The Primary purpose of this paper is to examine the role and importance of Senior Senators in the US Senate. Many states rely on Senators to bring in federal spending in the form of pork. When states lose their Senior Senator and the power they accumulated through increased tenure, they risk losing certain benefits in terms of pork. We use federal expenditures per dollar of tax and analyze how it is affected by Seniority in the Senate. Population, Income, and unemployment rates in each state were controlled for in our regression analysis. It is concluded that increased tenure significantly increases federal spending to Senators’ states. Though this is statistically significant, we find the effects of losing a Senior Senator to be insignificant in the overall welfare of a state.

In the last quarter century, California state governance has been popularly perceived as gridlocked, misguided, and overrun by interest groups opposed to both population and economic growth. By contrast, the Texas government has consistently reaffirmed its commitment to low taxes, minimal regulation, and a business-friendly climate. This divergence crystallized in the wake up the 2008-09 global financial crisis, where California’s growth rate fell sharply while Texas felt the recession’s impact more mildly and recovered quickly. Because of their similarities in size, power, and demographics, comparing the two states is well-covered ground. Nevertheless, most comparisons employ a “scorecard” method where components of public policy--state finance, taxation, and regulation--are held in isolation and a “winner” is selected. Such studies are generally not informed by academic research that evaluates the actual correlation between these elements of public policy and economic growth. Concurrently, economic research is usually conducted in the abstract and neglects to evaluate individual states with regard to their policies. This paper seeks to integrate a detailed accounting of economic literature on subnational economic growth with a holistic comparison of Texas and California. I find that while California suffers from a variety of challenges, empirical support for “Texas-style” policies as necessary for state-level economic growth is relatively weak. Thus, I conclude that California’s return to prosperity is not dependent on adopting such policies.

This study seeks to analyze the changes in the effects of determinants of earnings inequality and their labor market implications in urban China from 1988 to 2002. It analyzes urban individual data from the 1988, 1995, and 2002 surveys of the China Household Income Project by studying its inequality measures and summary statistics, and by conducting an ordinary least squares regression, quantile regression, and regression-based decomposition analysis. It finds that the labor market has indeed been rewarding human capital variables, in which age and work experience, which are related to seniority, have been decreasing in their contribution to earnings inequality, whereas education and skill-based occupation have been increasing their contributions to earnings inequality. In addition, the labor market has become more discriminatory in terms of gender, which has increased its contribution to earnings inequality, and less discriminatory in terms of minority status and Communist party membership, which have decreased their contributions to earnings inequality. The labor market has also become more segmented in terms of work unit sector, which has increased its contribution to earnings inequality, but has also become less segmented in terms of ownership, which has actually started to contribute to earnings equality. These observations show that urban China’s labor market has been becoming more market-oriented and has been progressing overall, except for its increasing gender discrimination and segmentation by sector.

Recent spikes in oil prices have thrown light on how economic activity in emerging markets may be impacted by oil price shocks. This paper conducts an empirical analysis of the effect of oil price shocks on emerging markets. It tests for the existence of an asymmetrical relationship between oil prices and economic activity using a model developed by James Hamilton. It also assesses the impact of structural shocks to the real price of oil on output as proposed by Lutz Kilian. While our models find no consistent pattern within emerging markets, they do suggest that oil price shocks have a greater significance in 2000-2009 than in the full sample of 1974-2009. We also find that emerging economies are impacted by changes in oil specific demand but unaffected by changes in aggregate demand for industrial commodities.

The goal of this study is to evaluate the introduction of cellulosic ethanol conversion plants using switchgrass as the feedstock and how it impacts the economies of two Tennessee regions. Switchgrass feedstock production, storage, and transportation costs are estimated for one plant in West Tennessee and one plant in East Tennessee. In each region, the location for a cellulosic ethanol conversion plant and the acreage required to meet a 61.8 million-gallon/year capacity are specified. The costs associated with switchgrass production and cellulosic ethanol conversion are then entered into IMPLAN to estimate the economic impacts of one cellulosic ethanol plant in each region. The key findings of the study for West Tennessee are as follows. The investment impacts of switchgrass farming are $100.4 million more in total industry output, an increase of 914 jobs, and $46.9 million more in total valued added. Investment impacts of a cellulosic ethanol conversion plant include $121.3 million increase in total industry output, an additional 653 jobs, and a $47.7 million increase in total valued added. Year-to-year operations of switchgrass farming and cellulosic ethanol conversion increase the region’s total industry output by $57.1 million, increase jobs by 296, and increase total value added by $26 million.In East Tennessee the investment impacts of switchgrass farming are $118.3 million increase in total industry output, 949 jobs created, and a $66.4 million increase in total valued added. Investment impacts of a cellulosic ethanol conversion plant include a $116.9 million increase in total industry output, an additional 765 jobs, and a $48.3 million increase in total valued added. Year-to-year operations of switchgrass farming and cellulosic ethanol conversion increase the region’s total industry output by $80.4 million, jobs by 396, and the total value added by $39.2 million.

Thesis (D. Min.)--Denver Seminary, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 195-198).

Thesis (D. Min.)--Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 124-130).

Islet plasticity has proven to be an important platform for the engineering of alternative islet tissue for transplantation. In vitro studies have shown the ability of islets to transdifferentiate into duct-like epithelial structures (DLS) thought to possess progenitor cells capable of replenishing damaged tissue within the pancreas. The aim of this study was to investigate the natural history of human derived duct-like epithelial structures transplanted into nude mice. / Human islet derived duct-like structures from three cadaver pancreases were subcutaneously transplanted into 6-8 week old male HSD athymic nude-Foxn1 mice. Six mice were sacrificed at day 3, 7, 14 and 21 from each time period. DLS were also placed in matrigel for in-vitro control samples. DLS were processed for immunohistochemistry for endocrine markers, epithelial markers, cell death and proliferation markers, islet maturation markers and angiogenic factors. / Our results show that as DLS are transplanted, there is an increase in cell death and proliferation. This increase in cell death and proliferation causes an increase in PDX-1 expression as well as VEGF, an angiogenic factor. But over time, transplanted DLS do not show an increase in cell death and show a small decrease in cell proliferation from pre-transplanted DLS. At day 3 of engraftment, DLS show a significant expression of PDX-1. We see a small increase in endocrine tissue after 3 days of transplantation, then an increase in endocrine cell death, which returns the percentage of endocrine cells back to pre-transplantation levels at day 21. DLS were shown to express VEGF, and once transplanted into an initial hypoxic environment there is a substantial increase in expression, followed by a recruitment of microvessels. Although there is a dynamic change in expression of cell markers throughout engraftment, there is no significant change in DLS size, nuclei per DLS or cell morphology over time. / DLS have been shown to survive subcutaneous transplantation and possess an initial increase in cell proliferation leading to increases in PDX-1 and VEGF expression. Transplanted DLS have shown to possess significant angiogenic properties with the recruitment of microvessels into subcutaneous DLS grafts. Subcutaneous DLS transplantation could be used in combination with islet transplantation to alleviate current problems with islet transplantation such as islet cell death and insufficient blood supply.

To acquire its characteristic structural and functional complexity, the mammalian nervous system must undergo several critical developmental processes. One such process requires factors that regulate the decision of dividing progenitors to leave the cell cycle and activate the neuronal differentiation program. It is shown in this thesis that the murine runt-related gene Runx1 is expressed in proliferating cells on the basal side of the murine olfactory epithelium. Disruption of Runx1 function in vivo does not result in a change in the quantity of progenitors but leads to a decrease in precursor number and an increase in differentiated ORNs. These effects result in premature and ectopic ORN differentiation. Further, exogenous Runx1 expression in cultured olfactory neural progenitors causes an expansion of the mitotic cell population. In agreement with these findings, exogenous Runx1 expression also promotes cortical neural progenitor cell proliferation without inhibiting neuronal differentiation. These effects appear to involve transcriptional repression mechanisms. Consistent with this possibility, Runx1 represses transcription driven by the promoter of the cell cycle inhibitor p21Cip1 in cortical progenitors. Taken together, these findings suggest a previously unrecognized role for Runx1 in coordinating the proliferation and neuronal differentiation of selected populations of neural progenitors/precursors. / Another significant step in the development of the mammalian nervous system is the acquisition of distinctive neuronal traits. This thesis also shows that Runx1 is expressed in selected populations of postmitotic neurons of the murine embryonic central and peripheral nervous systems. In embryos lacking Runx1 activity, hindbrain branchiovisceral motor neuron precursors of the cholinergie lineage are correctly specified but then fail to enter successive stages of differentiation and undergo increased cell death resulting in neuronal loss in the mantle layer. Runx1 inactivation also leads to a loss of selected sensory neurons in trigeminal and vestibulocochlear ganglia. These findings uncover previously unrecognized roles for Runx1 in the regulation of neuronal subtype specification. / This thesis thus presents a novel factor which functions at several steps in the development of the mammalian nervous system and adds to the growing body of work on the processes involved in elaborating such a complex and vital structure.

The extent of influence of monetary policies on housing prices in the Greater China region is examined in this study using data from 2005-2015. Using vector autoregression, the effects of housing indices, interest rates, money supply as well as stock market index are accessed. Results suggest that monetary policies do in fact influence housing market trends in Greater China. Furthermore, the extent of influence on Mainland China on the Hong Kong and Taiwan markets is also tested. Results imply a greater co-integration between the Mainland and Hong Kong market than that between Mainland and Taiwan. The effect of exchange rate is deemed as insignificant. Housing policies set by national and local governments show to be less influential than predicted. Lastly, granger causality is not present between the different markets within this study.