Master of Arts / Department of Economics / Tracy M. Turner / This report provides a summary of the state of wind energy in the United States, the policy instruments used to encourage renewable energy and the research finding on the benefits of wind energy. It provides insight from a Texas case study, as well as international perspectives. Renewable and non-renewable energy sources are defined and compared. The report discusses the negative environmental impacts of conventional power generation, in contrast to lack of emissions from renewable power. Background information on U.S. energy consumption and climate change are provided. The primary policies used to promote renewable energy, which apply to wind power, are explained. The economic theory behind the relationship of subsidies and externalities is explained, as well as the implications that firm profit-maximization has on market outcomes. This report finds that the benefits derived from wind energy production and the promoting policies outweigh the costs associated with them.

My argument about NATO’s future is a combination of both neo-realist and constructivist thought, an adaptation of both neo-realist power struggles and constructivist institutional structures. Due to a lack of a significant threat, NATO will collapse as a military alliance. However, due to the longevity of the Trans-Atlantic Relationship, the similarities in the governmental structure of its members and the history of peaceful interactions between the allies on both sides of the Atlantic, the current “security community” will remain despite the collapse of the military aspects of the Alliance. NATO has been held together through organizational inertia and shifting the unifying threat to a variety of lesser threats. Nevertheless, the weakness of the new threat will be insufficient in maintaining the Alliance. This argument is supported through three different period analyses of NATO. The first is an analysis of NATO in the Cold War and an overview of its creation as an answer to the threat of the Soviet Union. The second delves into the Alliance after the Cold War and the reasons for NATO’s continuation. The third section outlines NATO’s current missions, issues, and tensions within the Alliance. The paper concludes that NATO will fall apart in the future, with a slow but sure break down of the military structures of the Alliance. It will, however, remain a political entity due to the strength of the security community created between the allies.

This thesis discusses the relationship between space (physical and figurative) and sovereign power, with respect to the history of the United States' immigration and boundary policy. It examines spatial organization as a social product, and simultaneously a producer of mainstream associations of illegal activity at the border with Mexico. It begins with a brief introduction to a spatially informed analytical framework, a history of relevant United States' immigration policy. The paper then uses newspaper coverage from the 1970s and 1980s to examine the local and national rise of xenophobia in the United States, and the normalization of boundary control and associated illegality. The socio-spatial evaluation of federal policy and public sentiment culminates with a discussion of the border policies developed by the United States Border Patrol in the early 1990s. The strategy introduced focused on preventing immigration by deterring migrants from the attempt. This plan was necessarily spatial in nature as it sought to displace migrants from ideal crossing spaces to sites vulnerable to capture by the Border Patrol. Ultimately, the history of the United States boundary with Mexico demonstrates the power of controlling a territory, and controlling a social narrative.

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[pt] Nós mostramos que um fator político que explora a variação cross-section em retornos individuais de ações pode prever o resultado de eleições nacionais, incluindo o ganho líquido de assentos no congresso e o presidente. Usando eleições presidenciais dos Estados Unidos desde 1928, nós também encontramos que esse portfolio long-short construído ao redor da eleição entrega informação sobre aprovação presidencial por um longo período depois da eleição. / [en] We show that a political factor that exploits cross-sectional variation in individual stock returns can forecast national election results, including net House seat gains and the president. Using US presidential elections since 1928, we also find that this long-short portfolio constructed around the election period delivers information on presidential approval for a long period after the election.