Browsing by Author "Weiler, Stephan, advisor"
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Item Open Access Closing the growth gap: regional entrepreneurship growth in different regions of Vietnam(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2016) Pham, Chi L., author; Weiler, Stephan, advisor; Mushinski, David, committee member; Suter, Jordan, committee memberThis paper examines the effect of provincial growth factors on regional entrepreneurship growth in Vietnam by combining theoretical and empirical models. Separate regressions are run for 63 provinces of Vietnam across the time period of 2005 to 2013. The key findings are that the growth gap between the rich and the poor regions still exists, and the strongest growth factor affecting provincial entrepreneurship growth is the market growth. There is evidence of spillover effects which implies that new firms and/or the development of a province's factors may generate new entrepreneurial opportunities not only for the province itself but also for the neighboring regions.Item Open Access Determinants of small business lending(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2011) Kravchenko, Nataliia, author; Weiler, Stephan, advisor; Bernasek, Alexandra, committee member; Villupuram, Sriram, committee memberThe aim of this paper is to determine the factors that drive banks' decisions to provide loans to small informationally opaque enterprises. This paper combines three important aspects related to small business lending - asymmetry of information, bank efficiency, and regional economic performance - and hopes to establish the complex ties between them and understand how banks can use the information available for the benefit of SMEs, and ultimately regional growth.Item Open Access Economic essays on wildlife-aircraft conflict in the United States(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2019) Navin, Jordan, author; Weiler, Stephan, advisor; Anderson, Aaron, committee member; Pena, Anita, committee member; Kroll, Stephan, committee member; Mushinski, David, committee memberWildlife-aircraft conflict poses a substantial economic and safety threat in the United States (US). Dolbeer, Wright, Weller, Anderson, and Begier (2014) estimates direct costs related to wildlife strikes burdened the US economy by approximately $157 million annually between 1990 and 2014. In 1995, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) collaborated on a project with the United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Wildlife Services to investigate the magnitude and nature of the wildlife strike problem, ultimately resulting in the creation of the National Wildlife Strike Database (NWSD). However, reporting strikes (and associated information, such as repair costs) to the NWSD is not mandatory, and information used to calculate economic damage estimates from wildlife strikes in the US relies on voluntarily reported cost data. This dissertation focuses on the direct costs of wildlife strikes in the US and the associated disclosure behaviors of large domestic American airlines. Chapter 1 investigates the relationship between the likelihood of voluntary repair cost disclosure after a wildlife-strike event by such airlines and market competitiveness and idiosyncratic firm profits. Results show changes in competitiveness and profitability impact the voluntary disclosure of wildlife-strike repair costs by major US airlines to the NWSD. Chapter 2 similarly examines airline voluntary disclosure accuracy, employing emerging methods from economics and accounting literature that test the accuracy of self-reported data based on a statistical property exhibited by large datasets, known as Benford's Law (de Marchi & Hamilton, 2006; Dumas & Devine, 2000; Nigrini, 1996; Zahran, Iverson, Weiler, & Underwood, 2014). Analogous to Chapter 1, findings indicate the accuracy of repair costs American air carriers report to the NWSD is linked to market competition and profits. Chapter 3 relates to developing a method for interpolating missing repair costs in the NWSD using machine learning techniques. Results show that a neural network outperforms both linear regression and random forest models when predicting out-of-sample data, and furthermore, interpolating missing costs in the NWSD with a neural network delivers an average annual estimate of the direct costs of wildlife strikes in the US that is approximately $75 million, significantly less than prior estimates. Specifically, the neural network approach yields estimates $19 and $82 million lower, respectively, than when using mean cost assignment and Dolbeer et al. (2014)'s reported estimate derived using a variation of the same method.Item Open Access Entrepreneurship by gender: characteristics, financing, and growth(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2014) Conroy, Tessa, author; Weiler, Stephan, advisor; Bernasek, Alexandra, committee member; Mushinski, David, committee member; Thilmany, Dawn, committee memberWomen own less than one-third of firms in the United States, despite comprising nearly half of the labor force. The gender gap holds in most local areas, but analysis by county shows that there is significant variation in male- and female- business ownership across space. Though previous studies link entrepreneurial activity to several important regional characteristics, none consider how the impact of these characteristics, particularly the availability small business financing, might vary between men and women. Further, there has been little consideration for separate impacts of male- and female-owned firms on economic growth. Chapter one identifies the determinants of growth in the propensity for male- and female-owned firms and considers the relative importance of endowment and behavioral differences in explaining the gender gap in business ownership. The results indicate that there are significant endowment and behavioral differences between the male and female populations, particularly with regard to human capital accumulation. Human capital accumulation at the bachelor's degree level increases the propensity for male-owned firms, but the relationship between human capital accumulation and the propensity for female-owned firms forms an inverted "U." Counties with large shares of females at very low and very high education attainment have lower growth in the propensity for female-owned firms, and growth is highest in counties with a large share of female college graduates. Family structure is also a significant factor, shown by the negative effect of the number of children per adult, which is much stronger for males. A Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition demonstrates that though the effect of endowment differences is larger in absolute value, the behavioral differences captured by the coefficient effect, are key to alleviating the gender disparity in business ownership. Chapter two analyzes the impact of male- and female-owned firms on economic performance. The results show that counties with higher initial densities of male- and female-owned firms, generally have lower subsequent employment growth. More detailed analysis by employment status shows that male-owned employer firms have the strongest relationship to economic growth compared to female-owned employer firms and non-employer firms owned by either gender. Instrumental variable analysis using the historical mining industry addresses the potential endogeneity created by including births in the empirical model of employment growth. Chapter three focuses on capital as an especially important input to entrepreneurship, and ultimately, to economic growth. So far as bank loans are critical to the start-up, survival, and expansion of establishments, it is reasonable to expect spatial linkages between lending and establishment births as well as between lending and economic performance. This study examines the effect of small business loans based on Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) data and applies an instrumental variable strategy using money demand shocks to address potential endogeneity between lending and establishment births. Using an economic growth framework and cross-sectional empirical model for U.S. counties, we test the hypotheses that the establishment birth rate, employment growth, and our measure of entrepreneurship for each gender is higher in counties where bank financing is more available, controlling for community-level characteristics affecting business and economic dynamics. We also consider the long-term effect of small business lending and focus on establishing the appropriate lag structure. The results indicate that lending has a significant and positive effect on births that is strongest in rural and micropolitan counties. Second, increases in lending appear to have a weakly negative effect on employment growth. There is no effect of lending on entrepreneurship for either gender.Item Open Access Entrepreneurship, information, and economic growth(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2010) Bunten, Devin, author; Weiler, Stephan, advisor; Phillips, Ronnie J., 1951-, committee member; Zahran, Sammy J., committee memberThis thesis analyzes the impact of entrepreneurship on economic growth across US cities within a formal production function approach. Like previous analyses of economic growth--but unlike many studies of entrepreneurship--economic growth is measured in personal income per worker. The production function features three traditional inputs with a novel fourth: entrepreneurial capital. Entrepreneurship is a process of information revelation which produces a dynamic externality providing marketplace information to potential future market entrants, outside firms, lenders and others. Entrepreneurial capital measures the contribution of this information to economic growth. Multiple measurements of entrepreneurial capital are used, each emphasizing different aspects of the entrepreneurial environment. The statistical results support the views that entrepreneurship is a causal input to local economic growth, that the effects of entrepreneurship are geographically localized, and that the thicker markets of large cities.Item Open Access Essays on local economic development and social capital(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2024) Poerbonegoro, Anna Farina, author; Weiler, Stephan, advisor; Alves Pena, Anita, advisor; Zahran, Sammy, committee member; Suter, Jordan, committee memberCreative Sector activities and social capital are interconnected in the same spectrum of local economic development, even though is not always immediately apparent. The two are related in that social capital is a product of, and simultaneously a determinant for, the Creative Sector. The three essays in this dissertation address each component separately. The first two essays examine the Creative Sector, and the third focuses on social capital. Motivated by the increasing role of the role of Creative Sector as growth driver and the economic base approach, in Chapter 1 titled Role of Creative Initiatives in Economic Performance: Case Study on Colorado's Creative Districts and Main Street Communities I examine the influence of Colorado's place-based initiative / policy on economic performance. Two dependent variables are chosen to represent performance, namely Business Establishments and Net Job Creation. In addition, sectoral employment (the Creative Sector and NAICS sector 71 (Arts, Entertainment and Recreation) and employment in sectors outside of the two) are examined as a supplement; for the placed-based policy, Creative District Certification program and the Main Street Communities program are selected, along with a set of control variables and a set of interaction terms that signify co-existence of the two policies in any particular county. The data used in estimation is a panel dataset for Colorado's 64 counties in a ten-year period (2010 – 2019). Results indicate that both place-based initiatives affect business establishments but not their birth rates, but each influence is opposite direction; co-location of the two is also playing a role, which is positive in Urban areas but negative in Rural areas. Job creation is positively influenced by the MS Communities program in the Rural region but not by Creative District certification program. Creative Sector employment is slightly negatively influenced by the initiatives; in contrast, they do not influence employment in either Sector 71 or Other Sectors. The results suggest that the two initiatives are beneficial, but each for different types of counties. Chapter 2, titled Sectoral Employment Spillover in Colorado, focuses on spatial spillover effects of employment in two leading industrial sectors – namely the Arts, Recreation and Entertainment (NAICS 71 or Sector 71) and the Creative Sectors – on employment in Other Sectors in Colorado, based on the Economic Base Theory. The analysis is performed using county-level Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) data. The study aims at answering the question of whether sectoral employment in one county affects that in a neighboring county (in other words, whether spatial correlation exists). Moreover, the analysis also examines how sectoral employment (Creative Sector and Sector 71) in one county influences employment in sectors outside the two, in different counties; this is the employment spillover question. Two variations of model specifications are tested, examined spatially and non-spatially, using lagged variables in one model and lagged log variables in another. The result suggests that overall, the two sectoral employments do influence Other Employment, but the spatial spillover is not detected. More specifically, the Creative Sector is negatively associated with the next period's employment in Other Sectors in both models. However, the significance of Sector 71 employment's relationship with employment in Other Sectors depends on how it is modeled. Social Capital is discussed in Chapter 3, County Level Social Capital in Colorado. While social capital is acknowledged as being a fuzzy concept, it embeds both demand and supply side within itself. While the demand side typically addresses how social capital affects other dimensions in economics, Chapter 3 here focuses on the supply side, by inquiring how social capital at county level in Colorado is affected by various socio-economic aspects. The discussion covers various standpoints of social capital contexts and definitions that are indicative of the fuzziness of the concept itself. Empirically, I employ a quantitative measure of social capital in the form of an index portraying civic participation (developed by Rupasingha et al. (2006)). A short panel regression was performed using a series of explanatory variables (physical infrastructure, poverty, unemployment, personal and regional incomes, education, and an economic recession). The results indicate that poverty and economic shock have the tendency to reduce social capital in Colorado in the form of civic engagement particularly in Urban regions, while larger pool of the unemployed in the society indicates a positive relationship with civic participation. Physical infrastructure, proxied by new housing permits, is negatively associated with civic participation in all three regions.Item Open Access Institutions and structural transformations in the North American economy(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Walke, Adam Gregory, author; Weiler, Stephan, advisor; Vasudevan, Ramaa, advisor; Fremstad, Anders, committee member; Mumme, Stephen, committee memberIt is often asserted that secure property rights and legal frameworks conducive to the functioning of markets are essential institutional foundations of a capitalist economy. It is sometimes even claimed that they are preconditions of economic growth. Efforts to implement those institutions have, however, produced heterogeneous outcomes for different groups of people. This dissertation considers the effects of two waves of institutional change in North America: the nineteenth-century privatization and subsequent alienation of communal property in the United States and Mexico and the late-twentieth-century neoliberal reforms in Mexico. Both episodes contributed to profound structural transformations in the North American economy. In the process of shaping important aspects of the present capitalist economies of Mexico and the United States, the above-mentioned institutional changes resulted in land loss, dispossession, the destruction of traditional livelihoods and, for many people, insertion into labor markets on the lowest rungs, with reduced autonomy, and with little or no job security. The dissertation examines three cases of communal property privatization. First, it considers the effect of the 1887 Dawes General Allotment Act on American Indian migration using data from the 1930 U.S. Census. The results suggest that individuals who were likely to have lost land due to allotment had a higher propensity to migrate to cities and to other states. Second, historical literature is reviewed to understand how the privatization of communal property under Mexico's 1856 Lerdo Law exacerbated land loss and inequality. That episode inspired subsequent efforts to reverse the effects of privatization through the creation of a new form of communal property known as ejidos during and after the Mexican Revolution. Third, the consequences of 1992 constitutional reforms allowing the privatization of ejidos are considered. The main finding is that municipalities with larger relative declines in ejido and agrarian community membership (as a percentage of population) and more land sales to non-ejido-members experienced larger increases in income inequality. Mexico's 1992 ejido reforms were part of a broader set of neoliberal reforms aimed at seamlessly integrating the country into the North American and global economies. Trade and investment regulations were liberalized, which contributed to the spread of cross-border production sharing or "offshoring" arrangements in the manufacturing sector. The last section of the dissertation considers the effects of those arrangements on employment volatility. The main finding is that reliance on offshoring-related revenues generally had a large, positive impact on manufacturing-sector employment volatility in Mexico over the 2007 to 2020 period. In contrast, trade that was not related to offshoring had, at most, a weak impact on volatility. The main policy implication is that attracting jobs in the labor-intensive stages of transnational manufacturing production processes may entail the risk of increasing employment volatility.Item Open Access Land use restrictions and household transportation choice(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2016) Mueller, Andrew G., author; Shields, Martin, advisor; Weiler, Stephan, advisor; Mushinski, David, committee member; Leisz, Stephen, committee memberThe primary objective of the dissertation is to further existing research on the link between the built environment and travel behavior. The dissertation proposes to make this advance in two distinct ways. First, by testing the impact of land use regulation on travel behavior by incorporating zoning restrictions as an exogenous variable in the model. Second, by explicitly modeling spatial variation in the discrete choice of mode of transportation. The dissertation is organized into three chapters. The first develops a multinomial discrete choice model that addresses unobserved travel preferences by incorporating sociodemographic, built environment, and land use restriction variables. The second builds upon the first by explicitly modeling spatial dependence of travel mode choice in a and compares the results of models from the first and second chapters to address the effect of spatial dependence on travel behavior-built environment model estimates. The third reviews previous models and theories related to land use restrictions, and reviews the economic and policy implications of findings from the first two chapters.Item Open Access The effects of undocumented immigration on the employment opportunities of low skill natives in the United States(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2012) Schultz, Russell W., author; Shields, Martin, advisor; Weiler, Stephan, advisor; Pena, Anita, committee member; Davies, Stephen, committee memberThe economic effects of immigration have been well studied, but the majority of this research has not attempted to isolate the effects of undocumented immigration. Isolating this effect is a difficult task because dearth amounts of data exist for these individuals. This paper provides a substantial contribution to the economic impact of immigration for two reasons. First, it emulates a methodology adopted by notable immigrant demographers to generate annual state level estimates of the undocumented population between 1994 and 2010 in the United States. These estimates alone are very important to this topic because no other entity has attempted to accomplish this task. Secondly, this paper incorporates these estimates into a fixed effect dynamic model to capture the economic impact of undocumented immigrants on low skill native labor force participation rates (LFPR) and unemployment rates across the United States between 1994 and 2009. Overall, undocumented immigrants have a menial impact on the native low skill LFPR and do not affect low skill unemployment rates. Additionally, the methods used in this paper allow us to isolate the effects of documented immigrants on the same native low skill employment indicators. The results suggest that documented immigrants do not have a statistically significant effect to either low skill employment indicator, which is also an important conclusion.Item Open Access The local economic impact of demographic change(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2022) Landini, Austin, author; Pena, Anita, advisor; Weiler, Stephan, advisor; Mushinski, David, committee member; Coats, Jennifer, committee memberLittle research exists exploring the relationship over time between changes in demographic concentrations and economic outcomes such as tax, spending and income. Given the speed of demographic transformation in the United States over the past few decades, it is important for policymakers to understand the relationship between demographics and economic indicators, as well as potential mechanisms which may drive these relationships. The following dissertation research is divided into five chapters, with Chapters 1 and 5 introducing the topic and concluding, respectively. In Chapter 2, I argue that there is an endogenous relationship between demographic change and economic outcomes such as tax and expenditure per capita which is biasing previously published results. Taking into account the time impact of unobservable variables in Census data 1980-2010, Census Places which are becoming more diverse have lower tax and expenditure per capita. Because Census Places do not capture the entire US demographic landscape, especially in rural areas, Chapter 3 makes use of ACS 5-year estimates 2010-2019 to show that there is also a robust negative relationship between non-White composition and income per capita at the Census Tract level in Colorado. The fact that Census Places and Tracts which become more diverse over time suffer from reduced tax, expenditure and income per capita is an important consideration for public policymakers moving forward. Still, these results cannot be taken as causal and further research is warranted into mechanisms which may be driving this negative relationship in order to implement policies aimed at reducing residential segregation and inequality. Chapter 4 uses a voluntary contribution game embedded in a list survey to determine whether demographic information about a community could be altering individuals' willingness to contribute to public programs. In Chapter 2, I begin by commenting on a famous publication by Alesina, Baqir and Easterly (1999) which finds that the relationship at the Census Place level between race heterogeneity and tax/spending per capita is positive. That is, places with higher levels of race heterogeneity have higher levels of tax and spending, but lower spending on `productive' public goods such as road maintenance and sewerage in 1990 Census Data. I begin by iii reproducing similar results for the most recently available 2010 Census data, then arguing that these results are likely biased due to endogeneity. Unobserved variables such as bargaining power, culture, and political representation impact both demographic change and tax/spending over time. As a result, cross sectional results which do not incorporate the time impact of these unobserved variables are likely to be inaccurate. More recent economic literature, especially associated with Opportunity Insights, has produced an extensive analysis of individual-level outcomes given a place of birth. Chapter 3 shifts the unit of analysis from the individual to the place, using US Census Tracts. I argue that demographic change at the Tract level is occurring in predictable ways along racial and income lines. Tracts which increase their White Non-Hispanic population over time are becoming wealthier in terms of aggregate income and income per capita, while Tracts which increase in Minority population become less wealthy. This result suggests that policymakers may be able to combat inequality by understanding and responding to the mechanisms which drive demographic segregation. Individuals' support for public funds is a complex decision which is influenced by the information the respondent has about the public fund, its contributors, and its use. Individuals may be less willing to contribute to public projects if they perceive (correctly or incorrectly) that others will not contribute. Policymakers would like to understand what types of information are important factors in the contribution decision. Since perceptions and beliefs about the likeliness of others to contribute is a potentially sensitive question, respondents may choose not to answer questions about their beliefs and perceptions truthfully. This effect is known as social desirability bias. To combat social desirability bias, social scientists have in recent years employed the list survey experiment. Chapter 4 combines a list survey type experiment into a voluntary contribution game to examine perceptions about race which could underlay the negative relationship found in Chapters 2 and 3. I find that individuals do use demographic information to influence contribution to public funds, and that contribution levels are highest when the community which will benefit from the public fund is similar in race/ethnicity to that of the respondent. The results of this body of work suggest that the conflict and inefficiency hypothesis as presented in the literature is flawed. That is, lower public goods spending in diverse areas is not produced by mismanagement of available funds, but rather by a dearth of funds available. Nonetheless, there are elements of residential preference and voting behavior which could be driving observed differences in public goods spending and quality by creating residential segregation which perpetuates economic inequality.Item Open Access Three essays in cultivating regional growth: brownfields and charter schools(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Trouw, Michael Frans, author; Weiler, Stephan, advisor; Pena, Anita Alves, committee member; Zahran, Sammy, committee member; Lopes, Tobin, committee memberThis dissertation is comprised of three chapters focused on two important factors in cultivating regional growth. The first factor considered in chapter one is potential barriers to contaminated land reuse. As cities and towns grow, over time the stock of land within an area can be impacted by prior land use. A property which currently has a contamination issue from prior use which must be remedied before the land may be used in the future, whether for production or settlement, is called a brownfield. In this chapter we employ a survey of real estate professionals, and find developers require an additional risk premium on top of their normal rate of return on investment to incentivize them to invest in a brownfield. Importantly, this risk premium is found to be in excess of cleanup costs. Informed by the results of the survey analysis, a theoretical framework is used to explore the implications of this risk premium. We show this risk premium generated by information asymmetries potentially leads to inefficiency in the market for real estate and can perpetuate a cycle of underdevelopment due to a first mover problem. The redevelopment of this land is important, as these brownfield properties are typically located in the urban core of cities and towns and if not remediated can leave potentially productive swaths of land fenced off while expansion occurs in a sprawling manner on the fringes. The second factor in cultivating regional growth considered in chapters two and three of this dissertation is the role of educational alternatives. Specifically, I focus on the determinants of charter school formation and growth. Education quality and availability has been shown to be important in determining economic growth and migration patterns. Specifically, a strong education system can be viewed as an amenity to households and firms debating moving to a particular locale. Charter schools are publicly funded, privately run institutions crafted first as a pilot program for innovation, and more recently as a substitute or competitor for public schools. While the efficacy of charter schools has been heavily researched and remains controversial, little work has focused on the determinants of demand for the schools themselves. Chapter two builds on a small existing literature to provide light on what factors outside of direct measures of educational quality affect the creation rate of charter schools. Using a panel of core based statistical areas over the period 2006-2015, this analysis finds evidence that the composition of industry within a Core Based Statistical Area is related to the rate at which new charter schools are created, with more technical employment associated with a greater demand for alternative school options. The connection between industry and charter school creation is further explored by measuring the impact of intra-industry entrepreneurship on charter school proliferation, where findings suggest that higher levels of entrepreneurship within an CBSA is correlated with a higher charter school formation rate. Chapter three further explores the connection between charter schools and their interconnectivity with the broader economy. Posed as a method of returning education to the private market, charter schools are considered to be more exposed to market conditions, potentially more nimble to changing conditions and methodologies, but also potentially functioning in a more volatile market where school closings can occur more easily. This chapter uses the impact of the 2007 financial crisis to determine if charter schools were impacted differently than public schools. Using a nationally representative sample and aggregating to the Core Based Statistical Area, I find both traditional public and charter schools experienced small decreases in revenue but were largely sheltered from recessionary forces due to Federal intervention. Using a difference-in-differences approach I find that charter schools experienced both an increased rate of openings and an increase in the stock during the Great Recession. I attribute this effect to the decreased opportunity cost of charter school entrepreneurship. However, areas most affected by the Great Recession experienced a decrease in the stock of charter schools, as the challenges associated with opening a new school likely increased and lowered the viability relative to education entrepreneur's next best venture.Item Open Access Three essays in regional economics: migration, regional portfolio theory, resilience, and agglomeration economies(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Care, Jonathan Charles, author; Weiler, Stephan, advisor; Braunstein, Elissa, committee member; Alves Pena, Anita, committee member; Thilmany, Dawn, committee memberCities and counties are dynamic entities that experience constant change, generated from both local and external forces. Some locations are rich in natural amenities, others are powerhouses of manufacturing or provide a rich level of services and quality of life to their citizens. Each location maintains a unique set of characteristics that makes it appealing to a given slice of the population and set of business enterprises. Understanding these characteristics and patterns of migration is a substantial focus in the field of regional economics. Researchers attempt to enhance our understanding by examining this phenomenon through a number of different lenses. Some have examined flows to the largest cities in the country and tried to uncover the underlying reasons for the unique advantages these metropolitan areas possess. Others have examined various measures of risk and reward to see which cities or counties outshine their competitors. Still others attempt to measure the appeal of regions by quantifying their natural amenities or investigating their resilience to negative economic events. Recent global events have brought understanding a number of these regional performance topics to the forefront of both academic and mainstream interest. This dissertation examines several aspects of regional economics with an aim to move the conversation forward along several tracks. The first chapter explores the contribution of regional employment portfolio risk and return measures in a case study of county level migration into Colorado. The level of employment data used in the construction of the employment portfolio measures is varied to see which level of aggregation best contributes to the understanding of migration flows. The results show that the employment portfolio composition of a county does play a role in attracting migrants and highlight interesting findings on economy-wide risk versus individual potential returns. Additionally, we find evidence of labor pooling and agglomeration effects for Colorado's largest counties. A lack of cohesion and consistency across sector-level measures of risk and return suggests that local governments should focus on creating a stable overall business environment, rather than attempting to focus on specific sectors. The second chapter discusses the concept of economic resilience and how it complements discussions relating to regional economic growth. A total of seven models are tested, split between two different formulations of measuring resilience. Testing is performed to identify a set of independent variables that robustly contribute as explanatory determinants of resilience. The results identify several determinants of resilience that are robust across different definitions of economic resilience and provide insights that can be used by local policy makers when considering the tradeoffs between balancing growth and resilience. The chapter ends with a discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of existing measures of resilience and the advantages of future work in this area. The final chapter of the dissertation examines the dual, decades-long decline in both migration rates and the level of economic dynamism within the United States. Specifically, the role of information generated by the churn of resources through the economy is explored within the context of county and metropolitan statistical area (MSA) in-migration rates. The difference in average annual in-migration rates is also examined using a three-fold Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition. This study finds that locally generated information on dynamism does contribute to the decision of whether to migrate. In particular, the findings show a unique role for information gained from regional dynamism when considering migration to smaller metropolitan areas, likely resulting from the more homogeneous identity these regions maintain, in comparison to larger, more multi-faceted, metropolitan areas. The overarching goal of this work is to contribute to the literature on why individuals choose to live where they do. The topics examined over the course of this dissertation permeate several veins of the regional economic literature. However, they all work together in the service of the question "what makes a place attractive to in-migrants?" This is accomplished by looking at the risks and returns to regional employment portfolios, the degree to and speed with which regions rebound from recessions, and how information generated by the churn of resources through the economy helps in the decision to migrate. These topics represent three of the drivers among the broad portfolio of factors regional economics utilizes to try and understand behavior within a country.Item Open Access Three essays in regional growth, distribution, and resilience(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2019) Kacher, Nicholas J., author; Weiler, Stephan, advisor; Bernasek, Alexandra, committee member; Shields, Martin, committee member; Thilmany, Dawn, committee memberThis work delves into two significant but less understood topics in regional labor economics. The first contribution is to growing literature examining the effects of business dynamism on regional resilience. Significant attention has, understandably, been paid to understanding why the impact of and recovery from the 2008 recession has varied across regions. Chapters 1 and 2 extend to the question of regional resilience a hypothesis that gross rates of local establishment openings, or "churn," may affect local economic performance over a business cycle. In the US, higher-churn areas are found to experience faster average employment growth over the decade spanning the recession, but with more cyclical volatility. Churn is not positively correlated with median household income growth or poverty reduction at a county level. A novel cross-country analysis reveals that in the UK, local authorities with higher churn prior to the recession did weather the financial crisis slightly better, although data limitations restrict the direct comparability between the US and UK cases. Chapter 3 turns to the growth of self-employment in the US, motivated by two observations: first, that growth in the self-employment share has been regionally heterogeneous; and second, that theory suggests workers in wage-and-salary occupations exert limited agency over their working hours. This paper investigates whether average local working hours influence subsequent changes in the county self-employment share. I find a U-shaped relationship between working hours and self-employment growth: counties with working hours furthest from the mean experienced the fastest growth in local self-employment share, adding a new wrinkle to the running debate over whether the "gig economy" is driven by opportunity or necessity.Item Open Access Three essays on invasive species management and risk(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2018) Chomphosy, William Haden, author; Weiler, Stephan, advisor; Shwiff, Stephanie, committee member; Anderson, Aaron, committee member; Iverson, Terry, committee member; Suter, Jordan, committee memberInvasive alien species (IAS) threaten global biodiversity, ecological services, and economic welfare. Over the past several decades, these growing consequences have seen broader analysis of the determinants and consequences of, as well as responses to, this environmental hazard. This dissertation employs theoretical and empirical tools, demonstrating the role of economics in the management of invasive species. The first and second chapters analyze the effect of research investment as a component of management strategy for IAS population reduction using a continuous time dynamic optimization model. Chapter 3 exploits the historical occurrence of World War I and its impact on international trade to study invasive species risk as a global externality of military conflict and geopolitical institutional shift.Item Open Access Three essays on regional economic development(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2022) Deming, Kristopher, author; Weiler, Stephan, advisor; Barbier, Edward, committee member; Pena, Anita, committee member; Thilmany, Dawn, committee memberThis dissertation explores factors that contribute to regional economic growth. The first two chapters focus on one of the key drivers of regional economic growth: entrepreneurship. In the first two chapters I examine how the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) contributes to entrepreneurship. Chapter 1 focuses on the labor demand side of regional entrepreneurship, finding the introduction of state EITC policies reduces the number of new establishments and the number of establishment expansions relative to counties in states without such a policy. In Chapter 2, at the individual level, I find that increasing the amount of the EITC increases the likelihood that the child of the credit recipient becomes a business owner as an adult. The third chapter focuses directly on what caused economic growth in Pre-Colonial India. I propose that the introduction of a New World crop, a form of an agricultural productivity shock, caused economic growth in India. I find that the introduction of maize did contribute to economic growth in Pre-Colonial India.Item Embargo Three essays regarding the impacts of legalization of marijuana on housing and historical population theory(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2022) Rasmussen, Jorgen August Skriver, author; Weiler, Stephan, advisor; Pena, Anita Alves, committee member; Pressman, Steven, committee member; Schaller, Zachary, committee member; Burkhardt, Jesse, committee memberChapter 2 looks at the novel question of whether legal marijuana dispensaries' insufficient access to banking institutions has affected home prices in Denver County, Colorado. Presently, little research exists regarding legalized marijuana's impact on home prices in Colorado. Yet such research suggests legalization positively affects such prices (Burkhardt & Flyr, 2019) (Cheng, et al., 2018) (Conklin, et al., 2020). However, mechanisms by which marijuana legalization might affect home prices are not investigated. It is well-established that banks are unable and unwilling to do business with state-legalized marijuana dispensaries (Hudak, 2020). Hence, we hypothesize that dispensaries are investing cash in the housing market. We avail ourselves of tried-and-true hedonic modeling for such analysis. In so doing, we discover a statistically significant positive correlation between the quantity of recreational marijuana revenue generated and home prices in Denver County, Colorado. Our research is novel both in its thoroughness and accuracy of the data employed. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to utilize historically accurate housing characteristics and unique economic controls in the analysis of marijuana and home prices in Denver, Colorado (Burkhardt & Flyr, 2019) (Cheng, et al., 2018) (Conklin, et al., 2020). Additionally, our study appears to represent the first consideration of implications arising from the juxtaposition of state vs. federal legal status of marijuana. As such, our research holds insights for policymakers. Chapter 3 resumes our investigation of the possible implications of legalized marijuana for housing. Specifically, Denver County home resale probabilities and any associations they might have with marijuana revenue generated. Research has presented evidence that there exists a distinct possibility of dispensaries investing in the Denver housing market (Cheng, et al., 2018) (Rasmussen, 2021). Navarro (2013) and Seefried (2019) suggest that if dispensaries are purchasing houses, it may be for money laundering purposes. However, there is reason to believe that dispensaries have incentives to retain purchased homes for either legitimate rental purposes or more nefarious grow house uses (Schaub, 2016) (Snowden, 2020). To investigate such possibilities, we employ both logit and probit probability models. Such models are used to determine any potential association between changing amounts of legal marijuana revenue and Denver home resale probabilities. We find a statistically significant rise in property resale rates associated with increased recreational marijuana revenue. Thus, our results fit the type of money laundering activity discussed by Navarro (2013) and Seefried (2019). Consideration of the impacts of the legalization of marijuana on home resale probabilities appears absent in the literature. Thus, our work has import for policymakers. In particular, there are implications for affordable housing availability. Together with Cheng, et al. (2018) and Rasmussen (2021), our findings bode ill for Denver County affordable housing. This is especially true as marijuana demand continues to grow while banking access remains largely absent. Our final chapter considers the Marquis de Condorcet's six assumptions on population growth. Such a model of population development is presented in Esquisse d'un Tableau Historique des Progress de L'Esprit Humain. In addition, we examine the original principles and outcomes of the Malthusian population model. Such an undertaking is done to discover what conclusion Malthus' model would arrive at had the views of Condorcet been incorporated. Another important aspect of our work is investigating why Malthus's essay disagreed with the Marque de Condorcet's propositions on population. Finally, we conclude our efforts by examining empirical and historical scholarly inquiry regarding which of the population models history favored. To our knowledge, only the work of Winch (1996) comes close to our investigation. However, Winch (1996) presents a hypothetical meeting of Malthus and Condorcet, intended to discuss general differences and common ground these men possessed. However, Winch (1996) fails to consider implications for the Malthusian population model of Condorcetian population theory. Thus, our research is innovative in discovering Malthus as a man of his times and Condorcet as a scryer of the distant future of population growth.Item Embargo Two essays on entrepreneurship, bankruptcy and employment concentration, and a detour on homelessness(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2024) Correas, Ignacio Maria, author; Weiler, Stephan, advisor; Alves Pena, Anita, committee member; Bernasek, Alexandra, committee member; Bajtelsmit, Vickie, committee memberThis doctoral thesis is composed of two chapters that attempt to explain some of the causes for the decline of entrepreneurship in the United States since the late 1980s, and a third chapter the motivation for which arose while researching the other two. Chapter one looks at the laws protecting certain assets from repossession in the event of personal bankruptcy and their possible influence on entrepreneurship. As the US Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the raison d'être behind the bankruptcy statutes is to provide individuals with an unencumbered "fresh-start" in life, and that this is done both to promote entrepreneurship and for "humanitarian reasons", it was only logical to follow up this chapter with another one exploring whether bankruptcy exemptions indeed offer some relief from destitution. This became the second chapter in this dissertation. Lastly, the third chapter circles back to the topic of entrepreneurship and looks at whether the concentration of economic activity (particularly employment) in larger enterprises, as is the case with the US labor market when compared to other OECD countries, has an effect on new business creation. As stated, chapter one looks at how the changes in personal bankruptcy laws from 1986 to 2017 influence entrepreneurship. There are two components of the bankruptcy law explored in this section: its debt forgiveness or "fresh start" provision, and the protection from repossession that it extends to certain personal asset categories. The paper finds that the implementation of the 2005 BAPCPA law restricting access to debt discharge during bankruptcy was the most detrimental to entrepreneurship of the two, being strongly associated with a decrease in firm creation. Asset exemptions from repossession have an impact on entrepreneurship also, and larger (inflation adjusted) protections are paradoxically linked to fewer start-ups in general. However, this chapter also finds that immediately following a statutory increase in the exemption amounts there is a transitory rise in firm creation which only lasts for two years. The final verdict is that when it comes to personal bankruptcy law, it is debt forgiveness that encourages entrepreneurship; property protections offer at best a temporary boost to new firm creation but are in general detrimental to it. Alas, and since humanitarian reasons have historically and legally been recognized as a second premise for the US personal bankruptcy law, might asset protections during bankruptcy at least help in this regard? The second chapter in this dissertation thus looks at the connection between the rate of homelessness in a state and the bankruptcy laws applicable to that state from 2007 to 2017. More generous homestead exemptions are surprisingly found to be associated with a significant increment in the rate of homelessness that is between 26 and 30 per 100,000 people. The wildcard exemption on the other hand (which can be used for any asset category) has an opposite effect: a one percent increment in its amount, when measured as a percentage of median household income, lowers homelessness by 219 to 230 individuals for every 100,000 people. Traditional economic indicators such as growth in per-capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) have the foreseeable impact on homelessness, which is in fact not as strong as that of the asset protections: each one percent increase in GDP per-capita lowers homelessness by roughly 2 people per 100,000. Surprisingly, protections shielding filers from having their homes being taken away during bankruptcy are associated with increases in homelessness, whereas similar safeguards applicable to any asset, although comparatively smaller in amount, are effective in reducing it. The last chapter in this dissertation goes back to the topic of entrepreneurship, and explores the effect that workforce concentration in large employers, regardless of their nature, may have on new firm creation. As such the paper serves as a test of the 'Chinitz's hypothesis of agglomeration being the catalyst for local economic dynamics, and it is new in its approach in that it looks at total general employment in a given area (instead of focusing on particular industries), and because it takes into consideration the share of the workforce in large employers both in the private and the public sectors. The analysis uses economic and demographic data at the county level; given the possibility of feedback effects between the variables measuring the share of the workforce in large employers and the creation of new business, an instrumental variable approach is utilized for estimation. The findings in this last chapter confirm the Chinitz hypothesis, while also considering the effect of public sector employment on the private economy: concentration of the workforce in large employers, regardless of their nature, is determined to be a crucial driver for the local economy as it relates to entrepreneurship and is in fact deleterious to firm creation. The evidence from these three essays suggests that bankruptcy debt forgiveness fosters entrepreneurship, but asset exemptions from repossession and employment concentration in large organizations negatively affect it. However, exemptions allowing a would-be filer to shield any item of their choice from repossession, even if they are modest in amount compared to other exemption categories, help in reducing homelessness. After all, people do need boots if they are to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, as Dr Martin Luther King once noted.