A central feature of modern government is its role in designing welfare improving policies to address and correct market failures stemming from externalities and public goods. The rationale for most modern environmental regulations stems from the failure of markets to efficiently allocate goods and services. Yet, as with any policy, distributional effects are important there exist clear winners and losers. Despite the clear theoretical justification for environmental and energy policy, empirical work credibly identifying both the source and consequences of these externalities as well as the distributional effects of existing policies remains in its infancy. My dissertation focuses on the development of empirical methods to investigate the role of environmental and energy policy in addressing market failures as well as exploring the distributional implications of these policies. These questions are important not only as a justification for government intervention into markets but also for understanding how distributional consequences may shape the design and implementation of these policies. My dissertation investigates these questions in the context of programs and policies that are important in their own right. Chapters 1 and 2 of my dissertation explore the economic costs and distributional implications associated with the largest environmental regulatory pro- gram in the United States, the Clean Air Act. Chapters 3 and 4 examine the social costs of air pollution in the context of transportation externalities, showing how effective transportation policy has additional co-benefits in the form of environmental policy. My dissertation remains unified in both its subject matter and methodological approach - using unique sources of data and sound research designs to understand important issues in environmental policy.

In recent years, there has been a growing body of research demonstrating that the way parents make choices about schools is anything but colorblind. In fact, some research suggests that parents, particularly middle- or upper-middle-class white parents, make choices about where to live and send their children to school based on perceptions of public school quality and the race and class composition of the school district and/or schools (see Johnson and Shapiro, 2005; Cucchiara, 2008; Lewis, 2003; Holme, 2002; Posey, 2012; Roda & Wells, 2013). This qualitative case study extends this body of literature by not only examining parents' choices between highly segregated schools and school districts but also within an urban elementary school that offers two self-contained academic programs--a majority white Gifted and Talented ("G&T") program and a majority black and Latino General Education ("Gen Ed") program. It asks how the meanings that parents make about their available school choice options and their sense of "place" within the school system and larger society help to perpetuate and legitimize the separate, stratified system and how this "sense making" is intertwined with the inertia working against changing the system. This study begins to address these questions by examining the ways that "advantaged" parents--namely white, higher income and highly educated parents (see Bilfulco, Ladd and Ross, 2009)--make sense of their child's place[ment] within a demographically changing New York City elementary school with a G&T and Gen Ed program. Interviews were conducted with 41 advantaged parents with similar degrees of economic and social advantage whose children were enrolled, based on one test score, in the G&T program, Gen Ed program or both to understand the ways in which these social actors simultaneously embody, resist, and reproduce the social structures in which they live their lives and educate their children. Findings indicate that parent's struggle for high-status positions in the status hierarchy across programs and classrooms in their school. Meanwhile, they embody contradictory dispositions related to their sense of the "place" where they and their children belong within a segregated two-track school, their desire for their children to be exposed to racial/ethnic and socio-economic "diversity" - at least in the abstract and if their children are not in the minority, and their drive to provide their children with the "best" education, even when they are uncertain about what that means within this context. In contradictory ways, parents say they would prefer to enroll their children in diverse schools that have strong educational programs. But, for most of these advantaged parents, having their children enrolled in a program with other students "like them" in terms of their social status and privilege and thus being associated with other parents "like them" was the most important factor, superseding all other desires, including "diversity." They continue to make choices that privilege their children and perpetuate the status quo. Therefore, studying the contradictions that result from their school choices in a highly segregated system can tell us important information about why social conditions change or get reproduced and how policies could be altered to create fewer distinctions between schools and programs.

No description available.

This qualitative study was designed to identify factors that might affect the psychological and educational wellness of nontraditional students in nontraditional graduate programs in Education. Specifically, informants were selected purposefully from three Oregon State University extended-campus graduate programs in Education. Student informants were working professionals with family obligations. Faculty informants were selected because of their extensive involvement in the delivery and instruction of these programs. The informants shared their experiences and opinions in focus group and in-depth interviews. The initial focus group interview yielded basic concepts and categories that guided subsequent in-depth interviews with nine students and three faculty members. Transcripts of the in-depth interviews, along with focus group data, were crafted into narrative profiles of the informants. Analysis and comparison of the informants' profiles enabled examination of patterns and commonalities that appeared to be present among their experiences. The following conclusions were generated from the findings: 1. Family support and involvement are foundational factors in the attainment of the degree. 2. Financial implications must be of prime concern in the student's preliminary plans to enroll in a graduate program. 3. Wellness, both psychological and physical, can be significantly impacted by preoccupation with the academic demands of the program. 4. Time management is basic to successfully balancing family and career responsibilities and the institutional demands of higher education. 5. Workplace support and the field application of course work are critical elements in maintaining career momentum while undertaking a meaningful learning experience. 6. Institutional and program requirements must be clearly understood by the student at the time of admission. 7. The program coordinator and the student's major professor are the main agents for institutional interface and outcome attainment. 8. Flexibility is required on the part of all stakeholders in these programs. This is especially important in three areas: (a) scheduling, (b) delivery, and (c) curriculum and instruction. 9. The cohort model provides a "second family" that is generally the best coping mechanism within the program. This study has implications for all stakeholders in nontraditional higher education: administrators, faculty, students, and employers. / Graduation date: 1998

Meanings when consuming sport are socially constructed, culturally patterned, and cognitively organized. In order to identify common elements and explore national differences in the meanings of sport consumption, this study used the Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique (ZMET) to interview fans of professional basketball in the United States and China. Sixteen fans of professional basketball from each country were interviewed. Six categories of themes emerged from the interview data. They were: fanship socialization, fanship in life, the NBA/CBA interpretation, sport definition, identity orientation, and experience orientation. A model of fanship meaning and structure was then developed to represent fanship across the two national cultures. The model reveals that sport fanship can be conceptualized as mental maps with largely universal and interconnected cognitive constructs substantiated with meanings woven into fabrics using threads derived from the fans’ social and cultural contexts. Because of this social and cultural embeddedness, there is substantial cross-cultural variation in the ways that sport is interpreted. In particular, the two national groups have developed different definitions of what it means to be a fan. Americans focus on the team’s symbolic representation of their home city whereas Chinese see their connection with basketball-as-a-sport to be central to their fanship. This is a result of variation in the ways that fans were socialized into sport, the social significance of sport, and the fact that most Chinese fans follow NBA teams. The differences in fanship definition consequently exert cascading effects on the ways fans identify with basketball and experience the game. Findings of this study piece together different research streams to render a holistic conceptualization of fanship across the social, cultural, and psychological spheres. Based on the findings, a research program for a Sport Consumption Culture Theory (SCCT) was conceptualized. It is proposed that an emphasis on symbolism enabled by sport for identity construction and the characteristics of sport as consumption objectives form the core of a SCCT research program, and distinguish it from the general consumer research. / text

Law enforcement agencies are faced with the problem of how to reduce crime in the most economical method possible without violating the law. Since drug offenders also engage in a disproportionate amount of non-drug crime, then drug enforcement is considered as an acceptable general crime control method. Unfortuantely, this is an expensive option because incarcerating offenders is both costly and ony a short-term solution to the problem. A review of existing research examining the prior criminal histories of drug offenders compared to their previous involvement in violent and property crime is conducted to evaluate this relationship.

This research tests the descriptive validity of Ouchi's model of organizational control when it is applied to auditing firms. An analysis of Ouchi's model and other writings indicates that the selection-socialization type of control (or clan control or control by a strong organizational culture) would be expected to be used in auditing firms and that it would he evidenced by similarities in values perceived to be held by clan members. Empirical evidence is gathered from graduating students who are accounting majors and from professional staff in auditing firms using SYMLOG to measure perceived values. This evidence provided some support for the descriptive validity of Ouchi's model, but the evidence is mixed. The sets of perceived values found in staff of auditing firms do not appear to come from a single set, but the perceived values of each firm are different. Offers do appear to be made to individuals who have different sets of perceived values when compared to people who did not receive offers. No evidence was found to indicate that length of association within firm results in more similar sets of perceived values being held by firm members.

This dissertation studies China's first industrializing efforts to transform its navigation, cotton textiles and banking in the late nineteenth century, and analyzes the paradoxical roles of the state and culture in achieving development. It argues that successful late development is dependent on state policies that emphasize state-society connectedness and tradition-modernity continuity. In late Qing China, the state-midwifed industrial projects faced both intensive competition from foreign firms and resistance from domestic vested interests. Because key resource factors such as capital, production technology, and management skill were scarce and distributed unevenly across multiple sectors, the state officials had to redirect the resource flows in order to found new industries. The state had to perform an essential function of creative destruction, without which social groups in non-state sectors would be less likely to embrace changes, but the ultimate success of new industries depended on a societal consolidation that redefined the state-society relationship. This study also shows that culture was a double-edged sword with great potential for lubricating industrial transformation. The promoters of development created myths, symbols and beliefs to legitimize their industrializing efforts. They made a constant effort to reinterpret tradition in order to find compatibility between the foreign and domestic systems. The distinctive sectoral paths taken by navigation, cotton textiles and banking represented different patterns of state-society cooperation for achieving development. Each sector had distinct production technologies and product structure, and was endowed with distinct sectoral institutions and other legacies. These endowments constrained choices of every new industry, but it was a combination of structural factors and industry's responsive strategies that explained why some enterprises succeeded while others failed. A project was more likely to succeed if there was greater state-society connectedness and cultural compatibility. Steam navigation was the most successful among the three, followed by cotton textiles. Banking was the least successful.

African countries in general have registered improved socio-economic and economic growth and development for the past 20 years since the 1990s. Of particular interest is southern Africa which has recorded a period of unprecedented political stability and economic growth in the wake of South Africa’s change to a democratic dispensation in 1994. Economic growth has brought with it an increase in the number of families counted in the middle class and therefore as prospective domestic and outbound tourists. This study examined the extent to which both the private and the public sectors in southern Africa, created with a focus on overseas or international tourists, have recognized this regional tourist market. The study used the core-periphery relationship as the conceptual framework to determine the difference ways in which core and periphery dynamics influenced the recognition of the regional tourist as a tourism market. The research found that the regional market has been recognized to different extents by the public and the private sector in the four case study countries. The core country, South Africa, has shown the most comprehensive recognition by dedicating resources to research into and planning around how to capture or retain market share. The peripheral countries have dedicated few if any resources to understanding the regional market; their systems and investors continue to focus primarily on the international market, and because the international and regional markets have different needs, find it difficult to switch their focus to this emerging market. The study also found that having a core country as an immediate neighbor pulls all those with the willingness and ability to travel towards itself, to the detriment of domestic tourism development in the short-term. The study suggests that to access the existing regional market, the three case study countries of the periphery would be well served to adapt to their circumstances the data-driven approach of South Africa.

Educational credentials are clearly linked to economic success, but the reasons for this link are not clear. Common theoretical approaches provide explanations but lack direct employer perspectives on credentials' meaning and the context in which employers make sense of credentials. In this study, I used an alternative perspective based in Meyer's (1977) theory of education as an institution, labor market sociology, the sociology of work, and organizational theory to examine the role of social context in how employers make sense of the associate degree for IT technician jobs. I conducted comparative case studies of contrasting labor markets: Detroit and Seattle. I interviewed 78 hiring managers in 58 organizations of varying types about their perceptions and ways of using degrees in hiring IT technicians. Hiring managers' perspectives on associate and bachelor's degrees for IT technician jobs reflect their ideas of degree holders' social roles. They expected associate degree holders to be eager to please and to lack ability, skill, and initiative relative to the bachelor's degree holders. In contrast, they expected bachelor's degree holders to feel entitled. These expectations of traits found in different degree holders illustrate the relative status differences between these credentials and degree holders' reaction to these differences. Hiring managers held ideas about associate degrees specific to their local labor market. Detroit hiring managers more commonly expected associate degrees to signify commitment to career, while Seattle hiring managers more commonly expected them to signify lack of ability, skill, and initiative. These differing views may be associated with the level of education in the local population and the reputation of local community colleges. Some evidence indicates that bureaucracy in hiring may also influence the use of educational credentials. Further research is needed to understand the role of organizational context. The key finding of this study is that credentials exist in a relational context. Degrees take on meaning in relationship to social context, including: other degrees, the occupation, the local labor market, and potentially the organization. This finding exists in contrast to common theories that propose standard meanings associated with educational credentials but miss these more specific, situated meanings.