<p> The world is increasingly moving toward a technology- and information-based economy. With this change, a growing occupational category involves working in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). What is the political identification of STEM workers? Quantitative work has shown that professionals, in general, are moving toward the Democratic Party (see, e.g. Hout, Brooks, and Manza 1995); but a qualitative interview-based study suggested that STEM workers, specifically, may be more conservative than others (Zussman 1985). The primary purpose of this study is to bring quantitative analyses to bear on this question to determine if STEM workers, are, indeed, more conservative than others. A secondary purpose is to begin explaining why they are more conservative, if such a pattern is found. The primary research hypothesis follows Zussman (1985) and predicts that STEM workers are significantly more conservative than other workers; a secondary hypothesis is that this significant difference will remain even when controlling for key demographic variables. Regression analyses provide support for both hypotheses, which suggests that STEM workers are, indeed, more conservative than others&mdash;a pattern that may be rooted in the structure of their work, a la Kohn (1989).</p>

The purpose of this research is to analyse the positive loss-earnings relation in the context of U.S. net firms. This topic earns special relevance with the emergence of the Internet sector. We focus on the period between 1996 and 2003. In order to identify the net firms, we collected information from ISDEX – Internet Stock List. With the goal to control the survivor bias effect, we obtain information about net firms from the Morgan & Stanley reports. We also selected a match sample (non net firms) from NASDAQ, with close IPO dates to those of the net firms. We assume that the negative relation observed in the U.S net firms, is due the growth opportunities bias. This hypothesis is in line with the Ohlson (1995) and the Feltham and Ohlson (1995) models, who regard current expenses such as R&D and advertising as generating the potential for future growth. Accounting measurements may be misleading, as the GAAP prevailing in the U.S. treat theses items as expenses. By contrast, capital markets seem to give a strong value to firms undertaking such investments. The Ohlson model was re-specified as a function of current earnings and lagged book value, and incorporated the Fama and MacBeth (1973) methodology, in order to analyse if the market prices differently the value drivers of theses firms as the Internet sector/net firms matures. The results are significant and consistent with: i) investors look beyond aggregate earnings; ii) investors value certain components of losses (R&D and advertising expenditures) positively; iii) the variable book value of equity conveys information for funding available to continue investments in loss firms and iv) since the nineties we assist to a change in life cycle: the new firms tend to be small, operate in high tech sectors and report losses for long periods. This research makes a set of contribution to the literature: i) some firms´ losses may not be associated with value destruction; ii) we challenge the traditional view that losses convey little information content, specially when they are associated to the implementation of growth opportunities; iii) losses are not homogenous across losses firms, consequently treating losses homogenously can lead to incomplete or incorrect inferences in empirical research and v)distressed firms, specially high tech firms tend to restructure through mergers and acquisitions, curbing the incidence of bankruptcy. Key Words: valuation, price-earnings, conservatism, growth opportunities / O objectivo central da presente investigação consistiu em analisar a aparente anomalia verificada entre o registo de prejuízos e o elevado valor de mercado das acções registado pelas empresas americanas da nova economia, com destaque para as net firms. A relevância do presente estudo deriva do impacto da emergência do sector da Internet. O período analisado compreende os anos de 1996 a 2003. A seleccão das net firms baseou-se na lista de empresas cotadas no ISDEX – Internet Stock List e nos relatórios da Morgan & Stanley. Seleccionamos ainda uma amostra de controlo com base no número de IPO ocorridos no NASDAQ, cujo critério foi identificar outras empresas com datas de IPO próximas das net firms. Tendo como quadro teórico os modelos de avaliação de Ohlson (1995) e Feltham e Ohlson (1995), assume-se que os prejuízos registados por estas empresas são consequência dos elevados investimentos em activos intangíveis, tais como: I&D e Publicidade, que de acordo com os GAAP – Generally Accepted Accounting Principles são integralmente contabilizados como custos. Porém, o mercado associa o investimento nestas rubricas à probabilidade de existência em carteira de maiores oportunidades de crescimento, pelo que são grandes as expectativas de rendibilidades supranormais. O modelo de Ohlson é reespecificado em função dos resultados líquidos e dos capitais próprios e incorpora a metodologia de Fama e MacBeth (1973), no sentido de analisar como os principais determinantes do valor (value drivers) influenciam o valor de mercado dos capitais próprios ao longo do tempo (efeito ciclo de vida). Os resultados obtidos evidenciam que os investidores: i) não baseiam a sua avaliação apenas na variável resultados; ii) valorizam positivamente, como activos, os items I&D e Publicidade, que contabilisticamente são tratados como custo; iii) a variável capitais próprios é particularmente relevante para efeitos de avaliação registando a empresa prejuízos, pois o mercado vê nesta variável uma proxy para os resultados futuros normais e iv) o acréscimo do investimento nas rubricas I&D e Publicidade surge associado a uma alteração do perfil de empresas a operar no mercado na década de 90: empresas de pequena dimensão, maioritariamente de base tecnológica a registarem prejuízos, de maior magnitude e por períodos mais longos. A evidência empírica, corroborada por uma análise em dados de painel, permite apontar como principais contributos da presente investigação: i) o reporte de prejuízos pode não estar associado à destruição de valor; ii) em oposição à teoria da opção de abandono, o conteúdo informativo dos prejuízos não é irrelevante para efeitos de avaliação, quando os mesmos surgem associados ao exercício de oportunidades de crescimento; iii) as empresas a registar prejuízos não podem ser tratadas de forma homogénea, pois tal é susceptível de conduzir a conclusões empíricas erróneas e iv) em situação de stress financeiro as empresas, em particular de base tecnológica, tendem a optar por um processo de F&A como forma de reestruturação, reduzindo a incidência de processos de falência. Palavras-chave: avaliação de empresas, relação preço-resultados, subavaliação, oportunidades de crescimento.

<p> A broad-based franchise - that is, an inclusive policy for who elects leaders - is fundamental to the spirit of democracy in the twenty-first century. Yet the world's earliest democratic constitutions in Europe and the Americas either made no provision for women's participation, or explicitly prohibited it in their founding documents. Women were barred from the franchise even in those countries that went the furthest in guaranteeing men political equality, such as France and the United States. Things began to change in the 189os, when women around the world began to vote alongside men. What explains this sea-change in women's rights? Were women agents of their own political emancipation, or did politicians preemptively grant women voting rights in a bid for electoral success? Studying the political inclusion of women around the turn of the twentieth century, this dissertation argues that both electoral politics and the ordinary strategies of women's movements explain the extension of female suffrage. </p><p> The argument is simple. Politicians care about getting re-elected and so will only support reform if they think it serves that end. But even if politicians believe they can win the votes of the excluded group, they will not deviate from the status quo unless they anticipate losing future elections without female voters. Hence voting rights reform is more likely to occur in highly competitive political environments. In combining these insights, I construct an intuitive theory of the electoral conditions under which franchise extensions should be forthcoming, predicting that vulnerable political parties that foresee an electoral advantage will push for reform. Along with electoral vulnerability and the political preferences of the excluded group, organized political movements add a critical third dimension to this story. Political movements can intervene in the electoral arena, either by changing politician's beliefs about how the disfranchised will vote, or by changing the relative strength of competing political parties. </p><p> I substantiate this theory through a comparative historical study of women's suffrage reform in England, France and the United States. Drawing on multiple forms of evidence, including large-n statistical analyses, roll-call analysis, close reading of legislative debates, and primary research into the interactions between suffrage organizers and elected politicians, I show how male representatives were induced by party competition, preference convergence, and organized activism to restrict women's access to political decision-making or to grant women the right to vote.</p><p> Whereas most recent scholarship on franchise reform has avoided the subject of female voting rights, determining a priori that it is distinct from, and thus not comparable to, male enfranchisement, my research bridges this gap by highlighting the semi-democratic context in which most moments of voting rights reform have taken place. This re-formulation allows women to emerge as an interesting and relevant group for comparative analysis, and provides an analytical structure for future work to examine the enfranchisement of other groups in a semi-democratic context, including minority groups and segments of the non-ruling classes.</p>

<p> FDI from China to the United States has expanded over the last few years, resulting in an increasingly complicated spatial pattern of investment. This analysis investigates Chinese FDI to the US at three scales: the national, state, and local&mdash;in order to explain its emerging economic geography. Three specific research questions are addressed. First, what is the observed pattern of Chinese FDI in the United States at the state scale? Second, what is the sectorial distribution and pattern of Chinese FDI in Indiana? Third, is there a connection between Chinese actors channeling FDI to specific locales in Indiana and local Chinese and American actors in Indiana that is explained by established networks and culture-specific business relationships? For the national scale a panel regression model will be applied to the cumulative amounts of Chinese FDI to the states and the District of Columbia for the years 2000 to 2013. In addition, location quotients denoting sectorial amounts by state will be compared to levels for the US as a whole to highlight concentrated sectors. At the state and local scales, a qualitative analysis investigating the nature of the relationships between local Chinese actors, state and local government officials, and local business leaders will be carried out in order to better understand Chinese FDI and its economic geography in Indiana.</p>

<p> This dissertation presents a series of related agent-based models (ABMs) of the housing market in the Washington DC Metropolitan Statistical Area. The models investigate the causes of the housing market bubble and crash during the time period 1997-2009 and policies that could have avoided such a crisis. The work in this dissertation contributes to three research areas: understanding the underlying causes of the housing crisis, demonstrating the ability of ABMs to generate important macro phenomena, and improving ABM methodology. </p><p> Using the housing market models, I investigated counterfactual policies related to the causes of the crisis. I show that leverage and expectations are the two most prominent contributors to the bubble, but that other factors, such as interest rates, norms governing the share of income going to housing, and seller behavior all influence the bubble. I find that lending standards and refinance rules play almost no part in the bubble, contrary to some theories of the housing crisis. Towards the end of the dissertation, I pair the housing market with a model of mortgage-backed securities. I show that the increased velocity of lending made possible by securitization can increase the size of bubbles and make markets more fragile, increasing the likelihood of crashes. </p><p> The ABMs in this dissertation exploit multiple large, heterogeneous data sets and utilize behavioral rules that are more realistic than conventional neoclassical specifications to reproduce detailed housing market dynamics. Input data include loan level data, multiple listing service (MLS) records, and demographic information from a variety of sources. The ABMs exploit this data by choosing the precise areas of input distributions to use based on the context of the model. This allows the ABMs to match not only aggregate outputs, but intermediate outputs and data distributions. For example, the ABMs in this dissertation not only reproduce empirical macro phenomena, such as the shape of the house price index, but also intermediate variables (e.g., distribution of loan types, average leverage, average days on market, average ratio of sold price to original listing price) and output distributions (e.g., distribution of house prices). </p><p> Throughout the dissertation I follow several methodological principles in construction and analysis of the ABMs. First, I demonstrate the use of data to constrain the models. Next, I describe a sensitivity analysis methodology that goes beyond parametric variations, but also varies model rules in what I term a structural sensitivity analysis. I demonstrate how criticisms about ABMs with regard to their opacity, brittleness, and dependency on arbitrary modeling decisions can be resolved through such an analysis. I also describe the architectural design of the models, which makes explicit the theoretically-inspired behavioral rules, facilitating structural sensitivity analyses.</p><p>

Overview As an activity that produces wealth, musical production and its effects have largely been neglected by the economics profession. This dissertation seeks contribute to a small but growing literature on the subject by analyzing musical production through a particular class analytical lens of political economy. A first problem that has encountered many within political economy, specifically within its radical variant of Marxism, is how to understand music in relation to the social totality. In the first essay of this work I provide a critical review of the literature that approaches music through the "base-superstructure metaphor", a tool of analysis well known within the Marxian theoretical tradition. In it I show how assigning elements to either one or the other of these spheres and understanding the forces of production in terms of its technical dimension (i.e. technology) limits the analytical possibilities provided by Marx's original insights. In the second part of this essay I review the ways the concept of class has been ued to analyze topics related to music within the Marxian tradition. I highlight how the essentialist moments of those particular class concepts lead to analyzes that obscure and sometimes contradict one of the main purposes Marx's original intent: to show the various guises that exploitation might take in a capitalist society. In the second essay of the dissertation I theorize musical production with the aid of a class qua surplus analysis that highlights the process of the production, appropriation, and distribution of surplus labor in relation to the production and dissemination of meaning associated with music as a cultural process. I identify various musical scenes and show the dialectic of aesthetics and musical labor. In the third and final essay, I compare and contrast two discourses of theft: those of exploitation and of piracy. I focus my attention on the music recording industry and show how the adoption of a discourse of exploitation by musicians that are not exploited and their support in anti-piracy campaigns hamper, marginalize, and contribute to eliminating none-exploitative class structures. This result is important to the literature that explores how intellectual property poses constraints to economic growth and development in the so-called Third world where most of the pirate production takes place.

This dissertation compared existence values held by Portland, Maine (United States) and Port Moresby (Papua New Guinea) residents for the preservation of ten percent of the worlds tropical rain forests and identified economic and noneconomic components of existence value and use values. Existence value was narrowly defined as cognitive in nature; it is the value placed on simply knowing tropical rain forests exists independent of current and future use values. Between November 1998 and February 1999, a 16 page mail-back questionnaire was sent to a random sample of residents in Portland and Port Moresby. A total of 330 and 461 questionnaires were returned from Portland, and Port Moresby, respectively for an overall response rate of 41 and 49 percent, respectively. The results indicated that noneconomic components of mean willingness to pay (WTP) accounted for at least 50 percent of the total value for both Portland and Port Moresby residents. Noneconomic components of existence value (intrinsic value, good cause, moral duty etc) and use value (nonpaternalistic altruism) were excluded to avoid presenting overestimated benefits. Portland and Port Moresby WTP estimates were found to be statistically different from each other. This finding invalidated the assumption that benefits could be directly transferable between countries, especially between developed and developing countries. This result was also supported by evidence of statistical differences in motives and socioeconomic variables between Portland and Port Moresby respondents. Portland residents generally had a higher value for existence (as a proportion of total mean WTP) than Port Moresby residents. Both the Portland and Port Moresby WTP estimates were lower than Kramer and Mercers' (1997) US estimates. Results from the attitudinal models showed that Port Moresby respondents were more environment oriented than Portland respondents. The latter were more development oriented. Port Moresby respondents expressed the sentiment that the rich nations of the world (including the US) should bear the responsibility of preserving tropical rain forests.

This dissertation is an attempt to contribute to the literature that seeks to move beyond income-centered approaches to environmental degradation by examining the other socio-economic factors that influence environmental quality. The first part of the dissertation utilizes the Russian Statistical Agency's data on air pollution and deforestation in Russia to answer the question of what relationship, if any, exists between the quality of governance, income and power inequalities and environmental degradation. The major finding here is that, holding income constant, greater inequalities in income and in the provision of public goods are associated with more environmental degradation. The second part of this dissertation addresses the question of what impact, if any, inequalities among Russia's regions have on environmental degradation at the regional level. By developing two methods for distinguishing between changes in the absolute level of income and changes in the relative level of income, and controlling for the former, this dissertation finds that regions with lower relative incomes have more uncontrolled pollution and more net deforestation than regions whose incomes are high in relative terms. Moreover, these differences cannot be attributed simply to differences in spending on environmental protection; they appear to reflect differences in the location of environmentally degrading activities.

The availability of fresh water is becoming an increasing concern around the world. Modern agriculture has made a transition from traditional agriculture, which often impacts watershed systems. Current enterprising agriculture yields monetary benefits but at the same time can impact environmental outcome. Water resource impacts vary from micro to macro scale. Chapter 1 starts with an introduction. In Chapter 2, I develop an integrated dynamic-based model at farm scale to evaluate the economic and environmental effects of alternative agricultural best management practices (BMPs) on overall sustainability of integrated farming system. It is an integration of a farm simulation model, soil erosion model and dynamic based model. Economic and environmental dynamic simulations are performed over a time horizon for each management practice. Marginal efficiency analysis is performed for examining economically efficient crop support practice with the consideration of change in environmental parameters' and profit accrued from the farm. Scenario outcomes of the stochastic modeling simulation results show varied impacts on sustainability of the farm-balanced scenario performs better overall. Chapter 3 discusses hydrology model at watershed scale to assess conjunctive water harvesting potentials in an urbanizing watershed system. I develop a spatially explicit method to evaluate costs of harvesting and potential benefits in water harvesting. It involves an evaluation of surface and groundwater hydrology in developed and undeveloped regions of the watershed. I develop prioritization maps to characterize conjunctive harvesting potential that is based on benefits and costs. The results demonstrate that a spatially variable harvesting strategy can be used to minimize runoff loss and to augment water supplies. A spatially variable approach that incorporates economic criteria to hydrologic assessment can be used to enhance efficiency related to water harvest and supply management. In Chapter 4, I develop a watershed based policy framework that identifies four policy types that target depletion, recharge, contamination and treatment. The policy package incorporates a mix of policies that target quantity and quality dynamics. The socio-economic implications of excessive extraction of ground water are assessed with the sustainability indicators of productivity from farms, distribution of income among different categories of farmers, groundwater level, and quality. A watershed based policy package covering both structural and nonstructural policies is suggested for achieving sustainability of water resources. Water quality degradation at macro scales involves economic as well as demographic factors. In Chapter 5, I use the concept of Environmental Kuznets Curve to examine the relationship between water quality degradation and economic development, and test the hypothesis of differences in functional relationship for nitrogen, phosphorus, suspended solids, fecal coliform and dissolved oxygen. The results show that the behavior of EKC is different for different water quality indicators. Nitrogen, phosphorous and suspended solids exhibit a U-shaped curve while fecal coliform and dissolved oxygen show N-shaped EKC curve. As transformation occurs from agriculture economy to industrialized economy, water quality improves with the reduction in nutrient and physical contaminants. The dissertation ends up with a conclusion in Chapter 6.

Perpetuation of economic growth and social well-being will continue to require energy to power our economic and technological infrastructures. Continuing to meet these energy demands as we do today is constrained by the existence of a finite resource stock and the ability of the local and global environments to assimilate the emissions of the current energy sources. A transition to renewable energy sources provides a means to sustain economic and social well-being by eliminating the resource and environmental constraints of conventional energy sources. The term sustainability has been broadly adopted to evoke the idea of providing future generations with a society which is at least no worse off than our own. Literature in this field is reviewed and includes contributions from a broad spectrum of disciplines with economic, technical, ethical, and philosophical affirmations. Energy policy in the United States was recently addressed in the National Energy Strategy under the Bush Administration. The policy fails short of confronting resource or environmental sustainability issues and is focused on short term solutions without preparing for long term needs. Alternative models and policy proposals have surfaced as a reaction to the government study. An economic and policy model is developed in this dissertation which addresses specific characteristics of a long term national energy transition to renewable energy sources. The Energy and Environmental Economic Transition (E$\sp3$T) model is built on traditional economic analyses to integrate the conventional and renewable energy supply and demand sectors. The renewable energy sector is characterized by technical parameters and endogenous treatment of technological change and market penetration. Policy variables are employed to evaluate resource stock, tax, subsidy, pollution abatement, market structure, and other policies. The E$\sp3$T model is a simulation tool which produces paths of conventional and renewable energy supply and price levels over a sufficient time frame. Other evaluation output variables are developed to address issues of economic cost and sustainability. Although the input database and model details are insufficient to apply the simulation results directly to policy formulation, results are presented to illustrate the model's capabilities and distinctions relative to other energy policy models.