abstract: The Phoenix, Arizona metropolitan area has sustained one of the United States' fastest growth rates for nearly a century. Supported by a mild climate and cheap, available land, the magnitude of regional land development contrasts with heady concerns over energy use, environmental sensitivity, and land fragmentation. This dissertation uses four empirical research studies to investigate the historic, geographic microfoundations of the region's oft-maligned urban morphology and the drivers of land development behind it. First, urban land use patterns are linked to historical development processes by adapting a variety of spatial measures commonly used in land cover studies. The timing of development - particularly the global financial crisis of the late 2000s, and the impact of varying market forces is examined using econometric analyses of land development drivers. This pluralistic approach emphasizes the importance of local geographic knowledge and history to empirical study of urban social science while stressing the importance of temporal effects. Evidence is found that while recent asset market changes impact local land development outcomes, preferences for place may be changing too. Even still, present-day neighborhoods are heavily conditioned by the market and institutional conditions of the historical period during which they developed, while the hegemony of low-cost housing on the urban fringe remains. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Geography 2015

abstract: This dissertation consists of three chapters. The first two explore the impact of government policies on human capital accumulation. Chapter one makes two novel contributions related to the two workhorse models in the human capital literature: Learning by Doing (LBD) and Ben-Porath (BP). First, I show that BP is much more consistent with empirical life-cycle patterns related to individual earnings growth rates relative to LBD. Second, I show that the same model features that generate different life-cycle predictions between models also generate different policy implications. In particular, increasing the top marginal labor tax rate, relative to the current US level, generates much larger reductions in lifetime human capital accumulation in the BP model versus the LBD model. Chapter two examines reforms to the Social Security taxable earnings cap in the context of a human capital model. Old age Social Security benefits in the US are funded by a 10.6% payroll tax up to a cap of $118,500. There has been little work examining the likely outcomes of such a policy change. I use a life-cycle BP human capital model with heterogeneous individuals to investigate the aggregate and distributional steady state impacts of several policy changes the earnings cap. I find that when I eliminate the cap: (1) aggregate output and consumption fall substantially; (2) the role of endogenous human capital is first order; (3) total federal tax revenues are lower or roughly unchanged; (4) about 1/3 of workers are made worse off. The final chapter studies the existence and optimality of equilibria in the presence of asymmetric information. I develop an equilibrium concept which corresponds to the presence of mutual insurance organizations for a class of adverse selection economies which includes the Spence (1973) signaling and Rothschild-Stiglitz (1976) insurance environments. The defining features of a mutual insurance organization are that policy holders are also the owners of the organization, and that the organization can write policies for which the terms depend on the experience of the mutual members. In general the equilibrium exists and is weakly Pareto optimal. Further, all equilibria have the same individual type utility vector. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Economics 2016

abstract: Government revenue forecasting errors have become larger, especially in exceptional times such as the periods surrounding economic recessions. Inaccurate revenue estimates stem from unanticipated revenue increases or decreases from a previous trend. Unfortunately, current forecasting methods relying primarily on trend analysis do not incorporate these kinds of sudden changes easily. When revenue punctuations occur, the revenue forecasting errors increase. To reduce forecasting errors caused by revenue punctuations in government revenue collections, I argued that analysts must not dismiss outliers as extraneous or useless phenomena. My research revealed an approach to incorporate outliers or punctuations into revenue forecasting. First, this research studied the criterion for judging the appearance of revenue punctuations using state governments’ quarterly collections of the five largest taxes from 1977 to 2016. Second, the research explored the patterns of these revenue punctuations, specifically the relationship between the changes in dollar amount and the amount of time from one revenue punctuation to another. Inspired by the few statistical techniques for identifying outliers, this research applied the studentized residuals method to detect the revenue punctuations. The result revealed that all five tax categories for each state have revenue punctuations, except Motor Fuels Tax in the state of Tennessee. Furthermore, this research disclosed that while not all the states and all the tax categories have statistically significant relationships between the depth and length of revenue punctuations, some states still have valid relationships. For the states that have statistically significant relationships, a forecaster, knowing depth, could calculate length and vice versa. Thus, the forecasting errors caused by revenue punctuations could be reduced when the protocols my research identified are used. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Public Administration and Policy 2018

The long history of racism has created cultural barriers that prevent some Black Americans from seeking cancer treatment. Fatalism, physician mistrust, low levels of social support and self-efficacy, are the most cited cultural barriers in the literature. Black Americans’ religious beliefs and church involvement have historically helped them in their struggle against racism. A quantitative and a qualitative comparison studies examine the role of Black cancer survivors’ religious beliefs in their fight against cancer. The quantitative comparison study finds no difference in the cultural attitudes between Black and White cancer survivors. However, the qualitative comparison study between the same two racial groups finds Black survivors’ religion reduced their fatalism and increased their levels of physician trust, social support, and self-efficacy. The research concludes that Black Americans’ religion can mitigate cultural barriers that prevent some Black Americans from seeking cancer treatment.

<p> Savvy and opportunistic fraudsters increasingly target smaller governmental organizations. Insufficient transparency and disjointed accountability over controls nurture the hidden nature of occupational fraud and allow wrongdoing to escalate during decades of routine operations. Criminal sentencings confirm local government and education officials misusing their positions and placing their own interests above those of their communities. Both primary case studies&mdash;a municipal crime in the City of Dixon, Illinois and corruption inside Roslyn, New York&rsquo;s Union Free School District&mdash;illustrate how embezzling more than $65 million remained undetected over thirty years until tip disclosure. The extension of unmerited trust created insufficient segregation of duties among employees and low monitoring left public resources vulnerable to fraud, waste, abuse, and corruption. The project holds ternary importance for risk management since one-third of small entities experience fraud, traditional external auditing identifies fraud in less than five percent of instances, and receiving anonymous tips through reporting hotlines improves detection by up to 20% and reduces losses (ACFE, 2016). The project examined stakeholder speak-up strategies including whistleblower protections and tips hotline (WP&amp;TH) initiatives to understand how organizational context, willful blindness, information access, and citizen engagement affect local government&rsquo;s focus on fraud detection and remediation. Case studies show WP&amp;TH initiatives to be financially and operationally superior in identifying risk and promoting transparency in small local governments. Third-party, 24/7 call centers and anonymous, two-way dialog web/text are underutilized tools for recognizing fraud precursors and stopping them before they aggregate, escalate, or become institutional norm.</p><p>

<p> Disadvantaged communities in California and across the US encounter unique barriers to attracting competitive funding for affordable housing, economic development, sustainability initiatives and other needs. This paper examines an effort underway in California to overcome these barriers by providing subsidized technical assistance to disadvantaged communities that apply for certain cap and trade-funded grant programs. Specifically, we evaluate the effectiveness of California&rsquo;s technical assistance (TA) pilot run by the California Strategic Growth Council (SGC) for the Affordable Housing &amp; Sustainable Communities (AHSC) Grant Program. We find that applicants who received comprehensive technical assistance, such as the services provided by the SGC TA pilot, enjoyed a strong competitive advantage over those who do not receive assistance. We also find evidence that projects aimed at serving disadvantaged communities see greater benefits from technical assistance than projects in more affluent communities.</p><p>

<p> Problem: The problem this study investigated is the phenomenon of a small but growing group of activist political leaders who are redefining public sector governance by reshaping the organizations they lead, thereby improving the institutional environments of hitherto moribund public agencies. The study explored the unique dispositions, skills, values, and/or behaviors of this class of leaders in order to provide an understanding of their emergence in terms of their development, decision-making and other personal leadership characteristics that evolved into their 'activist' nature. The purpose of this research was to develop a grounded theory regarding how the leadership competencies/qualities exhibited by this new breed of public sector leaders support the achievement of &lsquo;above-the-norm&rsquo; organizational performance in the public sector, despite the constraints of weak governance institutions within their specified contexts. The study has its conceptual framework drawn from the notions of effective leadership from a personal leadership perspective, as described in the works of Greenstein (1979) and, Mumford (2006). </p><p> Method: The method of investigation adopted for this study was a &lsquo;grounded theory&rsquo; approach (Strauss &amp; Corbin, 1994, p. 273), a general methodology of qualitative research designed to build substantive theory based on the systematic collection and analysis of data. Data collection was primarily by open ended narrative interviews with a purposive sample of seven public sector leaders who had been (a) identified by perceived improvement in organizational performance during their tenure in public office (b) their leadership activism as demonstrated in their use of public office to effect social change within their leadership context (c) held public sector leadership role for a minimum of three years (d) in leadership at national and/or sub-national levels and (e) validated by a subject matter expert. In addition, four (4) key informants were interviewed &ndash; who is either a past/present associate/subordinate of five (5) of the leader(s) interviewed in the study. </p><p> Results: Three major themes emerged from my interviews with the leaders: (a) their managerial and personal approach; (b.) their cognitive disposition to achieving good governance outcomes; and (c.) their pragmatic leadership approach to resolving leadership challenges of weak institutional contexts. These leaders are able to deliver effective leadership despite weak institutional/governance frameworks, not by using a specific leadership technique; but rather by manifesting their own personal convictions for achieving results&mdash;convictions that emerges from a matured conceptualization of their self-integration process. </p><p> Conclusion: The study concludes that leaders&rsquo; personal characteristics, understanding of self-concepts, and a pragmatic approach empower them to successfully create a compelling personal vision that has a clear ethical framework. They combine these with the capacity to use their social and emotional competencies to achieve results. The study further claims that producing leaders who successfully lead public organizations effectively is the responsibility of many parts of the &ldquo;ecosystem&rdquo; of public leadership.</p><p>

<p> The National Labor Relations Act sets forth limited definitions of what it means to be an employer and an employee in the twentieth-century industrial economy, and bestows on the National Labor Relations Board the authority to classify employees and employers. The past half-century has witnessed the growth of triangular staffing arrangements such as franchises, independent contractors, temporary help services firms, and a service sector in which many contingent workers may not qualify as employees, leaving them unprotected by the Act. By examining Board decisions addressing joint-employer and independent contractor status since 1960, this paper has identified increased polarization&mdash;the tendency of Democratic and Republican Board members to vote in opposing, and often politicized directions&mdash;in Board decisions classifying employers and employees. The findings suggest that in determining worker eligibility for protection under the Act, the Board is more polarized than at any point in 50 years.</p><p>

<p> A review of literature suggests that train derailments are a statistically relevant concern. While not all train derailments involve hazardous materials, those that do release chemicals pose a public health threat. This study challenges the decision-making mainstay tool of the hazardous materials response community &ndash; the <i>Emergency Response Guidebook</i> (ERG) &ndash; and its default strategy of evacuation through quantitative research that evaluates data from train derailments involving the release of hazardous materials. It explores whether there are correlations between a derailment&rsquo;s variables and evacuation, as well as correlations between the number evacuated and the number of those injured or killed. Secondary data on train derailments from the Pipeline Hazardous Material Safety Administration revealed 358 incidents involving the release of 876 substances between October 12, 1989 through August 10, 2016. The resulting data analysis confirms a certain level of predictability between causal factors and worsening outcomes supporting expansion of decision-making tools in the ERG.</p><p>

<p> This research investigates the existence of and potential challenges to the development of a transdisciplinary approach to the climate change mitigation technology research focusing on carbon dioxide capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) in North America. The unprecedented challenge of global climate change is one that invites a transdisciplinary approach. The challenge of climate change mitigation requires an understanding of multiple disciplines, as well as the role that complexity, post-normal or post-modern science, and uncertainty play in combining these various disciplines. </p><p> This research followed the general discourse of transdisciplinarity as described by Klein (2014) and Augsburg (2016) which describe it as using transcendence, problem solving, and transgression to address wicked, complex societal problems, and as taught by California School of Transdisciplinarity, where the research focuses on sustainability in the age of post-normal science (Funtowicz &amp; Ravetz, 1993). </p><p> Through the use of electronic surveys and semi-structured interviews, members of the North American climate change mitigation research community shared their views and understanding of transdisciplinarity (Kvale &amp; Brinkmann, 2009). The data indicate that much of the research currently being conducted by members of the North American CCUS research community is in fact <i>transdisciplinary.</i> What is most intriguing is the manner in which researchers arrived at their current understanding of transdisciplinarity, which is in many cases without any foreknowledge or use of the term transdisciplinary. </p><p> The data reveals that in many cases the researchers now understand that this transdisciplinary approach is borne out of personal beliefs or emotion, social or societal aspects, their educational process, the way in which they communicate, and in most cases, the CCUS research itself, that require this transdisciplinary approach, but had never thought about giving it a name or understanding its origin or dimensions. Much of this new knowledge has come from the analysis and understanding of the Tier 1, Tier 2 and Emergent traits of the transdisciplinarian.</p><p>