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The Relationship Between the Investment Behavior and Financial Performance of Development Finance Institutions in Emerging Markets
No full textM.P.P.Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) values long-term sustained impact on investment behaviors, as well as manageable risk adjustment. Some of the major industries that DFIs invest in include infrastructure, financial services, health and education, agribusiness and business that related to climate change mitigations. This thesis analyses policies that affect DFI investment behaviors and economic outcomes, using GDP per capita as the measurement indicator from year 2006 to 2017. By doing this, policies makers might help people improve the overall economic outcomes in these development regions. This thesis finds a positive relationship between GDP per capita and three measurement aspects, namely business regulatory environment rating, financial sector rating and public sector management and institutions cluster average. To build on this study, further into the mechanics of policy impact on economic outcomes, additional research is necessary to better understand which factors are more influential and how they exactly connect to each other
The Effect of Restrictive Zoning Policies on Homeownership Rates in America
No full textM.P.P.This study seeks to fill the gap in existing research on the effects of zoning policies on housing, utilizing homeownership rates as the dependent variable to analyze the impact of land use constraints. Using the National Longitudinal Land Use Survey ofmunicipalities across the United States, this study executes ordinary least squares regressions to investigate the relationship between zoning policies and homeownership rates. The results suggest that homeownership rates are higher in jurisdictions that promote single-family housing, which points to the importance of implementing density- friendly policies to upend homeownership as a determinant of wealth
Behind the Body Cam: A Content Analysis Unveiling Interaction Patterns in Police-Civilian Encounters on YouTube
No full textThis study examines police-civilian interactions through body-worn camera (BWC)
footage on YouTube, aiming to identify patterns and themes in these encounters
following the federal mandate for BWC use in the U.S. It employs a content analysis
method, focusing on aspects like aggression, compliance, communication, and the use
of force. Key findings indicate that officer-initiated aggression, especially with weapon
use, significantly increases the risk of civilian injuries, while civilian compliance reduces
this risk. The research underscores the importance of de-escalation tactics and effective
communication in enhancing safety. The study also acknowledges potential biases due
to YouTube & algorithmic filtering and the edited nature of the footage. Through its
findings, the paper contributes to discussions on police accountability and transparency as
well as the role of BWCs in improving police-civilian relations, suggesting a need for law
enforcement practice re-evaluation towards prioritizing non-confrontational and
weapon-less strategies
First-Gen Futures: The Effect of a Baccalaureate Degree on First-Generation Students’ Financial Success
No full textM.P.P.This paper examines the effect of being a first-generation college graduate, defined as an individual with a bachelor’s degree whose parents (both) did not achieve a baccalaureate education, on earnings using data from the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002. Utilizing regressions analysis, I assess the impact of a first-generation identity on earnings, four years after students earn a bachelor’s degree. The dataset, collected by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), provides a longitudinal perspective on the educational trajectories and outcomes of students beginning 10th grade in 2002. The findings indicate that a college degree does offer the same benefits to both first-generation and continuing-generation students, however these results vary by several factors, including college major, academic performance, and the selectivity of a college institution. The results of this study contribute to existing scholarship on socioeconomic mobility and educational accessibility, providing additional insight on the unique challenges faced by first-generation college students
The Relationship Between Early Life Community Violence Exposure and Susceptibility to the Common Cold in Adulthood
No full textM.P.P.Here the current study shows a significant association between youth community violence exposure (CVE) and common cold susceptibility in adulthood. This finding aligns with previous literature that suggests early CVE is connected to other negative health outcomes in adulthood, similar to other early life stressors such as childhood socioeconomic status. This finding specifically extends knowledge on this topic by associating early CVE with an infectious disease, the common cold, for the first time. These results are an important contribution to the literature in the larger context of continuously high rates of CVE in the US, and the global COVID-19 pandemic
TLISI 2023: Addressing Eco-Anxiety in the Classroom
No full textIn just a few short years “eco-anxiety” was formally defined as a pathology by the APA and spread through much of the public imagination as a recognized term and an unfortunately common experience—particularly among college-aged students. While part of the broader mental health challenge faced by universities today, eco-anxiety is particularly worth addressing given its ability to manifest and be exacerbated by the specific content of our classrooms—including classes with no intention of directly engaging with ecological matters. This panel features both faculty and health care professionals from the Hilltop and Qatar campuses who have worked in recent years to help students constructively engage with our current ecological crises while addressing or coping with an attendant eco-anxiety
AMERICAN BINARY THINKING: PSYCHOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS, RELIGIOUS FRAMING, AND MEDIA REINFORCEMENT
No full textD.L.S.Binary thinking is a pervasive anti-intellectual framing in American thought and public discourse. The interest of this study has been the causation of reactionary binary oppositional thought processes in American minds. Previous studies in binary thinking have focused on warnings of binary thinking’s impact and a litany of examples. It is this study’s finding that American reactionary binary oppositional thought processes are built across an interdisciplinary arc from fear-based psychology through a uniquely American legacy Calvinist social contract of moral binaries, and is reinforced in the American mind through the incessant use of binary framing by commercial news media, entertainment media, and social media. This study found that binary thinking is an impediment to individual intellectual and moral development, in stark contrast to American beliefs in freedom of conscience. This study also strongly suggests that all sociological and intellectual issues are inherently interdisciplinary in nature and require interdisciplinary studies
SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL TRENDS OF WILDFIRE OCCURRENCE IN WASHINGTON, USA: IMPLICATIONS FOR FUTURE RISK REDUCTION
No full textThe patterns in fire occurrence and acres burned by wildfire in the state of Washington, USA have been in flux since the late 19th century. In the past 100 years, fire suppression, land use practices, societal expansion, and climate change have altered the forest, shrub, and grassland ecosystems of Washington which has resulted in higher risk of severe fire. This article outlines the changes in the fire regime that occurred with the arrival of European and American colonizers in Washington and uses spatiotemporal analysis techniques to investigate how the fire regimes are changing in the present day (1992-2020). My results identify specific areas in Washington where the count of large fires (>300 acres) and the total acres burned per year are increasing, both in the forestland and the grassland. I discuss the implications for wildfire vulnerability and risk reduction practices in Washington, highlighting the successes of current forest treatment strategies and areas of improvement for wildfire risk reduction in the grassland
Green Bonds in Latin America: Reaction to Adverse Shocks and Determinants of Abnormal Returns
No full textM.P.P.Climate change concerns have led governments to look for ways to transition to low-carbon economies. To finance the process, green bonds have emerged among corporations and governments as an option to fund and support projects that have positive environmental and climate effects. However, in Latin America, it is not clear how green bonds react to adverse financial shocks, whether the additional price investors have been willing to pay (greenium) remains under circumstances of adversity, and what could explain such abnormal returns. Using data from the Bloomberg Terminal from December 18th, 2014, to October 5th, 2022 and announcements of the Federal Open Market Committee, this thesis examines the abnormal returns of green bonds after increases of 25 basis points or more of the U.S. federal funds rate. A second step in my analysis is using a fixed-effects OLS regression to understand what could explain the cumulative abnormal returns. I find that, after increases of the federal fund rate, Latin American green bond yields remain lower than the market reference, showing that greenium holds. My analysis also shows that a country’s credit ratings and the share of renewable electricity production in its energy mix help to explain abnormal returns in countries with high credit rating, while they do not do a great job for countries with credit rating below BB
Provisions of Power: Food and Scarcity in Jamaica, 1730-1790
No full textPh.D.Concerns about food scarcity are a consistent theme in many of the records from eighteenth century Jamaica. During moments of crises seemingly unrelated to food and provisioning these concerns became even more prominent in the sources. Each human being needs food to survive, and yet their choices about what kinds of food are tasty and appropriate are both individual and reflective of cultural and societal norms. In eighteenth-century Jamaica residents of the island, free and enslaved, made choices about what kinds of food they would consume and under what circumstances. Frequently these choices led to a scarcity or perceived scarcity of food. These experiences of scarcity provide a common lens for understanding how people of different legal statuses reacted to the crises they encountered. Exploring what different groups of people chose to eat provides a new understanding of different approaches to military strategy during violent conflicts, as well as a means of contextualizing the responses that different residents of Jamaica had to natural disasters. The need for everyone to access food existed alongside planters’ economic choices to prioritize export crops over provisions. This tension between profit and survival allowed for food to become a tool of negotiation around which different Jamaican communities communicated. All these attributes make food scarcity a vital means of interpreting events on an island that was the economic hub of the growing eighteenth-century Atlantic world. This dissertation will therefore focus on three case studies, examining three different kinds of crises to see what impact these events had on how people fed themselves, as well as considering what choices they made when they were not faced to an acute local crisis.
Eighteenth-century Jamaica was a difficult place to survive in. Yet, those who did survive the brutal labor system, punishing disease environment, and frequent natural disasters participated in an exchange of sugar, wealth, and human beings that changed life for people across the globe. Understanding how these participants procured the food necessary for survival, and crucially, the barriers they created to doing so provides an unparalleled view of the cultural and social limits of the Jamaican imagination