<p>Unpredictable schedules, low pay and poor treatment are all too often central characteristics of the types of employment post-secondary students are able to find. Coupled with rising tuition many students face increased pressure to balance paid employment with their studies. The largest proportion of working students are found in the retail, hospitality and food services industries, where employer demands for flexibility are high. This thesis aims to understand how student working conditions affect their ability to pursue their education. The study posits the question as to whether the employment 'opportunities' available to students, where scheduling demands are high, risk affecting the very education they are working to pursue. How then do students navigate the difficult decision about whether to seek out paid employment or rely on student loans? The thesis also works to briefly examine if and how neo-liberal restructuring has exasperated conditions for student workers.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

Bachelor of Arts (BA)

This dissertation is a cultural biography of merchant banker Stephen Girard that explores the origins of the mythology as well as the mechanics of capitalism as it functioned on the streets and in the homes of early national Philadelphia. By tracing changes in Stephen Girard's family, both traditional and improvisational, from the 1770s to his death in 1831 and beyond, this project examines how Girard repeatedly capitalized on his family to take commercial risks, reinventing what family meant in a transforming economy. Telling overlapping stories of Girard's family and businesses, including trade networks reaching from Europe, the Caribbean, and China to the United States, I argue that an Atlantic-American culture of capitalism developed at the intersection of the family and the market. Episodes that show the salience and limits of familial bonds in a turbulent economy include Girard's risky commercial strategies during the American Revolution that relied on his brother in Saint-Domingue, and tenuous rationalities of the market and marriage that collided when his wife supposedly went insane. After his public involvement in Philadelphia's yellow fever epidemics of the 1790s, Girard learned that institutions could do the work of families. Applying this lesson to the national political economy, Girard refashioned the Bank of the United States into the Bank of Stephen Girard and lent the U.S. Treasury over one million dollars to help fund the War of 1812. Well before his death in 1831, Girard was one of the wealthiest men in the nation. His will altered the shape and flow of Philadelphia, with repercussions for inheritance and corporate law through the twentieth century. By juxtaposing Girard's personal and public lives, this dissertation integrates scholarship on the market economy with that on gender and the family to better understand the expansion of a culture of capitalism in the early American Republic. Under capitalism, people and relationships were fungible in new and important ways. In telling the story of Stephen Girard, this dissertation follows a central, but overlooked, player in the early American and Atlantic economy in order to explain the paradoxical relationship between capitalism and liberty. / History

El avance que tuvo lugar en la teoría económica a lo largo de estos últimos años permite el análisis de la dinámica entre las esferas política y económica. Un estudio interesante es el pertinente a las instituciones políticas y su potencial influencia sobre el diseño e implementación de las políticas económicas conducentes al crecimiento económico. Simultáneamente, el análisis estructural permite un análisis desde una faceta complementaria. El institucionalismo y el análisis estructural se conjugan de este modo para el análisis de las condiciones del crecimiento. Por tiempo, el crecimiento se ha considerado un proceso embebido en factores puramente económicos. En la teoría tradicional se asumía que el proceso es el resultado de la implementación de las políticas adecuadas. Sin embargo, la realidad pone de manifiesto que los países no siempre implementan las políticas adecuadas o que, de hacerlo, los resultados observados presentan una clara desviación de los resultados esperados. Asimismo, se puede agregar un tercer punto, el de la implementación de políticas sub óptimas desde el punto de vista del bienestar del largo y muy largo plazo. De las investigaciones sistemáticas se desprende que las instituciones no serían inocuas, instituciones que no sólo conciernen a las formas de gobierno sino también a las reglas que hacen al sistema partidario, la relación entre los poderes y, en los últimos años, se ha incluído a las instituciones del poder Ejecutivo en los sistemas presidencialistas. Diversos estudios empíricos afirman la relación existente entre los sistemas políticos y económicos, dejando al descubierto un feed back entre ambas esferas. De allí, se observa un riesgo potencial entre las instituciones y las políticas desde que la interacción entre ambas esferas determinaría muchas veces los resultados. Sin embargo, la dinámica entre instituciones y políticas económicas es compleja porque existe una elevada correlación entre ambas. Asimismo, las instituciones cambian lentamente mientras que las políticas tienden a comportarse con variabilidad significativa en el tiempo. De este modo, ha surgido un conjunto de conocimiento denominado Political Economy, un área fronteriza entre la economía, la ciencia política y algunas otras disciplinas. Subyacente en la disciplina se halla la noción de la no automaticidad de los procesos sociales y, en particular, la no independencia del sistema económico. En este contexto, el objetivo de este trabajo de investigación es analizar la incidencia de las instituciones políticas sobre los resultados económicos, con especial énfasis en el proceso del crecimiento económico. Según lo expuesto, la complejidad de los temas amerita un tratamiento exhaustivo de la problemática considerada. Por lo tanto, el trabajo se desarrolla a lo largo de ensayos independientes, cada uno concerniente con tópicos específicos de Political Economy. En términos generales, los resultados indicarían que la calidad institucional tendría un impacto significativo en la performance económica de un país; las instituciones débiles impedirían el crecimiento y subvertirían la implementación y estabilidad de firmes políticas macroeconómicas. En este contexto, y dada la performance económica de los países latinoamericanos, surge la necesidad de ahondar en las investigaciones para comprender las causas últimas del fenómeno del crecimiento. / The progress which took place in economic theory in recent years allows the analysis of the dynamics between the political and economic spheres. An interesting study is pertinent to the political institutions and their potential influence on the design and implementation of economic policies conducive to economic growth. Simultaneously, structural analysis enables an analysis from a matching side. Thus, the institutionalism and structural analysis are combined for the analysis of the conditions of growth. For a time, growth has been considered a process embedded in just economic factors. In the traditional theory it was assumed that the process is the result of the implementation of the proper policies. However, actually the countries do not always implement appropriate policies or that, in doing so, the results presents a clear deviation from the expected results. Also there’s a third point, the implementation of sub optimal policies from the point of view of the long and very long term well-being. Systematic investigations point out that the institutions would not be harmless; institutions concern not only the forms of Government but also the rules of the party system, the relationship between the branchs of government and, in recent years, it has been included the institutions of executive power in presidencialist systems. Various empirical studies assert the relationship between political and economic systems, revealing a feed back between them. So, there exists a potential risk between the institutions and policies since the interaction among both spheres may determine the results many times. However, the dynamics between institutions and economic policies is complex because there is a high correlation among them. Also, institutions change slowly while policies tend to experiment significant variability through time. In this way, a set of knowledge has emerged, a set called Political Economy, a border area between the economics, political science and some others disciplines. Underlying in the discipline is the notion of the non automaticity of social processes and, in particular, the non independence of the economic system. In this context, the objective of this research is to analyze the incidence of political institutions on economic performance, with special emphasis on the process of economic growth. According to the above, the complexity or the issues warrants a thorough treatment of the considered problems. Therefore the work is developed throughout independent essays, each concerned with specific topics of Political Economy. In general terms, the results would indicate that the institutional quality would have a significant impact on the economic performance of a country; weak institutions would prevent the growth and may disturb not only the implementation but also the stability of well-built macroeconomic policies. In this context, and given the economic performance of Latin American countries, arises the need to delve into the research to understand the root causes of the phenomenon of the economic growth.

The Inflation Reduction Act has allocated over $369 billion to expedite the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. Along with these incentives, the funds support job training initiatives, like the recently introduced American Climate Corps. The transition to new energy forms will result in structural changes in the labor market and the demand for new and emerging skills, tasks, and jobs. A challenge, however, is that there are no existing definitions of what constitutes green jobs and skills, and thus, no clear consensus on the training workers will need for these jobs. This dissertation employs a data-driven approach using the Occupational Information Network to define and characterize green tasks, skills, and jobs. Using Natural Language Processing, we develop a method to quantify the "greenness'' of tasks and occupations. Utilizing this index, we explore the significant role of green skills during economic transitions. Our findings offer a comprehensive roadmap for understanding the evolution of green jobs and skills over the next decade. This dissertation comprises three chapters analyzing the tasks, skills, and jobs in the green economy. The first chapter investigates what constitutes green jobs and their characteristics. We construct "Task Greenness Scores" and "Occupational Green Potential" indices using Natural Language Processing and machine learning techniques to assess the greenness of tasks and overall occupations. Clustering methods categorize occupations based on task attributes -- green potential, frequency, importance, and relevance, identifying five distinct groups. This classification reveals significant variability in job greenness; although many jobs incorporate green tasks, only 113 occupations are definitively categorized as green. These are further divided into "High Green Intensity-Task Focus" and "High Green Intensity-Use Focus" groups, with the latter typically requiring less formal education and emphasizing manual skills over analytical or interactive skills. Our analysis also indicates a modest overall unconditional green wage premium of 3% for 2019 and 2020. The second chapter delineates green skills and maps their prevalence across the U.S., focusing on coal-mining communities in Appalachia. We sort a variety of skills into categories reflecting task and skill differences between green and non-green occupations, identified through O*NET. Principal Component Analysis helps categorize these into broader green skill groups such as "Technical Skills", "Management Skills", "Science Knowledge", and "Integrated Knowledge". The prevalence of green skills is notable in production-related occupations, suggesting essential technical expertise for the green economy. Interestingly, sectors traditionally viewed as energy-intensive also show a foundation conducive to green practices. Our findings highlight the necessity of tailored training programs that cater to diverse educational backgrounds, particularly emphasizing the lack of green skills in Appalachian regions, which may exacerbate inequalities during the economic transition. The third chapter examines the mediating role of green skills in local labor markets amidst the transition to a sustainable and energy-efficient economy. This chapter informs policy debates on large-scale green fiscal plans of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. We discover that regions well-prepared for environmental regulations or new energy development benefit from a robust stock of green skills. However, our analysis suggests that green ARRA investments are negatively correlated with wages and job creation, contrasting with positive correlations found in non-green ARRA investments. This chapter concludes that green skills significantly influence labor market outcomes, particularly in the manufacturing sector, and highlights the spillover effects of green stimulus on neighboring labor markets. / Doctor of Philosophy / This dissertation examines jobs, tasks, and skills in the green economy which promotes renewable energy and environmental sustainability. The transition to renewable energy requires new skills and tasks, but there is no clear definition of what constitutes green jobs and skills, nor an understanding of their distribution across occupations, industries, and geographic regions. This study uses a data-driven approach to construct an index that quantifies, defines, and characterizes green tasks, skills, and jobs. Overall, this dissertation provides a comprehensive analysis of green jobs and skills, offering insights into the evolving labor market and the necessary training programs to support this transition. The first chapter identifies what makes a job green and categorizes occupations based on their green potential. The analysis reveals significant variability in job greenness and shows that while many jobs include green tasks, only a small number are definitively green, with a modest wage premium for green jobs. The second chapter maps the distribution of green skills across the U.S., with a focus on coal-mining communities in Appalachia. It highlights the technical expertise required for green jobs and the need for tailored training programs to address skill gaps, particularly in regions like Appalachia. The third chapter explores the mediating role of green skills in labor market outcomes during the transition to a sustainable economy. It finds that regions with a strong stock of green skills fare better under environmental regulations and new energy development. Green investments from the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act show mixed effects on wages and job creation compared to non-green investments.

yes / This article supports growing calls to ‘take small states seriously’ in the international political economy but questions prevailing interpretations that ‘smallness’ entails inherent qualities that create unique constraints on, and opportunities for, small states. Instead, we argue that discourses surrounding the ‘inherent vulnerability’ of small states, especially developing and less-developed states, may produce the very outcomes that are attributed to state size itself. By presenting small states as a problem to be solved, vulnerability discourses divert attention away from the existence of unequal power structures that, far from being the natural result of smallness, are in fact contingent and politically contested. The article then explores these themes empirically through discussion of small developing and less-developed states in the Commonwealth and the World Trade Organization (WTO), considering in particular how smallness has variously been articulated in terms of what small states either cannot or will not do.

yes / This themed section takes as its starting point the premise that the body matters in International Political Economy (IPE) and presents four original articles which support and illustrate this ontologically critical and, perhaps, provocative position. Although feminist scholarship has undoubtedly gained a place at the table in IPE, it is curious that one of the most important concerns, and contributions, of feminist IPE – that global capitalism is marked upon, and forged through, bodies – has not emerged as a major preoccupation for the discipline more broadly. In what follows we present what we believe is a strong corrective to that inattention and, in so doing we hope to begin to set out an exploratory agenda for the body to be both foundational and fundamental to contemporary IPE.

no / In a growing number of countries diplomatic systems are being overhauled so that the commercial activities of diplomatic services have been centralised, the commercial activities of diplomats have been extended, and business interests have been formally integrated within diplomatic systems. These changes result directly from the tendency of governments to reorganise, and in many cases merge, their trade and foreign ministries, as well as the strategy of building formal business–government links within diplomatic institutions. While none of these features is unfamiliar to previous diplomatic systems, what is exceptional is the relative neglect of the commercial aspects of diplomacy within diplomatic studies. This lack of attention to the commercial and business elements of diplomacy in traditional theories of diplomacy means that we find ourselves trying to analyse contemporary changes to diplomatic organisation and practice without a suitable conceptual and analytical framework. Highlighting the significance of a political economy approach to diplomacy, and also engaging with orthodox approaches to diplomacy, this article begins to develop some analytical and conceptual tools to better identify, explain and understand changes in diplomatic systems as well as the increased influence of private interests in diplomatic practice now under way.

This dissertation seeks to reengage the field of political economy to establish a political response to financial crisis, as well as the resulting social crisis of everyday life, using the political economy of Hyman P. Minsky. As an academic field, political economy is in a strange kind of limbo. The separation of politics and economics is easy enough to see, and even within economics, there is another cleavage between economics proper and the history of economics. This yields some very strange conjectures about what it means to be an "economist," and how things can be a matter for either economic "policy" or "political economy" as if these categories were all jumbled up in a grab bag of available methodologies. This dissertation seeks to carve out some intellectual terrain in what can be called political economy by engaging in an interdisciplinary way, inspired by Minsky, in order to offer a cogent political analysis of financial crises. Minsky gives five possible definitions for political economy: the discipline of Economics, a code name for Marxism, rational choice theory of profit maximization, the management of macroeconomic policy, and finally an interdisciplinary view of political economy that works in concert with other social sciences and humanities in order to identify and remedy social ills such as unemployment and poverty. The reading of Minsky in this dissertation is thus in an explicitly political way in order to bridge the gap between various kinds of economics and the various social sciences. By analyzing and critiquing each of these possible definitions of political economy, it becomes clear that a properly social definition of political economy is the final, interdisciplinary one. This dissertation argues that Minsky had a "preanalytic vision" of the kind of society he wished his political economy to yield, and is a first step in fleshing out a political program for that vision. / Ph. D.

This thesis seeks to understand the relationship between government influence and market forces pertaining to the introduction of new technologies in the market. The thesis will do this by utilizing electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE) in California and Virginia as a historical analysis case study to determine the historical catalysts for change in the public EVSE market since its introduction in 1995. Comparing the rate of change to historical timelines for both states, "market tendencies" and "government involvement" played the greatest role in EVSE growth, with there being a distinct shift from "market tendencies" to "government involvement" over time. Results show that California has fully embraced the interventionist role, with state and local actors playing a part. Virginia, on the other hand, has just begun to allow state intervention, so much of the change in the state has come from economic or business events. Data shows, however, that this could be changing, and that Virginia could be on the verge of allowing for market intervention based on equitable development and future economic opportunity. / Master of Arts / The 21st century is ripe with innovative technologies and ideas that influence the future of the world, but not all these ideas are fully embraced in the private market. This thesis looks to understand the different roles that the government can play in assisting with the development of markets by analyzing the introduction of electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE) for public use in California and Virginia. Using a historical-analytic approach, I gathered data on the rate of increase in EVSE and compared that to the historical timelines to determine the variables with the most influence. After identifying four "pivotal moments" in the timeline, I discovered that the major catalysts for change were "market tendencies" and "government involvement." Looking at the progression, I determined that there is a distinct trend shifting from market tendencies, at the beginning of the timeline, to government involvement in modern changes. Evidence shows that not only is this trend embraced in California, with many state and local bodies working on the issue, but it also shows that Virginia, the laggard of the two states, could be on the verge of straying from its ideals of "free markets" to embrace change.