Political Economy Commons^™

Nebraska Monthly Economic Indicators: August 23, 2017, Eric Thompson

Leading Economic Indicator Reports

The Leading Economic Indicator – Nebraska (LEI-N) 1 rose by 0.56% during July of 2017. The increase in the LEI-N, which is designed to predict economic activity six months into the future, suggests that the Nebraska economy will grow through the first month of 2018. Four components of the indicator improved during July. Business expectations were solid and manufacturing hours grew. The value of the U.S. dollar continued its recent decline, a positive sign for Nebraska’s export-oriented businesses. Further, in a positive sign for the labor market, there also was a drop in initial claims for unemployment insurance. In terms …

Nebraska Business And Consumer Confidence Indexes: August 4, 2017, Eric Thompson

Leading Economic Indicator Reports

Consumer and business confidence remained strong in Nebraska during July but fell from June levels. The Consumer Confidence Index – Nebraska (CCI-N) stood at 102.5 in July after a reading of 104.7 during June. Despite the decline of 2.2, the CCI-N remained above the neutral value of 100.0, indicating strong consumer confidence. The outlook of Nebraska businesses also was strong. The Business Confidence Index – Nebraska (BCI-N) fell to 105.1 in July from 109.2 in June. The BCI-N remained well above the neutral value in July, despite the 4.1 point decline, which indicates that business confidence is also strong in …

Nebraska Monthly Economic Indicators: June 21, 2017, Eric Thompson

Leading Economic Indicator Reports

The Leading Economic Indicator – Nebraska (LEI-N) 1 fell by 0.51% during May of 2017. This is the second consecutive monthly decline in the LEI-N. The declines followed three months of rapid increase from January through March of 2017. Taken together, the LEI-N values imply a moderation in economic growth in Nebraska in late 2017 after strong growth midyear. Among the components of the indicator, business expectations were strong during May while the value of the U.S. dollar fell, which is a positive sign for Nebraska’s export-oriented businesses. However, manufacturing hours, building permits and airline passen

Economic Evaluation Of Coastal Land Loss In Louisiana, Stephen R. Barnes, Craig Bond, Nicholas Burger, Kate Anania, Aaron Strong, Sarah Weilant, Stephanie Virgets

Journal of Ocean and Coastal Economics

Louisiana has lost approximately 1,880 square miles of land over the past eighty years. Projections suggest that in a future without action, the next fifty years could result in the loss of 1,750 additional square miles of land area. As land loss continues, a large portion of the natural and man-made capital stocks of coastal Louisiana will be at greater risk of damage, either from land loss or from the associated increase in storm damage. We estimate the replacement cost of capital stock directly at risk from land loss ranges from approximately $2.1 billion to $3.5 billion with economic activity …

More Balanced Economic Growth, Eric Thompson

Business in Nebraska

There has been a re-balancing of both global and domestic economic growth during 2017. Globally, growth is improving in Europe and China, yielding more balanced international growth. Within the United States, growth also has become more balanced across industries. As in past years, the service sector, supported by growth in employment and real wages, has grown steadily with increases in retail trade, business services, personal services and construction activity. However, in recent months, there also has been improved growth in the industrial sector, with a rebound in the energy sector, and more business investment in capital equipment. The result is …

Nebraska Business And Consumer Confidence Indexes: June 2, 2017, Eric Thompson

Leading Economic Indicator Reports

Consumer confidence fell in Nebraska during May 2017 while business confidence remained very strong. The Consumer Confidence Index – Nebraska (CCI-N) fell to roughly neutral during May. The CCI-N stood at 102.5 in April but fell to 100.4 during May, which is only slightly above the neutral value of 100.0. The outlook of Nebraska businesses remained very strong. The Business Confidence Index – Nebraska (BCI-N) rose to 110.2 in May, above its April value of 109.1 and well above the neutral value. Business confidence has been very strong in Nebraska during the first five months of 2017. When asked about …

Nebraska Monthly Economic Indicators: May 24, 2017, Eric Thompson

Leading Economic Indicator Reports

The Leading Economic Indicator – Nebraska (LEI-N) 1 fell by 0.88% during April of 2017. The decline followed three months of rapid increase in January through March, implying a moderation in the outlook for the Nebraska economy in late 2017. Among the components of the indicator, business expectations were strong during April while the value of the U.S. dollar fell, which is a positive sign for Nebraska’s export-oriented businesses. However, manufacturing hours, building permits and airline passenger counts all declined during April, while initial claims for unemployment insurance rose.

Unemployment, Does It Really Hurt?, Claudia Vargas

Theses and Dissertations

This paper analyzes the consequences of changes in the unemployment rate in Colombia on the level of education attained for adolescents. Increases in the unemployment rate are associated with an increase in the average number of years of education. No significant effect was found for men of the same age.

Evaluation Of Monetary, Fiscal And External Inflationary Sources In Nigeria, Samson A. Aladejare

Journal for the Advancement of Developing Economies

This study focuses on evaluating the monetary, fiscal and external inflationary sources in Nigeria. The Auto-Regressive Distributive Lag estimation technique was adapted to capture these effects. Empirical findings of the study showed that overall, the main determining cause of inflation in both short run and long run periods in Nigeria, are more of monetary and external factors and less of fiscal sources. Specifically, the problem of inflation in Nigeria appears to be more of structural phenomenon than monetary in the short run. However, in the long run, combinations of monetary and external factors tend to be the major cause of …

Land Tenure, Governance And Accountability In Nigeria: The Implications On Food Production To Feed The Present And The Future, Abiodun E. Obayelu, Aisha O. Arowolo, Olatokunbo H. Osinowo

Journal for the Advancement of Developing Economies

Land is very vital for agricultural production, and for any nation that wants to be self-food sufficient. Different land reforms have taken place in Nigeria since 1960 with the aim of facilitating access to agricultural land, and make the nation self-sufficient in food production, but little changes have only been recorded. Bureaucracy by approving authorities in practice in communities where land is situated still hinders land acquisition for agricultural investment. This study therefore analyzes land policy, governance and accountability and draw out some implications on food production in Nigeria. The percentage of arable land to the total land area was …

Internal Control Activities As A Tool For Financial Management In The Public Sector: A Case Study Of Ghana Post Company Limited, Kwakye E. Agyapong

Journal for the Advancement of Developing Economies

The case, Ghana Post Company Limited, allows for the observation of internal control activities as a tool for financial management in the public sector. The objective of the research is to examine the control environment of the Ghana Post Company to ensure there is segregation of duties, proper information and communication between employees and management; and monitoring of the policies implemented by management. The sample size of 36 included individuals from all of the departments within the company. The departments are Auditing and Finance, Human Resource, Mail and Parcels, and Financial Services. The work established had continued lapses in the …

Failure Or Adjustment?: An Analysis Of The Slowing Growth Of The Chinese Economy, Kay G. Degraw

Honors Theses

With GDP growth for the 2016 fiscal year reported at 6.7%, it appears that the Chinese economy has departed from the three-decade period in which GDP growth averaged plus-10%. While both academic journals and media outlets have accredited this slowdown to a variety of factors, existing research has failed to conflate the economic and political factors into a comprehensive explanation. Consequently, this thesis examines the causative factors behind the slowing of the Chinese economy though the analysis of three contesting plausibility probes centered on the impact of corruption, statism, and structural economic change. The results of the plausibility probes indicates …

Degree Matters: The Impact Of A Leader’S Foreign Education On His Country’S Economic Development, Zhongyi Yu

CMC Senior Theses

I analyze the correlation between a nation leader’s foreign education experience and their nation’s GDP growth and economic freedom in African, Asian, and South American countries. There is a statistically significant correlation between a leader’s foreign education and the country’s GDP growth rate, especially in Africa. Data also shows that a leader’s foreign education is positively correlated with his country’s economic freedom. Despite the fact that the regressions can only demonstrate correlation as opposed to causation relationships among variables, further analysis of the results concludes that a leader’s education and the country’s development are reciprocal. The findings of this paper …

Institutional Development: Interpreting The Russian Case, Joshua W. Rooney

CMC Senior Theses

A fundamental question to both historians and development economists is why countries today are able to reach and maintain such starkly different economic outcomes. Popular explanations include geographic and climatological features, short-term policy decisions, and economic institutions. This paper looks at the importance of violence and social pressure in the transformation and conservation of political and economic institutions in Russia. It finds that several major historical legacies including serfdom, Mongol dominance, Orthodoxy, and authoritarianism significantly influence both the past a present institutional setting. Furthermore, such legacies have proven to be major obstructions to the emergence of economic liberalism.

Sustainable Mining For Long Term Poverty Alleviation In The Democratic Republic Of The Congo, Ellen Perfect

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis explores the poverty alleviation and peace-spoiling power of the mineral extraction sector in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to arrive at a set of strategic goals for the country moving forward. Although subterranean minerals are often a source or perpetuator of violence, the potential to lift the country’s rural communities out of extreme poverty makes the mining industry an essential part of the nation’s development strategies. Lessons from Tanzania, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Ghana, Zambia, Uganda and Sierra Leone to arrive at best practices for increasing the multiplier effect of large-scale mining, formalization, beneficiation, capital …

The Treadmill Of Destruction In Comparative Perspective: A Panel Study Of Military Spending And Carbon Emissions, 1961-2014, Alex Stoner, John H. Bradford

Journal Articles

This article analyzes a unique panel data set to assess the effect of militarism on per capita carbon dioxide emissions. We extend previous research examining the effects of military expenditures on carbon emissions by including in our analyses over 30 years of additional data. In addition, we compare our preliminary results to those obtained from other estimation procedures. Specifically, we report and visually illustrate the results of 54 cross-sectional models (one for each year) and 36 unique panel regression models on both balanced and unbalanced panels. We assess how this relationship has changed over time by testing for interactions between …

An Analysis Of Mongolia’S Resource-Led Development: The Impact Of Foreign Direct Investment In The Extraction Industry, Belguun Bat-Erdene

Master's Theses

It has been 26 years since Mongolia transitioned to democracy. I decided to evaluate the progress of Mongolia’s development since the transition to evaluate whether the country of only 3 million people with vast land and natural resources successfully implemented policies to attain growth and societal wellbeing. In order to evaluate Mongolia’s development progress, this thesis uses FDI in Mongolian development since 1990 as a case study to examine the relationship between FDI, state development strategies, and development outcomes. My research questions encompass a series of interrelated inquiries including 1) whether human development can be achieved through extraction industries 2) …

Emigration, Repatriation And The Reality Of Returned Youth In El Salvador, Isabel C. Duarte Vasquez

Master's Theses

According to US Customs and Border Protection, over 59 thousand unaccompanied minors from the Northern Triangle (Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador) have been detained at the US border, of those 59 thousand, 17 thousand are from El Salvador. El Salvador is home to some of the most dangerous and ruthless gangs of the twenty-first century. Their ruthlessness comes from 1980s guerrilla warfare experience. In addition, El Salvador serves as a transshipment point for illicit substances from South America into Mexico. These dynamics fuel the homicide rate of the region as local gang members must protect their territory by any means …

Slavery, Migration, And Local Development In The Western Us, Colin Q. Sharpe

Theses and Dissertations

This paper examines the effects of migration from eastern slave states in the 19th century on the subsequent development of counties in the Western US. I find that increased migration from slave states has a large, statistically significant negative effect on 2010 income, and no significant effect on racial inequality or overall income inequality. These findings are robust to a variety of specifications, including controls for geographic factors, state fixed effects, and various county level social and economic conditions. Data on individual migrants suggest that the cause of the negative income effect is the lower average human capital endowment of …

Solar Urban Planning: Addressing Barriers And Conflicts Specific To Renewable Energy Policy And The Current Field And Practice Of Urban Planning Within The Context Of A Changing Climate, Toryl P. Hanna

Capstone Collection

The world is in a period of rapid urbanization while experiencing unprecedented rise in global temperature as a result of climate change. Questions have been raised as to how strategies for urbanization will be able to address the fetish for energy, while halting carbon emissions produced by traditional energy sources for urban inhabitants around the world. First, this paper seeks to look to cities, at the intersection of solar energy and the field of urban planning, looking into the opportunities and challenges that are currently surfacing. Conflicts and barriers in traditional urban land use patterns emerge as a topic of …

Crafting Chaos: The Classification Of Unilateral Transfers Under The Current Account At Bretton Woods And Its Impact On Remittances To The Indian State Of Kerala, Anish Gawande

Undergraduate Economic Review

This essay aims to analyse the classification of unilateral transfers under the current account at Bretton Woods despite significant opposition from larger delegations of major Allied powers, bringing to the forefront the global liquidity of remittances in the post-War years permitted by their fully currency convertible nature. Using the example of the Indian State of Kerala, this paper charts the relevance of their sustained uninterrupted flow to their subsequent exponential growth in the last three decades, using the case study as a pivot to argue for better policy measures that maximise their multiplier effect.

Front Matter

Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective

No abstract provided.

Introduction To The Special Issue: Examining Relationships In The Portuguese Speaking World, Dan Paracka, Robert Simon

Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective

No abstract provided.

Macau's Trade With The Portuguese Speaking World, Paul B. Spooner

Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective

Macau has boomed over the last decade as its gaming industry has provided the massive Chinese economy with the only legal casino gambling services in the nation. But, recent Chinese political changes have resulted in a sharp downturn in Macau’s gambling revenues despite a major expansion of its gaming facilities. This may negatively impact efforts to promote a relationship between Macau and the Portuguese Speaking World. Portugal with its former Ultramar, to which Brazil has been added, is now termed “Lusophonia.” Initiated by China in Macau in October 2003, the efforts to promote a Lusophone trade and economic relationship with …

Full Issue

Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective

No abstract provided.

The Integrity Of Women In Re-Making A Nation: The Case Of Guinea-Bissau, Brandon Lundy, Raul Mendes Fernandes Jr., Kezia Lartley

Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective

This article both acknowledges and celebrates the role of women in re-making the nation of Guinea-Bissau. A gendered perspective and historical and multi-scalar framing demonstrates that women have played integral roles in nation-building over time and space in Guinea-Bissau. How have the women of Guinea-Bissau fashioned their agency? Where are the new forms of agency for women in Guinea-Bissau? An examination of nation-building shows the foundational roles of women, unique aspects of innovative economic enterprise before, during, and after the colonial period, and contemporary political efforts by women toward the production of a successful and inclusive country. Gender has opened …

Natural Disasters In Latin America: The Role Of Disaster Type And Productive Sector On The Urban-Rural Income Gap And Rural To Urban Migration, Madeline Alice Messick

Dissertations

This research provides insight into the impact of natural disasters as drivers of rural to urban migration in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). Disasters of varying types are predicted to have differing impacts on the productive sectors of agriculture, industry, and services; which due to the concentration of the various productive sectors in either urban or rural areas, subsequently changes the urban-rural wage differential. Changes to the wage differential (as measured by the urban-rural income gap) are predicted to lead to movement between urban and rural areas until a new equilibrium wage is reached.

This dissertation first identifies a …

The Influence Of The Electric Supply Industry On Economic Growth In Less Developed Countries, Edward Richard Bee

Dissertations

This study measures the impact that electrical outages have on manufacturing production in 135 less developed countries using stochastic frontier analysis and data from World Bank’s Investment Climate surveys. Outages of electricity, for firms with and without backup power sources, are the most frequently cited constraint on manufacturing growth in these surveys.

Outages are shown to reduce output below the production frontier by almost five percent in Africa and by a lower percentage in South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Middle East and North Africa. Production response to outages is quadratic in form. Outages also increase labor cost, reduce exports …

How Global Rules And Markets Are Shaping India’S Rise On The International Stage, Aseema Sinha

CMC Faculty Publications and Research

Over the last quarter century, India has shifted from a hesitant economic power to a confident player on the international stage. In her new book, Aseema Sinha draws on extensive research to ask where this global activism has come from, and considers the international dimensions of domestic change. Here she discusses how her findings challenge standard narratives on globalisation and the supposedly homegrown character of India’s reform trajectory.

Patterns Of Growth And The Economic Development Of China, Adam C. Watson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

By looking at the historical rise of modern China, starting with the end of the First Opium War (1842) through to the start of the war with Japan (1937), and then from the beginning of Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms (1979) to the present, this work reveals the striking similarities between the earlier and the later periods of capitalist development. If the country had not been able to draw on the deep-rooted knowledge and skills which originated in Shanghai and the port cities in the mid-nineteenth century, and instead pursued only uninformed free market principles without the training to make these …