Growth and Development Commons^™

A Philosophical Framework For Conditional Cash Transfers, Jaron Abelsohn

CMC Senior Theses

Despite some recent economic progress, there is still widespread poverty and severe inequality in developing countries. According to the World Bank there are over 925 million hungry or undernourished people worldwide. More than 80 percent of people in the world live in countries whose income inequality is rising. Over 2.1 billion people globally live on less than two dollars a day, with over 880 million people facing absolute poverty and living on less than one dollar a day. Three out of four people living on less than $1 a day live in rural areas. These impacts have been magnified by …

Revitalizing Distressed Older Suburbs, Kathryn W. Hexter, Edward W. Hill, Brian A. Mikelbank, Benjamin Y. Clark, Charles Post

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

No abstract provided.

Ethnic Minorities And Food Security In Northern Thailand, Monalisa Diamond

Capstone Collection

The issue of food security is complex. By analyzing the relationship between international, national and local society, one can better contextualize food security issues. Using an embedded research design (with a qualitative leaning) supported by quantitative data, research is conducted via surveys, interviews and focus groups. This research design was chosen to offset limited sample sizes with quantitative data to strengthen findings. Research findings were cross analyzed to identify three emergent themes. The three cross-cutting themes identified and analyzed are: Thai citizenship, employment and chemical pesticide use (chemical pesticide use did not arise among Burmese refugees and is only applicable …

Roles Of Government, Nonprofit Sector, Business And Family And Their Interaction In Democracy, Stuart Mendel

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

No abstract provided.

Book Review: "Buying Respectability: Philanthropy And Urban Society In Transnational Perspective, 1840s To 1930s", Stuart Mendel

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

Book Review: "Buying Respectability: Philanthropy and Urban Society in Transnational Perspective, 1840s to 1930s, by Thomas Adam 2009"

Economic Development Under Dominant-Party Regimes, Christopher J. Gorud

Honors Theses

Case studies of economic development in Japan, Mexico, India, and Kenya examine the relationship between dominant-party regimes and developmental outcomes. This paper studies the variables of bureaucratic coherence and cohesion, corporatism, labor relations, and national developmentism as contributing factors to developmental success or failure in these states.

Africa's Economic Resurgence: Is It Possible?, Alka Jauhari

Political Science & Global Affairs Faculty Publications

Economic theory suggests that inequality between nations is caused by a failure to strike an optimal balance between capital, goods, and labor within a framework of appropriate rules and regulations. This leads to misallocation of a nation's resources - both capital and physical - resulting in distorted use and flow of capital and goods. Politics, regulation and policy-making lie at the heart of such "distortions" which come at a huge cost to societies. Due to these distorted flows, Africa was left behind in the race for economic development, as compared to the other regions of the world. Such distortions have …

Signal Extraction From The Components Of The Philippine National Accounts Statistics Using Arima Model-Based Methodology, Cesar C. Rufino

Angelo King Institute for Economic and Business Studies (AKI)

The state-of-the-art in signal extraction gradually evolved from the use of mechanical form of moving average filters to the present sophisticated model-based techniques capable of performing automatic modeling and signal extraction involving hundreds or even thousands of time series in one production run. The leading edge of technology is being shared by two ARIMA model-based systems – ARIMA X12 of the US Bureau of Census and the twin programs TRAMO-SEATS developed at the Bank of Spain. These specialized expert systems have been adopted by most statistical agencies of advanced OECD countries and the European community. The Philippines on the other …

The Great Indian Growth Puzzle: What Caused A Spike In 2003?, Aditya Bindal

CMC Senior Theses

This paper will employ unit root tests for finding structural breaks endogenously among India’s key macroeconomic aggregate series, as well as their components and subcomponents. The same analysis will be repeated, wherever data are available, for states. The results from these unit root tests will then be used in regression models for national and state level data to understand the causes behind structural breaks. We find that breakpoints cluster around 1982 and 2003 for most series at the national and state level. The services component appears to be a promising candidate for explaining the 2003 structural break in some of …

The High Costs Of Small Loans: Understanding Interest Rates In Microfinance, Benjamin W. Hudgens

CMC Senior Theses

Version:1.0 StartHTML:0000000183 EndHTML:0000003190 StartFragment:0000002393 EndFragment:0000003154 SourceURL:file://localhost/Users/benjaminhudgens/Desktop/Final%20Thesis.docx This thesis will use data from 2009 to examine two questions about the Microfinance industry. First, why do firms charge interest rates well beyond their cost of funds and second, are there important differences at the national level that can help us to understand the high interest rates in Microfinance? I find that interest rates are primarily a result of operating expenses, but profit-status has large effects in developed Microfinance markets. I also find that the Economist Intelligence Unit’s measures of regulatory environment and industrial development explain a large portion of the variation in …

Brain Drain Out Of Hungary And Its Inhibitors, Eliza Plous

Capstone Collection

In many Central and Eastern European countries, a poor economic climate at home forces young people to make their careers in the West. Hungary is no exception. After spending time both studying and working in Hungary, the author chose to investigate the phenomenon known as “brain drain”: the large-scale emigration of young, educated individuals from Hungary as they seek higher salaries and more promising career prospects in neighboring Western European countries. This paper offers a comprehensive report on the economics of the brain drain problem, and on the opinions of young Hungarians who are currently seeking employment abroad; it also …

Three Sisters Exchange: Building Alliances And Promoting Justice From The United States To Ecuador, Ariel Climer

Capstone Collection

This paper presents a proposal for a social justice and action-based study abroad program with foundations in the short-term reality tours of the education and human rights-based NGO, Global Exchange, a far-reaching non-profit with friendships built on solidarity against the spread of elite globalization. The program is called the Three Sisters Exchange to honor the sustainable design of indigenous crop planting prevalent around the world. The design comes at a time when international educators offer few programs with foci in social justice. The international education field needs more sustainable programs that take into account global systems. A propagation of such …

Public Policy, Human Instincts, And Economic Growth, Jonathan B. Wight

Economics Faculty Publications

Alfred Marshall famously insisted that economics is more like biology than physics. Societies are organic ecologies that evolve and produce organized but unplanned complexity (Hayek 1979). Although no public policy reliably produces economic growth across all ecosystems, a key element unites diverse institutions and policies that do seem to work: they all are reasonably compatible with human instinct. Institutions that build on the basic instinct for self-betterment (as in markets) have a much easier time in achieving success than institutions that oppose it (as in communism). Instincts, like gravity, are a force of nature. Adam Smith theorized, for example, …

Responding To Foreclosures In Cuyahoga County, 2010 Evaluation Report January 1, 2010 Through December 31, 2010, Kathryn W. Hexter, Molly Schnoke

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

No abstract provided.

Northwest Indiana Entrepreneurial Opportunity Survey Analysis, Ziona Austrian, Merissa Piazza, Eli Auerbach, Sunjoo Park

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

This survey report is associated with "Northwest Indiana Regional Analysis: Demographics, Economy, entrepreneurship and Innovation"

Sexual Orientation Wage Differentials, Gian Spicuzza

Empirical Economic Bulletin, An Undergraduate Journal

Most early works find that homosexual and bisexual men suffer from a wage disadvantage and that lesbian and bisexual women earn a substantial wage premium compared to their heterosexual counterparts. Almost all earlier works use 1980-1990 General Social Survey data and Census 1990 data. This economic analysis uses more recent 2010 GSS data and finds statistically insignificant results that that both homosexual and bisexual men and women earn a wage differential. This is most likely attributed to the new terminology included in the 2010 GSS. For the first time, the GSS records the sexual orientation of the respondent whereas past …

Determinants Of A Country's Happiness, Timothy Caradonio

Empirical Economic Bulletin, An Undergraduate Journal

This paper examines the relationship between several macroeconomic factors and the relative happiness of a country’s citizens. Inflation, GDP growth, real interest rate, and unemployment rate were selected as independent variables. Data on the dependent variable, the degree of happiness, was not available from other studies. Therefore, life satisfaction was used as the dependent variable which was obtained from the Happy Planet Index. This study was conducted using cross sectional data and the least squared method to determine if any of the independent variables are statistically significant to the happiness of a country.

Analysis Of Employer Of Last Resort In The United States: Implications Of Educational Attainments And Wage Rates, Benjamin Dionne

Empirical Economic Bulletin, An Undergraduate Journal

This paper examines the feasibility and impact of an Employer of Last Resort (ELR) program in the United States. ELR could provide the US with a new policy direction in curbing poverty and creating growth. An ELR growth program would be run by the government to employ millions of unemployed and underemployed people in skilled and unskilled positions. This study aims to show that a well developed and administered ELR program could address the important issues facing the American economy and could lead to a significant economic impact. Using an ordinary least squared model the study establishes factors affecting the …

Institutional Divergence In Economic Development, Jonathan B. Wight

Economics Faculty Publications

The Anglo-American capitalist model (AACM) encompasses a set of theories and policies that advance the classical objectives of individual autonomy, wealth acquisition, and economic growth. In the twentieth century, the neoclassical goal of short-run Pareto efficiency was added yet remains in possible tension with these other aims. The AACM generally upholds the primacy of markets as the means for achieving its normative ideals through private, decentralized actions, with some exceptions. In the modern political arena this ideology is associated with the Reagan-Thatcher revolution of the 1980s and provides a framework for many who oppose statist solutions to social problems (Steger …

A Time Series Investigation Of The Impact Of Corporate And Personal Current Taxes On Economic Growth In The U.S., Peter J. Saunders

Economics Faculty Scholarship

This paper investigates the impact of corporate income taxes and personal current taxes on economic growth. Time-series tests analyzing the relationship between corporate taxes and nonresidential investment are implemented. Also tests of the impact of personal current taxes on the labor supply, approximated by the average weekly overtime hours in manufacturing, are undertaken. These tests include cointegration, vector error correction (VEC) estimation, and Granger causality testing of the relevant time-series data. Cointegration tests indicate the existence of a stable long run relationship between corporate taxes and nonresidential investment. Further investigation of this relationship is undertaken within the VEC testing framework. …

Beyond The American Dream : Tales Of Hispanic Mutimillionaires Who Rose Above Poverty After Immigrating To The United States, Ricardo Norton

Dissertations

Problem. A review of the literature on Hispanics reveals the absence of academic studies on the conditions and life experiences that helped poor Hispanic immigrants become multimillionaires after arriving to the U.S. at 18 years of age and older and without conversational English. Most Hispanic immigrants live in poverty right after arriving to the U.S. and only a few become multimillionaires. A study on how they rose above poverty has the potential to uncovering useful information for other poor immigrants who are still looking who seek financial success. Such study will also add to the larger body of literature information …

Local Economic Development: Researching Clusters In Woodford County, Kentucky, Tom Middleton

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

Woodford Tomorrow, a citizen economic development planning group in Woodford County, is interested in promoting cluster development. Clusters are a geographic concentration of businesses and institutions which interact and collaborate within a particular economic sector. This report provides quantitative analysis of three clusters: (1) health, (2) agriculture, and (3) arts, entertainment, and tourism. The majority of this data comes from the consulting firm Economic Modeling Specialists Inc.

The agriculture cluster has many industries, specifically in the crop and animal production and manufacturing sectors, which appear to be potential industries to target. The hotel and motel industry seems to be an …

Northwest Indiana Regional Analysis: Demographics, Economy, Entrepreneurship And Innovation, Ziona Austrian, Merissa Piazza, Eli Auerbach, Sunjoo Park

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

This report is associated with "Northwest Indiana Entrepreneurial Opportunity Survey Analysis"

Economic Transition, Higher Education And Worker Productivity In China, Belton Fleisher, Yifan Yu, Haizheng Li, Seonghoon Kim

Research Collection School Of Economics

We investigate the role of education on worker productivity and firms' total factor productivity using a panel of firm-level data from China. We estimate the returns to education by calculating the marginal productivity of workers of different education levels based on estimates of the firm-level production function. We also estimate how the education level of workers and CEO contributes to firms' total factor productivity. Estimated marginal products are much higher than wages, and the gap is larger for highly educated workers. Our estimate shows that an additional year of schooling raises marginal product by 30.1%, and that CEO's education increases …

From Riches To Rags: The Political Economy Of The Natural Resource Curse, Anum Malkani

CMC Senior Theses

The natural resource curse paradox has given rise to a wide range of explanations, which look at the economic, social and political characteristics of resource-rich countries. This paper focuses on the political economy of natural resources and finds that controlling for sociopolitical factors eliminates the natural resource curse. The analysis then turns to these sociopolitical factors and examines the significant, complex and varied effects of democratization on economic growth in general, as well as in resource-rich countries in particular. I conclude that the type of institutions needed for economic development in resource-rich countries are not specific to either democratic or …

The Economic Impact Of Oil Price Shocks On Emerging Markets, Aanchal Kapoor

CMC Senior Theses

Recent spikes in oil prices have thrown light on how economic activity in emerging markets may be impacted by oil price shocks. This paper conducts an empirical analysis of the effect of oil price shocks on emerging markets. It tests for the existence of an asymmetrical relationship between oil prices and economic activity using a model developed by James Hamilton. It also assesses the impact of structural shocks to the real price of oil on output as proposed by Lutz Kilian. While our models find no consistent pattern within emerging markets, they do suggest that oil price shocks have a …

Alleviating Social Disadvantages Of Rapid Economic Growth: A Case For Conditional Cash Transfer (Cct) Application In Old Siam, Anastasia Kostioukova

CMC Senior Theses

The ongoing conflict between Thailand’s red shirt and yellow shirt parties is not purely political. This tension is rooted in a renewed awareness of regional economic and social inequality, a byproduct of rapid economic growth in the past. This thesis seeks to understand the overall consequences of unequal economic development in Thailand, as the rationale for asserting that a conditional cash transfer (CCT) program is an appropriate policy tool for the ongoing reconciliation efforts.

A Natural Resource Curse: Does It Exist Within The United States?, Bryce Gerard

CMC Senior Theses

In this paper, we  examine data on U.S. GDP/Capita and natural resource share of GDP by state. We then run growth regressions and build on a previous model of dynamic equations to account for the spatial equilibrium that exists between U.S. states. Our results show that there exists evidence that overinvestment in oil and mining sectors has negative effects on state TFP growth, thus giving positive evidence for the existence of a natural resource curse between U.S. states.

Has The Franco-German Power Balance In The European Union Tipped In Favor Of Germany?, Stephanie C. Haffner

CMC Senior Theses

The power balance between France and Germany in the European Union has been one of great discussion and debate. Countless journalists and scholars have argued that Germany’s power has risen gradually against the seemingly perpetually stronger France over the past sixty years, and is now finally set to surpass France; but how true are these claims? How can power within the EU truly be measured? Through an analysis of Franco-German collaboration through unionization, a critique of the contemporary discourse on the relationship, and an examination of changing contributions to the EU budget, my paper argues that the Franco-German power balance …

The Impact Of A Conditional Cash Transfer Program On Credit Behavior In Colombia, Brittany Pineros

CMC Senior Theses

This paper investigates the impact of Familias en Acción, a conditional cash transfer program in Colombia, on participant credit behavior. The motivation of the research is derived from previous studies which indicate that conditional cash transfer programs have effects on households aside from those directly intentioned by the programs. While the direct impacts of Familias en Acción have been measured by the research team responsible for evaluating the program, potential indirect effects remain uninvestigated. My research specifically focuses on the impacts of the program on credit behavior. I compute estimates on the percent change in loan balance outstanding and …