Growth and Development Commons^™

Issue Brief: Asset Management For Stormwater, New England Environmental Finance Center, Sustainable Communities Learning Network

Sustainable Communities Capacity Building

Asset management is a strategic approach to maintaining and sustaining infrastructure in order to meet the needs of the community at the lowest overall life cycle cost. This approach helps communities know how and where to prioritize limited funds in order to achieve the greatest benefit. Often applied to drinking water and wastewater infrastructure, this method is well suited to managing any assets, including stormwater systems.

This issue brief is intended to introduce local governments to the asset management process and to show how it can be applied in managing stormwater assets. It was adapted from an appendix written by …

Economic Voting, Sociotropic Vs. Checkbook: Cases From Greece And Germany, Matthew Coen-Tuff

Political Science Theses and Capstones

Economic voting, the theory that when the economy is good the party in control gains support and when the economy is bad the party in power suffers. This is a simplistic definition and economic voting is so much more. In this paper I seek to prove how economic voting can be broken down into two categories, sociotropic and checkbook. I do this by looking at two countries in very different situation. Greece is a country going through economic turmoil and is constantly changing which party is in control of the government. It has been suffering especially hard from a debt …

A Laplace Stochastic Frontier Model, William C. Horrace, Christopher F. Parmeter

Center for Policy Research

We propose a Laplace stochastic frontier model as an alternative to the traditional model with normal errors. An interesting feature of the Laplace model is that the distribution of inefficiency conditional on the composed error is constant for positive values of the composed error, but varies for negative values. Therefore, it may be ideally suited for analyzing industries with many forms on or close to the efficient frontier. A simulation study suggests that the model performs well relative to the normal-exponential model when the two-sided error is misspecified. A brief application to US Airlines is provided.

La Coexistencia De Dos Agriculturas En Argentina Una Mirada A La Vida De Una Granja Familiar: ¿Cómo Sobrevivir Al Lado De Las Grandes Empresas?, Camille Sanchez De La Vega

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Desde los primeros años del siglo XX, el desarrollo de Argentina como país estaba coincidió con el desarrollo de la industria agrícola. Hoy, Argentina es famosa por su papel en el mercado global como exportadora de bienes naturales. No solamente es un país con uno de los niveles más altos de alimentos transgénicos, sino que tiene el título del mayor exportador de producción orgánica en América Latina. Con los dos tipos de agricultura —exitosos pero contradictorios— con un enfoque hacia la exportación, quería entender como esta coexistencia está reflejada en el mercado interno para los bienes naturales.

A través de …

Energizing Europe: The Geopolitics Of Energy Security And Energy Diversification In The European Union, Gabriel Alfredo Uribe

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Europe has always had an interesting relationship with Russia, be it social, political, or economic. From the days of the Cold War, when there was the ideological battle of communism versus capitalism, with the alliance of NATO representing a front against the Iron Curtain, certain remnants of this dynamic have still survived. Russia has not always had the best of relations with the European Union (EU), which has not made it easy for the EU to have fully functioning foreign relations with them. This is problematic specifically because of the importance that Russia has on EU energy security, as it …

Externalities Of The Transatlantic Trade And Investment Partnership: Effects On Emerging Economies And The Developing World, Eric Stroiman

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The process of globalization and the liberalization of the global trade regime has become an integral part of the modern political and economic landscape. The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) currently being negotiated between the United States and the European Union has the potential to be the most impactful free trade agreement of the 21^st century as these blocks represent the two largest economies in the world. This paper analyzes the conceivable effects of this agreement on the uninvolved emerging economies and developing countries of the world. The two main theories on the outcome heavily involve the fate …

Rhetoric Or Results?: Tourism, The Aquarium, And The People Of Fortaleza, Molly Silvia

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

When one thinks of tourism, he or she conjures images of travel, exotic locations, and spending money. Yet rarely do people stop and think about where exactly their money is going. Nowadays, tourism is a booming industry that many countries believe contributes significantly to their GDP. But while tourism may contribute significantly to a country’s economy, it may not provide the people of that nation with any substantial improvements in their quality of life. This monograph questions why Brazil has chosen to invest its GDP in the tourism industry, while the nation has 21.4% of its population in poverty (The …

Parte De Nosotros: La Tierra, El Estado, Y La Identidad Avá Guaraní Dentro Del Modelo De Desarrollo Paraguayo, Shayna Orens

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Paraguay, a small and often overlooked landlocked country in South America has seen rapid economic growth in recent years. This growth, which can be attributed to the country’s agro-­‐ export model, has been highly unequal, concentrating both land and economic power in the hands of the few. Centered around the production and export of genetically modified crops like soy and corn, the model is one that requires vast amounts of land and has implied rapid deforestation and changes in land use and land cover, especially in Eastern Paraguay. Representing close to two percent of the population, the indigenous people of …

El Mundo Del Tejido: Concepciones De Identidad Femenina Y Roles De Genero En Chinchero, Cusco, Perú, Jamie Wollum

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Esta investigación, usando una estrategia feminista que enfoque en facetas sociales y económicas de la sociedad Peruana, identifica y analiza las maneras en que el tejido afecta la identidad femenina y los roles de género en la comunidad del pueblo Chinchero del Cusco, Perú. 1 En adelante lo mencionaré como ISP. J.Wollum 4 Los fines del estudio tratan de establecer una manera en que podemos desafiar el estado subordinado de la mujer con un análisis de su identidad. Examina las mujeres involucradas en la producción, venta, y compra de los tejidos en este pueblo como actores elementales en la construcción …

State Of The U.S. Ocean And Coastal Economies 2014, Judith T. Kildow, Charles S. Colgan, Jason D. Scorse, Pat Johnston, Matt Nichols

Publications

The nation's coasts and oceans contribute much to the United States economy. For the past 14 years, the National Ocean Economics Program (NOEP), now a program of the Center for the Blue Economy at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, has compiled time-series data that track economic activities, demographics, ports and cargo volume and value, natural resource production and value, non-market values, and federal expenditures in the U.S. coastal zone both on land and in the water. A report on the ocean and coastal economies of the United States was released by NOEP in 2009 covering data through 2005. The …

Coastal And Ocean Economic Summaries Of The Coastal States 2014, Pat Johnston

Publications

The following summaries of the ocean and coastal economies were prepared by the National Ocean Economics Program as a companion the State of the U.S. Ocean and Coastal Economies 2014. The U.S. report, its appendices, and these state summary reports are available on the NOEP website at www.OceanEconomics.org/download.

Conservative Evolution, Sustainability, And Culture, Gábor Náray-Szabó

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Conservative Evolution, Sustainability, and Culture" Gábor Náray-Szabó argues that evolution is conservative in the sense that throughout the history of the universe old constructs like elementary particles, amino acids, and living cells remained conserved while the world evolved/evolves in complexity. A similar process can be observed in cultural evolution as components of society and culture continue to evolve. Considering the increasing pressure on natural resources by material consumption, a close alliance between past, present, and future generations is unavoidable and thus Náray-Szabó posits that concepts of conservative evolution and sustainability are related. However, in order to avoid …

Mountain Monitor - 4th Quarter 2013, Kenan Fikri, Mark Muro

Mountain Monitor Quarterly

The quarter’s Mountain Monitor finds that the pace of economic recovery in the Mountain West region’s major metropolitan areas converged toward that of the rest of the nation in the last quarter of 2013.

While quarterly performance on the Monitor’s four indicators of economic recovery—employment, output, the unemployment rate, and house prices—varied considerably across the 10 major metro areas of the region, their combined performance broadly slowed to track with the rate of national economic recovery. The quarter’s average job growth remained unchanged in the region at 0.4 percent as the national economy caught up. The gap between the national …

The Efficacy Of Mathematics Education, Eric Geimer

The Transdisciplinary STEAM+ Journal

Evidence supports the notion that mathematics education in the United States is inadequate. There is also evidence that mathematics education deficiencies extend internationally. The worldwide mathematics education deficit appears large enough that improving student performance in this educational problem area could yield great economic benefit. To improve the efficacy of mathematics education, education’s root problems must first be understood. Often supposed educational root problems are considered and contrasted against potential deficiencies of mathematics methodologies and curricula that are based on mainstream educational philosophies. The educational philosophies utilized to form early-grade mathematics methodologies and related curricula are judged to be the …

Planning Sustainable Food Hubs: Thinking Beyond Economic Viability To Democratize Local Food Access, Ashley Bahlkow

Capstone Collection

In light of an increasing awareness of the detrimental public health impacts of conventional food systems, the New Hampshire Endowment for Health (NHEH) funded a food hub feasibility study to develop a local food hub in the southeastern region of New Hampshire. The study centered on conceptualizing a food hub that would be both viable from a small business standpoint as well one that would increase access to local food, especially for marginalized communities in the city of Manchester--the major population center in the region.

The project work plan contained several activities for determining feasibility, which were completed over the …

Quick Facts On Inequality, Office Of Latino/Latin American Studies (Ollas), Lourdes Gouveia

Latino/Latin American Studies Other Publications

Data about inequality and Latinos in Nebraska. This information was presented by Dr. Lourdes Gouveia, OLLAS Director and Professor of Sociology, at a special screening of the film Inequality for All on February 6, 2014.

Dynamic Poverty Decomposition Analysis: An Application To The Philippines, Tomoki Fujii

Research Collection School Of Economics

In this paper, we propose a new method of poverty decomposition. Our method remedies the shortcomings of existing methods and has some desirable properties such as time reversion consistency and subperiod additivity. It integrates the existing methods of growth redistribution decomposition and sector-based decomposition, because it allows us to decompose the change in poverty into growth and redistribution components for each group (e.g., regions or sectors) in the economy. We extend our method to include six components and provide an empirical application to the Philippines for the period 1985–2009.

Contingent Valuation Methodology: Evaluation Of Benefits Of Improving Water Quality In The Lake Tai Region, Zongda Tu

Undergraduate Economic Review

Environmental economics is a relatively new field in the subject of economics. While the developing countries are growing and developing rapidly, the conflict between economic development and environmental preservation is becoming more and more irreconcilable. This methodology paper addresses the relationship between the water quality in the Lake Tai Region in China and economic benefits, and presents the contingent valuation methdology (CVM) to evaluate benefits.

The Road Through The Rust Belt: From Preeminence To Decline To Prosperity, William M. Bowen Editor

Upjohn Press

The chapters in this book explore reasons for the decline of "Rust Belt" cities and the often innovative responses of local leaders and entrepreneurs that are helping to revive these areas.

An Analysis Of A High School Dropout In The United States, Matthew Walsh

Empirical Economic Bulletin, An Undergraduate Journal

The study explores the socioeconomic factors that lead to a student dropping out of high school. Unlike other papers this study focuses on the whole United States and the three primary ethnic groups within the country. Data from the National Center for Education Statistics, is used to investigate the crisis facing the future of the American economy across all fifty states. The results show that socioeconomic differences are predictive in the probability of a high school student dropping out prior to graduation

Demographics On Crime: A Look At The U.S.A., Nicolas Eceizabarrena

Empirical Economic Bulletin, An Undergraduate Journal

This study aims to identify how change in social indicators and demographics affect crime, more specifically, the number of aggravated assaults. As policy makers attempt to reduce crime to improve social conditions, changes to social indicator and demographic variables would allow quantifying these changes. This study uses a cross-sectional data set for the fifty states in the United States of America for the 2005 period.

Central Bank Of Nigeria Annual Report And Statement Of Accounts For The Year Ended 31st December 2014, Central Bank Of Nigeria

CBN Annual Report

Annual Report and Financial Statements of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for the year ended 31st December, 2014. In general, 2014 has been a very eventful and challenging year for the Bank, the country, and the world at large. In the course of the year, the Bank underwent significant changes in its governance composition. In 2014, the global economy witnessed considerable vulnerabilities characterized by fragile growth and weak economic outlook. Global growth recovery was modest and continued to be threatened by strong downside risks, as a result of sharp drop in commodity prices, escalating geo-political tensions, and heightening threats …

State Of The Northwest Arkansas Region 2014 Report, Katherine A. Deck, Mervin Jebaraj

State of the Northwest Arkansas Region Report

The State of the Northwest Arkansas Region Report is an annual publication that serves as a tool for evaluating the economic performance of the region in comparison with those peers that are most likely to compete with Northwest Arkansas by virtue of a similar industry mix or geographic proximity. As a player in the global economy, Northwest Arkansas has more to offer than superior performance in traditional economic development categories such as employment, establishment growth, and income. This region showcases strengths in diverse categories like knowledge-based sectors and quality of life indicators. This report highlights and presents the indicators mentioned …

Stewardship In The Interests Of Systemic Stakeholders: Re-Conceptualizing The Means And Ends Of Anglo-American Corporate Governance In The Wake Of The Global Financial Crisis, Zhong Xing Tan

Journal of Business & Technology Law

No abstract provided.

Analysis Of Visitor Spending At The Bikes, Blues & Bbq Rally, Katherine A. Deck, Mervin Jebaraj

Publications and Presentations

• 59.9 percent of the 2013 Bikes, Blues & BBQ rally attendees came from outside the Northwest Arkansas region. 57.6 percent of all attendees were from outside Northwest Arkansas and primarily visiting to attend the motorcycle rally.
• The average spending of each motorcycle rally visitor from outside Northwest Arkansas was $401.86.
• Visitor spending generated at least $36.17 in state and local sales taxes per person.
• The average out-of-town visitor stayed in the Northwest Arkansas region for 3.8 days and occupied 0.7 room nights.
• Each visitor ate an average of 9.6 meals in Northwest Arkansas. On average, 8.9 meals were consumed in …

A Factor Endowment Explanation For China’S Emergence As An International Trading Power: Calibrating The Dornbusch-Fischer-Samuelson Model For China’S Trade, 1968-2008, Roger White

Economics

Much has been made of the rise of China‘s economy and its emergence as a global trading power. Standard trade theory holds that comparative advantage is the basis for mutually beneficial exchange and, as such, it is the basis for international trade. In this chapter, we examine changes in labor supplies, capital stocks, and technology as possible explanations for the rise of China as an international trading power. Calibration of the Dornbusch-Fisher-Samuelson model suggests that China has gained comparative advantage relative to the US and to the cohort of high income countries considered in this study. Even though US production …

Socioeconomic Determinants Of Violent Crime Rates In The U.S., Jacob Gesin

Empirical Economic Bulletin, An Undergraduate Journal

This paper looks into socioeconomic factors affecting three racial groups within the United States, and the possibility of their effects on rates of violent crime. This study incorporates US census data in conjunction with FBI crime statistics in order to identify a correlation between select sociological variables experienced by different racial groups, and the rates of violent crime committed within those groups. Based on metropolitan areas by state for the year of 2012, the results of this study show that socioeconomic and family factors have a significant effect on violent crime rates regardless of race. Furthermore, violent crime rate gaps …

Remittances And Economic Growth In Mexico: Long Term Implications, Sean Lambert

Empirical Economic Bulletin, An Undergraduate Journal

This paper examines the impact of remittances on economic growth by looking at time series data from 1960 to 2012 from the country of Mexico. Using the OLS method, these data will be analyzed to see what the long term impact of remittances have been on the growth rate of Mexico. Drawing from the heavily established literature in the field of growth economics, this paper attempts to show the relevance of such theory in the case of the well documented phenomenon of remittances. Mexico is the world’s fourth largest net recipient of remittance inflows and the third largest trading partner …

The Effects Of The First Round Of Quantitative Easing On Stock Prices In The United States, William Manak

Empirical Economic Bulletin, An Undergraduate Journal

This paper examines the effects that the first round of the large-scale assert purchases known as Quantitative Easing (QE1) had on US stock prices. The paper focuses on the time period starting from the announcement of QE1 to before the second round of Quantitative Easing had been announced. This paper hopes to find a significant effect of stock prices in China as well as the exchange rate between the two countries, as the US and China are major trade partners. The effects of Chinese stocks and the exchange rate will be compared to the lower interest rates that had resulted …

The Effect Of Extending Unemployment Insurance Benefits On Northeast State Unemployment Rates, Guillaume Sabourin

Empirical Economic Bulletin, An Undergraduate Journal

This paper investigates the effect of changes in the length of unemployment benefits on the unemployment rates of 10 northeast US states. This study includes the most likely variables that would influence the unemployment rate during the time span preceding and following the recent recession. The study observes various contributing factors to unemployment including median income, state GDP, demographics, education, and the construction, manufacturing, and financial services rate for each state. Using state-level data from government sources and a fixed effects empirical model, results suggest that unemployment benefit extensions result in a small but statistically significant increase in the unemployment …