The major objectives of this study are to: (i) improve the understanding of what is meant by economic diversification and economic diversity, (ii) provide a comprehensive conceptual framework for region-specific analysis of the relationship between changing economic structure and economic performance measured in terms of the growth, stability, and distribution of income and employment, and (iii) construct an operational model of a regional economy that can be used to assess the impacts of alternative development strategies. This study attempts to sort out the overlaps, contradictions, and gaps among the different economic and finance theories, and the different definitions and measures of economic diversification and diversity. The subject of economic diversification or diversity is addressed in the context of the question: "What is the relationship between a region’s changing economic structure and performance?" A structural model of a regional economy, an extended input-output model based on a social accounting matrix (SAM), serves as the foundation of the conceptual framework and operational model. The SAM-based input- output model explicitly depicts the functional relationship between economic structure and performance. The region’s demand, production technologies, and trade flows are included as part of economic structure. Economic performance is measured as the growth, stability, and distribution of regional income and employment, by occupation group. The structural model is used to analyze the relationship between economic structure and performance for a given time period, and to analyze changes over time. Growth, stability, and distributional impacts are considered simultaneously. By doing this, potential tradeoffs can be explicitly addressed. To identify the structural sources of growth and stability, the SAM-based input-output model is decomposed at different points in time. By decomposing a SAM-based model it is possible to analyze structural sources of growth and stability in terms of both supply and demand factors. Alternative development strategies can be modelled using this conceptual framework. The operational model quantifies the relationship between: (i) the anticipated growth and stability of exogenous final demands, and (ii) the anticipated growth, stability, and distribution of endogenous income and employment, by occupation group. The operational model focuses attention on the distributional impacts of changing economic structure and performance. The relationship between a region’s social welfare, and the aggregation scheme and accounting stance used in the analysis of economic impacts are explicitly addressed. As such, there are explicit social welfare criteria for comparing and ranking alternative development strategies. The operational model presented in this study is well-suited to many popular input-output application packages. / Ph. D.

The importance of public education in rural development has received increasing attention by local and state policy makers as competition for new industry has intensified throughout rural America. Uncertainty about the relationships of public and private inputs to education output, however, presents problems to state and local officials and parents interested in improving the quality and quantity of the public education system. This research examines the education process in a production function framework to identify the relationships of education inputs to education output. A theoretical model that combines public l and household decision making into an education production process is used as the basis for the empirical model that is developed. The estimated model includes input measures for school, family, volunteer and student inputs to education production and is estimated with cross·sectional data for Virginia counties. The expenditure measure used in the model is specified as a polynomial lag. The model also is specified as a joint-product production process. The results of the analysis provide evidence of the importance of expenditures in education production and indicate that the impact of changes in expenditures occurs over time. The number of and educational levels of teachers also is associated with education output. Household and student inputs also are associated with education output. Volunteer input measures are not statistically significant in the estimated equations, a reflection of the difficulty of specifying and measuring specific volunteer inputs into the education production process. The empirical results do not support a joint production hypothesis between outputs as measured by achievement test scores and the school continuation rate. / Ph. D.

This study has objectives that address current concerns about the possibility of a sudden, negative, shock in domestic consumption of tobacco products. A mostly rural, six-county region of south-central Virginia is the area selected for a focus on these concerns. The study conducts a regional descriptive analysis to introduce the study area and its economic base, and this includes a focus on the regional tobacco trade. Estimates of the economic contribution of tobacco to the study area are generated using input-output analysis and the IMPLAN model. Survey data, interviews and other published sources are employed to verify and change portions of the IMPLAN base model data and to supplement the results. Tobacco’s contribution to the regional economy is estimated for the tobacco production and tobacco stemming and redrying industries, and for other industries and groups. In total, tobacco contributes $756 million in total industry output, nearly $251 million to the value added portion of output and over 6800 jobs. This represents approximately 10.9 percent, 7.5 percent and 6.7 percent of the regional base economy, respectively. Some policy perspectives relating to tobacco production are also analyzed. Economic losses for this study area due to absentee tobacco quota ownership are found to be relatively insignificant when compared to the total regional contribution of tobacco. The regional economic impact of a ten percent decrease in tobacco marketing quota, a ten percent decrease in margin earned by tobacco producers, and two other policy considerations is also estimated. / Master of Science

Yes / This paper explores the issue of fairness in global supply chains. Taking the Western European clothing supply chain as a case study, we demonstrate how applying a normative indicator in Social Life Cycle Assessment (SLCA) can contribute academic and practical insights into debates on fairness. To do so, we develop a new indicator that addresses some of the limitations of the living wage for SLCA. We extend the standard form of living wage available for developing countries to include income tax and social security contributions. We call this extension 'living labour compensation'. Using publically available data, we estimate net living wages, gross living wages, and living labour compensation rates for Brazil, Russia, India, and China (BRIC) in 2005. We then integrate living labour compensation rates into an input-output framework, which we use to compare living labour compensation and actual labour compensation in the BRIC countries in the Western European clothing supply chain in 2005. We find that in 2005, actual labour compensation in the Western European clothing supply chain was around half of the living labour compensation level, with the greatest difference being in the Agricultural sector. Therefore, we argue that BRIC pay in the Western European clothing supply chain was unfair. Furthermore, our living labour compensation estimates for BRIC in 2005 are ~ 35% higher than standard living wage estimates. Indeed, adding income taxes and employee social security contributions alone increases the living wage by ~ 10%. Consequently, we argue there is a risk that investigations based on living wages are not using a representative measure of fairness from the employee's perspective and are substantially underestimating the cost of living wages from an employer's perspective. Finally, we discuss implications for retailers and living wage advocacy groups. Living labour compensation extends the living wage, maintaining its strengths and addressing key weaknesses. It can be estimated for multiple countries from publically available data and can be applied in an input-output framework. Therefore, it is able to provide a normative assessment of fairness in complex global supply chains. Applying it to the Western European clothing supply chain, we were able to show that pay for workers in Brazil, Russia, India, and China is unfair, and draw substantive conclusions for practice.

Yes / Rising demand for cheaper textiles and clothing in Western Europe is well documented, as are changes in the Textiles and Clothing industry's globalised production structure. We apply a sub-systems global multi-regional input–output accounting framework to examine the sustainability implications of meeting Western European demand for textiles and clothing goods between 1995 and 2009. Our framework estimates environmental and socio-economic impacts of consumption in a consistent manner and shows where these occur both geographically and in the value chain. The results demonstrate that Western European textiles and clothing consumption remains dependent on low-cost labour from Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC), principally in the Textiles and Clothing and Agricultural sectors. Conversely, we show that the wage rate for BRIC workers in the global value chains serving Western European textiles and clothing consumption has risen over time but remains low relative to the wage rate paid to Western European workers. Likewise, we find that profits are increasingly generated within BRIC and that they are now at comparable levels to those generated in Western Europe. We find a slight overall decrease in the amount of carbon emitted in the production of textiles and clothing goods for Western Europe between 1995 and 2009. However, the trend is not linear and the importance of different underlying drivers varies over the timeseries. We conclude by discussing the implications of these results for a more sustainable future for Western European textiles and clothing consumption.

No / In this chapter we use global multi-regional input-output analysis to explore how globalisation has impacted fairness along Western European clothing supply chains. Our analysis shows that while globalisation has made the Western European clothing supply chain ‘fairer’ by increasing employment opportunities and income for workers in Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC), it has failed to make the supply chain fair. Despite large increases in the labour compensation received by BRIC workers in the Western European clothing supply chain, labour compensation is still insufficient to support a decent standard of living and cannot, therefore, be considered fair.

Yes / The current study contributes to the literature in efficiency analysis in two ways: 1) we build on the existing studies in Dynamic Network Data Envelopment Analysis (DNDEA) by proposing a sequential structure incorporating dual-role characteristics of the production factors; 2) we initiate the efforts to complement the proposal of our innovative sequential DNDEA through a behavioural-causal analysis. The proposal of this statistical analysis is very important considering it does not only validate the proposal of the efficiency analysis but also our practice can be generalized to the future studies dealing with designing innovative production process. Finally, we apply these two different analyses to the banking industry. Using a sample of 43 Chinese commercial banks including five different ownership types (state-owned, joint-stock, city, rural, and foreign banks) between 2010 and 2018, we find that the inefficiency level is around 0.14, although slight volatility has been observed. We find that the highest efficiency is dominated by state-owned banks, and although foreign banks are less efficient than joint-stock banks, they are more efficient than city banks. Finally, we find that rural banks have the highest inefficiency.

Thesis advisor: Andrew Jorgenson / Global climate change is among the greatest crises facing humanity in the 21st century. Mitigating the impacts of climate change requires a substantial reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. Despite the urgency, climate actions are lacking in many nations. A rich body of cross-national research on human drivers of emissions is devoted to identifying effective leverage points for emission abatement, which primarily focuses on aggregate emission measures such as production-based accounts and consumption-based accounts. However, a nation’s carbon-emitting activities are not monolithic, but can instead be classified into distinct components based on important characteristics such as the supply chain stage to which they belong. These emission components likely have heterogeneous relationships with certain anthropogenic drivers or mitigation measures. Yet, analyses using aggregate emission measures are unable to detect such heterogeneity or inform the unique strategy that might be required to effectively mitigate each emission component. I address this gap using the three empirical chapters of this dissertation. In the first empirical chapter, I propose an analytical framework of Multidimensional Emissions Profile (MEP), which situates nations’ contributions to global greenhouse gas emissions into four distinct components: (1) emissions generated by domestic-oriented supply chain activities; (2) emissions embodied in imports; (3) emissions embodied in exports; and (4) direct emissions of end user activities. I then apply the MEP framework to analyze the relationships between national affluence and the four emission components for 34 high-income nations. I find that as these nations grow wealthier, affluence is increasingly decoupled from direct emissions of end user activities but remains positively associated with the other three emission components in various ways. The findings suggest that emission-suppressing mechanisms associated with growing affluence are effective in mitigating direct end user emissions—typically the smallest component—but not the other three emission components. Therefore, high-income nations should prioritize mitigating emissions generated by supply chain activities outside the end use stage. The second empirical chapter is an examination of how renewable energy deployment is related to these emission components in high-income nations. I find that renewable energy deployment mitigates emissions by domestic-oriented supply chain activities, and with increasing effectiveness over time; yet it remains ineffective in curbing the other three emission components, indicating the existence of structural barriers that prevent the decarbonization effect of renewables from spilling over to these three emission components. These barriers must be overcome in order to achieve the full decarbonization potential of renewable energy deployment. In the third empirical chapter, I investigate the time-varying relationships between domestic income inequality and the four emission components, in order to unpack the multiple pathways linking income inequality to emissions. The results suggest that the relationships change over time, vary across emission components, and differ between measures of income inequality, which indicate variations in the causal pathways, both over time and across emission components. The findings from all three empirical chapters support the validity of the MEP framework. The relationships between greenhouse gas emissions and national affluence, renewable energy deployment, and domestic income inequality are multidimensional: these anthropogenic forces curb some emission components but spur others. Climate policies targeting these anthropogenic forces should optimize their decarbonization benefits while neutralizing the mechanisms through which they drive growth in emissions. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2022. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Sociology.

With the growth of international trade many researchers are questioning the effects on the environment by emissions embodied in international trade flows. The embodied emissions in the import (EEI) and export of Sweden are relatively unexplored despite being a trade-dependent country. However, a few earlier studies indicate that the largest share of embodied CO2 in the international trade of Sweden is in the import from China. This thesis evaluates Sweden’s EEI from China during the years 1995-2009 by using an input-output analysis with the emissions in bilateral trade approach. Different from existing studies, the sector distributions of the EEI are outlined with high transparency and the driving factors for the change in EEI are identified by using a structural decomposition analysis (SDA). Results shows that the EEI increased significantly from 1995-2009 and that the main increase occurred during 2002-2007. The import of electrical and optical equipment, textile products and renting of machinery and equipment contributed to the largest share of the EEI. The EEI induced from the total import were mainly generated from electricity, gas and water supply and other heavy industries. Results from the SDA showed that the scale effect from increased imports from especially heavy industries had a large influence on the growth in embodied CO2 emissions. The service sectors contributed to the second largest share of the increase in the EEI due to scale and structural effects. The technical effect, on the contrary, was markedly offsetting the increase of embodied CO2 emissions both for heavy and light industries.

Recent empirical assessments revealed that footprint indicators calculated with various multi-regional input-output (MRIO) databases deliver deviating results. In this paper, we propose a new method, called structural production layer decomposition (SPLD), which complements existing structural decomposition approaches. SPLD enables differentiating between effects stemming from specific parts in the technology matrix, e.g. trade blocks vs. domestic blocks, while still allowing to link the various effects to the total region footprint. Using the carbon footprint of the EU-28 in 2011 as an example, we analyse the differences between EXIOBASE, Eora, GTAP and WIOD. Identical environmental data are used across all MRIO databases. In all model comparisons, variations in domestic blocks have a more significant impact on the carbon footprint than variations in trade blocks. The results provide a wealth of information for MRIO developers and are relevant for policy makers designing climate policy measures targeted to specific stages along product supply chain.