion into American culture is revealed in his owning a plantation, portraying a willingness to sacrifice the mobility of the disfranchised for widespread consumption of evangelical thought. A side effect …

The Political Economy Of State-Level Emergency Unemployment Relief: The Case Of The New York Tera, 1931-37, Hasani J. Gunn

Senior Projects Fall 2017

Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt created The New York State Temporary Emergency Relief Administration (TERA) in response to the Great Depression. Operating from 1931-37, this state-level jobs-and-income style policy featured comprehensive in-kind assistance, “home relief,” and emergency unemployment relief, “work relief.” Though the program is fascinating just in this respect, it has been systematically overshadowed by the alphabet soup of New Deal era relief policies. We revisit the TERA to shed light on what it offered to the people of NY and, overall, what it offered to the economy. We find significant evidence that the program stabilized the State economy by …

The Relevance Of Economic, Institutional And Cultural Determinants For Venture Capital Investments. A Us-Europe Comparison., Nadja Benes

Master's Theses

This study analyzes the determinants of early-stage VC investments by identifying characteristics in the economic, institutional, as well as cultural framework that could explain the diverging levels of early-stage VC investments across countries. Data was assembled for 16 countries during the period from 1995 until 2013. The results indicate that countries that are more open to trade are associated with higher levels in early-stage venture capital. A higher unemployment rate negatively affects a country’s level of early-stage VC funds. Higher R&D expenditures as a proxy for the technological and innovation capacity in a country as well as a higher value …

Determinants Of Housing Prices In Pittsylvania County, Jason Hall

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

The purpose of this research is to determine the implicit factors influencing housing prices in Pittsylvania County, a rural county in Southside Virginia. Currently in Pittsylvania County there is a debate over whether or not to mine what is believed to be the largest deposit of uranium in the United States, containing approximately 119 million pounds of uranium ore at an estimated value of $7 billion to $10 billion. The Virginia Coal and Energy Commission issued its final approval for the National Academy of Sciences to study the debate from a socio-economic standpoint. The $1.2 million study is currently taking …

Peace In Unity: 19th Century Irenic Motivations In European Unification, Robert Taft Keele

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The Hauptargumenten of politicians and citizens concerning the advantages and disadvantages of the EU are almost exclusively economic or political in nature: lower tariffs; loss of monetary instruments; immigration; disenfranchisement; etc. The object of my thesis is to remind everyone, amid the flurry of speculation and uncertainty prevalent in Europe since the French rejection of the EU constitution, that a major benefit of the European integration is peace, on a continent that has been ravaged by war for centuries. I prove that the establishment of peace was a major element in European unification by confirming links between peace movements and …

The Effectiveness Of Induced Location Of Manufacturing Industry As A Means Of Fostering Sustained Economic Growth In Less Developed Regions Of Oregon, Leland F. Smith

Dissertations and Theses

The subject of this thesis was chosen from both a professional and an academic interest in the economic development of Oregon. Prompted by proposals made to the Oregon Legislature to initiate various forms of industrial subsidy programs to disperse economic growth and population away from congested areas, this research effort seeks to provide an evaluative analysis of the effectiveness of subsidy techniques in influencing industrial location and stimulating a sustained growth process in less developed areas.

Research was undertaken in two primary subjects: 1) theory of regional economic development and the effects of subsidies on the growth process; and 2) …

An Economic History Of The Mescalero Apache Indians, T.T. Mccord Jr.

Economics ETDs

It is the purpose of this study (1) to indicate the origin and development of the Mescalero Apache Indian economy; (2) to show the reasons for its development; (3) to present a probable trend in the future of the Mescalero Apache Indian economically, as based upon past and present tribal economics.

This study has been made in the belief that there is a definite need to a fuller knowledge of the too-little-known economic history of the Mescalero Apache Indians. The roots of their economic philosophy go back many centuries, and thus it is important to trace, analyze and evaluate the …

History Of Tanning In The State Of Maine, George Archibald Riley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Raisin Industry Of California, John W. Farrar

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

This thesis has been prepared as a partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of faster of Arts, prescribed by the College of the Pacific, Stockton, California. It is sincerely hoped that it will be found useful to all of those who are at all interested in the great industry of raisin making, which has played no small part in the building up of the great San Joaquin Valley and has been responsible for bringing the much needed irrigation system to the valley.

Various types of data are here available, including personal opinions from the foremost leaders of the …