Work, Economy and Organizations Commons^™

Happiness In Communities: How Neighborhoods, Cities And States Use Subjective Well-Being Metrics, Laura Musikanski, Carl Polley, Scott Cloutier, Erica Berejnoi, Julia Colbert

Journal of Sustainable Social Impact

This essay, the fourth and last of a series published by the Journal of Social Change, is intended as a tool for community organizers, local policy makers, researchers, students and others to incorporate subjective well-being indicators into their measurements and management of happiness and well-being in their communities, for policy purposes, for research and for other purposes. It provides case studies of community-based efforts in five different regions (São Paulo, Brazil; Bristol, United Kingdom; Melbourne, Australia; Creston, British Columbia, Canada; and Vermont, United States) that either developed their own subjective well-being index or used the Happiness Alliance’s survey instrument …

Monitoring The Philippine Economy Year-End Report For 2016, Mitzie Irene P. Conchada, Regina S. Villasor

Angelo King Institute for Economic and Business Studies (AKI)

Philippine economic growth topped regional performance for 2016. In line with election-year market expectations, annual growth accelerated to 6.9 percent from 6.0 percent in 2015, surpassing China (6.7%) and Vietnam (6.2%). Despite the global economic slowdown, Philippine growth has continuously improved since 2015, showing resilience to external shocks with manufacturing expansion. On the demand side, household consumption and investments flourished with modest inflation and strong imports. On the supply side, the industry sector led as the service sector slowed down. Meanwhile, the agriculture sector continues to contract with the onslaught of weather disruptions like typhoons Karen and Lawin.

Designing Urban Policy For A Thriving New Jersey • New Jersey Urban Mayors Association Addresses Policy Priorities, Thomas Edison State University, Evan Weiss, New Jersey Urban Mayors Association

Urban Mayors Policy Center

Cities are the Solution, Not the Problem:

While decades of suburban development might suggest otherwise, New Jersey is at its core an urban state. It is dense, covered by one of the largest transit networks in the country and incredibly diverse. Every region of the state has great livable cities, with small, midsized and large cities all represented — most states are lucky to have just a handful. But, for decades, new jersey cities have too often been portrayed as problems that need to be fixed. As the economic and lifestyle preferences of future generations shift back toward cities and …

To Work More Or Less? The Impact Of Taxes And Life Satisfaction On The Motivation To Work In Continental And Eastern Europe, Orkhan Nadirov, Khatai Aliyev, Bruce Dehning

Accounting Faculty Articles and Research

Using country-level data from 2000-2013, we test the relationship between life satisfaction (measured as how people evaluate their life as a whole rather than their current feelings) and the motivation to work (measured as aggregate hours of work). Our hypothesis is that even after controlling for average labor income tax rates in countries with high and low average hours worked, there is a significant negative association between the motivation to work and life satisfaction. The main findings of this paper are that the increase in the motivation to work per employee comes at the expense of life satisfaction, and differences …

Some Social Differences On The Basis Of Race Among Puerto Ricans, Carlos Vargas-Ramos

CUNY Centro, The Center for Puerto Rican Studies

Puerto Ricans are a multiracial people. This is given by the fact that the Puerto Rican population is composed of people from different categories of socially differentiated and defined racial groups, and also because not an insignificant number of Puerto Rican individuals share ancestry derived from multiple racial groups. Yet, the analysis of social difference and inequities among Puerto Ricans on the basis of physical difference is largely avoided, and when it is conducted its findings are often neglected.

Puerto Rican Households In The U.S., Eric Franqui-Rivera

CUNY Centro, The Center for Puerto Rican Studies

In 2014 there were an estimated 1.56 million Puerto Rican households in the United States. These households accounted for 1.3 percent of all 116.2 million households in the U.S. and 11 percent of all 14.1 million Hispanic households in the U.S. Married male-female couples and single female households each accounted for over a third of Puerto Rican households (36.4% and 36.5%, respectively) with the third largest householder group being that of single males (17.9%). Unmarried male-female and same-sex households, including married and unmarried, accounted for 8.5 percent and 0.7 percent, respectively, of Puerto Rican households in the U.S.

The Economic Impacts Of Undocumented Immigrants In The United States, Abdulaziz Alangari

Honors Papers and Posters

There are about 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S., of which all are not granted a work permit. Thus, in order to survive, these immigrants seek jobs that do not require legal status but have wages significantly lower than minimum. In short, by having these immigrants work in low-wage jobs, the U.S. economy benefits by providing a diverse market to U.S. residents and thus creates a vast economy. My research paper will be talking about how the presence of undocumented immigrants is a significant factor in creating and shaping the diverse U.S. economy.

All In The Family: Economies Of Scale In Retail And Institutional Investment Management, Darwin Choi, Xi Li, Tong Yao, Zhe Zhang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper examines the (dis)economies of scale related to the joint management of retail mutual funds and institutional funds (i.e., investment portfolios catering to institutional clients). Similar to well-known observations for mutual funds, the performance of institutional funds is negatively related to fund size but positively related to fund family size, suggesting diseconomies of scale at individual fund level and economies of scale at fund family level. More importantly, there is spillover of the family size effect -- the performance of mutual funds (institutional funds) is positively related to the total institutional assets (mutual fund assets) managed by the same …

A Road To Somewhere: Changing Trade And The Adaptation To Survive In Humla, Sophie Louaillier

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This paper is an investigation of the changing trade in Humla, one of the most remote regions in Nepal. I particularly focus on the road being built from the village of Hilsa, which lies on the border of China and Nepal, to Simikot, the main town. This road will be accessible by all the villagers who live on the link trail now – the trail they walk on with their animals in order to reach the border site. Trade is especially important in Humla; there are no roads available to get there from the Nepal side, so everything must be …

La Construcción De Una Identidad Propia Por Parte De Las Mujeres Piqueteras De Claypole, Como Protagonistas, Dentro Del Frente De Organizaciones En Lucha (Fol) / Mujeres Piqueteras Of Claypole Constructing Their Own Identity As Protagonists Within The Frente De Organizaciones En Lucha (Fol), Luz Daniela Castro

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

In the late 1990s in Argentina, the model of neoliberalism transformed political and economic policies, aggravated free trade and promoted the privatization of companies and free enterprise. A direct consequence was job instability, with masses amounts of unemployment prevailing, and no action nor response pursued by the state. As a result, the unemployed workers “desocupdos” came together and introduced new repertoires of action: the picketing “piquetes” and the temporary blockage of roads “corte de rutas”. The movement’s first appearance was in the Cutral-Có y Plaza Huincul in the Province of Neuquén (1996-97), extended to Salta and Jujuy (1997) and then …

Losing Values: Illiquidity, Personhood, And The Return Of Authoritarianism In Skopje, Macedonia, Fabio Mattioli

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

On May 17, 2015, over 50,000 people took to the streets of Skopje, the capital of the Republic of Macedonia, protesting against Prime Minister Gruevski and his party, the conservative neoliberal Internal Revolutionary Organization of Macedonia (VMRO). After nine years of authoritarian government, it was the first significant demonstration in which the population demanded accountability for Gruevski's despotic system of rule. This dissertation is the story of how Gruevski's system of power was built and why it lasted for so long. I argue that a series of failing financial processes, which included the use of illiquidity, created the material and …

Better Work And Global Governance, Paul Alois

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is a case study of Better Work, a program run by the International Labor Organization and the International Finance Corporation. It aims to improve working conditions and productivity in the apparel industry. The purpose of this case study is to examine the role that international organizations can play in global governance. The research presented here comes from interviews, document analysis, and an examination of quantitative data on factories’ working conditions. In-person interviews were conducted in the United States, Switzerland, Vietnam, and Indonesia; many phone interviews took place with individuals in other countries. Both publicly available documents and internal …

Monhegan: A Prescription For Resilience, Kenneth Paul Kiel Gross

Muskie School Capstones and Dissertations

Monhegan, like many island communities, is threatened by the loss of population as its young adults migrate to the mainland. The purpose of this study is to develop a resilient population on Monhegan Island.

Knowing the problem is easy, as is asking the obvious question, “How do we get people to move to this area?” This is a problem that confronts not only Monhegan, but also other Maine islands and even Maine itself.

Several factors make Monhegan’s future uncertain. The first is the gradual shift from commercial fishing, the mainstay of its economy, as it becomes more reliant on tourism …

Where Women Stand In Rural Electrification Efforts: An Exploratory Study Within Gujarat, Meital Rosenberg

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Since its 2003 village electrification scheme, the state of Gujarat has been acclaimed for providing rural households with 24-hour access and farmers with uninterrupted 8-hour power supply. The Government of India has emphasized goals of providing electricity for all of its citizens yet has been unable to address glaring discrepancies across the country. For those in rural areas, which is approximately 60-70 percent of India’s population, a varying degree of connection exists plagued by frequent outages, transmission losses, unreliable billing practices, and poor infrastructure maintenance. Gujarat has been reported to have overcome these obstacles with its bifurcation of electricity feeders, …

La Minería En La Conciencia Urbana: Las Estrategias De Los Yasunidos De Cuenca Contra La Minería En El Azuay, Alexandra Golden

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

En la provincia del Azuay, Ecuador, hay dos proyectos mineros a gran escala. Los proyectos Río Blanco y Loma Larga/Quimsacocha consisten en minas subterráneas de oro y plata, y ambos se acercan a la fase de explotación. Los proyectos están ubicados en la Reserva de Biosfera Macizo del Cajas en la zona de amortiguamiento del Parque Nacional el Cajas. La zona es un páramo de alto endemismo e importancia con respecto a la regulación hídrica. Los páramos suministran agua potable a los pueblos campesinos y a los habitantes de la ciudad de Cuenca. La minería consume muchísima agua y energía …

Los Riesgos Sobre La Salud De Los Trabajadores Inmigrantes Bolivianos En Los Talleres Textiles En La Ciudad Autónoma Buenos Aires: Las Experiencias De Los Trabajadores De La Cooperativa La Alameda / The Health Risks Of Bolivian Immigrant Workers In Textile Workshops In The Autonomous City Of Buenos Aires: The Experiences Of Workers At Cooperative La Alameda, Marian Gardner

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Los bolivianos inmigran a Argentina para escapar de la falta de oportunidades laborales y de la pobreza. Sin embargo, una vez en Argentina, su inserción laboral es precaria e informal, principalmente, son contratados en los talleres textiles clandestinos. En éstos , donde la mayoría de ellos también vive, se ven reducidos a condiciones de servidumbre, explotación y son sometidos a condiciones de semi esclavitud, como lo demuestran las 14 a 18 horas de trabajo que realizan los siete días de la semana por sólo alrededor de $ 1300 a $ 3000 pesos argentinos por mes. Además, las condiciones laborales suponen …

Effective General Entrepreneurial Learning Programs For Sme Development, Paul Kenneth Steele

Capstone Collection

The principle objective of this paper is to reexamine the potential for impactful, general programs in education for Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) owners by assessing the success of a program called SME PRIME; conducted by AMIDEAST, Oman for six Omani entrepreneurs over a seven-month period.

General programs for entrepreneur education are produced and implemented the world over despite consistent assertions throughout academic literature that such programs are ineffective. Typical approaches to training program development and evaluation emphasize the critical role of training needs analysis. Training needs analysis is often an ignored step in the process of SME training program …

Social Justice And Worker Cooperatives, Gurveer Shaan Dhillon

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Social Justice (SJ) is an organizing principle of contemporary community psychology (CP); however, the concept and understanding of social justice in community psychology is undertheorized and narrow. Specifically, the concept of distributive justice, which has been a popular notion of social justice in community psychology discourse, does not translate well into transformative action. In order to address this issue, the research uses a qualitative approach to explore the understanding of social justice from the perspectives of worker-members of 5 worker cooperatives in Ontario, with the aim to contribute to an understanding of SJ that has transformative implications. A worker cooperative …

Groundings Volume Two, Issue Two

Groundings

This is the full issue of Groundings Vol. 2, Iss. 2. It includes a wrap of both the 12th Annual Walter Rodney Symposium and the 3rd Annual Walter Rodney Speakers Series; a piece by Jesus Chucho Garcia that honors the late Norman Girvan; the official Save the Date for the 13th Annual Walter Rodney Symposium; information on the republication of The Groundings with My Brothers; a photo-narrative by Julian Plowden on the student protests at the Atlanta CNN Center; we then have 3 pieces surrounding the Walter Rodney Commission of Inquiry by Wazir Mohamed, Anne Braithwaite, and Rohit Kanhai, …

Estimating The Effects Of The Minimum Wage In A Developing Country: A Density Discontinuity Design Approach, Hugo Jales

Center for Policy Research

This paper proposes a new framework to identify the effects of the minimum wage on the joint distribution of sector and wages in a developing country. I show that under reasonable assumptions, cross-sectional data on the worker's wage and sector can identify the joint distribution of the latent counterparts of these variables; that is, the sector status and wage that would prevail in the absence of the minimum wage. I apply the method in the “PNAD”, a nationwide representative Brazilian cross-sectional dataset for the years 2001 to 2009. The results indicate that the size of the informal sector is increased …

Policy Recommendations For Alleviating Homelessness In Chittenden County, Vermont, Brittany E. Nevins

Capstone Collection

Chittenden County, Vermont is suffering from increasing homelessness and poverty among both individuals and families. Residents of Chittenden County face an urban rental vacancy rate of less than .5% in Burlington, VT where the majority of jobs are located and only a 3% vacancy in suburban towns. Residents face waiting lists for rental subsidies of up to 8 years, and decreasing access to services for working class populations who are facing rent to income ratios of nearly 70% and utility costs of 30% of their income. The market rent is increasing and the state budget faces deep cuts to services. …

Identity, Movement And Belonging In A Land Of Tradition: A Critical Examination Of The Nepali Workforce In Leh, Ladakh, Teresa Langseth-Depaolis

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

In recent years, Nepal has emerged at the forefront of the international labor market with a growing and continuous out-flow of migrant laborers. Such migratory patterns have landed people from Nepal in jobs all over the world; from power plants in Dubai to coffee shops in Toronto. This study situates the phenomenon of Nepali migrant labor in the rapidly urbanizing capital of Leh, Ladakh, and examines the experiences of identity and complexities of belonging within the transnational system of migration.

I was prompted to conduct research in Leh after having heard from a local man that there was a small …

The Curious Case Of Solu Khumbu: A Study Of The Effects Of Tourism In The Town Of Junbesi, Hannah Cho

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Before 1953, the year that Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay summited Everest, almost all Sherpas were subsistence farmers, traders, and herders. But ever since the 1980’s, Sherpas have taken over the trekking industry in this region. The increase of tourism and the monopolization of this industry have altered the livelihoods of Sherpas in Solu Khumbu. However, most tourism related research on Solu Khumbu has been done primarily on upper Khumbu, which has been affected by tourism drastically differently than Solu. I will be doing a case study of how the changes in tourism have affected Junbesi, a popular agriculture based …

Rodney Papers At Auc Robert W. Woodruff Library

Groundings

No abstract provided.

Remembrances

Groundings

No abstract provided.

Foundation News

Groundings

Updates from The Walter Rodney Foundations.

How Europe Underdeveloped African At 40, Michael O. West

Groundings

Michael O. West digests the impact of How Europe Underdeveloped Africa 40 years after its publication. He brings to the front the atmosphere that Rodney endured leading up to the publication of his seminal work.

Memorable Moments

Groundings

We highlight some of the memorable moments of that members of the Foundation have experienced since the last issue.

Announcement Of The Walter Rodney Press

Groundings

Introduction to and announcement of The Walter Rodney Press, which recently republished The Groundings with My Brothers.

Advertisement For The 12th Annual Walter Rodney Symposium

Groundings

The poster for the 12th Annual Walter Rodney Symposium to be held March 20th and 21st, 2015.