This thesis begins with a discussion of the theory behind free trade, and then examines some of the political rhetoric surrounding current free trade negotiations. This rhetoric ignores the potential pitfalls of free trade, and alternatives which would lead to more balanced development. The U.S.-Mexico FTA is placed in global perspective, with a discussion of the GATT. The maquiladora industry, dominated by multinational corporations, is presented as a "sneak preview" of free trade. This agreement would generate multiple realities, in that it would mean different things to different groups of people; it will have numerous negative effects, especially on Mexico's rural population. The ideological rhetoric obscures the fact that a primary result of free trade will not be broad economic development, but rather further polarization of society and the enrichment of certain vested interests.

<p> In every year since 1982, the popular magazine <i>Forbes Magazine </i> has published a list of the 400 wealthiest Americans. That list has attracted attention from the press and public, but it has been largely ignored by economists, at least in their professional capacities. Although a list published by a popular magazine may seem like a dubious source of data, the magazine's list is arguably the best source of data on the very top of the wealth distribution in the United States. This dissertation is a series of essays that use the magazine's list to study the wealthiest Americans. The essays study inequality between the wealthiest Americans and everyone else, inequality among the wealthiest Americans themselves, and mobility among the wealthiest Americans over time. Taken together, the essays offer insight into some basic empirical facts about a much noticed but little studied group. </p>

This study was conducted for the purpose of developing an alternative to the method presently used in the State of Florida for equalizing educational costs among public school districts in the K-12 program. For this purpose, an attempt was made to measure the effect of those factors which contribute to wage differentials for educational personnel among school districts through the use of econometric models. The results obtained from these models were used for constructing indexes reflecting the differences in cost experienced by school districts when purchasing the services of administrators and teachers. / Data for the study were collected primarily from state and local government agencies. This data included: information on salaries of teachers and administrators; personal characteristics of teachers and administrators and their assignments in the educational system; socio-economic characteristics of the population in the districts; environmental and locational factors; and the organization and composition of the school districts. / The sample of teachers and administrators was randomly selected and included approximately ten percent of the certified personnel in each district. The final sample contained 7,644 observations, of which 6,404 were teachers and 1,240 administrators during academic year 1976-77. / The results of this study challenge the view, implicit in the cost equalization method used in Florida, that variations in the cost-of-living in the districts correspond with variations in the cost of procuring equivalent personnel inputs. Furthermore, the results suggest that the present equalization method used in Florida favors large urban districts at the expense of less affluent rural districts. / It is recommended that future research in this area should be conducted using schools as the unit of analysis. This, may provide a more accurate measure of the effect of personal and job characteristics on the salaries paid by school districts. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 42-10, Section: A, page: 4519. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1981.

Over the past ten years, the Big Three (General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler) have taken drastic steps to improve quality and reduce costs. Early evidence indicates that these steps have been successful in substantially narrowing the quality/cost gap between the Big Three and the Japanese. Despite these improvements, however, the public appears reluctant to relinquish past association with poor quality and fully incorporate these improvements in their expectations about the quality of domestic automobiles. / This dissertation examines the impact of reputation and changing beliefs on price, quantity traded, and total economic surplus in the market for used cars. Based on stylized facts about the U.S. auto industry, prior expectations are assumed to lie below the true probability that quality is high and are therefore interpreted as a vehicle's "reputation". Agents are assumed to combine these prior beliefs with recent news announcements according to Bayes rule. / Initially, an optimal stopping model is developed where supply is exogenous and agents decide each period between buying and waiting for the arrival of more information. In this representative agent framework, it is shown that a poor reputation postpones purchase decisions. Extending this model by including multiple agents with heterogeneous beliefs and allowing supply to be endogenous, a poor reputation is shown to lower price and retard its convergence to the full-information equilibrium. Moreover, the number of trades and the value of total economic surplus are also reduced. / Hypotheses about the existence of reputational effects are tested using used car price and quality data for the 1985-1990 model years. Variables based on past and current quality indicators proxy actual beliefs extant in the market and are interpreted as the prior and "news" arrival respectively. The empirical results support the existence of reputational effects in the U.S. market for used automobiles. Reputation is strongest for the earlier model years with contemporaneous news variables becoming significant in later years. This suggests that reputational effects arising from poor quality production in the early 1980's may be waning. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 55-09, Section: A, page: 2940. / Major Professor: Gary M. Fournier. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1994.

Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) for capital, labor, energy, materials, and business services (KLEMS) are used to estimate translog cost functions. Much of the work developing and testing production and cost functions has used the same Berndt and Wood (BW) data for total manufacturing. Results from the BLS are compared with the BW data and considerable differences found. / To improve the translog estimates the Kalman filter and state space form are used in an effort to permit the time proxy for technological change to follow a random walk with drift. The general state space form provides a unified structure that subsumes other models. After smoothing the Kalman filter model is equivalent to including time proxy. / An error-correction model or ECM is used to make the translog specification more dynamic. Nested within the most general ECM specification are the more restrictive static, partial adjustment, and autoregressive models. Likelihood ratio tests reject the more restricted models in favor of the general ECM specification, but theoretical symmetry and adding-up restrictions are rejected for most two-digit Standard Industrial Code industries using the general ECM specification. Elasticities are computed for total manufacturing and compared with those found in other studies with a special emphasis on energy. Many violations of the monotonic, own-price, and concavity theoretical requirements are found. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 54-11, Section: A, page: 4183. / Major Professor: Philip E. Sorensen. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1993.

Deforestation and water pollution aid drought and desertification in the Sahel region. This study therefore focuses on: / (A) An educational decision analysis for water exploration and alternative animal raising in the Sahel region. Raiffa's educational decision model was used to test a decision-making procedure for water exploration involving three sources or types of water and also two alternatives of animal raising. / From the study, a water exploring site which is soaking and a drilled well system with a hand pump are the best alternatives. A ranch system is also preferred to a nomadic system. / (B) An educational policy model as a human development tool. The model was based on the results of this study and represents a network of activities and possible results. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 43-06, Section: A, page: 1754. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1982.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 40-09, Section: A, page: 5121. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1979.

The windfall of oil revenues that flooded the Venezuelan economy, during the decade of the seventies, provided government officials with the financial means to stimulate the process of development and enhance the well-being of future generations. In spite of that wealth, Venezuela is now-a-days showing an alarming negative trend in its rate of growth, accompanied by higher levels of unemployment, poverty and income inequality. / The purpose of this dissertation is to establish a link among oil revenues, distributional coalitions and the process of development in Venezuela during the 1968-1984 period. / The study first defines a set of criteria to analyse the performance of the Venezuelan economy before, during and after the oil boom of the seventies. / After clearly establishing that development has not taken place since the oil boom, the study elaborates an "estimating equation", using Ordinary Least Squares, to explain the process of development. / The study finds that the development process has been negatively affected by the "rent-seeking" activities of the so called "distributional coalitions". The study also finds that oil revenues have not been statistically significant in promoting development. in Venezuela. Instead, oil revenues have been mostly used for non-productive activities or have leaked out of the national economy in the form of capital flight. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 51-11, Section: A, page: 3833. / Major Professor: James Cobbe. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1990.

This study has twofold purpose. First, it intends to show that optimal control theory can provide an important tool for analyzing and understanding the dynamic properties of a macroeconomic model, for formulating stabilization policies based on that model, and for better understanding in a quantitative way the trade-offs that the economic policy maker faces. Second, it intends to examine the value of optimal control as an aid in the determination of policy in developing countries. / The first objective is met with the development of a small quarterly macroeconomic model of the U.S. economy. The specification and estimation of the model are given in this study, and the model's dynamic properties are explored. The second purpose is met with the application of optimal control theory to a small annual model of the Yugoslav economy. / Several experiments are run under different sets of assumptions about economic goals and policy commitments. As usual in optimal control analyses, these conditions are represented by a cost function that specifies the relative penalities for deviations of economic targets and control variables from their desired paths. / The results indicate that the value of optimal control as an aid in the determination of policy depends largely (if not entirely) on the robustness, accuracy, and dynamic nature of the estimated econometric model. They also show that, given such a model, an optimal-control approach is probably the best one not only for short-term policy planning but also for a better comprehension of the dynamic trade-offs that a policy maker will eventually face in the course of macroeconomic planning. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 51-12, Section: A, page: 4214. / Major Professor: James H. Gapinski. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1991.

This study attempts to estimate the effect of education and other variables on individuals' earnings in rural Liberia. Using data from the Liberian Ministry of Planning and Economic Affairs' 1976 Household Expenditure Survey, nonlinear regression analyses support the basic tenet of neoclassical human capital theory: Education had a positive effect on earnings in rural Liberia. / When the model was stratified into male vs. female, public vs. private sector and primary vs. secondary vs. informal labor markets to determine if "comparable" workers received different earnings, the results suggested that education paid more for men than women; that women were discriminated against in the private sector; and that education had different payoffs in different sectors and segments of the labor market. / The results of the labor segmentation model offers some evidence that labor market segmentation matters. It was demonstrated that individuals with the same level of education will have substantially different starting salaries in each market, with the primary labor market paying considerably more than the secondary and informal markets. / Policy measures recommended here based on the results of this study include the provision of more primary education in rural Liberia to alleviate poverty and serve as an income equalizing factor and the intervention of government by mandating equal employment opportunity in the private and public sector for both males and females. / This study suggests the need for more in-depth research in rural Liberia. Such a study could provide more and better information about how education could be used to promote development in rural Liberia. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 49-08, Section: A, page: 2173. / Major Professor: Steven J. Klees. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1988.