Thesis advisor: Andrew Jorgenson / Recent research suggests that no country in the world meets its social needs in a sustainable manner. The U.S. is a prime example, as it has achieved a high standard of living but at a substantial cost to the environment. Although, research also suggests that subjective and objective measures of well-being are declining in the U.S. Thus, not only must the country reduce its emissions and environmental resource use, but it must also rethink its development strategy as well-being continues to deteriorate. However, these trends are not homogeneous as there are significant differences in ecological degradation and well-being across the states. What could explain these differences? Resource dependency, w¬hich refers to economic overspecialization in the extractive natural resource sector, offers a promising theoretical perspective to apply to this question. In my four-part dissertation, I explore whether and how resource dependency impacts sustainability-related measures in the U.S. Using state-level panel data, I assess the effects of resource dependency on the carbon-intensity of well-being, the renewable energy-fossil fuel nexus, and CO2 emissions in chapters two through four. In the fifth chapter, I describe three Stata commands (eiwb, xtasysum, and lreff) that I developed as part of my dissertation. Taken together, I show that resource dependency undermines environmental and social well-being outcomes in the U.S., but it does so in complex ways. I conclude by discussing the implications of my findings, this dissertation’s contributions to sociology and sustainability science, and paths for future research. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2023. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Sociology.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BOSTON/oai:dlib.bc.edu:bc-ir_109802 |
| Date | January 2023 |
| Creators | Thombs, Ryan P. |
| Publisher | Boston College |
| Source Sets | Boston College |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, thesis |
| Format | electronic, application/pdf |
| Rights | Copyright is held by the author. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0). |
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