Growth and Development Commons^™

Central Bank Nigeria Annual Report And Statement Of Accounts For The Year Ended 31st December, 2009, Central Bank Of Nigeria

CBN Annual Report

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Annual Report and Statement of Accounts for the Year Ended 31st December, 2009 revealed that the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew by 6.7% YoY, compared to 6.0% in the previous year. This growth was driven by the non-oil sector, with the non-oil GDP growth rate of 8.3%. Within the non-oil sector, the agricultural sub-sector grew by 6.2%, while the whole-sector and retail sectors recorded growth rates of 11.5 and 10.5 per cent, respectively. The robust output recorded during the previous three years was driven by the government's optimism, which reflected in the oil …

Project Animate: Promoting Student Civic Participation Through Latino Voter Mobilization - Ollas Report No. 6, Jonathan Benjamin-Alvarado

Latino/Latin American Studies Reports

This project sought to expand voter outreach and mobilization of new registered and Latino voters through a series of activities in the greater Omaha metropolitan area. Following the successful development of a voter mobilization project undertaken in the 2006 election cycle, this project conducted door-to-door canvassing activities utilizing students to distribute nonpartisan voter information and engage in “get out the vote” activities with new Latino registered voters.

Commercialization Of Hydrogen Fuel Cell Technology In North America: Pathways To Success In Northeast Ohio, E. Brandon Henneman, Et Al.

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

The feasibility of hydrogen as a source of energy has been researched in one capacity or another for over a century. The first usage of the term ‘hydrogen economy’ is attributed to 11John Bockris in 1970. At the time, Dr. Bockris was a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. During a discussion at the General Motors technical center in Michigan he used this term to describe his vision of United States cities being supplied with energy derived from the sun. Typical of a disruptive technology, many years of laboratory testing have created a hydrogen fuel cell product that is ready …

New Establishment Dynamics: Business Formation And Survival Trends In Ohio, Afia Yamoah, Ziona Austrian, Joel A. Elvery

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

The Ohio New Establishments Dynamics data (O-NED) is a new data set, developed by the College and Center. O-NED tracks employment and number of establishments for establishments that first started employing people between the 2nd quarter of 1997 and the 1st quarter of 2008. The report “New Establishment Dynamics: Business Formation and Survival Trends in Ohio” summarizes how trends in employment growth and establishment survivorship differ across sectors of the economy and various regions of Ohio. This new data set allows us to analyze the number of establishments born in a specific year called “birth cohort” and document their survival …

What Makes Developing Asia Resilient In A Financially Globalized World?, Hiro Ito, Juthathip Jongwanich, Akiko Terada-Hagiwara

Economics Faculty Publications and Presentations

The pullbacks of capital inflows to developing Asia following the onset of the global financial crisis in 2008 have brought renewed attention to the role and benefits of financial globalization. A number of notable distinctions between the current global crisis and the Asian financial crisis have become evident. Solid domestic institutions, especially in the financial sector; swift policy responses; and a sound macroeconomic environment with adequate reserves have helped the region to manage well the adverse impacts of the global crisis. Empirical analysis examining the link between capital account openness and output volatility reveals that a developing country with a …

Three Essays On Foreign Aid, Poverty And Growth., Aberra Senbeta

Dissertations

This dissertation studies how foreign aid impacts poverty and economic growth and addresses three interrelated issues: whether aid reduces poverty, how aid affects economic growth, and whether the poverty mitigating role of aid depends on the levels of poverty.

The first essay, "Does Foreign Aid Reduce Poverty?" examines the direct effects of foreign aid on poverty in developing countries using dynamic panel estimation techniques. The results suggest that aid has a significant poverty reducing effect even after controlling for average income. The findings are robust to model specification and estimation techniques. The policy implication is that poverty reduction can be …

The Politics And Consequences Of Stakeholder Participation In International Development Evaluation, Anne Cullen

Dissertations

Participatory approaches to evaluation have long been vogue in the international development evaluation community. However, despite their widespread use, there is a dearth of research on the impact of stakeholder participation in international development evaluations. Although proponents of participatory approaches to international development evaluation assert many advantages of their use, the evidence to support these claims is largely anecdotal. Similarly, critics of participatory approaches do not have empirical data on which to base their assertions. Further confusing the matter are multiple and conflicting definitions of stakeholder and participation. Some interpret stakeholders to mean funders while others view stakeholders as those …

Nurturing America's Growth In The Global Marketplace Through Talent Development: An Interim Report On The Evaluation Of Generations Ii And Iii Of Wired, Nancy Hewat, Kevin Hollenbeck

Reports

This is the first report from the evaluation of Generations II and III of the Workforce Innovations in Regional Economic Development Initiative. This interim report presents baseline information from all 26 regions. It reflects the status of regional activities as of the summer of 2008, when many regions were in the initial stage of implementation. Thus, the report focuses on the development of partnerships, governance arrangements, and the design of decision-making processes. In early 2006, ETA announced the initial recipients of grants to promote regional collaboration of a wide range of public and private organizations with the goal of transforming …

Northeast Ohio Entrepreneurship Confidence Survey: Fourth-Year Findings, David O. Kasdan

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

The continued objective of the entrepreneurship Confidence Survey is to assess the entrepreneurial climate and entrepreneurs’ confidence in their ability to start and sustain a business in Northeast Ohio. This is the fourth year that the survey has been conducted and the intention is to continue conducting the survey annually for the next several years to identify trends that might emerge. The survey has been constructed to measure respondents’ perceptions regarding several issues, including access to capital, workforce supply, information provided by educational institutions and business support organizations, networking opportunities, government responsiveness, attitudes toward entrepreneurs, adequacy of infrastructure, quality of …

Path To Financial Inclusion: The Success Of Self-Help Groups-Bank Linkage Program In India, Sivakumar Venkataramany, Balbir B. Bhasin

WCBT Faculty Publications

Financial inclusion has been a major theme in both industrialized and developing economies in the era of financial globalization. When microcredit institutions have received limited success in many countries, microfinance is being used in India for the purpose of accomplishing universal financial inclusion. This paper recognizes the overwhelming efforts of the Government of India and focuses on the success of the linkage between commercial banks and self-help groups (SHGs). The SHGs comprising predominantly women groups help in the social cause of alleviation of poverty, increase of sustainability, reduction of vulnerability, improvement of capacity building and help the weaker sections build …

Trade, Growth And Increasing Returns To Infrastructure: The Role Of The Sophisticated Monopolist, Ashok S. Guha, Brishti Guha

Research Collection School Of Economics

Equilibrium in international trade with increasing returns in infrastructure depends on whether the infrastructure provider is “naïve” or sophisticated. A monopolist produces infrastructure under decreasing cost using fixed equipment. Unlike similar work, we derive a unique closed-economy equilibrium. In a small open economy, with “naïve” infrastructure provider(s), multiple equilibria obtain. The industrial export potential of the economy depends on unexhausted economies of scale, and equilibria are possible where manufactures are exported despite an autarky price higher than the world price. With a sophisticated infrastructure provider, even an open economy has a unique equilibrium, which, at least as long as economies …

State Of The U.S. Ocean And Coastal Economies 2009, Judith T. Kildow, Charles S. Colgan, Jason D. Scorse

Publications

This nation’s coasts and oceans contribute much to the United States economy. For the past ten years, the National Ocean Economics Program (NOEP) has compiled time-series data that track economic activities,demographics, natural resource production, non-market values, and federal expenditures in the U.S. coastal zone both on land and in the water. On the website www.oceaneconomics.org, the public—government officials,academics, industry, and advocacy groups—have had interactive access to this information and used it widely for many different purposes. This report features highlights from this collection to heighten appreciation for the value of the ocean and this nation’s coasts among an even …

Opacity: A Socioeconomic Study Of Diamond Mining In South-Eastern Cameroon, Steven Fox

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Diamond mining in the southeastern Cameroon is on the cusp of a boom of development. Artisanal diamond miners served as the “beacon” for an industrial mining company, C&K, to explore and attempt to gain permission to commence exploitation. There are massive social, economic and environmental implications depending on the execution of exploitation. It is the role of the government bodies and the corporation to identify sustainable methods to develop this untapped natural resource and the surrounding infrastructure. The region is an isolated throwback; its basic functions are, in essence, dated four decades. They need improved simple infrastructure, although the local …

Perceptions Of Microfinance In Cameroon: A Case Study Of Unics, Yaoundé, Ian Long

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The subject of this project is the common perceptions that exist towards microfinance in Cameroon within the community of those who work with or are influenced in some way by microfinance institutions. Furthermore, the project focuses on the ways in which these perceptions affect the institutions, the actions of the institutions amidst and in response to these perceptions, and to what extent these actions have a positive effect on the community and the firms themselves. I also examine to a certain degree the relationship between the two main goals of category two and category three microfinance firms: specifically, the fulfillment …

A New Kind Of Middle Man: Looking At Fair Trade In Nepal, Julia Wilber

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The discipline of Development studies has gone through an evolution of changes in its relatively short time in existence. It has, among other things, left a legacy of vocabulary that is used to define many international interactions. Ideas of the colonizing first world juxtaposed against the colonized third world have given way to notions of an industrialized West and North comprised of developed nations and a backwards East and South made up of developing countries. Colonialism in the age of Imperialism left power and economic disparities across the world. The trends of colonial empires where the colonizer benefited from the …

Cool Head, Warm Heart: Governance And The Mission Of Microfinance In The Case Of Mc2 Micro-Banks, Cameroon, Claire Ruffing

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The concept of a cool head and a warm heart co-existing is a Buddhist principle which attempts to illustrate compassion and pragmatism as mutually compatible, not mutually exclusive. Without intelligent management, compassion is lost in its ineffectiveness, and without compassion, intelligence is purposeless reason. This equilibrium is exactly the vision of microfinance that drives this paper: an important social and moral idea that is nevertheless affected by the world and environment in which it operates. By examining the governance mechanisms affecting microfinance in Cameroon, namely the Ministry of Finance and the management structure of the firms themselves, an idea emerges …

An African-American Resources And Needs Assessment Of The West Bloomington Area, Phase 1, Karishma Amatya, Nicholas Beaty, Jamie Boban, Joanna Bossi, Tyler Curtis, Casandra Fritzsche, Andrew Griffin, David Johnson, Sasha Miranda, Dana Overman, Emily Putnam, Jared Ulschmid, Tessa Zevallos

Community Project Design and Management Reports - Sociology

Over the course of the Fall 2009 semester, students in the Community Project Design and Management class worked with members of West Bloomington to recognize the growing needs within the community. Along with the African-American Focus Workgroup (AAFW) and the West Bloomington Revitalization Partnership (WBRP), the students completed Phase 1 of an African-American resources and needs assessment resulting in this report. This document reflects needs, wants, and hopes of the West Bloomington community and the AAFW. Comprehensively, this document is meant to serve as a bridge between community members and AAFW members.

As Bloomington as a whole continues to grow …

The Health-Care Debate And Nebraska's Latino And Immigrant Populations - Ollas Policy Brief No. 2, Lourdes Gouveia, Yuriko Doku

Latino/Latin American Studies Policy Briefs

No abstract provided.

Analyzing And Forecasting Business Cycles In A Small Open Economy: A Dynamic Factor Model For Singapore, Hwee Kwan Chow, Keen Meng Choy

Research Collection School Of Economics

A dynamic factor model is applied to a large panel dataset of Singapore’s macroeconomic variables and global economic indicators with the initial objective of analysing business cycles in a small open economy. The empirical results suggest that four common factors – which can broadly be interpreted as world, regional, electronics and domestic economic cycles – capture a large proportion of the co-variation in the quarterly time series. The estimated factor model also explains well the observed fluctuations in real economic activity and price inflation, leading us to use it in forecasting Singapore’s business cycles. We find that the forecasts generated …

Foreign Direct Investment And Foreign Portfolio Investment Under Asymmetric Information, Ruanjai Suwantaradon

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper develops a model of international capital flows when there is asymmetric information between foreign investors and domestic managers. Direct investors have a direct influence on the management, thus overcoming agency and information problems. This information advantage, however, comes at the cost of having to acquire management expertise. The tradeoff between management costs and the costs of asymmetric information consequently determines the level and composition of a country’s international capital flows. Analyzing how this tradeoff changes with economic conditions in a country, the model can qualitatively capture the experiences of many crisis countries during the 1990s. Specifically, the model …

Co-Development In Mali: A Case Study Of A Development Phenomenon Exploited By Immigration Policy, Diane Galatowitsch

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This case study establishes a historical basis for migration from Kayes, contextualizes co-development in immigration and development literature, and provides insight into how organizations implementing migrant financed projects in Mali define and perceive the concept of co-development. In my research, I pulled together scholarly articles, organizational documents, reports, and conducted semi-structured personal interviews that were scattered across the fields of history, migration, and development and pulled together an analysis of co-development in Mali. Challenging the concept of co-development as an effective immigration policy and a development strategy, this paper reflects the concept’s true benefits to Malian society. Finally, the conclusion …

A Few Drops Of Oil Will Not Be Enough, Stephen James

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn provide a rich description of the various kinds of violence, deprivation, depredation and exploitation that women experience on a vast scale in the developing world. They write of sex trafficking, acid attacks, “bride burning,” enslavement, spousal beatings, unequal healthcare (something the USA still struggles with), insufficient food, gendered abortions and infant and maternal mortality. They are right to identify the education of women and girls as part of the solution to the widespread “gendercide.” However, their approach focuses too much on the capacity, indeed the virtue or heroism, of individual women. It does not take …

Spanning Policy Silos In Urban Development And Environmental Management: When Global Cities Are Coastal Cities Too, Herman L. Boschken

Faculty Publications, School of Management

No abstract provided.

Describing The Economic Impact Of The Oil And Gas Industry In Arkansas, Katherine A. Deck, Viktoria Riiman

Publications and Presentations

The Arkansas oil and natural gas industries are increasingly important to the state’s economic vitality. As global demand for energy increases, domestic production is put into the spotlight. This study describes the economic impact of the oil and gas industries in Arkansas, focusing on the sector’s economic output, employment, and tax revenues.

How Much Do Trading Partners Matter For Economic Growth? By Vivek Arora And Athanasios Vamvakidis: A Review, D. J. Yilkudi

Economic and Financial Review

The paper is a review of the paper "How much do trading partners matter for economic growth? by Vivek Arora and Athanasios Vamvakidis". The paper empirically examined the extent to which a country's long-term economic growth was influenced by the economic fortune of its trading partners. The study used panel data for over 100 countries to see if trading partners' growth had a strong effect on domestic growth. A strong relationship was found between the economic growth of a country and the economic conditions of its trading partners.

The Civic Innovation Lab: Economic Impact, Ziona Austrian Ph.D.

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

The services provided to entrepreneurs through funding and mentoring between 2004 and 2008 by the Civic Innovation Lab resulted in the following economic impacts for 2008: output impact of $9.4 million; employment impact of 128 jobs; income (household earnings) impact of $4.1 million; and a tax impact of 1.2 million ($454,000 in state and local and $734,000 in federal).

Education And Energy Innovation: Nshe’S Central Role In Transforming Nevada’S Economy, James Croce

UNLV Renewable Energy Symposium

The 3rd Annual Renewable Energy Symposium took place on the UNLV campus August 11 & 12. The event focused on renewable energy production in Nevada, the US Southwest, and renewable research projects nationwide. The event was a great success with over 200 individuals in attendance.

The Very Basics Of Sustainability - An Alternative Viewpoint (Slides With Audio) (Large File! To Speed Up Download, Right-Click On "Download" Link To Save To Own Pc.), Jim Mcgovern

Other resources

This presentation sets out the very basics of ‘sustainability’, although a definition of sustainability is not attempted. Some of the very basics are the context in which the Earth and humankind exist in space and time, the Earth’s climate, the Earth’s population and humankind’s options and choices. The author advocates keeping an open mind on all available options, including the use of oil, gas, coal, tar sands, carbon capture and sequestration, nuclear power etc., as well as the technologies that are more widely considered ‘green’. The author also argues that, in addressing the challenges that humankind faces, globally concerted effort …

The Nasa Glenn Research Center: An Economic Impact Study Fiscal Year 2008, Iryna Lendel

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

No abstract provided.

Are Credit Unions In Ecuador Achieving Economies Of Scale?, Nick A. Marchio

Economics Honors Projects

This study tests the assertion that membership growth in credit unions is constrained by their unique structural features, such as their non-profit mission and member-based ownership. Although these features enhance inclusiveness, existing theory suggest that they work against efficiency when membership grows too diffuse. To address this issue, this study uses a model that takes into account existing theory on constrained-optimization in credit unions and theory on the adverse effects of diffuse ownership. Using data on 36 public credit unions in Ecuador, the empirical analysis finds evidence that credit unions can achieve economies of scale despite their problematic structural features. …