<p>The impact of the financial crisis of 2007-2008 on the global banking system raised concerns regarding the capital adequacy of banks. While the banks were already conducting internal stress tests before the financial crisis that was not enough to ensure their capital adequacy in the case of an extremely adverse economic scenario. In 2009, under the Obama administration, large Bank Holding Companies (BHCs) were required to conduct stress tests under the supervision of the Federal Reserve Board (FED). This paper evaluates the impact of stress testing on the systemic risk and marginal expected shortfall of Bank Holding Companies. The objective of this study is to examine if the implementation of stress testing by the FED has affected the systemic risk of Bank Holding Companies. This study considers 55 US Bank Holding Companies with data from 2000 to 2018. The overall sample includes stress test BHCs as well as non-stress test BHCs. I use a variety of techniques including regression discontinuity with kernel triangular approach and OLS regression with fixed effects. The models contain bank-specific control variables including Log of Assets, Pre-Provision Net Revenue to Assets, Loan Loss Provision to Assets Real Estate Loans to Assets, Consumer Loans to Assets, Commercial Loans to Assets, Debt to Capital, Deposits to Assets, as well as capital requirements such as Tier 1 Capital Ratio. The results suggest that after the regulation of the stress test, the systemic risk of the stress test BHCs is significantly higher than the non-stress test BHCs. However, the stress test BHCs decrease their systemic risk more than the non-stress BHCs. The Tier 1 capital ratio, which is a key ratio that determines whether the BHCs pass the stress test, is found to have a negative effect on systemic risk (SRISK). Furthermore, I show that BHCs see an increase in their systemic risk when they run stress testing for the first time. Finally, the stress test BHCs decrease their systemic risk the quarter before the stress test and increase it a quarter after.

<p> Although human trafficking continues to be a growing problem around the world, there are scarce quantitative methodologies for evidence-based research because it is hard to gather reliable and comparable data on human trafficking. It is also difficult to track patterns in human trafficking on a regional or global scale because the victims are a vulnerable population. Using Datta and Bales conceptualization of modern slavery as the theoretical foundation, the primary purpose of this study was to establish a baseline measurement of trafficking predictors in the Middle East North Africa (MENA) as well as understand the statistical relationship between measurements of corruption, democracy, state of peace, and terrorism on the prevalence of contemporary slavery in the MENA region. Data were collected from the 2016 Global Terrorism Index, 2016 Democracy Index, 2016 Corruption Perception Index, 2016 Global Slavery Index, and the 2016 Global Peace Index and analyzed using multiple linear regression. The results of the study showed that corruption (<i>p</i>=.017) and state of peace (<i>p</i>=.039) were significant predictors for contemporary slavery in the MENA region. Whereas, terrorism and democracy were not significant predictors. The positive social change implications of this study include recommendations to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) to create a central repository for the archival of human trafficking data. The creation of this archive will promote a more accurate accounting of a vulnerable population such as victims of trafficking, thereby increasing awareness of contemporary slavery among law enforcement, policy makers, and scholars.</p><p>

<p> This paper explores the answers to two questions. The first question is, How and in what ways is Alaska providing adoption recruitment and matching services for children in foster care? The second is, Should Alaska pursue privatization of adoption recruitment and matching services as a means for increasing permanency outcomes for children in foster care? The qualitative study was conducted using both primary and secondary research. I accessed existing privatization studies in other states, Alaska child welfare records and research, and interviewed child welfare professionals. The findings showed that Alaska currently has some private adoption recruitment efforts but there are currently no private adoption matching efforts. The findings also showed that many states have privatized adoption recruitment and matching efforts, and that Alaska should pursue privatization as a means to achieve better permanency outcomes for children waiting in foster care.</p><p>

<p> Over 59 million US residents live in rural areas where they cannot easily access healthcare services. Well-documented disparities between rural and urban healthcare access led the federal government to certify and financially support Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs), which offer rural healthcare services and 24/7 emergency care. Many CAHs are in dire financial distress, and some are looking to increase their patient population volume to improve financial health and ensure continued operations. It is a well-known business truism that satisfied customers are return customers. Today many patients' first encounter with a hospital is with the emergency department (ED). Thus, it is likely that increasing patient satisfaction with their ED visits in a CAH can be expected to increase the chance that they will return for additional care. </p><p> All hospitals engage in quality improvement (QI) activities. Many papers outline efforts by QI teams to implement one or a few predetermined interventions with mixed results. Because patients in an ED are subject to a variety of processes in the ED and other hospital departments, improving patient satisfaction in the ED demands a comprehensive approach. This paper focuses on the QI processes and tools used by the QI team in a CAH that developed a comprehensive list of (56) short- and long-term interventions to take place over five years to improve patient satisfaction in the ED. For this hospital, two aspects of the project deserve mention: </p><p> 1. The use of Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA): The FMEA is a QI tool developed by the military to address complex problems. Although it has been adapted for use in healthcare QI, in the author's experience, it has not always been fully implemented. The QI team completed a traditional, full, two-part FMEA. In completing both parts of a traditional FMEA, the team first identified and individually analyzed each known or potential failure in the care of an ED patient and potential interventions that could prevent each failure. Then, after careful analysis of all potential interventions, the QI team chose those most likely to succeed and began implementing a sequenced schedule of interrelated interventions deemed most likely to improve care and patient satisfaction. </p><p> 2. Learner-Centered Teaching: QI projects typically use learner-centered teaching methods that, according to Social Cognitive Theory, improve participants' general self-efficacy, which is the likelihood of choosing difficult problems to solve and persisting when faced with challenges. The hospital's project team members' self-efficacy scores increased after participating on the team. Post-project interviews with team members indicate they feel better equipped to solve other problems and have begun to plan other QI projects because they understand other areas' processes, they know who should participate on projects, and they better understand QI processes and tools.</p><p>

<p> Disaster risk reduction (DRR) programs seek to reduce loss of property and lives as the result of extreme events. These programs invest significant resources in collecting context-specific, participatory information and developing scientific (forecast) information to help them achieve their goals. This is despite significant evidence that such information does not contribute as easily or as directly to stated DRR goals as is generally assumed. Using the Policy Sciences social and decision process frameworks, this research maps program decision processes that seek to produce and use participatory and climate-related information. I begin by evaluating each program in terms of it stated goals and identifying the primary factors that shape project decision-making, influence the use of information in each program, and shape program outcomes. I conclude that although the two programs seek to produce and use very different kinds of information, they share two fundamental characteristics. First, both programs rely on deficit-model theories of change. Those designing and implementing the programs assume the production and use of information will automatically contribute to better decision-making and hence to desired outcomes. Secondly, these limited understandings of project dynamics allow project stakeholders to neglect the role power, accountability, and the incentives they created in shaping program decision-making and implementation. Although both programs seek to empower users and beneficiaries, they fail to establish monitoring and sanctioning mechanisms that ensure those beneficiaries can influence essential program decisions and outcomes. I conclude that given the structures of accountability common to many development programs, donors will likely have to take responsibility for ensuring downward accountability to the users or beneficiaries they seek to empower. By clarifying the relationship between information and the decision-processes in which its production and use are embedded, this research can help program managers develop and fund more effective programs. In particular, it emphasizes the importance of programs with more detailed, nuanced theories of change and greater attention to incentives and downward accountability.</p><p>

Master of Science / Department of Agricultural Economics / Mykel R. Taylor / BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: The 2014 Farm Bill required Kansas producers to make a series of enrollment decisions that were both complicated and based on incomplete information. With this bill, producers were required to complete a one-time enrollment in one of three programs (ARC-CO, PLC, or ARC-IC) to serve as a safety net for poor crop prices and/or yields over the five-year life of the legislation. Analyzing the effects of incomplete information on producers’ decisions provides an opportunity to identify challenges associated with program selection under the 2014 Farm Bill and suggest changes for future farm support legislation. METHODS: Kansas county-level enrollment data obtained from USDA-FSA are used to model aggregate producer sign-up decisions as a function of estimated 2014 payments, county-level yield variability, prior program enrollment, and extension programming efforts at the county and state level. This OLS model is subsequently replicated using individual producer data from surveys conducted during fifteen extension meetings held across Kansas. The model based on individual data is a regression of stated preferences for the three programs as a function of farm size, farmer demographics, risk preferences, and knowledge of the legislation. RESULTS: Comparisons of model results from the aggregated enrollment data and the individual survey data offer insights into the factors affecting producer decisions. Specifically, aggregate enrollment decisions are difficult to explain given many unobservable enrollment considerations at a county level. However, when the regression is repeated using individual data, other factors affect the enrollment decision such as the number of years a producer has been farming, the size of the farm, their membership in commodity associations, and their risk preferences. CONCLUSIONS: The 2014 Farm Bill required producers to select participation in a single support program for the five-year life of the legislation. This decision had to be made without knowing exactly how crop prices and yields would behave in the future. It is important to understand how producers made their decisions based on incomplete information to inform future legislative efforts for an effective farm safety net. This research expands that understanding by analyzing both aggregate and individual data to determine the factors that influence program choice.

<p> The modern internet and phone networks offer very little security, privacy, or accountability to their users. As people conduct their business and social lives online and over the phone, they naturally generate private or sensitive data about themselves. But any number of parties can and do track this data. Not only the services people interact with everyday, but third-party services for ad tracking, malicious hackers, government agencies operating with nebulous legal authority, and service providers themselves can and do observe and track users. They can then use the sensitive data in a variety of objectionable ways.</p><p> Changing this state of affairs without an earth-shattering technological breakthrough may appear to be a hopeless situation. But, in this dissertation, we demonstrate how existing technology can, if deployed and used properly, markedly improve privacy for users and accountability for those collecting data. We discuss two techniques for achieving these improvements: privacy-preserving surveillance and anonymous communication. For each technique, we present example protocols for which we have implemented fast prototypes running on commercial hardware.</p><p> First, we define the notion of privacy-preserving surveillance. Currently, a government agency can collect and examine bulk user data while making no distinction between the legitimate target of investigation and the average person, and with little or no oversight from other agencies. Privacy-preserving surveillance is an alternative legal regime in which searches of sensitive user data could only take place with the active collaboration of multiple government agencies. Trust is distributed amongst these agencies, assuring that no single authority can unilaterally view sensitive user data (or metadata). We then show how two types of bulk surveillance, currently in use by the authorities, could be made privacy-preserving by the adoption of modern cryptographic protocols to secure data.</p><p> We also discuss protocols for anonymous communication. We take two approaches to anonymity. First, we present an improvement to the Tor network, an anonymity substrate based on onion routing that is already deployed in the wild. Second, we present a complete specification of the dining-cryptographers-based Verdict protocol arid formally prove its anonymity, security, and accountability properties. </p>

<p> Saving lives is the highest priority of catastrophic disaster response. Fundamental to catastrophic earthquake planning efforts is the integration of life-saving federal urban search and rescue capabilities. Four U.S. West Coast State / FEMA joint catastrophic earthquake plans were analyzed and compared for the inclusion of critical federal urban search and rescue requirements. Significant gaps in specific critical search and rescue capabilities information were identified in the quantitative analysis. The planning gaps may decrease the deployment response time of life-saving resources into the incident area. Further analysis indicates a potential national shortfall in the determination of specific requirements in other State / FEMA joint plans, which could potentially delay lifesaving search and rescue activities. Federal urban search and rescue capabilities are ready to support survivors, but identifying time-critical search and rescue teams and equipment ready for rapid deployment into the incident area to save lives remains a challenge.</p><p>

Canadian Federalism has grown to incorporate the opposing ideologies of communitarianism and individualism, which compete in both social and political arenas. The cultural industry sector in Canada negotiates this ideological landscape in order to secure favourable public policy in the form of both political support and access to public resources. Within the cultural sector and as a result of the environment, the book publishing industry is active in expressing its value as both community builders and economic worthy enterprises. Drawing upon research in federalism, cultural and policy studies, an analytical framework is developed to assess the underlying intentions of cultural policy and distribution of resources with respect to cultural or economic outcomes. This comparative analysis of federal and provincial policies supporting the book publishing industry in Canada demonstrates divergent policy choices between jurisdictions. These choices gravitate towards either communitarian/collectivist or individualist/economic values, mirroring those values incorporated into the current Canadian federalist structure. / Arts, Faculty of / Political Science, Department of / Graduate

The primary research question that guides this dissertation is: What is the relationship between neoliberalism and welfare governance? In contrast to the idea that market reforms bring the destruction of social welfare provision, I argue that market reforms are actually accompanied by new practices of—public and private—giving. An analysis of a wide range of welfare institutions and their practices, ethics and ideas about poverty, equality and generosity in Turkey highlights that processes of economic liberalization produce new paradigms of welfare governance, instead of dismantling it. This dissertation utilizes interpretive and ethnographic methods through a case-study of state and non-state social service provision in Turkey in order to answer this question. During a 14-month fieldwork in Turkey between June 2009-August 2010 I participated in the volunteer meetings, fundraising events and assistance distribution days of religious and secular charity organizations, met with the volunteers, teachers and beneficiaries of university social responsibility programs and corporate philanthropy projects. The empirical data consists of 72 in-depth (structured as well as open-ended) interviews with a range of informants, archival materials concerning the historical evolution of social policy in Turkey from 1930 to 2010 and other brochures, pamphlets and media artifacts related to welfare policy. Accordingly, this dissertation presents two main arguments. First, it posits that, market reforms instead of destroying welfare structures and cultures, actually create a humanitarian notion of welfare, which I define as welfare humanitarianism. Second I argue against the diffusion hypothesis which claims that neoliberal technologies of governance travel from the global to the local. In contrast, this dissertation emphasized the local production of neoliberalism. Such an analytical perspective highlights the ways in which neoliberal modes of governance shape and is shaped by local political projects. Lastly, by comparing how secularist and Islamist political groups have discussed the topic of `social policy' in Turkey, I argue that instead of a `divide', these two political constituencies are actually bound by a shared understanding about state, society and economy.