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Title: Weathering the Storm: An Examination of Fetal Loss, Maternal Age, and Norms of Race and Sexuality.
Creator: Latinsky, Andrew, Ueno, Koji, Grzywacz, Joseph G., Burdette, Amy M., Waggoner, Miranda R., Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Department of...
Show moreLatinsky, Andrew, Ueno, Koji, Grzywacz, Joseph G., Burdette, Amy M., Waggoner, Miranda R., Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Department of Sociology
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Abstract/Description: This dissertation tests if fetal loss can be applied as an extension of prior literature on the weathering hypothesis. To do so, this study extends upon the weathering hypothesis: the observation that blacks experience substantially higher levels of stress than their white counterparts in the United States, that this gap only increases as individuals become older, and that this resulting stress is correlated with negative health outcomes, especially chronic disease. This outcome is proposed...
Show moreThis dissertation tests if fetal loss can be applied as an extension of prior literature on the weathering hypothesis. To do so, this study extends upon the weathering hypothesis: the observation that blacks experience substantially higher levels of stress than their white counterparts in the United States, that this gap only increases as individuals become older, and that this resulting stress is correlated with negative health outcomes, especially chronic disease. This outcome is proposed to be caused by subtle racist events and broader institutional racism, resulting in the literal accumulation of stress in the body. The outcome of weathering can be measured in physical responses of the individual's body such as cortisol levels and blood pressure (referred to collectively as allostatic load). Because negative events lead to these stress responses being more common in blacks than whites, resulting in higher allostatic load, there is a corresponding increase in the incidence of health problems such as chronic inflammation. In prior research, the impact of weathering on maternal and child health has been tested for by examining the choice of early childbearing among black mothers. This is a time period where the gap in allostatic load measures is smaller across race. Prior studies examining the weathering hypothesis have determined that for minority women, and minority women only (particularly black women), the risk of maternal mortality, premature birth, low birth weight, and infant mortality is smaller when women become pregnant in adolescence as opposed to young adulthood. However, in spite of a fetal loss gap by race that is similar to the aforementioned maternal and child health outcomes, there is a lack of research into if effects associated with the weathering hypothesis occur with fetal loss. Two analyses are performed to test this relationship. The first analysis consists of a series of multilevel logistic models on approximately seventeen thousand pregnancy outcomes in the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), examining the relative risk of fetal loss based on racial and age characteristics of mothers at the time of pregnancy. The second analysis follows with a series of logistic regressions examining approximately four million pregnancies in the National Vital Statistics Survey (NVSS) for the years 2016 and 2013, also examining the influence of the mother's race, age, and its interaction on fetal loss risks in each year. These analyses find that for each sample (including both years of the NVSS), black women overall have higher risks of fetal loss than their white counterparts. However, for black and Hispanic-black women, the risk of fetal loss was lower in adolescent pregnancies than adult pregnancies, consistent with the weathering hypothesis. The findings from this dissertation suggest that the effects of weathering on maternal and child healthcare outcomes can in fact be extended to the issue of fetal loss, thereby suggesting that stress resulting from racism has a broader collection of harms than previously recognized.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: 2019_Summer_Latinsky_fsu_0071E_15284
Format: Thesis

Title: Essays on U.S. Renewable Energy and Local Sustainability Policy.
Creator: Kim, Seoyoung Serena, Feiock, Richard C., Barrilleaux, Charles, Brower, Ralph S., Yang, Kaifeng, Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Askew...
Show moreKim, Seoyoung Serena, Feiock, Richard C., Barrilleaux, Charles, Brower, Ralph S., Yang, Kaifeng, Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Askew School of Public Administration and Policy
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Abstract/Description: The first chapter examines what motivates airports to deploy on-site solar PV system. Currently, over 20% of U.S. public airports have adopted solar photovoltaic (PV) on their property. Yet, the vast majority of research on solar energy adoption focuses on state, local, or individual levels, largely overlooking one of the most utilized public properties for solar PV—airports. Combining a unique dataset of 488 U.S. public airports and interviews with managers at four key airports, this paper...
Show moreThe first chapter examines what motivates airports to deploy on-site solar PV system. Currently, over 20% of U.S. public airports have adopted solar photovoltaic (PV) on their property. Yet, the vast majority of research on solar energy adoption focuses on state, local, or individual levels, largely overlooking one of the most utilized public properties for solar PV—airports. Combining a unique dataset of 488 U.S. public airports and interviews with managers at four key airports, this paper investigates why and to what degree (i.e., capacity generated) do airports deploy on-site solar PV systems. Findings suggest state-operated airports are more likely to adopt solar PV, airports in the service area of cooperatives are less likely to deploy solar PV, and the level of connectivity to other airports in airport associations positively correlates to solar PV adoption and capacity. Airport governance, support from electric utilities, and renewable policy incentives are also important factors influencing solar and renewable energy development. Policy and management implications for renewable energy deployment at airports and other publicly-used properties are discussed. Insight for future research on the general linkage between governance structure and renewable energy development is considered. The second chapter examines make-or-buy decisions (i.e., providing in-house or contracting out) in financing solar PV projects at U.S. airports. Airports are one of the fastest growing adopters of solar photovoltaic (PV) energy systems, but little is known about how airports finance solar projects. Financing arrangements can influence long-term economic viability and cost-benefit distribution of solar projects. Based on the transaction cost approach, this paper hypothesizes that make-or-buy decisions for solar projects are shaped by airport governance structure, utility ownership, state policies, and renewable market conditions. Hypotheses are examined through multinomial logistic analysis, using data from all U.S. airports that have adopted a solar PV project as of June 2018. The analysis finds that airports operated by special-purpose governments are more likely to own and self-operate solar systems, while airports in the service area of investor-owned utilities are more likely to lease land for a solar project. Statewide renewable energy regulations and solar market conditions are also important factors influencing make-or-buy decisions. This chapter has implications for solar PV policy design, taking into account positive externalities of renewable energy projects given institutional environments. The third chapter examines how local government organizational characteristics and management activities relate to public-nonprofit collaboration and perceived performance in local sustainability. Local governments have been increasingly responsible for promoting sustainability, but we are only beginning to learn how organizational characteristics and management activities influence local sustainability policy. Using 2015 sustainable cities survey data and case studies in the U.S., this study finds that public-nonprofit collaboration in sustainability is positively associated with perceived inter-departmental competition and functional fragmentation. It is also found that perceived sustainability performance is positively correlated with public-nonprofit collaboration, functional fragmentation, and performance information use. However, the relationship between performance information use and perceived performance is nonlinear, indicating that the effect of performance information use on perceived performance has an inverse u-shape. Performance information use in highly fragmented administrative arrangements may be negatively related to perceived sustainability performance. Implications for local sustainability implementation are discussed.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: 2019_Spring_Kim_fsu_0071E_15158
Format: Thesis

Title: Building Europe: Determinants of Identity, Trust, and Support for Integration.
Creator: Jones, Eryn M., Ehrlich, Sean D., Grant, Jonathan A., Gomez, Brad T., Beazer, Quintin H., Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Department of...
Show moreJones, Eryn M., Ehrlich, Sean D., Grant, Jonathan A., Gomez, Brad T., Beazer, Quintin H., Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Department of Political Science
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Abstract/Description: Since its inception the European Union has made great strides in the realm of regional integration. However, the political and economic crises of the last decade have fundamentally changed the political landscape of the EU and have had important implications for continued support of the European project. In the era of the “constraining dissensus” many argue that a true European demos cannot exist and questions of EU legitimacy have taken center stage. As such, we are left with questions of to...
Show moreSince its inception the European Union has made great strides in the realm of regional integration. However, the political and economic crises of the last decade have fundamentally changed the political landscape of the EU and have had important implications for continued support of the European project. In the era of the “constraining dissensus” many argue that a true European demos cannot exist and questions of EU legitimacy have taken center stage. As such, we are left with questions of to what extent to individuals view themselves as European and what contributes to this identity? How might the legitimacy of, and therefore diffuse support for European institutions be strengthened? And finally, what factors contribute to support for continued integration in Europe? To understand how, and indeed if, the EU can continue to grow and integrate we must first examine the extent to which a European demos does exist as well as the extent to which the EU is viewed as a representative institution. To this end, this project examines the factors that contribute to an individual level European identity, how this identity influences trust in European institutions, and finally how the influences of these factors on individuals’ support for both continued widening and deepening in Europe.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: 2019_Spring_Jones_fsu_0071E_15119
Format: Thesis

Title: Distance Education and Horizontal Stratification in U.S. Higher Education.
Creator: Boggs, Kaley Dyan, Reynolds, John R., Schwartz, Robert A., Padavic, Irene, Brewster, Karen, Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Department of...
Show moreBoggs, Kaley Dyan, Reynolds, John R., Schwartz, Robert A., Padavic, Irene, Brewster, Karen, Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Department of Sociology
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Abstract/Description: Purpose: Distance education has become an increasingly common mode of instruction in U.S. higher education, and today more than a quarter of students are enrolled in distance courses or programs that are fully online. This dissertation asks two fundamental questions related to the growing presence of distance-based instruction in U.S. higher education. First, does increased college access in the form of distance enrollments contribute to horizontal postsecondary stratification? Second, is the...
Show morePurpose: Distance education has become an increasingly common mode of instruction in U.S. higher education, and today more than a quarter of students are enrolled in distance courses or programs that are fully online. This dissertation asks two fundamental questions related to the growing presence of distance-based instruction in U.S. higher education. First, does increased college access in the form of distance enrollments contribute to horizontal postsecondary stratification? Second, is the adoption of distance education indicative of academic capitalism? I make use of two broad theoretical perspectives to frame my analysis and develop a set of hypotheses concerning the types of colleges and universities that enroll greater percentages of undergraduates in at least one distance course or completely online degree programs. Drawing on the “effectively maintained inequality” (EMI) perspective, I hypothesize that enrollment in distance courses and programs will be higher at less selective colleges and universities and will vary by institutional sector. Regarding sector, I hypothesize that distance enrollments are highest at for-profit institutions, and higher at public institutions than at private. Based on the “academic capitalism” perspective, I hypothesize that institutions with lower levels of financial resources will rely more heavily on distance education as a revenue source and a means of reducing costs. Methods: I test these hypotheses using the NCES Integrated Postsecondary Education Data Set for 2015-16. The sample of consists of 2,180 four-year postsecondary institutions. Hypotheses are tested using one-way and two-way ANOVA models and bivariate correlation analyses. Results: Enrollment in distance education varies significantly by level of selectivity, sector, and financial resources. As hypothesized, less selective institutions have significantly higher percentages of distance enrollment, but interesting subtleties emerge between sectors. Within public institutions distance course and program enrollment are fairly steady across selectivity levels, while enrollment differs substantially among private colleges and universities. Additional analyses of student composition by sector and selectivity confirm that social inequalities by race and class are not likely diminished by distance education. Institutions with fewer resources and expenditures have higher levels of distance education, as expected. Specifically, private institutions with fewer financial resources have greater distance course and program enrollment, and for-profits with fewer resources have greater distance program enrollment. However, overall revenue and expenses are not related to distance enrollment among public universities. Exploratory analysis of detailed revenue and expenditures paint a more nuanced picture of the financial resources that vary with greater reliance on distance courses and programs. Conclusion: The growth of distance enrollments does not reduce social stratification in higher education because distance enrollment growth is occurring disproportionately at less selective private and for-profit colleges and universities—institutions that are costlier to attend, have lower economic payoffs, and disproportionately enroll students of color and lower income college students. The growth of distance enrollment is also consistent with depiction of higher education as an academic capitalist regime, in that distance enrollment appears to function as a revenue source for colleges and universities, particularly for those outside the public sector.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: 2019_Spring_Boggs_fsu_0071E_15073
Format: Thesis

Title: Private, Public, and Collaborative Engagements in Environmental Issues.
Creator: Kim, Minjung, Coleman, Eric A., Coutts, Christopher, Gomez, Brad T., Pietryka, Matthew T., Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Department of...
Show moreKim, Minjung, Coleman, Eric A., Coutts, Christopher, Gomez, Brad T., Pietryka, Matthew T., Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Department of Political Science
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Abstract/Description: This dissertation analyzes the conditions under which individual environmental behaviors, government environmental regulations, and collaborative environmental policy networks occur. Although numerous studies have investigated these various types of environmental engagements, they tend to rely on general assumptions with major limitations. The first essay of this dissertation tests the effects of an individual’s environmental attitudes on private environmental behavior, instrumenting for the...
Show moreThis dissertation analyzes the conditions under which individual environmental behaviors, government environmental regulations, and collaborative environmental policy networks occur. Although numerous studies have investigated these various types of environmental engagements, they tend to rely on general assumptions with major limitations. The first essay of this dissertation tests the effects of an individual’s environmental attitudes on private environmental behavior, instrumenting for the endogeneity of attitude measures. The second essay studies the predictors of city governments’ adoption of flexible environmental regulations, based on the new perspective that pro-environmental institutions can be tools for economic growth. The first essay examines the causal relationships between individuals’ environmental attitude and their environmental behavior. Unlike the prevalent approach in the literature assuming the direct causal relationship of environmental attitude to behavior, I propose a new model that presents an instrument for the endogenous attitude measures. Empirical results are mixed. People who are more concerned about climate change are more likely to use green products, while they do not recycle more. These diverging results of the two behavioral variables considered to be the most environmental suggest substantial differences among the private environmental actions. Environmental attitudes consistently predict certain environmental behaviors, but they have no effect on other environmental behaviors. In addition, the positive and significant effects of environmental attitudes on some non-environmental private actions indicate the possibility of the social desirability bias of attitude measures. The overall results show that the causal effects of environmental attitudes on environmental behaviors are not simple and consistent as generally assumed. The second essay studies the reasons for the different levels in the city governments’ adoption of energy-efficient land-use policies. Extant work presumes a conflicting and competing relationship between economic growth and environmental conservation. My approach differs from traditional presumption by looking at environmental land-use plans as the institutional tools for economic development. This essay tests the hypothesis that cities that need green business to achieve their economic prosperity would implement more environmentally friendly land-use plans. The estimated effect shows that the more important the green business is for the city’s economic growth, the more likely the city will adopt general energy-efficient land-use plans. The empirical results in the second essay show that the different levels of adopting environmental institutions in the cities can be explained by diverse paths to achieving the economic growth of each city.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: 2019_Spring_Kim_fsu_0071E_15176
Format: Thesis

Title: Capital Flow Dynamics: Theory and Evidence.
Creator: Newell, Graham David, Atolia, Manoj, Kercheval, Alec N., Dmitriev, Mikhail I., Kreamer, Jonathan, Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy,...
Show moreNewell, Graham David, Atolia, Manoj, Kercheval, Alec N., Dmitriev, Mikhail I., Kreamer, Jonathan, Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Department of Economics
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Abstract/Description: My dissertation investigates the dynamics of international capital flows, distinguishing between net and gross flows. Chapter One considers both net and gross capital flows. I develop a small open economy model which endogenous sudden stops in net capital inflows. I then show how a second electronic currency can be used as a policy tool to reduce the volatility of capital flows. I also examine the empirical regularities of gross capital flows for the G7 countries and the implications for...
Show moreMy dissertation investigates the dynamics of international capital flows, distinguishing between net and gross flows. Chapter One considers both net and gross capital flows. I develop a small open economy model which endogenous sudden stops in net capital inflows. I then show how a second electronic currency can be used as a policy tool to reduce the volatility of capital flows. I also examine the empirical regularities of gross capital flows for the G7 countries and the implications for gross flows from a data set of investment decisions from a selection of large U.S. public pension funds. I document three important patterns in the aggregate data. First, gross capital flows are highly volatile. Second, there is a strong positive relationship between capital inflows and outflows. Third, gross capital flows are acyclical when accounting for the global financial cycle; global factors, rather than the domestic business cycle, account for a significantly greater proportion of the variation in gross flows. From firm-level pension fund data, I find that international investment decisions are large enough to contribute to gross flow volatility. For periphery economies which are the recipient of these firms' equity investments, participation in those economies is variable with firms entering, exiting, and changing the mix of markets in which they invest. The cost structure of foreign investing suggests that fixed participation costs are statistically significant and quantitatively important. The stylized facts I document are at odds with the economic theory regarding capital flows, therefore, in Chapter Two, I develop a large open-economy portfolio choice model and solve it globally with a novel solution algorithm. Using this model I show that fixed participation costs for investing abroad of less than ten basis points is sufficient to reproduce both the observed volatility of gross capital flows and the correlation between inflows and outflows.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: 2019_Spring_Newell_fsu_0071E_15058
Format: Thesis

Title: Essays in Applied Microeconomics: Topics in Urban and Education Economics.
Creator: Trost, Brian, Kantor, Shawn Everett, Park, Toby J., Kitchens, Carl T., Zuehlke, Thomas W. (Thomas William), Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public...
Show moreTrost, Brian, Kantor, Shawn Everett, Park, Toby J., Kitchens, Carl T., Zuehlke, Thomas W. (Thomas William), Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Department of Economics
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Abstract/Description: This dissertation is a collection of three independent chapters on topics in applied microeconomic analysis, focusing on issues in urban and education economics. The first chapter examines local housing values in Dallas after the repeal of the Wright Amendment, legislation that limited activity at the neighborhood airport Love Field. I find that, on average, the repeal of the Wright Amendment led to a 11% increase in rents and a 10\% increase in housing values for units less than 6 miles of...
Show moreThis dissertation is a collection of three independent chapters on topics in applied microeconomic analysis, focusing on issues in urban and education economics. The first chapter examines local housing values in Dallas after the repeal of the Wright Amendment, legislation that limited activity at the neighborhood airport Love Field. I find that, on average, the repeal of the Wright Amendment led to a 11% increase in rents and a 10\% increase in housing values for units less than 6 miles of the Love Field Airport. The second chapter examines interest in the education industry following Act 10, a Wisconsin legislative act that limited the collective bargaining power of teachers' unions in the state. Comparing the share of postsecondary students enrolled in a teacher preparation program in Wisconsin before and after Act 10 and relative to similar states, we find that on average Act 10 lead to a 12% increase in teacher preparation enrollment. Finally, the third chapter examines spatial crime activity in cities when hosting large events, such as college football games. Using geo-located daily level crime data from college towns, I estimate that crime increases in census tracts closer to the event by approximately 44% relative to tracts farther away on days with a football game, and is spatially concentrated in areas near the stadium.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: 2019_Spring_Trost_fsu_0071E_15123
Format: Thesis

Title: Affirmative Assertions of Black Life: Making Places of Respite in Florida A&M University's Marching 100.
Creator: Allen, Douglas L. (Douglas Loyd), Lawhon, Mary, McCreary, Tyler, Nair-Collins, Michael, Bledsoe, Adam, Doel, Ronald Edmund, Pierce, Joseph, Florida State University, College of...
Show moreAllen, Douglas L. (Douglas Loyd), Lawhon, Mary, McCreary, Tyler, Nair-Collins, Michael, Bledsoe, Adam, Doel, Ronald Edmund, Pierce, Joseph, Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Department of Geography
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Abstract/Description: In this dissertation, I study black geographic visions, experiences, and practices of the Marching 100 (M100) band at Florida A&M University (FAMU) and show how the black place-making practices of the Marching 100 (re)produces the black geographies of FAMU, Tallahassee, and M100 rehearsal spaces. This dissertation both draws from and makes conceptual and empirical contributions to the sub-discipline of black geographies. I show throughout this dissertation the usefulness of taking a place...
Show moreIn this dissertation, I study black geographic visions, experiences, and practices of the Marching 100 (M100) band at Florida A&M University (FAMU) and show how the black place-making practices of the Marching 100 (re)produces the black geographies of FAMU, Tallahassee, and M100 rehearsal spaces. This dissertation both draws from and makes conceptual and empirical contributions to the sub-discipline of black geographies. I show throughout this dissertation the usefulness of taking a place-making approach in studying black geographies and focus on how black place-making can be deployed as part of an affirmative celebration of black life. Conceptually, I draw on black feminist scholars to offer scholars interested in affirmative black geographies places of respite as an analytic and ontological object that is produced by (and productive of) visions and practices of black life. These places, I argue, provide relief from the burdens of oppressive articulations of society and space, and their existence amounts to a critique of these oppressive articulations. These places also offer opportunities to resist and heal harms of oppression. I also analyze the use of celebration as an affirmative, transgressive claiming of place within the city. Such celebrations, I argue, are transgressive place-making practices that can transform places and extend, temporarily, the sense of belonging places of respite provide. I also show, however, the precarity of black place-making claims. Together these chapters show the socio-spatial power of black joy/celebration and highlight the importance of black life in the production of black geographies.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: 2019_Spring_Allen_fsu_0071E_15108
Format: Thesis

Title: Transnational Ethnic Linkages, Bias, and Conflict Intervention.
Creator: Tuning, Rachel, Souva, Mark A., Grant, Jonathan A., Ehrlich, Sean D., Beazer, Quintin H., Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Department of...
Show moreTuning, Rachel, Souva, Mark A., Grant, Jonathan A., Ehrlich, Sean D., Beazer, Quintin H., Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Department of Political Science
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Abstract/Description: Do transnational ethnic linkages between third party states and disputants affect the probability of intervention? If so, how does regime type, power distribution of groups, and borders affect this decision? Do these interventions help to end interstate conflicts? Transnational ethnic linkages are an under-appreciated aspect of a state’s decision to enter international conflicts. While there is extensive research on interventions in conflicts and the role of ethnicity in civil war origination...
Show moreDo transnational ethnic linkages between third party states and disputants affect the probability of intervention? If so, how does regime type, power distribution of groups, and borders affect this decision? Do these interventions help to end interstate conflicts? Transnational ethnic linkages are an under-appreciated aspect of a state’s decision to enter international conflicts. While there is extensive research on interventions in conflicts and the role of ethnicity in civil war origination, the role of ethnic ties between potential interveners and interstate disputants remains unaccounted for (e.g. Reid 2015; Stojek and Chacha 2015; Findley and Marineau 2014; Huibregtse 2010; Saideman 2002). This is problematic when we consider the role of ethnicity in generating bias. Extant literature shows that when an intervening party has a bias toward a disputant, the intervention is typically more effective, but ethnic biases are not considered in extant literature (Block and Siegel 2011; Kydd 2006; Crescenzi, Kadera, Mitchell et al. 2011; Favretto 2009; Saideman 2001). In this dissertation, I theoretically separate conflict management from conflict intervention. This distinction is important because conflict intervention does not the need the consent of disputants and these interventions are by nature, biased. I utilize a unique triadic, multilevel dataset and a selection model to test my hypotheses. The results demonstrate that transnational ethnic linkages are an important aspect of a third party state’s decision to intervene in an interstate conflict.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: 2019_Spring_Tuning_fsu_0071E_15080
Format: Thesis

Title: A New Overland Flow Accumulation Algorithm with Enhanced Adaptability for Terrain Surface and Its Application in Distributed Hydrological Modeling.
Creator: Gao, Xinyu, Mesev, Victor, Coutts, Christopher, Yang, Xiaojun, Zhao, Tingting, Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Department of Geography
Abstract/Description: The simulation of overland flow accumulation is critical for drainage network extraction, soil moisture monitoring, and hydrological modeling, etc. A variety of flow accumulation algorithms have been developed, but the complex and variable terrain has undermined their predictive accuracy. In my dissertation, a new flow accumulation algorithm (SAPC) is proposed that applies different flow distribution schemes to divergent and convergent flow scenarios with respect to slope, aspect, and plan...
Show moreThe simulation of overland flow accumulation is critical for drainage network extraction, soil moisture monitoring, and hydrological modeling, etc. A variety of flow accumulation algorithms have been developed, but the complex and variable terrain has undermined their predictive accuracy. In my dissertation, a new flow accumulation algorithm (SAPC) is proposed that applies different flow distribution schemes to divergent and convergent flow scenarios with respect to slope, aspect, and plan curvature. Flow accumulation for the divergent scenario is slope-driven in the sense that flow distributed to the downslope neighboring cells is proportional to the slope values, and the weight of slope varies with plan curvature, making the SAPC algorithm adaptable to the variation of terrain surface. For the convergent scenario, flow accumulation is determined by aspect and all the water in the center cell is distributed in the same direction in two dimensions. Comparisons between the SAPC algorithm and the other algorithms show that flow accumulations estimated by the SAPC algorithm are closer to the true values for artificial surfaces, and the generated flow pathways are more balanced and smoother without serious artifacts for natural terrain surfaces. The SAPC algorithm is further integrated into the WetSpa Extension model to simulate hydrological responses at the outlet of the Bull Creek watershed for the 100-year tropical storm Hermine occurring in September 2010. The WetSpa Extension model provides both the semi-distributed and the fully-distributed modeling options. The fully-distributed WetSpa Extension model predicts a higher amount of surface runoff and thus the peak flow approaches more to the observed value than that predicted by the semi-distributed model. Flow accumulation is an important spatial parameter involved in hydrological modeling, and specifically it affects flow routing. Incorporating the SAPC algorithm into the WetSpa Extension model helps to obtain a hydrograph that aligns closer to the observed high flow region and more importantly, the model is able to provide the correct time to peak, otherwise there is half an hour of delay in the time to peak when SAPC algorithm is not used. Statistics demonstrate that the SAPC algorithm enables the WetSpa Extension model to be less biased, more confident and efficient. The significance of this dissertation lies in its provision of the possible ways to enhance the adaptability of flow accumulation algorithm to the varying terrain surfaces, and to improve hydrological modeling results through the more accurate and reliable flow accumulation predictions. This interdisciplinary study, which involves terrain analysis, hydrological modeling, and geographic information science (GIS), stresses the importance of location in describing physical features and processes that is usually the focus of geographical investigation.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: 2019_Spring_Gao_fsu_0071E_15162
Format: Thesis

Title: An Investigation of Social Enterprise: Uncovering Its Potential for Co-Production, Relationship with Government, and Employees' Organizational Commitment.
Creator: Choi, Donwe, Berry, Frances Stokes, Weissert, Carol S., Lee, Keon-Hyung, Feiock, Richard C., Brower, Ralph S., Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public...
Show moreChoi, Donwe, Berry, Frances Stokes, Weissert, Carol S., Lee, Keon-Hyung, Feiock, Richard C., Brower, Ralph S., Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Askew School of Public Administration and Policy
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Abstract/Description: This dissertation aims to enhance our understanding of social enterprise, particularly from the perspective of public policy and management. More specifically, the three papers within this dissertation attempt to make three significant contributions to the existing literature on this topic. The first paper explores the potential of social enterprise as a platform for co-production through illustrations from international practice. Combining social enterprise research and co-production...
Show moreThis dissertation aims to enhance our understanding of social enterprise, particularly from the perspective of public policy and management. More specifically, the three papers within this dissertation attempt to make three significant contributions to the existing literature on this topic. The first paper explores the potential of social enterprise as a platform for co-production through illustrations from international practice. Combining social enterprise research and co-production literature, it presents a conceptual framework of the relationship between social enterprise and co-production. The findings also help public administrators to better understand the advantages of social enterprise for co-production. The second paper examines the impact of government funding on public value creation. Linking public policy and organizational performance, this paper contributes to a better understanding of the relationship between government and social enterprise. The findings also provide policymakers with practical guidance on how to promote social enterprise so that it can create more social outcomes. The third paper investigates the impact of social enterprise's social orientation on the organizational commitment of individuals working for social enterprises from the perspective of public management. This paper contributes both to social enterprise research and organizational commitment literature by uncovering what promotes the organizational commitment of individuals working for social enterprises. In addition, through unpacking the difference between millennials and earlier generations in regard to organizational commitment, this paper provides social entrepreneurs and social enterprise managers with practical guidance on how to manage their employees, especially millennials.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: 2019_Summer_Choi_fsu_0071E_15383
Format: Thesis

Title: Evaluating the Relationship between Indoor Heat Exposure and Emergency Calls in New York City, Ny during Summer 2016.
Creator: Gonsoroski, Elaina, Uejio, Christopher K., Elsner, James B., Folch, David C., Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Department of Geography
Abstract/Description: Heat-related mortality rates increase significantly during heat waves, in some instances even more than doubling. Climate change projections indicate that the frequency and intensity of these extreme heat events may increase. Well-known events such as the Chicago 1995 and European 2003 heat wave led to a thorough investigation of the social and environmental risk factors that resulted in large numbers of excess mortality. However, most studies have focused on outdoor conditions while few...
Show moreHeat-related mortality rates increase significantly during heat waves, in some instances even more than doubling. Climate change projections indicate that the frequency and intensity of these extreme heat events may increase. Well-known events such as the Chicago 1995 and European 2003 heat wave led to a thorough investigation of the social and environmental risk factors that resulted in large numbers of excess mortality. However, most studies have focused on outdoor conditions while few published studies have attempted to investigate the relationship between heat waves, indoor environments and human health. Understanding the role of indoor environments may prove critical to reducing heat-related illness, especially in countries such as the U.S. where a large proportion of the population spends most of their time indoors. The goal of this study is to investigate this relationship and inform future public health studies and interventions. Data from the summer of 2016 were compiled for New York City, New York, U.S. in order to conduct a case-control study with specific interest in heat-related morbidity. Paramedics carried sensors which recorded indoor temperature and relative humidity observations while responding to emergency calls. Indoor conditions were related to Patient Care Reports containing medical and demographic information of the 911 calls provided by the New York City Emergency Medical Services. Additional analyses focused on outdoor weather conditions and their effect on indoor conditions using weather data provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Center for Environmental Information. These data were then compared to the data collected indoors to quantify the relationship that exists between outdoor and indoor conditions. The study provides insight into two research questions: 1) do outdoor conditions relate to indoor conditions, and 2) do indoor temperature and humidity relate to the composition of emergency calls. Results from the study show a linear relationship between outdoor and indoor temperature and specific humidity. In addition, the case-control study results suggest an increased risk of heat-related illness associated with temperatures equal to or greater than 28℃.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: 2019_Summer_Gonsoroski_fsu_0071N_15431
Format: Thesis

Title: The Impacts of Health Care Capital Controls on Health Outcomes and Regional Competition.
Creator: Chiu, Kevin, Kantor, Shawn Everett, Lee, Keon-Hyung, Kitchens, Carl T., Rodgers, Luke P., Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Department of...
Show moreChiu, Kevin, Kantor, Shawn Everett, Lee, Keon-Hyung, Kitchens, Carl T., Rodgers, Luke P., Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Department of Economics
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Abstract/Description: Capital control policies, such as certificate of need (CON) regulations, are often touted as a means of combatting the rising costs of healthcare. However, such policies often have little to no concern with their impact on health outcomes. This dissertation examines this impact. The first chapter, "The Impact of Certificate of Need Laws on Heart Attack Mortality," explores the relationship between heart attack deaths and CON laws, assessing the differential impact on states adopting CON...
Show moreCapital control policies, such as certificate of need (CON) regulations, are often touted as a means of combatting the rising costs of healthcare. However, such policies often have little to no concern with their impact on health outcomes. This dissertation examines this impact. The first chapter, "The Impact of Certificate of Need Laws on Heart Attack Mortality," explores the relationship between heart attack deaths and CON laws, assessing the differential impact on states adopting CON regulation between 1968 and 1982. Using neighboring counties on opposite sides of a state border to account for the endogeneity of healthcare preferences across regions, I find that the introduction of CON regulations led to 6-7 additional heart attack deaths per 100,000 (which represents a 4.2% increase in deaths relative to the pre-CON mean). The goal of the next two chapters is to explain possible mechanisms that links CON policies to the additional deaths. The second chapter, "Health Returns to Hospital-Level Capital Investments: Evidence from Endowment Shocks," measures the effect of capital on health outcomes. Taking advantage of the fact that non-profit hospitals follow a rigid endowment spending policy based upon the market value of their endowments, my coauthor (Shawn Kantor) and I develop an instrumental variable for current capital spending that is based upon each non-profit hospital's endowment level interacted with stock market shocks over time. Using patient-level discharge data from non-profit hospitals in the state of Florida from 2006 to 2014, we find that for every $1,000,000 increase in a hospital's capital expenditure, mortality decreases by 0.0062 to 0.0123 percentage point for the average ER visitor, and 0.0064 to 0.0110 percentage point for the average patient admitted to the hospital. This equates to about 6.2 to 12.3 individuals per 100,000. This effect, however, is economically small, since the average hospital treats 1,357 patients per year. Finally, the third chapter, "Using Certificate of Need Regulations to Deter Entry into the Healthcare Market: Case Study of Florida Prior to Repeal," is a case study of Florida's CON regulations prior to repeal in 2019. The goal is to provide a description of the CON approval process for future research on the impact of CON. This chapter explores the traditional methods of entry deterrence in the healthcare market then discusses how the regulatory environment may provide an additional option for incumbents to use unproductive capital to deter entry into a CON regulatory environment. I then provide an exploratory analysis of whether an incumbent has an impact on CON approval, conditional on the entrant reaching the decision to file a CON application, and briefly describe what needs to be accounted for in any future analysis.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: 2019_Summer_Chiu_fsu_0071E_15397
Format: Thesis

Title: Feminine Body Ideals in Teen Girl and Women Fashion Magazines and Instagram.
Creator: Claxton, Elyse Taylor, Rohlinger, Deana A., Dennen, Vanessa P., Burdette, Amy M., Waggoner, Miranda R., Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy,...
Show moreClaxton, Elyse Taylor, Rohlinger, Deana A., Dennen, Vanessa P., Burdette, Amy M., Waggoner, Miranda R., Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Department of Sociology
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Abstract/Description: Media are important agents of socialization. Accordingly, media images reflect as well as inform what characteristics symbolize feminine beauty. In the field of female beauty and fashion magazines in the U.S., visual portrayals of women with characteristics such as a thin body shape, Caucasian skin color, blue eye color, and blonde hair color are so frequent that these characteristics are viewed as symbols of ideal feminine beauty. However, recent changes in the fashion magazine field...
Show moreMedia are important agents of socialization. Accordingly, media images reflect as well as inform what characteristics symbolize feminine beauty. In the field of female beauty and fashion magazines in the U.S., visual portrayals of women with characteristics such as a thin body shape, Caucasian skin color, blue eye color, and blonde hair color are so frequent that these characteristics are viewed as symbols of ideal feminine beauty. However, recent changes in the fashion magazine field indicate a potential for newer, more diverse representations. Body positivity advocates utilize Internet Communication Technologies (ICTs) to organize and engage in body politics as they petition magazines to take 'body oaths,' a promise to incorporate more inclusive portrayals of feminine beauty. This research utilizes field theory to explore magazine readers and activist groups use of social media to engage, praise, and critique the fashion magazine field in an effort to change the field and its content. A quantitative content analysis is used to compare the body portrayals found in the pictorial content of four different teen girls' and women's print magazines and their Instagram accounts (Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Seventeen, and Teen Vogue during the summer and fall editions/months of 2016 and 2017) and a qualitative analysis looks at user engagement on the magazines' Instagram accounts. This data addresses the question: Are the changes in the female fashion magazine field enough to challenge field practices that subjugate female beauty to narrow definitions where thin bodies are constructed as the embodiment of ideal femininity? Considering body ideals as social constructions, meaning they are created, maintained, and also re-created, by a particular society and particular fields embedded within a society. This research considers how factors inside and outside the magazine field act upon the magazine outlet's constructed ideals of femininity specifically as it relates to bodies. The current research provides three key contributions to the field. First, the study asks whether sociological understanding of contemporary pictorial representations of bodies in popular media is changing within the field of female fashion magazines. Secondly, the research furthers understanding of the interactions between movement activists and readers and technological changes in light of the dynamics of the media field. Finally, the study helps us more thoroughly understand the way body ideals are constructed and reconstructed. The research addresses the following topics: gender, social movements and media
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: 2019_Summer_Claxton_fsu_0071E_15251
Format: Thesis

Title: Structural Health Outcomes in the Appalachian Region.
Creator: Annie, Frank H. (Frank Harrison), Uejio, Christopher K., Taylor, John, Horner, Mark W., Zhao, Tingting, Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy,...
Show moreAnnie, Frank H. (Frank Harrison), Uejio, Christopher K., Taylor, John, Horner, Mark W., Zhao, Tingting, Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Department of Geography
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Abstract/Description: This dissertation investigates the overall impact of chemical exposure, health care disparities, and current health care issues facing the Appalachian Region of the United States while adding to the research of human disease ecology and essential health care delivery. Moreover, it is structured as a three-paper model with a thorough exploration of theoretical frameworks connected to existing Geography texts. The research sections discuss illicit drug use and its effect on sepsis cases, the...
Show moreThis dissertation investigates the overall impact of chemical exposure, health care disparities, and current health care issues facing the Appalachian Region of the United States while adding to the research of human disease ecology and essential health care delivery. Moreover, it is structured as a three-paper model with a thorough exploration of theoretical frameworks connected to existing Geography texts. The research sections discuss illicit drug use and its effect on sepsis cases, the impact of dioxins and other chemicals on low birth weight, and cancer patient survival based on insurance status. This dissertation, thus, explores themes of access to health care and toxin exposure. Chapter 2 concerns illicit drug use and the resulting complications, such as sepsis, which have been increasing in the Appalachian Region for the last 15 years. Illicit drug–related sepsis is commonly caused by using contaminated syringes and improper injection techniques that can also lead to multiple other health concerns. Untreated infections, for instance, may increase the risk of premature mortality. Drug-related sepsis cases at the Charleston Area Medical Center in Charleston, West Virginia, have risen from 50 cases in 2007 to 252 cases in 2015. This section was published in the Cureus Journal of Medical Science. Chapter 3 analyzes dioxins, a group of chemical compounds with deleterious health effects, in the same study region. "Dioxin" refers to a chemical by-product generated by the manufacture of multiple products such as rubber and synthetic plastic (Gibbs, 1997). In the study area, the chemical's production peaked during the 1950s and ended in the early 1970s. The goal of this study is to establish whether dioxin or 2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzodioxin (TCDDS) affected low birth weight in the county containing the factory during times of high production and potential exposure. The study therefore analyzes birth weight data from Kanawha County, West Virginia, from 1955 to 1970. This study found a suggestive relationship between an increase of dioxin from the production of Agent Orange (2,4,5-T) (see Appendix) and an acute increase of low birth weight in Kanawha County, West Virginia (P = 0.042). The final Chapter 4, also published in the Cureus Journal of Medical Science, studies potential health care disparities in at-risk populations, which are poorly understood in the Appalachian Region of the United States. The goal of this study is to examine how different types of insurance coverage (i.e., private insurance, Medicare under age 65, Medicare age 65 or over, Medicaid, and self-pay) may modify cancer survival over time. This study separately analyzes colon cancer, bladder cancer, and anal, rectal, and esophageal cancers. Overall this study suggests that insurance category did not modify colon cancer survival after controlling for other risk factors. In many ways, this dissertation expands the knowledge of health care within the Appalachian Region over an extended time frame and thus seeks to explore differing challenges using the tools and theoretical frameworks found within the field of Geography.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: 2019_Summer_Annie_fsu_0071E_15280
Format: Thesis

Title: Subnational Political Competition, Policy Change and Performance.
Creator: Li, Tianfeng, Feiock, Richard C., Barrilleaux, Charles, Yang, Kaifeng, Berlan, David G. (David Gregory), Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy,...
Show moreLi, Tianfeng, Feiock, Richard C., Barrilleaux, Charles, Yang, Kaifeng, Berlan, David G. (David Gregory), Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Askew School of Public Administration and Policy
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Abstract/Description: This dissertation contributes to the public policy literature by examining subnational political competition, policy change and performance in the context of U.S. and China. In a three paper format, this dissertation investigates different dimensions: Policy, patronage measurement, and performance. The first paper examines what factors cause states to experience both incremental and large-scale policy changes. This study argues that electoral incentives might influence the search, supply and...
Show moreThis dissertation contributes to the public policy literature by examining subnational political competition, policy change and performance in the context of U.S. and China. In a three paper format, this dissertation investigates different dimensions: Policy, patronage measurement, and performance. The first paper examines what factors cause states to experience both incremental and large-scale policy changes. This study argues that electoral incentives might influence the search, supply and processing of information on constituency issues, as well as the associated cognitive or institutional frictions, and thus determine the presence and variation of punctuated policies. This article develops and evaluates this claim within a systemic framework consisting of policy transparency, political institutions, and electoral incentives by analyzing the budget spending data collected from FY 1988 to FY 2008 for all 50 American states. The second paper constructs a new index to measure patronage appointment on city managers in China. The third paper investigates how the interactions of patronage appointment with political competition facing public managers in the local governments shape government performance by looking at 1,085 city mayors across 279 Chinese cities from 2002 to 2012.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: 2019_Summer_Li_fsu_0071E_15467
Format: Thesis

Title: Populated Polygons to Networks: A Population-Centric Approach to Spatial Network Allocation.
Creator: Gaboardi, James D. (James David), Folch, David C., Brusco, Michael J., Horner, Mark W., Uejio, Christopher K., Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public...
Show moreGaboardi, James D. (James David), Folch, David C., Brusco, Michael J., Horner, Mark W., Uejio, Christopher K., Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Department of Geography
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Abstract/Description: This dissertation establishes an original solution for allocating populations onto networks, which is demonstrated through empirical examples within the comprising census geographies of a single census tract and the comprising census geographies for an entire county. The novel method, populated polygons to networks (pp2n), is shown to perform as accurately as a current state-of-the-art method, while being less computationally complex. Benchmark datasets are utilized to represent household...
Show moreThis dissertation establishes an original solution for allocating populations onto networks, which is demonstrated through empirical examples within the comprising census geographies of a single census tract and the comprising census geographies for an entire county. The novel method, populated polygons to networks (pp2n), is shown to perform as accurately as a current state-of-the-art method, while being less computationally complex. Benchmark datasets are utilized to represent household-level population distributions. Datasets generated from the methods of network allocation are applied to optimal facility location modeling scenarios. Networks are an underlying part of the human experience and, as such, attention must be given to their study in the spatial analysis of anthropocentric phenomena. However, transformations in spatial data must frequently be performed in order to allow for the integration of original disparate data formats. Such is often the case with spatial population data, which are generally available as polygons. As a means to build network-based models for analysis, certain methods have been developed for allocating populations onto networks for the purpose of calculating origin-to-destination cost (distance) matrices. Two of these methods include (1) simply snapping polygon centroids onto the nearest network segment and (2) dividing population values by area and proximity to the network. Here the new method, pp2n, is proposed that incorporates the strengths of both the existing methods, while mitigating their weaknesses. The traditional approach, the state-of-the-art approach, and the pp2n method are tested against a benchmark dataset representing population-weighted estimates for property parcels. It is shown that the pp2n method is less computationally complex in the worst-case scenario than the current state-of-the-art method and more representationally accurate that the traditional method. Further, in an empirical example within one census tract in Leon County, FL, the pp2n method is found to perform with comparable accuracy to the state-of-the-art approach when compared to both the traditional approach and the benchmark dataset. Also, it is shown that the algorithm for generating pp2n population weights runs in significantly less realtime. Extending the empirical example within a single census tract (and comprising geographies), another complete empirical example is performed on the full spatial extent of Leon County, Florida. Here the focus shifts from purely how the population data are being allocated to the network, to validating the spatial data utilized in modeling and understanding the inherent associated uncertainty. Permission to access a highly-restricted address data file, the Master Address File (MAF), was granted by the U.S. Census Bureau. Within this study, the MAF functions as an ultimate gold-standard benchmark to test all the methods used in this dissertation within the context of the 2010 Decennial Census. Disclosure and privacy are discussed and a critique is given for the method used to produce the population-weighted estimates for property parcels. It is then shown, as in the single census tract example, that the pp2n method performs as well as the state-of-the-art method, while doing so in substantially less runtime. Further, the property parcel dataset is validated as an acceptable surrogate for true housing units available from the MAF. Facility location modeling is utilized to determine the effects of the network allocation methods on optimal site selection. Following a review of mathematical programming and the uncertainty involved in spatial optimization, the network allocation methods are tested with four fundamental models within a spatial optimization framework: the location set covering problem, maximal covering location problem, p-median problem, and p-center problem. The linear integer programs are solved for each model, for each method at each spatial extent with 15 sets of parameters. In total, 780 models are solved to optimality. The results of the abstract population representation models are compared again to the population-weighted estimates for property parcels, which act as a surrogate for the benchmark truth of census microdata. Results show that the method of network allocation has a non-negligible effect on the solutions to facility location models. Specifically, optimal facility configurations of the location models are affected within the selected spatio-temporal study area: 2010 Leon County, FL.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: 2019_Summer_Gaboardi_fsu_0071E_15307
Format: Thesis

Title: Essays on Sovereign Debt and Partial Default.
Creator: Feng, Shuang, Atolia, Manoj, Kercheval, Alec N., Dmitriev, Mikhail I., Marquis, Milton H., Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Department of...
Show moreFeng, Shuang, Atolia, Manoj, Kercheval, Alec N., Dmitriev, Mikhail I., Marquis, Milton H., Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Department of Economics
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Abstract/Description: My dissertation involves the study of sovereign debt flows with an emphasis on the determinants and characteristics of sovereign default in emerging markets, accounting for the partial nature of this default. It consists of three chapters: Firstly, Chapter One and Chapter Two empirically explore the determinants of sovereign default. Secondly, Chapter Three quantitatively investigates the macroeconomic implications of the partial nature of sovereign default. In Chapter One and Chapter Two, I...
Show moreMy dissertation involves the study of sovereign debt flows with an emphasis on the determinants and characteristics of sovereign default in emerging markets, accounting for the partial nature of this default. It consists of three chapters: Firstly, Chapter One and Chapter Two empirically explore the determinants of sovereign default. Secondly, Chapter Three quantitatively investigates the macroeconomic implications of the partial nature of sovereign default. In Chapter One and Chapter Two, I empirically examine the monetary and default responses of sovereign countries to the fluctuations in world commodity prices in a panel of 21 emerging countries with annual observations from 1970 to 2013, constructing and using a country-specific commodity price index with time-varying weights. The selection of the sample countries is based on both the definition of an emerging market by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the available information of the external public and publicly-guaranteed (PPG) debt arrears in the World Development Indicators (WDI) database. It is commonly known that emerging markets are vulnerable to global shocks, such as the shocks to world commodity prices. Large fluctuations in world commodity prices over the business cycles can greatly affect their foreign revenues, causing excessive external imbalances in international payments. Countries with external imbalance, especially with excessive current account deficits, are most likely to experience limited spending due to constraints on the inter-temporal substitution in expenditure and are likely to default on their external debt denominated in foreign currencies. I choose world commodity prices as the main predictor for the monetary and default responses to investigate, because for many of the countries in the sample, commodities are a large proportion of their export and foreign revenues. Large fluctuations in commodity prices, causing external imbalance, greatly affect their ability to service the external debt, which is typically denominated in foreign currencies. Chapter One, "World commodity prices, money, and foreign exchange in emerging markets: New evidence", investigates countries' monetary responses (the change of broad money and the choice of exchange rate regimes) when they are encountering the foreign revenue reduction caused by the fluctuations in world commodity prices, before making the decision to default. The estimated results show that the declines in world commodity prices significantly, positively affect the ratio of broad money to GDP and that countries tend to have more flexible exchange rate regimes when world commodity prices are depressed for an extended period. The investigation of the response of the broad money supply is consistent with the open economy trilemma and the estimates of the exchange rate regime flexibility fills the gap of the literature on the determinants of the choice of exchange rate regimes. By capturing the type of global shock as well as the time-varying country characteristics, the effect of the price index (excluding the country fixed effect) well explains the time-series variation and country-specific variation of the exchange rate regimes. Chapter Two, "World commodity prices and partial default in emerging markets: An empirical analysis", mainly explores the effects of the fluctuation in world commodity prices on sovereign default. The results show that the decrease in the price index increases the default rate. The response of the default rate varies across countries and it generally increases with a country's dependence on the commodity exports and external indebtedness. This chapter provides the first economically-significant, quantitative estimates of the effect of world commodity prices on the default rate. A few unique features of my approach allow me to make this contribution: The first feature is the price index. In this chapter, the details of developing the novel country-specific commodity price index are given. The price index is constructed with a two-stage aggregation using time-varying weights based on commodities exported and is used as the main explanatory variable. By accounting for the changes in export structure, the time-varying weights allow me to use data for a longer period, from 1970 to 2013, for my analysis, covering the emerging markets debt crisis, currency crisis, and the recent contraction. This country-specific nature of the price index helps control for other common, global shocks in the estimation. The second feature is that I focus on the realized default risk and use the partial default rate, other than default events, country spreads, or credit ratings, as the proxy for that risk. Along with the price index, the default rate provides longer-period data and allows me to do the analysis starting from 1970. In Chapter Three, "Sovereign debt: A quantitative comparative investigation of the partial default mechanism", I build and quantitatively solve the partial default models of a small open economy, in both endowment and production environments, to investigate the responses of the borrowing, default, and pricing of sovereign debt to economic shocks and to examine how the partial default mechanism improves the predictions of the sovereign default models. The simulation results of the models can well predict the country spreads, default-related statistics, and other business cycle indicators. My models assume the non-exclusion from the international capital market after default. Thus, I can also examine the impulse responses of various macroeconomic variables to the shocks to better understand the underlying propagation mechanism of partial default. The un-realistic assumptions and the limited prediction performance of full default models are the two main reasons that motivate me to choose the partial default mechanism and to build the partial default models. Firstly, the standard theory of sovereign default assumes that countries always default on all of their debt and are excluded from the international capital market after default. However, the empirical regularities show that countries always default on only part of their debt and they continue to borrow while having debt arrears. Besides being inaccurate assumptions, the full default model has the limitations in terms of predicting some of the critical debt indicators, like the debt-to-output ratio and the default frequency, although it can predict that default happens in bad times and can predict counter-cyclical country spreads. The partial default models can improve the predictions of the debt level and the default frequency without losing the performance of matching other data moments. Moreover, it also can predict the partial default rate, which the full default model is not designed to and cannot predict. The partial default models in Chapter Three have three features: firstly, the partial default is endogenously-determined, which allows me to compute the default rate; secondly, there is a preemptive recovery payment of the default, which enables the price function of the short-term debt to have the feature that the price of the long-term debt has; and thirdly, there is no exclusion from the international capital market after default, so I can examine the impulse responses of various macroeconomic variables. Compared with the partial default model with endowment, the partial default model with production generates better predictions for the debt service and improves the over-predicted volatilities of consumption and interest spreads. Besides simultaneously matching the mean spread and the debt-to-output ratio, its simulated results can predict the pro-cyclical investment and closely match the relative volatility of investment.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: 2019_Summer_Feng_fsu_0071E_15304
Format: Thesis

Title: Democratic Blind Spots: Organized Labor and the Persistence of Subnational Authoritarianism in Mexico.
Creator: Griffis, John Garland, Reenock, Christopher, Frank, Andrew, Driscoll, Amanda M., Kern, Holger Lutz, Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy,...
Show moreGriffis, John Garland, Reenock, Christopher, Frank, Andrew, Driscoll, Amanda M., Kern, Holger Lutz, Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Department of Political Science
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Abstract/Description: Newly transitioned democracies frequently exhibit authoritarian traits at the subnational level. The literature on subnational authoritarianism tends to focus on how these enclaves interact with national governments, ignoring how they maintain support in their own regions. This dissertation seeks to explain authoritarian persistence in the case of Mexico. I propose subnational autocrats maintain their local coalitions from the previous autocratic regime. Where they are able to successfully...
Show moreNewly transitioned democracies frequently exhibit authoritarian traits at the subnational level. The literature on subnational authoritarianism tends to focus on how these enclaves interact with national governments, ignoring how they maintain support in their own regions. This dissertation seeks to explain authoritarian persistence in the case of Mexico. I propose subnational autocrats maintain their local coalitions from the previous autocratic regime. Where they are able to successfully maintain these coalitions through economic and political shocks they can persist indefinitely into a nationally democratic regime. My empirical analysis looks specifically at Mexico, where organized labor remained an important supporter of the Institutional Revolutionary Party well after the democratic transition. I use data on organized labor mobilization, PRI electoral support, and social spending to see if there is an electoral and social spending connection between organized labor and the PRI. I find no clear evidence that labor served as a critical player in local electionsfor the PRI.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: 2019_Summer_Griffis_fsu_0071E_15299
Format: Thesis

Title: The Disablement Process of Aging United States Veterans.
Creator: Urena Salas, Stephanie, Taylor, Miles G., Joiner, Thomas, Quadagno, Jill S., Carr, Dawn C., McFarland, Michael J., Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and...
Show moreUrena Salas, Stephanie, Taylor, Miles G., Joiner, Thomas, Quadagno, Jill S., Carr, Dawn C., McFarland, Michael J., Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Department of Sociology
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Abstract/Description: Older United States (U.S.) veterans are a population at risk for disability due to their early life experiences with military service and increasing age. Military service was a normative part of early adult life for today's older U.S. population, bringing the number of veterans aged 60 and older in 2015 to over 9.3 million. Despite older veterans' lived experience, substantial population size, and potential impact on the U.S. health care system, the details of their later-life disability...
Show moreOlder United States (U.S.) veterans are a population at risk for disability due to their early life experiences with military service and increasing age. Military service was a normative part of early adult life for today's older U.S. population, bringing the number of veterans aged 60 and older in 2015 to over 9.3 million. Despite older veterans' lived experience, substantial population size, and potential impact on the U.S. health care system, the details of their later-life disability experience are not well understood. The following project uses the nationally representative, longitudinal Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to examine the role of veteran status on the disablement process of veterans compared to nonveterans over a decade (2004-2014), including an exploration of the underlying life course mechanisms influencing disablement, with the goal of providing a recent look at the long-term physical health consequences of military service. Chapter 3 establishes the occurrence of an observable veteran health paradox among HRS respondents 60 years and older. I unpack the components of the disablement process of veterans compared to nonveterans by creating separate baseline 10-year trajectories for number of chronic conditions, disability, and mortality, including veteran status, age, race, and father's education in the model. Three different disability trajectories were measured to capture the gradual progression and severity of disability: functional limitations (FLs), instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs), and activities of daily living (ADLs) which are considered the most severe manifestation of disability. The trajectories depict counterintuitive results: veterans have more chronic conditions but less self-reported FLs, IADLs, and ADLs compared to nonveterans. This finding stands in contrast to the progression of disablement described by Verbrugge and colleagues in the aging and disability literature. Veterans in this sample are also observed to experience a marginally lower risk of mortality at baseline but a significantly greater increasing risk of mortality over time compared to nonveterans, such that veterans have a survival deficit over the majority of the analytic period. The results of more chronic conditions, lower disability, and higher mortality suggest that veterans may die from diseases rather than becoming disabled. These findings are counterintuitive to the traditional disablement process and strongly suggest a veteran health paradox. Chronic conditions appear to play a crucial role within the disablement process of veterans, and they may hold answers to their overall disablement experience, so they are further tested in Chapter 4. Chapter 4 uses the same analytic sample from Chapter 3 to conduct a closer examination of chronic conditions and their role in the observed veteran health paradox. An interaction term for number of chronic conditions and veteran status (chronic conditions * veteran status) along with sociodemographic predictors and life course pathways are added to the trajectory models, which are also run separately with dichotomous variables of seven specific chronic conditions (arthritis, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, lung disease, and stroke) and their corresponding interaction with veteran status (specific chronic condition * veteran status). The findings suggest that veterans have less disability despite having more chronic conditions than nonveterans. Veterans, specifically those who self-reported having chronic conditions, seem to have an initial advantage in mortality that diminishes to meet the level of mortality for nonveterans by the end of the analytic period. Further inspection of chronic conditions and life course mechanisms suggest the interaction between veteran status and chronic conditions is driving the effects, with arthritis, diabetes, and heart disease standing out as significant in translating to lower disability (i.e. functional limitations) for veterans compared to their nonveteran counterparts. Exploration of covariates and life course pathways establish socioeconomic status, marriage, and health care access as independently protective mechanisms by which veterans fare better in the disablement process than nonveterans. These findings support the existence of an observed veteran health paradox within the sample and further highlight that the early stages of the disablement process play a key role in disability outcomes for veterans compared to nonveterans. The evidence for the veteran health paradox is new to the aging literature and reinforces the notion that veteran status is still a hidden variable with complex associations that may substantially alter results of population-level studies of health and disability processes. Acknowledgement of the nuanced disablement process of veterans is important for targeting prevention of chronic disease and disability, reduction of healthcare costs, and planning for the future of veteran-specific and population-level disability. This study is intended to make improvements in the overall health equity of U.S. veterans by informing researchers and policy-makers of their paradoxical disablement process and the importance of early stages of disablement to their later-life disability outcomes. Of note, the results highlight the need to tailor the chronic condition and disability management of older adults to their unique early-life experiences and the potential for early intervention to mitigate the onset of disability in later life. Further research is needed to deepen our understanding of the unique disablement process of veterans compared to nonveterans. Mechanisms stemming from specific service-related experiences—combat, environmental hazards, duration of service (career veterans vs. non-career veterans)—should be explored when possible. Differential onset of disability and differential health care access and utilization of veterans compared to nonveterans should also be explored as potential mechanisms for the observed veteran health paradox. All future research should strive for the use of nationally representative, longitudinal samples that include a marker for veteran status, and should use prospective veteran cohorts to document how younger veteran cohorts experience disablement and forecast how healthcare should adapt to their changing needs.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: 2019_Summer_UrenaSalas_fsu_0071E_15329
Format: Thesis

Title: Managing Inter-Governmental Relationships: Collaborative Governance, Service Delivery, and Fiscal Federalism.
Creator: Shen, Ruowen, Feiock, Richard C., Zhao, Tingting, Brower, Ralph S., Yang, Kaifeng, Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Askew School of Public...
Show moreShen, Ruowen, Feiock, Richard C., Zhao, Tingting, Brower, Ralph S., Yang, Kaifeng, Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Askew School of Public Administration and Policy
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Abstract/Description: How do local governments manage inter-governmental relationships in the context of urban sustainability? In an age of emerging impacts from global climate change and over-exploitation of natural resource, it is important to understand the role of local government in managing sustainability. Yet, sustainability is a complex area characterized as authority fragmentation which creates negative externalities and opportunistic behaviors. To better manage it, local governments rely on integrative...
Show moreHow do local governments manage inter-governmental relationships in the context of urban sustainability? In an age of emerging impacts from global climate change and over-exploitation of natural resource, it is important to understand the role of local government in managing sustainability. Yet, sustainability is a complex area characterized as authority fragmentation which creates negative externalities and opportunistic behaviors. To better manage it, local governments rely on integrative actions such as inter-local collaborations and interactive exchange with higher level authorities, thus, embedding local governments in a nexus of inter-governmental relationships. However, gaps remain in our understanding of urban sustainability contexts and how local governments manage inter-governmental relationships to lower collaboration risks, share power, and reduce compliance burdens. Additionally it is important to identify what difference these relationships make for implementing federal grants, delivering services, and collaborative actions under different levels authority. This dissertation fills these gaps by investigating the structure of relationships among local governments in collaborative urban sustainability networks in both China and US and the perceptions of local governments to federal imposed rules and compliance while implementing one-shot federal sustainability program. The research findings suggest that: (1) local governments select collaborative partners strategically, depending upon the nature of collaborative relations, collaboration risks, and multiplexity of collaborations, which make networks demonstrate different configurations; (2) certain actors in the network are more powerful to administer the collaborative relationship due to possessing accesses to valuable resources such as political information, administrative capacity, funding, and innovative information; (3) local governments as grantees perceive rule compliance burden differently based on their relationships with federal grantor including goal congruence, resource dependence, and previous interactive relationships. In a one-shot grant, goal congruence and previous interactive relationships have significant effects on perceived compliance burden. Together these three studies add important new insights to our understanding of intergovernmental relations.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: 2019_Summer_Shen_fsu_0071E_15367
Format: Thesis

Title: A Matter of Policy: Experiments in Bureaucracy, Insurance, and Monetary Economics.
Creator: Neal, Daniel R., Isaac, R. Mark (Robert Mark), Großer, Jens W., Cooper, David J., Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Department of Economics
Abstract/Description: This dissertation is a collection of essays that employ experimental economic methodology in a variety of settings to address important uses of microeconomic and macroeconomic public policy. Chapter 1 serves as a forward to the remaining chapters. It highlights the importance of experimental economics to policy decisions and its unique place in the overall field of economics. Chapter 2 of this dissertation explores the influence of the ratchet effect on a bureaucracy's expansion and the...
Show moreThis dissertation is a collection of essays that employ experimental economic methodology in a variety of settings to address important uses of microeconomic and macroeconomic public policy. Chapter 1 serves as a forward to the remaining chapters. It highlights the importance of experimental economics to policy decisions and its unique place in the overall field of economics. Chapter 2 of this dissertation explores the influence of the ratchet effect on a bureaucracy's expansion and the resulting consequences. To examine the individual effects of adverse selection and moral hazard, Chapter 3 uses an experimental method to study how asymmetric information affects individual behavior when insurance is present. Finally, Chapter 4 addresses the claim that money is neutral and its arbitrary injection into a market has no distributional effects. Throughout this dissertation, experimental economic methodologies will be employed in an array of economic fields demonstrating the broad applicability of experimental economics.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: 2019_Summer_Neal_fsu_0071E_14927
Format: Thesis

Title: Is State Safety Net Capacity Adequate to Meet Basic Needs?.
Creator: Swanson, Jeffrey V., Barrilleaux, Charles, Coleman, Eric A., Weissert, Carol S., Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Department of Political...
Show moreSwanson, Jeffrey V., Barrilleaux, Charles, Coleman, Eric A., Weissert, Carol S., Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Department of Political Science
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Abstract/Description: This dissertation consists of three individual studies on the role of state governments in social welfare. The first paper discusses the relationship between gubernatorial administrative capacity and the ability for Democrats to increase social welfare spending after the state has experienced an economic downturn. Using panel data for 49 US states from 1987 to 2014, I examine whether budgetary authority allows governors to respond to an economic contraction in the expected partisan matter. I...
Show moreThis dissertation consists of three individual studies on the role of state governments in social welfare. The first paper discusses the relationship between gubernatorial administrative capacity and the ability for Democrats to increase social welfare spending after the state has experienced an economic downturn. Using panel data for 49 US states from 1987 to 2014, I examine whether budgetary authority allows governors to respond to an economic contraction in the expected partisan matter. I find evidence to support the view that governors shape budget policy in a manner that is consistent with their preferences. The second paper is on the decentralization of Medicaid and Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC)/Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) by the national government to the state governments to see if the programs were made worse off in performing their goal of poverty alleviation. Decentralization is measured using expenditure ratios of state general fund spending to federal government spending. I find that more state involvement in Medicaid reduces expected poverty growth even after controlling for state economic, political, and demographic factors. Although no effect was found from AFDC/TANF decentralization, the results do demonstrate a positive impact from more state involvement in Medicaid. The final study is on the impact of social assistance programs on infant health. Infant mortality rates are an important indicator of population health. The primary goal of this chapter is to serve as an evaluation of government redistributive programs and population health. Do the outputs of social assistance programs reach their intended beneficiaries? I find that increased Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and TANF benefit generosity within states has a negative association with overall infant mortality after controlling for economic development and additional factors related to infant health.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: 2019_Summer_Swanson_fsu_0071E_15281
Format: Thesis

Title: Interpretive Leadership Skill in the Meaning-Making Nature of Nonprofit Leadership: A Constructive-Developmental Model of Leadership Development.
Creator: Lim, Sungdae, Brower, Ralph S., Ferris, Gerald R., Berry, Frances Stokes, Yang, Kaifeng, Berlan, David G. (David Gregory), Florida State University, College of Social Sciences...
Show moreLim, Sungdae, Brower, Ralph S., Ferris, Gerald R., Berry, Frances Stokes, Yang, Kaifeng, Berlan, David G. (David Gregory), Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Askew School of Public Administration and Policy
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Abstract/Description: This thesis elaborates and tests a model of nonprofit leadership development. Nonprofit leaders create meaning for other nonprofit participants through their activities and words and thus need to possess skills for interpreting the ongoing actions, interests, and values of various stakeholders. Because of the importance of these meaning-making activities, this study advances a model of interpretive leadership skill as an essential nonprofit leader competency with three distinctive dimensions....
Show moreThis thesis elaborates and tests a model of nonprofit leadership development. Nonprofit leaders create meaning for other nonprofit participants through their activities and words and thus need to possess skills for interpreting the ongoing actions, interests, and values of various stakeholders. Because of the importance of these meaning-making activities, this study advances a model of interpretive leadership skill as an essential nonprofit leader competency with three distinctive dimensions. Interpretive leadership skill is defined as the individual leader's ability to discover, reflect on, and coordinate the organization's ongoing construction of reality. I also illustrate how leadership skills are articulated through three levels of development that correspond to cognitive capacity, identity formation, and leader competency. This research suggests that interpretive leadership skill arises from the nonprofit leader's ongoing cognitive processes of developmental sensemaking, which are mediated through forming one's identity as a leader, developing values, and engaging in leadership practice. Constructive-developmental theory of leadership (Day et al., 2009; McCauley et al., 2006; Mumford et al., 2000) underlies the model development. This template illuminates the importance and evolving nature of meaning-making leadership in nonprofits. This model is examined through multiple analytical procedures: scale development and validation of interpretive leadership skill and structural equation modeling analysis of the leadership development model. Data are drawn from a national survey of nonprofit executive directors administered by the researcher. Findings of this research support the theory building as well as suggest noteworthy implications for nonprofit-sector leadership.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: 2019_Summer_Lim_fsu_0071E_15286
Format: Thesis

Title: Informing Seagrass Management and Restoration along the Florida Gulf Coast through Remote Sensing and Spatiotemporal Analyses of Seagrass Distribution.
Creator: Lynn, Tyler Campbell, Lester, Sarah, Folch, David C., Yang, Xiaojun, Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Department of Geography
Abstract/Description: Seagrasses are valued for the range of ecosystem services they provide such as nursery and adult habitat for commercially and recreationally fished species, a critical food resource for threatened species, and filtration systems for improving water quality. In Florida, seagrasses are estimated to contribute $20 billion annually in benefits to the Florida Gulf Coast (FGC) region. However, even with the numerous benefits that seagrasses have been shown to provide they are still at risk due to...
Show moreSeagrasses are valued for the range of ecosystem services they provide such as nursery and adult habitat for commercially and recreationally fished species, a critical food resource for threatened species, and filtration systems for improving water quality. In Florida, seagrasses are estimated to contribute $20 billion annually in benefits to the Florida Gulf Coast (FGC) region. However, even with the numerous benefits that seagrasses have been shown to provide they are still at risk due to anthropogenic pressures. Given the established importance of and threats to seagrasses, seagrass mapping and monitoring programs in the FGC have worked to better understand and predict the patterns of seagrass decline. Traditional methods for monitoring or mapping seagrasses, such as intensive field surveys (scuba/snorkeling) or costly aerial surveys often result in inconsistencies in the data necessary to better understand the spatial and temporal dynamics of seagrasses. This project used Landsat 5 satellite imagery to classify seagrasses in the Big Bend region of the FGC using a random forest model. Four years of data over a 15 year timeframe were classified and accuracies between 78-88% were achieved for the seagrass class. Counter to the prevailing narrative of seagrass degradation throughout the Gulf coast, 291 km2 of seagrass were gained between 1996-2011, with only 116 km2 lost in this same time period. Both seagrass losses and gains were positively spatially autocorrelated. Results from this project indicate that both accurate classifications and spatiotemporal analyses can be conducted using remotely sensed data for areas with limited or inconsistent field survey data.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: 2019_Summer_Lynn_fsu_0071N_15444
Format: Thesis

Title: Sound and Place: An Affective Geography of the Hudson River, New York, USA.
Creator: Sciuchetti, Mark Joseph, Mesev, Victor, Von Glahn, Denise, Doel, Ronald Edmund, Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Department of Geography
Abstract/Description: Sonic experiences of a place are both personal and collective. They are derived from affectual encounters in that place in the everyday. The sounds of a place provide detail on the culture, development, and environment. Geographers have often overlooked the role of individual experiences with sound in places for developing our perspective on natural spaces. The visual has offered geographers a great deal of material and meaning in terms of the study of the landscape and personal connections...
Show moreSonic experiences of a place are both personal and collective. They are derived from affectual encounters in that place in the everyday. The sounds of a place provide detail on the culture, development, and environment. Geographers have often overlooked the role of individual experiences with sound in places for developing our perspective on natural spaces. The visual has offered geographers a great deal of material and meaning in terms of the study of the landscape and personal connections to place. This focus on the material, concrete, and visual aspects of society has often denied the sense of hearing. However, sound is part of embodied everyday experience of places and cannot be separated from affectual experiences or the spaces in which sound is heard. This contributes to shaping culture. Though research into the soundscape and sonic experiences has been the focus in various disciplines, research in geography is lacking an appreciation of the role of place in exploring sonic experiences. The role of sound and music in geography often takes the form of production and distribution of music and its economics and politics. But with little attention to the role of the sound or affect. Therefore, this dissertation sheds light on the role of the soundscape and the spatiality of sound in the construction of place. It also explores the role that affectual encounters in natural everyday spaces have on the individual and their place development. As a starting point, the dissertation seeks to develop a theoretical framework underpinned by geography, musicology, and sound studies to help describe the affective capacity of sound in place. Developing the concept of affect beyond the traditional realm of non-representational theory, the dissertation incorporates concepts of emotion and affect to explain the development of place through sound. Reaching into various theoretical frameworks, including behavioral geography, sonic geography, geography of music, representational theory, non-representational theory, participant observation, and reflexivity, it creates a more unified conceptualization of everyday sonic experiences of place by developing an approach which moves affective sonic encounters beyond the representational. These theoretical underpinnings are demonstrated by an empirical multi-modal approach to the study of sound in place. It uses a case study that provides a vehicle to explore how affect and emotion are experienced in nature through sound and place using sound journals, historical/archival data, sound recordings, and participatory observation. The fieldwork was conducted while sailing along the Hudson River in the US state of New York during the summer of 2017. The sites where data were collected complement those recorded by Annea Lockwood for her composition, A Sound Map of the Hudson River (1983). The archival material on texts written about the river was found from various historical sources, and interviews were provided by Lockwood. The locations chosen for recording sounds include various cultural, social, economic, industrial and environmental developments along the river. The recordings from Lockwood's CD and the six interviews she conducted in 1982 offer a starting point to describe the construction of place through sound. The four journals collected with crewmembers of the Gail Frances on the river as well as my own observations from the Hudson River provide a better conceptualization of participants' affective experiences through sound as they are immersed in the places they describe. The historical interviews and recordings from 1982 were paired with the journals and recordings from 2017 to emphasize how sound of the natural environment elicits powerful affective experiences that molds an individual's sense of place. Through the participants' interviews and journals, it is clear that there are some aspects of the soundscape that have become essential to the discussion of a place and often recreate a sense of nostalgia with almost a spiritual sensation. Other aspects of the sounds of the places along that Hudson River remind participants of the divisions between the human and the natural environments, and that there are different perspectives to the river depending on an individual's approach. The participants' encounters also carried a common theme of everyday experience and survival as these were individuals who depended upon the river. From these interviews, journals, and recordings, it is clear that one role of space and sound is in mediation of the affective encounters that individuals endure in place, which inspires emotional experiences. My study demonstrates that sound is an essential aspect of the experience of place and can be explored geographically, thus providing a framework for future research and an empirical, geographical examination of individual sonic experiences within a natural environment.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: 2019_Summer_Sciuchetti_fsu_0071E_15250
Format: Thesis

Title: Urban Growth, Landscape Changes, and Coastal Vulnerability: A GIScience Approach.
Creator: Zhang, Fang, Yang, Xiaojun, Ye, Ming, Uejio, Christopher K., Folch, David C., Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Department of Geography
Abstract/Description: Urban growth causes environmental changes on a global scale. Coastal regions which undergo fast landscape transitions and population growth are facing higher risks from ecological degradation and severe natural hazards. However, the impacts of urban growth on species' richness and people's vulnerability to hazards are quite complex and diverse. The development of efficient coastal plans requires much deeper understanding of urban growth and its socioecological consequences. This dissertation...
Show moreUrban growth causes environmental changes on a global scale. Coastal regions which undergo fast landscape transitions and population growth are facing higher risks from ecological degradation and severe natural hazards. However, the impacts of urban growth on species' richness and people's vulnerability to hazards are quite complex and diverse. The development of efficient coastal plans requires much deeper understanding of urban growth and its socioecological consequences. This dissertation proposes a GIScience based approach integrating remote sensing, geographic information system (GIS) and landscape ecology to evaluate urban growth and its impact in coastal landscapes. My dissertation consists of three major parts: analyzing the spatiotemporal characteristics of landscape changes caused by urban growth; examining the impact of urban growth on habitat fragmentation and biodiversity; and characterizing the heterogeneity of coastal vulnerability and analyze the relationship with urban growth. My dissertation research aims to develop a better understanding of the interactions between the urban growth and the surrounding natural systems. The variable selection method used in coastal urban mapping can be applied to other spectrally heterogeneous areas. The assessment of urban spatiotemporal structure and coastal vulnerability can provide critical insights in the ecological and social inequality so that can be instructional for coastal planning and natural resource management.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: 2019_Summer_Zhang_fsu_0071E_15173
Format: Thesis

Title: Drivers' Perceptions Towards Cyclists and Bikeshare Users in the ECOBICI Service Area.
Creator: Valdez-Torres, Yazmin Jenifer, Duncan, Michael Douglas, Horner, Mark W., Brown, Jeff R., Felkner, John, Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy,...
Show moreValdez-Torres, Yazmin Jenifer, Duncan, Michael Douglas, Horner, Mark W., Brown, Jeff R., Felkner, John, Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Department of Urban and Regional Planning
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Abstract/Description: Despite the rapid global motorization, especially in developing countries, the use of the bicycle as urban transportation has increased in the last 35 years (Shaheen, Guzman, & Zhang, 2012). However, the United States, Canada, and Mexico have low cycling levels with bicycle mode share of little more than one percent (Buehler & Pucher, 2012). Some of the possible alternatives to promote the use of the bicycle is that the presence of bikeshare systems can encourage cycling by providing a safer...
Show moreDespite the rapid global motorization, especially in developing countries, the use of the bicycle as urban transportation has increased in the last 35 years (Shaheen, Guzman, & Zhang, 2012). However, the United States, Canada, and Mexico have low cycling levels with bicycle mode share of little more than one percent (Buehler & Pucher, 2012). Some of the possible alternatives to promote the use of the bicycle is that the presence of bikeshare systems can encourage cycling by providing a safer environment for all types of cyclists (Fischman & Schepers, 2014). This dissertation examines the drivers’ perception towards cyclists and the possible difference in perception towards Ecobici bikeshare users and private cyclists. This research was carried out in Mexico City, at the EcoBici bikeshare service area. Data collection was done by a self-reported survey distributed online and by intercept surveys conducted to drivers who drive within the study area and control area. The analysis of the 710 participants' responses shows that drivers from the control area have a more positive perception towards cyclists, especially on issues related to bicycle investment and bicycle infrastructure. Overall, younger generations reported a more positive perception towards cyclists, and most drivers perceive that cyclists are not predictable on the roads as most of the drivers reported feel nervous when overtaking cyclists. When comparing Ecobici users to private cyclists, the results suggest that drivers do not have a clear preference for Ecobici users over private cyclists. Nevertheless, drivers are also more in favor of encouraging family and friends to use Ecobici bicycles over private bicycles, which could indicate that, unconsciously, participants consider that traveling on an Ecobici bicycle is safer than going on a private bicycle. The results from this study could have an impact on policymakers and transportation practitioners in Mexico City who would like to improve drivers-cyclists’ interactions in the road and to promote the use of the bicycle for transportation.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: 2019_Fall_ValdezTorres_fsu_0071E_15369
Format: Thesis

Title: Examining Factors Influencing People's Perceived Vulnerability and Evacuation Decisions in Response to Hurricane Irma in Charlotte County, Florida.
Creator: Heinke-Green, Hannah Patricia, Zhao, Tingting, Elsner, James B., Mukherjee, Tathagata, Wong, Sandy, Baker, Earl J., Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and...
Show moreHeinke-Green, Hannah Patricia, Zhao, Tingting, Elsner, James B., Mukherjee, Tathagata, Wong, Sandy, Baker, Earl J., Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Department of Geography
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Abstract/Description: Hurricane evacuation refers to an individual’s or household’s response to a hurricane threat by temporarily relocating somewhere safe. However, it is rarely the case that everyone will comply when he/she is ordered to evacuate by authorities. Understanding why people fail to heed evacuation orders is vital in order to minimize non‐compliance. In the past, factors contributing to hurricane evacuation behavior have been studied mainly using survey instruments. The most significant variables...
Show moreHurricane evacuation refers to an individual’s or household’s response to a hurricane threat by temporarily relocating somewhere safe. However, it is rarely the case that everyone will comply when he/she is ordered to evacuate by authorities. Understanding why people fail to heed evacuation orders is vital in order to minimize non‐compliance. In the past, factors contributing to hurricane evacuation behavior have been studied mainly using survey instruments. The most significant variables include official evacuation orders, housing type, perceived risks, environmental cues, and social cues. Factors such as information sources, experience, and demographic characteristics have weaker impacts on evacuation decisions or are significant in only a limited number of studies. In this study, many of the literature‐documented factors that contribute to evacuation behavior were examined using survey data collected in Charlotte County, Florida, before and after Hurricane Irma (2017). Additional environmental factors, some of which were not included in a majority of the previous hurricane evacuation studies, were examined together with the survey‐based, socioeconomic, and risk‐perception variables. Environmental factors examined less frequently include variables such as the structural characteristics of people’s homes, storm surge zone, wind zone, and distance to shelters. Environmental variables examined in the previous literature include elevation, flood zone, and distance to the coastline. These data were collected through publicly available data sources and linked with the survey respondents’ home locations. The literature review points to the importance of risk perception on people’s hurricane evacuation decision‐making, so factors that may have contributed to people’s hurricane risk vi perception were also examined. These factors include both the survey‐based socioeconomic variables and the GIS‐derived environmental factors described above. Risk perception in this study was measured through the respondent’s answers to a question regarding their sense of safety in a hypothetical Category 3 hurricane. Since an individual’s perception of safety is an overall measure of whether people think they are threatened by particular hurricane‐induced risks (such as flood damage, wind damage, and power loss), the term perceived vulnerability was adopted and used throughout the entire thesis. In this study, perceived vulnerability refers to a respondent’s overall sense of safety when they consider all the potential threats associated with a Category 3 hurricane. Descriptive statistics, chi‐square test, and independent samples t‐test were performed to assess for associations between independent variables and the two dependent variables. One of the dependent variables is the evacuation decisions made by the survey respondents in Charlotte County in response to Hurricane Irma. The other dependent variable is perceived vulnerability. Logistic Regressions were performed for each dependent variable with only significant factors (according to the chi‐square or t‐test analysis) input as the independent variables. The results showed: 1) For survey respondents in Charlotte County living within evacuation zones A and B (both were under mandatory evacuation orders during Hurricane Irma), education level, perceived hurricane evacuation zone, perceived vulnerability, and distance of residence to the nearest coastline were statistically significant factors associated with the evacuation decisions made during Hurricane Irma. 2) According to Logistic Regression, perceived vulnerability and the distance from the subject’s home to the nearest coastline were vii the most significant factors influencing the evacuation decisions made during Hurricane Irma. 3) For survey respondents living across Charlotte County regardless of evacuation zones, many socioeconomic, risk perception, and environmental factors were statistically significantly associated with their perceived vulnerability. 4) When these factors were included in the Logistic Regression analysis, the respondent’s storm surge zone and their belief that their houses were located in a low‐lying area, were the factors found to be most significantly associated with perceived vulnerability. This study contributes to the assessment of people’s hurricane risk perception and evacuation decisions. It also demonstrates the benefit of including environmental variables in hurricane risk perception and evacuation decision‐making research. Many factors, including less‐researched environmental variables, were integrated into this comprehensive study. Perceived vulnerability, a measure of overall perceived risks, was found to be the most significant factor associated with people’s hurricane evacuation decisions. It was found more important than whether people believe they heard evacuation orders or what type of evacuation order they heard. Evaluating what determines people’s perceived vulnerability is a relatively new research direction in studies examining hurricane evacuation behavior. In this study, many of the environmental variables (such as elevation, the distance of the home to the nearest coastline, evacuation zone, and storm surge zone) were found to be significantly associated with people’s perceived vulnerability. For the subjects in this study, fear of flooding was identified through the two significant variables standing out in the Logistic Regression analysis – respondent’s storm surge zone (an environmental factor) and respondent’s belief that their home is located viii in a low‐lying area (a specific risk perception factor). This finding may be useful to government officials when they communicate with the public prior to a hurricane making landfall. Including information such as flooding risks may motivate residents to comply with evacuation orders.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: 2019_Fall_HeinkeGreen_fsu_0071N_15588
Format: Thesis

Title: Methods to Improve Existing Heat Wave Surveillance Systems.
Creator: Jung, Jihoon, Uejio, Christopher K., She, Yiyuan, Elsner, James B., Mukherjee, Tathagata, Wong, Sandy, Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy,...
Show moreJung, Jihoon, Uejio, Christopher K., She, Yiyuan, Elsner, James B., Mukherjee, Tathagata, Wong, Sandy, Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Department of Geography
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Abstract/Description: Elevated and prolonged exposure to extreme heat is an important cause of excess summertime mortality and morbidity. To protect people from health threats, some governments are currently operating syndromic surveillance systems. However, a lack of resources to support time- and labor- intensive diagnostic and reporting processes make it difficult establishing region-specific surveillance systems. Big data created by social media and web search may improve upon the current syndromic...
Show moreElevated and prolonged exposure to extreme heat is an important cause of excess summertime mortality and morbidity. To protect people from health threats, some governments are currently operating syndromic surveillance systems. However, a lack of resources to support time- and labor- intensive diagnostic and reporting processes make it difficult establishing region-specific surveillance systems. Big data created by social media and web search may improve upon the current syndromic surveillance systems by directly capturing people’s individual and subjective thoughts and feelings during heat waves. The primary objectives of the dissertation are to improve existing heat wave and health surveillance systems by testing current heat exposure metrics, checking system improvements with social media/web search data, and studying differential vulnerability to extreme heat exposure. In order to conduct the research, this dissertation employed two popular statistical techniques: time series and case-crossover analysis. Chapter 2 examines the relationship between the count of heat-related tweets and heat exposure. For this, I collected Twitter data focusing on six different heat-related themes (air conditioning, cooling center, dehydration, electrical outage, energy assistance, and heat) for 182 days from May 7 to November 3, 2014. First, exploratory linear regression associated outdoor heat exposure to the theme-specific tweet counts for five study cities (Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Houston, and Atlanta). Next, autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) time series models formally associated heat exposure to the combined count of heat and air conditioning tweets while controlling for temporal autocorrelation. Finally, I examined the spatial and temporal distribution of energy assistance and cooling center tweets. The result indicates that the number of tweets in most themes exhibited a significant positive relationship with maximum temperature. The ARIMA model results suggest that each city shows a slightly different relationship between heat exposure and the tweet count. A one-degree change in the temperature correspondingly increased the Box-Cox transformed tweets by 0.09 for Atlanta, 0.07 for Los Angeles, and 0.01 for New York City. The energy assistance and cooling center theme tweets suggest that only a few municipalities used Twitter for public service announcements. The timing of the energy assistance tweets also indicates that most jurisdictions provide heating instead of cooling energy assistance. Chapter 3 aims to investigate the relationship between heat-related web searches, social media messages, and heat-related health outcomes. I collected Twitter messages that mentioned “air conditioning (AC)” and “heat” and Google search data that included weather, medical, recreational, and adaptation information from May 7 to November 3, 2014, focusing on the state of Florida, U.S. I separately associated web data against two different sources of health outcomes (emergency department (ED) and hospital admissions) and five disease categories (cardiovascular disease, dehydration, heat-related illness, renal disease, and respiratory disease). Seasonal and subseasonal temporal cycles were controlled using autoregressive moving average-generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (ARMA-GARCH) and generalized linear model (GLM). The results show that the number of heat-related illness and dehydration cases exhibited a significant positive relationship with web data. Specifically, heat-related illness cases showed positive associations with messages (heat, AC) and web searches (drink, heat stroke, park, swim, and tired). In addition, terms such as park, pool, swim, and water tended to show a consistent positive relationship with dehydration cases. However, I found inconsistent relationships between renal illness and web data. Web data also did not improve the models for cardiovascular and respiratory illness cases. These findings suggest web data created by social medias and search engines could improve the current syndromic surveillance systems. In particular, heat-related illness and dehydration cases were positively related with web data. This study also shows that activity patterns for reducing heat stress are associated with several health outcomes. Chapter 2 and chapter 3 suggest that web data could benefit both regions without the systems and persistently hot and humid climates where excess heat early warning systems may be less effective. Chapter 4 investigates whether there is a difference between five different types of heat sensitive health outcomes (cardiovascular disease, dehydration, heat-related illness, renal disease, and respiratory disease) between undocumented immigrants and US citizens. This study also examines if the impact of heat exposure on health by citizenship status is further modified by sex, age, or race/ethnicity. I conducted a case-crossover analysis to assess different heat-related health impact by citizenships, focusing on the warm season (May through September) from 2008 to 2012 in Florida. I reported separate case-crossover models for each health outcome and type of healthcare visit (emergency department, hospitalization). I stratified the data by immigration status and then added interaction terms to understand the impact of sex, age, or race/ethnicity. For both groups, higher temperature raised the risk of all heat-related health outcomes and healthcare visits. This analysis suggest undocumented people (ED: 1.127, 95 % CI: 1.056 ~ 1.204; hospitalization: 1.061, 95 % CI: 1.046 ~ 1.076) have moderately higher renal disease ORs than US citizens (ED: 1.069, 95 % CI: 1.059 ~ 1.078; hospitalization: 1.051, 95 % CI: 1.049 ~ 1.053). In addition, male US citizens had significantly higher ORs than female citizens for both ED (male: 1.080, 95 % CI: 1.076 ~ 1.085; female: 1.060, 95 % CI: 1.056 ~ 1.064) and hospitalization (male: 1.063, 95 % CI: 1.060 ~ 1.066; female: 1.054, 95 % CI: 1.052 ~ 1.057). This study documents some heat and health inequalities between US citizens and undocumented immigrants.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: 2019_Fall_Jung_fsu_0071E_15547
Format: Thesis

Title: The Strategy of Being "Military Friendly" a Comprehensive Look at the Strategies Employed under the Banner of Military and Veteran Friendliness.
Creator: Kinch, Abra Kathleen, Berry, Frances Stokes, Fay, Daniel F., Schrock, Douglas P., Berlan, David G. (David Gregory), Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and...
Show moreKinch, Abra Kathleen, Berry, Frances Stokes, Fay, Daniel F., Schrock, Douglas P., Berlan, David G. (David Gregory), Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Askew School of Public Administration and Policy
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Abstract/Description: Veterans in higher education are not a new phenomenon, but over the past decade, policies put in place in organizations designed to support this population have grown in number and impact. This manuscript is assembled as a series of studies that investigate the strategic management implementation of adopting these policies impacting veterans in two ways: (1) as clients, or students, and (2) as bureaucrats, or employees. It begins by analyzing policies adopted to support student veteran...
Show moreVeterans in higher education are not a new phenomenon, but over the past decade, policies put in place in organizations designed to support this population have grown in number and impact. This manuscript is assembled as a series of studies that investigate the strategic management implementation of adopting these policies impacting veterans in two ways: (1) as clients, or students, and (2) as bureaucrats, or employees. It begins by analyzing policies adopted to support student veteran success and transition in order to determine which actually play a role in student veteran outcomes, graduation. Findings suggest that the policies that touch student veterans at the beginning of their higher education journey, a veteran-specific orientation and single point-of-contact, correlate positively with graduation rates at both the 6- and 8-year measures. This project then looks at the strategic management tools used by universities to drive behavior and decision-making within the organization, including the mission statement, strategic plan, long-term goals, as well as other veteran-specific strategic tools. Diversity seems to be a common theme amongst both university-wide and veteran-specific tools, indicating that veteran inclusion is a diversity initiative. Finally, this manuscript looks at how the strategic management tools impact adoption of population-specific policy asking, “What is the strategy of being ‘military friendly’?” As it turns out, there is not one. Outside of veteran human resource policy, most policies are seemingly adopted ad hoc. Possible reasons for this absence of strategy, including the fundamental misconception of veterans as being “at-risk,” are discussed and practitioner recommendations are made.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: 2019_Fall_Kinch_fsu_0071E_15532
Format: Thesis

Title: The Tortoise and the Expressway: The Governance of Circulation and the Conflict over the Appropriation of Residential and Conservation Properties by the Osceola Parkway Extension.
Creator: Jones, Caitlin Erin, McCreary, Tyler, Gergan, Mabel Denzin, Doel, Ronald Edmund, Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Department of Geography
Abstract/Description: Using the case of the Osceola Parkway Extension in Orange and Osceola Counties, this research examines how the legal geographies of expressway development and property rights claims intersect with gopher tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus) conservation efforts in Central Florida. Proposed and existing road infrastructure projects, such as the proposed Osceola Parkway Extension, continue to fragment gopher tortoise habitat in Florida. The Central Florida Expressway Authority rationalizes the road...
Show moreUsing the case of the Osceola Parkway Extension in Orange and Osceola Counties, this research examines how the legal geographies of expressway development and property rights claims intersect with gopher tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus) conservation efforts in Central Florida. Proposed and existing road infrastructure projects, such as the proposed Osceola Parkway Extension, continue to fragment gopher tortoise habitat in Florida. The Central Florida Expressway Authority rationalizes the road as a necessity, justifying appropriation of land for the parkway extension’s development. Thus, determining the route of the Osceola Parkway Extension has become the focus of road governance. The majority of the proposed road alignments for the extension transect Split Oak Forest and Wildlife Management Area, threatening the security of both the gopher tortoise population and gopher tortoise mitigation property within the forest. However, while the Central Florida Expressway Authority has jurisdiction over the governance of the road, it does not own the land needed to build it. This creates a relation between road governance and competing property rights, which then poses the question: what property rights must be ceded for right-of-way acquisition? Competing property rights holders have become enmeshed in the road governance process, as environmentalists seeking to protect conservation easements conflict with residential property owners. Thus, the mobilization of competing property rights claims structure the dialogue around road infrastructure encroachment onto conservation lands. How the competing values of suburban family homes and conservation easements, and the human and animal lives they support, are balanced will ultimately shape the road’s alignment. This suggests that legal and political conservation strategies need to be understood in dialogue with the governing rationalities of expressway and suburban development that continue to constitute enduring threats to the gopher tortoise and their local environments.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: 2019_Fall_Jones_fsu_0071N_15598
Format: Thesis

Title: Examining Local Government Information Sharing through Three Different Lenses of Social Networks, Policy Networks, and Public Management.
Creator: Ki, Namhoon, Feiock, Richard C., Isaac, R. Mark (Robert Mark), Berry, Frances Stokes, Brower, Ralph S., Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy,...
Show moreKi, Namhoon, Feiock, Richard C., Isaac, R. Mark (Robert Mark), Berry, Frances Stokes, Brower, Ralph S., Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Askew School of Public Administration and Policy
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Abstract/Description: This dissertation uncovers the underlying structure of inter-organizational information sharing in the public sector from three different theoretical perspectives. Drawing on theories in social networks, policy networks and public management, this study answers the following questions: 1) why are city governments more likely to share information with one another when they belong to the same county? 2) when do local governments share information with one another under a competitive environment...
Show moreThis dissertation uncovers the underlying structure of inter-organizational information sharing in the public sector from three different theoretical perspectives. Drawing on theories in social networks, policy networks and public management, this study answers the following questions: 1) why are city governments more likely to share information with one another when they belong to the same county? 2) when do local governments share information with one another under a competitive environment? 3) what motivational bases exist for public managers to willingly learn from other governments’ experiences, which, in turn, will lead to more frequent information sharing between governments. To answer the first question, one chapter explores why and when county jurisdiction helps city governments overcome the collective action dilemma in inter-governmental information sharing based on the insight of the ‘strength of strong ties’ hypothesis that ‘people help their friends first, acquaintances later (chum strategy)’. Using exponential random graph model (ERGM), the analysis of economic development information (EDI) sharing patterns among 34 cities in the Orlando metropolitan area confirms that EDI sharing between strong-tied municipal governments, ones sharing the same county jurisdiction, is more likely to take place under two specific conditions: 1) when cities are expected to get more collective demand for the information from others and 2) when they have greater demand for the information. This finding suggests that county jurisdiction boundary functions as a barrier in the exchange of EDI between municipal governments. Regarding the second question, a subsequent chapter investigates how inter-governmental competition affects the tendency of local actors sharing information with one another. Informal policy networks and formal contracts are distinctive governing mechanisms for addressing collaboration risks. Institutional collective action (ICA) theory suggests that a formal contract will be preferred over an informal policy network in inter-governmental relationships, as partner’s defection risk increases under a competitive environment. This paper builds on and extends this proposition by advancing and testing a more complete explanation for local government’s preference of one mechanism over another and investigating how it varies depending on the level of competition in each dyadic local government relationship. This is demonstrated through the development of a substantive measurement strategy for dyadic economic development competition between governments, as well as the assessment of the validity and reliability of the measure. Estimation of QAP network regressions reveals that local governments prefer a formal contract over an informal policy network with their partners when the competition between them increases. However, competition does not necessarily reduce the use of informal policy networks between local actors but rather results in more frequent informal networks between them. The conclusion discusses the practical implications of the findings for government managers and how the measurement approach advanced in this study can be applied to studies of inter-governmental relations in other policy arenas. Lastly, this dissertation additionally explores how public service motivation (PSM) is associated with government officials’ willingness to learn from other governments’ practices drawing on the debates of public sector benchmarking and PSM theory. Benchmarking between local governments has become an important topic in public administration. In benchmarking practice, local government officials play important roles in deciding what they learn, who they learn from and how to adopt and adapt to the lessons. However, less attention has been paid to why local government officials to willingly take lessons from their peer governments. Focusing on a particular type of motivational basis, public service motivation (PSM), this study assesses how PSM and its four dimensions are associated with local government officials’ willingness to learn from other governments’ practices.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: 2019_Fall_Ki_fsu_0071E_15477
Format: Thesis

Title: On Geography, Institutions, Human Capital, and Economic Development.
Creator: Montesinos Yufa, Hugo M. (Hugo Moises), Gwartney, James D., Holcombe, Randall G., Born, Patricia, Ihlanfeldt, Keith R., Semykina, Anastasia, Florida State University, College of...
Show moreMontesinos Yufa, Hugo M. (Hugo Moises), Gwartney, James D., Holcombe, Randall G., Born, Patricia, Ihlanfeldt, Keith R., Semykina, Anastasia, Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Department of Economics
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Abstract/Description: Following the neoclassical model of Robert Solow, several theories have been proposed to explain the fundamental causes of growth and economic development. This dissertation analyzes three of the main hypotheses. Chapter 2 explores the hypothesis that geographic conditions associated with climate and location impact development adversely, and how this impact, if any, may have changed over time. The hypothesis that institutions are the main cause of economic development is analyzed in Chapter...
Show moreFollowing the neoclassical model of Robert Solow, several theories have been proposed to explain the fundamental causes of growth and economic development. This dissertation analyzes three of the main hypotheses. Chapter 2 explores the hypothesis that geographic conditions associated with climate and location impact development adversely, and how this impact, if any, may have changed over time. The hypothesis that institutions are the main cause of economic development is analyzed in Chapter 3 with an emphasis on disentangling the roles of economic and political institutions. A causal link supporting the institutional hypothesis is established using ancestral instrumental variables as an exogenous source of variation in economic institutions. Chapter 4 turns the attention to human capital and its potential dual role as both a cause and a consequence of development. This dissertation finds evidence consistent with all three theories using an integrated approach and better quality data than previously used in the literature. Moreover, Appendix A builds a novel balanced poverty dataset covering 176 countries from 1970 to 2015, and Chapters 2 and 3 utilize these new data as an alternative measure of development. Chapter 2 constructs an index of geographic disadvantage based on climate and location variables and identifies the most geographically disadvantaged countries according to this index. Geographic conditions are found to affect development adversely, both directly and indirectly through the quality of institutions, mainly through economic institutions and international trade. Even though the adverse impact of geography has declined over time, in part due to technological innovations, there remains a substantial geographic handicap on the relative levels of per capita GDP, poverty rate, and trade. Evidence of this is the differential impact on developing economies of the transportation and communication revolution (TCR): the volume of international trade is smaller, and it increased less, in geographically disadvantaged countries than in other countries. Nevertheless, the TCR has positively impacted a much broader share of the world’s population (about 70 percent) than did the Industrial Revolution (about 15 percent) two centuries ago. The digital revolution of recent decades, in turn, is potentially impacting all countries, including the most geographically disadvantaged. Chapter 3 shows that institutions, particularly economic institutions, are strongly associated with increases in per capita GDP and reductions in poverty rates. The distinction between economic and political institutions is crucial for economic development, and the usage of good-quality and comprehensive measures (as opposed to crude measures) of institutions is also essential to quantify the merits of the institutional hypothesis correctly. Instrumental variable analysis indicates that the usual colonial instruments for political institutions, such as settler mortality rate and early disease environment, are invalid instruments for political institutions in part because they work through economic institutions and potentially other channels such as human capital. Falsification tests suggest that these instruments impact development directly even after controlling for political institutions. In contrast, ancestral instruments for economic institutions, including migratory distance from Ethiopia, are shown to pass the falsification tests, suggesting that their impact on development is only through economic institutions. A theory is provided linking ancestral migratory distance with pre-colonial culture, and through this channel, exogenously affecting current economic institutions. The results of the analysis indicate that institutions consistent with economic freedom significantly cause prosperity. Chapter three also explores the relationship between political and economic institutions. Reforms towards inclusive political institutions typically occur first, followed by reforms towards inclusive economic institutions. The findings are consistent with the view that economic institutions are, at least partially, an outcome of the political process. Chapter four focuses on human capital. The evidence indicates an important dual role of human capital in the development process, as both input and output. The findings suggest that there is a virtuous cycle of growth and human capital accumulation: levels and increases in human capital lead to growth and, in turn, growth leads to improvements in human capital. Recent large-scale international assessment tests provide better measures of human capital than those available in the past. Educational achievement outperforms educational attainment in income regressions, suggesting that the former is a more accurate measure of human capital than the latter and that schooling does not necessarily imply learning. Indeed, an essential part of human capital occurs at home. This research finds that the education of the parents and grandparents, the family size, the number of books at home, the expected occupational status at age 30, and the teaching environment at the school, are all key determinants of learning, explaining almost 40 percent of the variation in individual-level achievement scores.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: 2019_Fall_MontesinosYufa_fsu_0071E_15468
Format: Thesis

Title: Racial and Ethnic Trends in Vaccination Coverage among Adolescents.
Creator: Webb, Noah S., Burdette, Amy M., Coutts, Christopher, Taylor, Miles G., Taylor, John, Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Department of...
Show moreWebb, Noah S., Burdette, Amy M., Coutts, Christopher, Taylor, Miles G., Taylor, John, Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Department of Sociology
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Abstract/Description: One of the key determinants of health and wellbeing for adolescents is the utilization of preventive health services. While adolescents are generally healthy, public health officials warn that access to health insurance, preventive care, and proper health education are vital to experiencing continued health and wellbeing throughout the life course. Despite the noted importance of preventive care in adolescence, social disparities continue to exist. Given that racial and ethnic minorities and...
Show moreOne of the key determinants of health and wellbeing for adolescents is the utilization of preventive health services. While adolescents are generally healthy, public health officials warn that access to health insurance, preventive care, and proper health education are vital to experiencing continued health and wellbeing throughout the life course. Despite the noted importance of preventive care in adolescence, social disparities continue to exist. Given that racial and ethnic minorities and those who are socioeconomically disadvantaged are less likely to have health insurance coverage, use preventive health services, and follow the recommended immunization schedule, this dissertation focuses on an important aspect of adolescent preventive health care services: vaccinations. Specifically, this study examines race and ethnic specific trends in meningococcal and tetanus, diphtheria, & acellular pertussis (Tdap) vaccination coverage among adolescents in the United States. Understanding such trends could help providers determine the most effective strategies for immunizing adolescents from different racial/ethnic backgrounds, especially as they age into adulthood, as well as reduce the overall impact of vaccine preventable diseases on households and communities. Using provider reported vaccination histories from the National Immunization Survey-Teen, 2008-2016, this dissertation estimates a series of binary logistic regressions to model racial and ethnic trends in meningococcal and Tdap vaccination coverage among U.S. adolescents (n = 155,461) over a nine-year period. I find that the distribution of meningococcal and Tdap vaccinations among adolescents varies by race and ethnicity. Black and Hispanic adolescents tend to display higher odds of vaccination relative to White adolescents. These increased rates suggest a racial/ethnic minority advantage that, at least among Hispanics, is reminiscent of the “Hispanic paradox.” These results further suggest that racial and ethnic disparities in adolescent vaccination persist. Moving forward, race and ethnic specific trends highlight the need for targeted interventions to reduce disparities as well as continued efforts to increase the overall rate of adolescent vaccination, as adolescents remain the least vaccinated demographic age group in pre-adulthood.
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Date Issued: 2018
Identifier: 2018_Su_Webb_fsu_0071E_14672
Format: Thesis

Title: Latinx College Student Narratives of Familism and College Persistence.
Creator: Salerno, Stacy Lynn, Reynolds, John R., Radey, Melissa, Tillman, Kathryn H., Ueno, Koji, Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Department of...
Show moreSalerno, Stacy Lynn, Reynolds, John R., Radey, Melissa, Tillman, Kathryn H., Ueno, Koji, Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Department of Sociology
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Abstract/Description: Latinx immigrants view college attendance as a vehicle for upward mobility and a primary means for achieving the American Dream. Despite ongoing debates over the rightful place of immigrants in U.S. society and periods of anti-immigrant sentiment and xenophobia in the Brexit/Trump era, immigrants still believe in education as a vehicle for upward mobility. This dissertation explores the social psychological and cultural mechanisms that underlie Latinx college student narratives of persistence...
Show moreLatinx immigrants view college attendance as a vehicle for upward mobility and a primary means for achieving the American Dream. Despite ongoing debates over the rightful place of immigrants in U.S. society and periods of anti-immigrant sentiment and xenophobia in the Brexit/Trump era, immigrants still believe in education as a vehicle for upward mobility. This dissertation explores the social psychological and cultural mechanisms that underlie Latinx college student narratives of persistence in seeking a college degree, and the resources used by students who seek a college degree but whose status is “suspect” due to their ethnicity. These mechanisms include the influence of parental immigrant narratives on self-efficacy, motivation, and the use of academic career narratives to make sense of their own college experiences. Academic career narratives are individual student stories that are created in an effort to make sense of their academic journey and future. The data come from thirty in-depth interviews with currently enrolled first and second-generation Latinx college students at public and private universities in the Southeast who have been in college at least two years. All students in the sample are of traditional college age (19-22 years old). The sample is stratified by gender, legal status- whether they are documented or undocumented, and generational status (1st or 2nd generation). Students who are undocumented, are attending college through the Deferred Action Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Data analysis suggests that Latinx students fortify their college aspirations in the face of negative experiences (discrimination, economic stress, etc.) by adopting their parent’s narratives of achieving mobility through hard work. This interpretive frame and narrative allows Latinx students to recast negative experiences as challenges they successfully endure, even badges of honor, and the resolution of which reinforces their self-efficacy and motivation to persist. Narrative construction is also a means by which Latinx students make sense of the difficult process associated with matriculating to college as first generation college students- preserving their self-efficacy, particularly for undocumented students. In this way Latinx college students construct their own narratives of immigrant mobility as experienced in specific events related to preparing for, applying to, and attending college. Another major finding is how familial ties affect how Latinx women talk about their college experiences very differently than Latinx men. While close family ties are generally beneficial to academic success, there is one downside to strong parental connections: the stress that accompanies high family expectations and present and future family responsibilities. How Latinx college students manage family-related expectations varies significantly by gender. I frame these gender differences through Machismo and Marianismo- two broad cultural conceptions that define gender roles and obligations in Latinx families. The women I interviewed reported feelings of homesickness as a result of wanting to care for family members. These women also described their beliefs and behaviors using language associated with selflessness, sacrifice and chastity. The men, on the other hand expressed a duty to provide financially for their parents, but not to provide care. These men reported feelings of irritation toward maternal requests for constant communication, as well as a desire for greater independence. Obtaining a better understanding of Latinx college students’ collegiate experiences is important for the social scientific research on college persistence, transition to adulthood, sociology of education literature on motivation and self-efficacy, and for colleges and universities seeking to increase the relatively low college completion rate of Latinx students. This dissertation extends our understanding of Latinx college students by identifying narratives that redefine negative life experiences as positive, and by providing a more nuanced portrayal of family ties in the Latinx student population.
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Date Issued: 2018
Identifier: 2018_Su_Salerno_fsu_0071E_14708
Format: Thesis

Title: The Effects of Paid Work on Health in Later Life: Variation by Socioeconomic Status.
Creator: Gumber, Clayton Michael, Barrett, Anne E., Born, Patricia, Taylor, Miles G., Carr, Dawn C, Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Department of...
Show moreGumber, Clayton Michael, Barrett, Anne E., Born, Patricia, Taylor, Miles G., Carr, Dawn C, Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Department of Sociology
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Abstract/Description: Studies examining the link between older adults’ labor force participation and health frequently report that later life employment is health enhancing. However, few studies consider how these benefits could vary by socioeconomic status (SES). In this dissertation I seek to address this oversight using data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). By exploring the relationship between older adults’ employment, SES, and health in three key areas (i.e., depressive symptoms, total recall, and...
Show moreStudies examining the link between older adults’ labor force participation and health frequently report that later life employment is health enhancing. However, few studies consider how these benefits could vary by socioeconomic status (SES). In this dissertation I seek to address this oversight using data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). By exploring the relationship between older adults’ employment, SES, and health in three key areas (i.e., depressive symptoms, total recall, and physical impairment), I provide a more in-depth account of the health implications of later life employment. To accomplish this goal, I conduct three sets of analyses. In the first set of analyses I assess cross-sectional associations between employment status and health. My findings indicate that both part-time employment and full-time employment are significantly linked to fewer depressive symptoms, better recall, and fewer functional limitations. Contrary to my expectations, I find no evidence that full-time employment is especially beneficial compared with part-time employment. In the second set of analyses, I use longitudinal data to evaluate associations between employment stability and change and health. The longitudinal results are generally consistent with cross-sectional findings and indicate a positive relationship between older adults’ employment and health. In the third set of analyses, I examine whether the relationship between older adults’ labor force involvement and health varies by SES using cross-sectional and longitudinal data. A review of the interaction terms from the cross-sectional analyses suggests that SES does not significantly condition such a relationship. However, longitudinal findings do offer some evidence that higher educational attainment and wealth may weaken the association between employment change and cognitive and physical health.
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Date Issued: 2018
Identifier: 2018_Su_Gumber_fsu_0071E_14728
Format: Thesis

Title: Inequality, Context, and Prosocial Behavior: An Examination of Redistributive Preferences.
Creator: Severson, Alexander William, Coleman, Eric A., Isaac, R. Mark, Großer, Jens W., Gomez, Brad T., Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy,...
Show moreSeverson, Alexander William, Coleman, Eric A., Isaac, R. Mark, Großer, Jens W., Gomez, Brad T., Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Department of Political Science
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Abstract/Description: My dissertation "Inequality, Context, and Prosocial Behavior: An Examination of Redistributive Preferences" contributes to an emergent literature on the effects of inequality on policy outcomes by illuminating the psychological and institutional factors which influence support for redistributive policies differentially among the rich and poor. In my dissertation, I advance two primary arguments. First, drawing from the evolutionary psychological literature on competition effects and the...
Show moreMy dissertation "Inequality, Context, and Prosocial Behavior: An Examination of Redistributive Preferences" contributes to an emergent literature on the effects of inequality on policy outcomes by illuminating the psychological and institutional factors which influence support for redistributive policies differentially among the rich and poor. In my dissertation, I advance two primary arguments. First, drawing from the evolutionary psychological literature on competition effects and the social psychological literature on the social cognition of status, I argue that at the individual-level, economic threat moderates the relationship between social status and prosocial behavior. Secondly, drawing from the resource model of political participation and models of policy responsiveness, I argue that at the institutional-level, transparency interventions fail to promote redistribution to lower-income citizens specifically when (1) lower-income citizens do not access the information released by transparency interventions and when (2) lower-income citizens do not turn out to vote at rates comparable to higher-income citizens. I evaluate my first argument using both a laboratory experiment and public opinion data from the 2012 American National Election Study (ANES). In contrast to theoretical expectations, in the laboratory experiment I present evidence that under conditions of economic threat, low and high-status subjects behave similarly: they are equally likely to perceive threat and give roughly equal amounts to one another in a dictator game. Using data from the 2012 ANES, I present evidence that while income does not predict whether an individual is more likely to blame low-status consumers or high-status Wall Street bankers as being more responsible for the 2008 financial crisis, I do present evidence which suggests that high-income individuals who blame higher-status groups more than lower-status groups are significantly more likely to support increased aid to the poor. I evaluate my second argument empirically with a laboratory experiment and state-level panel data covering the years 1978-2000. Using a laboratory experiment, I present evidence that under conditions of budget transparency, subjects endowed with the power to create budgets were more likely to allocate greater proportions of their budget to subjects who had more resources and who had the power to veto the budget. Using state-level panel data between 1978-2000, I explore the relationship between transparency, media market penetration, class bias in voter participation, and welfare expenditures in the United States. Using a series of between-within panel models, I present evidence that the effect of transparency on public welfare expenditures is conditional on the different turnout propensities of the rich and the poor: in states where wealthier citizens are significantly more likely to vote in elections than the poor, longitudinal increases in budget transparency over time are associated with significant reductions in state welfare effort. The results of my dissertation have produced important insights into the psychological and institutional mechanisms that influence the redistributive preferences of individuals and the redistributive behavior of states. My research can move the fields of political science and social psychology toward resolution of unsettled theoretical debates concerning the generosity of different social classes and from a prescriptive standpoint reinforces the need for transparency interventions to move beyond a singular focus on information-release.
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Date Issued: 2018
Identifier: 2018_Su_Severson_fsu_0071E_14653
Format: Thesis

Title: I'm Used to Having to Look at Myself through Somebody Else's Eyes: Comparing Black Women's Expeirences of Stereotyping at a Historically Black University and a Predominantly White University.
Creator: Armstrong, Jasmine Cheynne, Padavic, Irene, Reynolds, John R., Tillman, Kathryn H., Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Department of Sociology
Abstract/Description: This study examines variation in the cultural stereotypes African American women encounter at a historically Black university and at a predominantly White university and the possible differences in the stereotypes' effect. Prior research reveals a variety of “controlling images” of African American women in the society at large and at predominantly white universities in particular. A separate literature on HBCUs indicates many advantages for African Americans, such as philosophies that mirror...
Show moreThis study examines variation in the cultural stereotypes African American women encounter at a historically Black university and at a predominantly White university and the possible differences in the stereotypes' effect. Prior research reveals a variety of “controlling images” of African American women in the society at large and at predominantly white universities in particular. A separate literature on HBCUs indicates many advantages for African Americans, such as philosophies that mirror the values in the black community, the high number of black faculty and administrators who cater to the academic needs of the black student population, and the large black student representation on campus that ensures that black students are not a numerical minority. An unexamined potential advantage is that racialized stereotypes about black women may be less pervasive or, if they exist, they may be less pernicious and emotionally damaging than on predominantly-white campuses. I interviewed 46 women on two campuses, one an HBCU and the other a PWI. The purpose of this project is to develop a deeper understanding of Black women's experiences in the college setting and to add to scholarly knowledge about the advantages or disadvantages for black women of attending these two different types of institution. Negative stereotypes of black women have old roots, but they still appear in modern-day public discourse. I examine six stereotypical images of black women: the angry black woman, the strong black woman, the bossy black woman, the Jezebel black woman, the ghetto black woman, and the respectable black woman. These images have nuanced descriptions that categorize black women by their race, gender, and social class yet are adaptations of the historical stereotypes of black women as the Mammy, the Jezebel, and the Sapphire. This study has important policy implications. It can help us understand how stereotypes undermine black women’s efforts to advance. It also can shed light on the effectiveness of HBCUs compared to PWIs for black women’s experience of college life. Such insights may have boarder implications about improving black women’s chances of getting the most out of their education and preparing them for careers. Interviews revealed that women on both campuses encountered multiple stereotypes and that the HBCU was no more effective at protecting women from these encounters than was the PWI. In regard to black women’s experiences, the “angry black woman,” the “strong black woman,” and the “bossy black woman” stereotype were the most pervasive on both campuses. Differences were found in how elaborated the stories were about the stereotypes on one campus or the other. For example, women at the PWI reported more vivid experiences of being stereotyped as ghetto black women while women at the HBCU reported more stories about being labelled as Jezebels. I conclude by describing how this research contributes to intersectionality theory.
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Date Issued: 2018
Identifier: 2018_Su_ARMSTRONG_fsu_0071E_14678
Format: Thesis

Title: Multiple Imputation Methods for Large Multi-Scale Data Sets with Missing or Suppressed Values.
Creator: Cao, Jian, Beaumont, Paul M., Duke, D. W., Norrbin, Stefan C., Ökten, Giray, Cano-Urbina, Javier, Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy,...
Show moreCao, Jian, Beaumont, Paul M., Duke, D. W., Norrbin, Stefan C., Ökten, Giray, Cano-Urbina, Javier, Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Department of Economics
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Abstract/Description: Without proper treatment, direct analysis on data sets with missing or suppressed values can lead to biased results. Among all of the missing data handling methods, multiple imputation (MI) methods are regarded as the state of the art. The multiple imputed data sets can, on the one hand, generate unbiased estimates, and on the other hand, provide a reliable way to adjust standard errors based on missing data uncertainty. Despite many advantages, existing MI methods have poor performance on...
Show moreWithout proper treatment, direct analysis on data sets with missing or suppressed values can lead to biased results. Among all of the missing data handling methods, multiple imputation (MI) methods are regarded as the state of the art. The multiple imputed data sets can, on the one hand, generate unbiased estimates, and on the other hand, provide a reliable way to adjust standard errors based on missing data uncertainty. Despite many advantages, existing MI methods have poor performance on complicated Multi-Scale data, especially when the data set is large. The large data set of interest to us is the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wage (QCEW), which is the employment and wages of every establishment in the US. These detailed data are aggregated up through three scales: industry structure, geographic levels and time. The size of the QCEW data is as large as 210 x✕ 2217 ✕ 3193 ≈ 1.5 billion observations. For privacy concerns the data are heavily suppressed and this missingness could appear anywhere in this complicated structure. The existing methods are either accurate or fast but bot both in handling the QCEW data. Our goal is to develop a MI method which is capable of handling the missing value problem of large multi-scale data set both accurately and efficiently. This research addresses this goal in three directions. First, I improve the accuracy of the fastest MI method, Bootstrapping based Expectation Maximization (EMB) algorithm, by equipping it with a Multi-Scale Updating step. This updating step uses the information from the singular covariance matrix to take multi-scale structure into account and to simulate more accurate imputations. Second, I improve the MI method by using a Quasi Monte Carlo technique to accelerate its convergence speed. Finally, I develop a Sequential Parallel Imputation method which can detect the structure and missing pattern of large data sets, and partition it to small data sets automatically. The resulting Parallel Sequential Multi-Scale Bootstrapping Expectation Maximization Multiple Imputation (PSI-MBEMMI) method is accurate, very fast, and can be applied to very large data sets.
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Date Issued: 2018
Identifier: 2018_Su_Cao_fsu_0071E_14706
Format: Thesis

Title: Multi-Scalar Assessment of Built-Environment and Bus Networks Influence on Rapid-Transit Patronage: The Case of Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Network.
Creator: Ramos Santiago, Luis Enrique, Brown, Jeff R., Horner, Mark W., Duncan, Michael Douglas, Felkner, John, Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy,...
Show moreRamos Santiago, Luis Enrique, Brown, Jeff R., Horner, Mark W., Duncan, Michael Douglas, Felkner, John, Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Department of Urban and Regional Planning
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Abstract/Description: The advent of accelerated global warming and volatile climate change has prompted the need for a better understanding of what factors and policies might contribute to mitigate these events as well as increase the resilience of communities. Transit systems’ effectiveness and efficiency in increasingly disperse, car-dependent, and poly-centric urban agglomerations is one such factor, including the search for strategies to increase transit patronage and decrease car-dependence. Improving access...
Show moreThe advent of accelerated global warming and volatile climate change has prompted the need for a better understanding of what factors and policies might contribute to mitigate these events as well as increase the resilience of communities. Transit systems’ effectiveness and efficiency in increasingly disperse, car-dependent, and poly-centric urban agglomerations is one such factor, including the search for strategies to increase transit patronage and decrease car-dependence. Improving access to rapid-transit systems is one key area as it has the potential to expand the system’s influence beyond station’s immediate pedestrian service areas into larger and less developed suburban areas, and/or serve more disperse employment. Precedent studies and most on-board surveys have focused on a variety of access modes to reach rapid-transit services, including automobile, walking, and bicycle. Bus access, despite representing on average a non-trivial 19.3% of all access trips at national level, more than 30% at some large poly-centric cities in the U.S., and close to 50% of access trips for some rapid-transit lines (out-sizing the share of pedestrian access) has not received as much attention as other access modes. Predictive models for bus access mode report notably lower explanatory power as compared to other modes and the account of bus access events is often conflated with that of walk access in many technical reports and surveys for reasons yet to be understood. Ignoring, overlooking and/or misrepresenting this mode of access may lead to misunderstanding of multi-modal transit travel behavior and its spatial extent, possibly misguiding planners and policy-makers’ decision-making and resulting in system-wide ineffectiveness and/or inefficiency. This investigation documents bus access share for one exemplary case study and clarifies built-environment and bus networks’ influence on rapid-transit patronage within descriptive and inferential quantitative methodologies. This study seeks to answer two guiding research questions: 1- How important are bus networks to rapid-transit ridership in large, dispersed, poly-centric metropolitan regions in the U.S.? and 2- Do land-use and built-environment attributes around feeder bus-stops influence rapid-transit boardings? Because of diverse geographical scales and service levels experienced by a rider on a chained bus / rapid-transit trip this study focuses on two distinct yet linked geographies for analysis: 1-rapid-transit station; and 2- bus-stop. Research design is based on a single-case study in the United States (Los Angeles metropolitan multi-modal transit system). The first study focuses on quantifying the share of bus access trips at station-level and gaging its influence on total boardings within a multivariate generalized regression framework. Several socio-economic, service-level, built-environment, and network attributes are taken into consideration as informed by travel behavior theory and literature review. A strong positive association between bus network’s service and connectivity levels with rapid-transit station boardings registers high statistical confidence levels with boardings across all specified models. The mutual dependence of rapid-transit and bus networks evinced in the case of Los Angeles argues for a full multi-modal transit planning and operations paradigm for advancing a more effective, equitable, and sustainable transit system if it is to compete with ubiquitous automobile travel and its underpinning policy, fiscal, infrastructural, and cultural support. For Los Angeles, rapid-transit bus access represents an estimated 33.5% of all access events at a system-wide level, 20% - 49% at line-level, and a notably wider range at station-level (0% - 86%). The second study in this investigation focuses in assessing bus-stop pedestrian service areas built-environment and land-use attributes’ potential influence on rapid-transit station boardings, whilst controlling for both known and hypothesized control factors at bus-stop and station-level. By simultaneously focusing on bus-stop level attributes and higher-level rapid-transit stations’ attributes this part of the investigation fills a gap in the extant land-use / travel-behavior literature that more often focuses on pedestrian service areas adjacent to rapid-transit stations and ignores those around feeder bus-stops. Results evince a highly significant statistical relationship between bus-stop service area built-environment characteristics and the number of boardings associated with access trips to rapid-transit stations. However, the absolute effect relative to bus service levels and to automobile availability is notably smaller. Taken together as a multi-scalar study of bus and rapid-transit network interactions this investigation points to the importance of bus / rapid-transit network connectivity and service integration for maintaining and increasing rapid-transit patronage and the potential of synergistic contributions of built-environment interventions at feeder bus stops that seek to improve walkability and shorter walking distances. As a general conclusion, Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority and its associated MPO policy emphasis on TOD development as a strategy to increase transit ridership is limited. A more comprehensive policy approach based on ‘integrated public transportation’ and a more extensive station access policy that incorporates improvements around feeder bus stops, not only around stations, is the recommended course.
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Date Issued: 2018
Identifier: 2018_Su_Ramos_fsu_0071E_14637
Format: Thesis

Title: Donor Attitudes Toward Overhead Costs and the Effects on Nonprofit Organizations.
Creator: Stinn, Joseph L., Isaac, R. Mark, Großer, Jens W., Cooper, David J, Goerg, Sebastian J., Kitchens, Carl T., Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public...
Show moreStinn, Joseph L., Isaac, R. Mark, Großer, Jens W., Cooper, David J, Goerg, Sebastian J., Kitchens, Carl T., Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Department of Economics
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Abstract/Description: This dissertation is a collection of essays that explore the topic of overhead costs in the nonprofit sector. There is a tension that exists between donors and nonprofit organizations. Donors dislike their donations going toward overhead costs, preferring their donations be spent on programs. People who work for nonprofit organizations argue that spending on overhead costs is necessary to ensure quality programs. In my first essay, I use a set of classroom experiments to explore peoples’...
Show moreThis dissertation is a collection of essays that explore the topic of overhead costs in the nonprofit sector. There is a tension that exists between donors and nonprofit organizations. Donors dislike their donations going toward overhead costs, preferring their donations be spent on programs. People who work for nonprofit organizations argue that spending on overhead costs is necessary to ensure quality programs. In my first essay, I use a set of classroom experiments to explore peoples’ attitudes toward overhead costs. People dislike overhead costs, including specific costs like fundraising and salaries. When compared directly, people prefer fundraising over salaries. In my second essay, I test in laboratory experiments whether this aversion to overhead costs is robust enough that people will incur a cost to act on it. A substantial number of people are willing to pay for information about overhead costs and subsequently use this information to withhold donations from higher-overhead charities. In my third essay, I test how allocating money between overhead and program expenses impacts the financial success of nonprofit organizations. Allocating money toward overall overhead expenses and administrative expenses lead to increases in contributions, net assets, and the likelihood of survival. Allocating money toward fundraising has the opposite effect.
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Date Issued: 2018
Identifier: 2018_Su_Stinn_fsu_0071E_14638
Format: Thesis

Title: The Social Identity of Partisanship: Measuring the "Identity" in Party Identification.
Creator: Langley, Dennis Franklin, Gomez, Brad T., Plant, Ashby, Pietryka, Matthew T., Jackson, Robert A., Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy,...
Show moreLangley, Dennis Franklin, Gomez, Brad T., Plant, Ashby, Pietryka, Matthew T., Jackson, Robert A., Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Department of Political Science
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Abstract/Description: Party identification is perhaps the central concept in political science. It has appeared in countless theories and empirical analyses across the political science literature. Party identification was originally conceived as a psychological attachment to the political parties but recent evidence shows that the standard measure for party identification, the NES measure, confounds group identity and group attitude. I show that party social identity, a direct measure of group identity, explains...
Show moreParty identification is perhaps the central concept in political science. It has appeared in countless theories and empirical analyses across the political science literature. Party identification was originally conceived as a psychological attachment to the political parties but recent evidence shows that the standard measure for party identification, the NES measure, confounds group identity and group attitude. I show that party social identity, a direct measure of group identity, explains variation in candidate preferences in political primaries where the standard measure of party identification cannot. I also show that machine learning can be used to predict party social identity in surveys that did not directly measure it, and that these predictions can be used to revisit empirical analyses and reevaluate inferences related to party identification. Finally, I show that changes in the NES measure of party identification may be due to changes in either the group attitude or the group identity component and that retrospective evaluations, commonly used to explain changes in party identification, are only associated with changes in the group attitude component of the NES measure.
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Date Issued: 2018
Identifier: 2018_Su_Langley_fsu_0071E_14761
Format: Thesis

Title: Essays on Asymmetric Information and Insurance Policy.
Creator: Bedsworth, Fredrick Travis, Holcombe, Randall G., Born, Patricia, Isaac, R. Mark, Kitchens, Carl T., Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy,...
Show moreBedsworth, Fredrick Travis, Holcombe, Randall G., Born, Patricia, Isaac, R. Mark, Kitchens, Carl T., Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Department of Economics
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Abstract/Description: Due to the rollout of provisions from the Affordable Care Act beginning in 2010 there has been significant interest in the effects of health insurance, and more broadly, the effects of health insurance policy on individuals and firms. Using empirical and experimental methods, I investigate the impact of insurance and insurance policy on individuals and firms. More specifically, I am interested in the behavioral impacts of health insurance and of the impacts of insurance in general on...
Show moreDue to the rollout of provisions from the Affordable Care Act beginning in 2010 there has been significant interest in the effects of health insurance, and more broadly, the effects of health insurance policy on individuals and firms. Using empirical and experimental methods, I investigate the impact of insurance and insurance policy on individuals and firms. More specifically, I am interested in the behavioral impacts of health insurance and of the impacts of insurance in general on individuals. Further, I am interested in studying the impact of insurance mandates on businesses. To study these issues I use health data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, experimental data generated from an experiment my co-authors and I conducted at Florida State University, and employment data from the Current Population Survey
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Date Issued: 2018
Identifier: 2018_Su_Bedsworth_fsu_0071E_14771
Format: Thesis

Title: Essays on Entry Regulation and the Non-Profit Sector.
Creator: Duff, Joseph A., Isaac, R. Mark, Großer, Jens W., Fournier, Gary M., Pevnitskaya, Svetlana A, Semykina, Anastasia, Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and...
Show moreDuff, Joseph A., Isaac, R. Mark, Großer, Jens W., Fournier, Gary M., Pevnitskaya, Svetlana A, Semykina, Anastasia, Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Department of Economics
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Abstract/Description: In first two chapters of this dissertation, I examine the effects of Certificate-of-Need (CON) regulation on technological investment and prices, and also examine decisions about service provision in hospitals and other non-profit services. CON regulation provides state authority to restrict major capital investments as a way of reducing costs. CON regulation was initially implemented at the federal level in 1972, and while falling out of favor in 1981, 34 states including Florida have a...
Show moreIn first two chapters of this dissertation, I examine the effects of Certificate-of-Need (CON) regulation on technological investment and prices, and also examine decisions about service provision in hospitals and other non-profit services. CON regulation provides state authority to restrict major capital investments as a way of reducing costs. CON regulation was initially implemented at the federal level in 1972, and while falling out of favor in 1981, 34 states including Florida have a state-wide CON program in place as of 2017. The purpose of CON regulation is to address this surplus of equipment by requiring that new purchases of equipment and providing new services be subject to prior approval from CON authorities, automatically for some key types of operations and for others if the costs exceed the capital threshold. Hospitals must demonstrate to the CON board that the equipment serves a community need or unmet demand; if successful, they may be granted a Certificate of Need to purchase the new equipment. It is reasonable to believe that services that are subject to CON regulation are offered less often than unregulated services. I examine how this process affects the supply of technology in the first chapter. One major argument against CON laws is that they restrict competition and keep prices high. In the second chapter, I examine whether the technology restrictions of CON regulation result in higher prices and market power. In the third chapter of the dissertation, I look at another issue affecting non-profit firms; the issue of overhead expenses. Overhead expenses are defined as any expense that does not count as directly contributing to the program. There is evidence that many potential donors dislike paying for overhead costs, even though they are vital to the operational abilities of a nonprofit. I empirically test how overhead expenses affect a nonprofit's financial success as well as its survival rate. For the first chapter of the dissertation, the chapter is co-authored with Gary Fournier. Our collaboration involved a great deal of joint effort at every phase of research. Gary Fournier supervised in the design of the project, discussing sampling issues, identifying data sources and limitations, and helped suggest empirical strategies. My contribution was to carry out the empirical analysis and the full written report. For the third chapter of the dissertation, the chapter is co-authored with Joseph Stinn. His contributions to the project are the motivation, the literature review, the idea to analyze survival rates of nonprofits, and the idea to use liabilities as an instrument. My main contributions are the theoretical model, and the empirical strategies. We jointly carried out the data collection, empirical analysis and the written report.
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Date Issued: 2018
Identifier: 2018_Su_Duff_fsu_0071E_14752
Format: Thesis

Title: Three Essays on Crisis Bargaining.
Creator: Hauenstein, Matthew, Souva, Mark A., Grant, Jonathan A., Berry, William Dale, Carroll, Robert J., Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy,...
Show moreHauenstein, Matthew, Souva, Mark A., Grant, Jonathan A., Berry, William Dale, Carroll, Robert J., Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Department of Political Science
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Abstract/Description: This dissertation examines three enduring questions for the study of conflict. First, I consider how domestic institutions affect threat credibility, arguing that audiences can either help or hinder a leader during bargaining. Second, I show that the success of third party guarantees of civil war treaties is conditional on the guarantor's credibility. Finally, I argue that the willingness of a leader to nurture a reputation depends on their time horizons, and that long time horizons can allow...
Show moreThis dissertation examines three enduring questions for the study of conflict. First, I consider how domestic institutions affect threat credibility, arguing that audiences can either help or hinder a leader during bargaining. Second, I show that the success of third party guarantees of civil war treaties is conditional on the guarantor's credibility. Finally, I argue that the willingness of a leader to nurture a reputation depends on their time horizons, and that long time horizons can allow a leader to deter conflict. The first essay considers how leaders communicate in a crisis. Scholars frequently use audience costs to explain how accountable leaders communicate, but these have received mixed empirical support. I argue this apparent disconnect between theory and evidence is due to simplistic assumptions about how audiences use their sanctioning power. I contend that supporters balance concerns over consistency and policy outcomes. As such, accountable leaders' ability to credibly communicate depends on their supporters' policy preferences. I apply this insight using casualty sensitivity as a conditioning policy preference. I expect, and find, that audiences only help a leader commit to fight when fighting is low cost, and actually prevent commitment when fighting is high cost. Audiences have countervailing effects on credibility due to their preferences for leaders who are both consistent and avoid costly conflict. The second essay addresses a puzzle regarding outside enforcement of civil war peace agreements. Instead of fighting, domestic belligerents could have agreed to outside support for a peaceful resolution to their underlying dispute, avoiding war and its costs. Existing theory cannot explain why third parties can end but not prevent conflict. I argue that war breaks out if third parties cannot credibly promise to enforce a peacefully negotiated agreement. Subsequent military intervention serves as a sunk cost signal of the third party's resolve to enforce an agreement, facilitating peace. I test this theory using a new dataset of treaty terms and duration for civil wars that began between 1944 and 1997. Consistent with the theory, guarantees only prolong the post-war peace when the guarantor intervened in the conflict. Guarantees that were not associated with an intervention do not improve the prospects for peace. In the final essay I argue that reputation formation is a type of investment. Leaders pay the costs of fighting in the present, in return for future gains in the form of deterrence. The investment decision depends on whether leaders survive in office to reap the future benefits of their reputation. I formally show that, while long time horizons increase a leader's willingness to fight, this alone does not make reputation formation more likely. As reputations form through the strategic decision to go to war, the chance to form a reputation is determined by the opponent's bargaining strategy. Opponents can "pay'' a leader to forgo the chance to earn a reputation through fighting by making greater concessions. However, an opponent might instead offer small concessions that risk war to learn a leader's resolve. Knowing a leader's resolve gives the opponent an advantage should they bargain in the future. As a result, when both a leader and their opponent have long time horizons, they forgo bargaining concessions that would be acceptable without reputation concerns, leading to war.
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Date Issued: 2018
Identifier: 2018_Su_Hauenstein_fsu_0071E_14770
Format: Thesis

Title: Domestic Effects of Federal Regulation of Oil and Gas Industries.
Creator: Gmeiner, Robert James, Holcombe, Randall G., Feiock, Richard C., Beaumont, Paul M., Norrbin, Stefan C., Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy,...
Show moreGmeiner, Robert James, Holcombe, Randall G., Feiock, Richard C., Beaumont, Paul M., Norrbin, Stefan C., Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Department of Economics
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Abstract/Description: The capture theory of regulation concludes that regulatory agencies tend to be captured by the firms they are regulating, so that regulations benefit those regulated firms. This paper examines the cumulative effects of federal regulations on the oil and gas industry and finds that regulations have benefited the more powerful economic interests in that industry, consistent with the capture theory. Regulations have tended to narrow refiners' margins and are associated with positive return and...
Show moreThe capture theory of regulation concludes that regulatory agencies tend to be captured by the firms they are regulating, so that regulations benefit those regulated firms. This paper examines the cumulative effects of federal regulations on the oil and gas industry and finds that regulations have benefited the more powerful economic interests in that industry, consistent with the capture theory. Regulations have tended to narrow refiners' margins and are associated with positive return and negative volatility responses for stocks of vertically integrated firms, which are the largest players in the industry. This narrowing of margins is mostly a long-term effect, but has some short run effects more on input prices than output prices, further benefiting vertically integrated firms. Refining regulations affect input prices more than output prices primarily by affecting demand for certain types of crude oil. Effects of regulation on input prices and even relative quantities of different inputs are robust, whereas effects of regulation on output prices are far more tenuous. There is no clear evidence that consumers are worse off because of the regulatory environment, but the robust empirical evidence does indicate that the regulatory environment differentially benefits large vertically integrated producers.
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Date Issued: 2018
Identifier: 2018_Sp_Gmeiner_fsu_0071E_14287
Format: Thesis

Title: The Dumbo in the Room: An Examination into What Public Officials Think of the Role of Marketing and Branding in Florida.
Creator: Thomas, M. Blair, Berry, Frances Stokes, Fay, Daniel F., Perrewe, Pamela L., Feiock, Richard C., Yang, Kaifeng, Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public...
Show moreThomas, M. Blair, Berry, Frances Stokes, Fay, Daniel F., Perrewe, Pamela L., Feiock, Richard C., Yang, Kaifeng, Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, School of Public Administration and Policy
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Abstract/Description: Throughout the course of this decade, the Sunshine State has emerged as one of America’s fastest growing states. As cities compete for opportunities to expand their tax base and achieve other municipally-centered goals, cities are faced with the challenge to differentiate themselves among their peers to cash-in on these opportunities. One way to accomplish this is by engaging in marketing and branding. There is little that is known about the utilization of marketing and branding from the...
Show moreThroughout the course of this decade, the Sunshine State has emerged as one of America’s fastest growing states. As cities compete for opportunities to expand their tax base and achieve other municipally-centered goals, cities are faced with the challenge to differentiate themselves among their peers to cash-in on these opportunities. One way to accomplish this is by engaging in marketing and branding. There is little that is known about the utilization of marketing and branding from the administrative local practitioner point-of-view from an American perspective. While it is understood that many cities engage in marketing and branding related activities, there is more to learn about the rationale behind the decisions that city managers and communications officials make regarding whether to participate in those activities. This research addresses a research gap and answers the fundamental question: At the city level, how are branding, marketing and social marketing currently utilized by public managers and individuals in charge of communications? Utilizing surveys and interviews from cities across Florida, this dissertation provides a better understanding of how public administrators view marketing, branding, social marketing through a strategic management lens and discovers the degree their cities are utilizing these elements to achieve goals put forward by municipal leadership across the state.
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Date Issued: 2018
Identifier: 2018_Sp_Thomas_fsu_0071E_14384
Format: Thesis

Title: Essays on Violent Conflicts.
Creator: Guo, Xiaoli, Großer, Jens W., Cooper, David J, Carroll, Robert J., Siegel, David A., Souva, Mark A., Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy,...
Show moreGuo, Xiaoli, Großer, Jens W., Cooper, David J, Carroll, Robert J., Siegel, David A., Souva, Mark A., Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Department of Political Science
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Abstract/Description: My dissertation consists of three essays of violent conflicts. In the first essay, we propose a novel solution to improve the efficiency of third- party interventions in conflicts. When an intervener coerces the rivals of conflicts into peace, he may face a tradeoff between the effectiveness and cost of interventions. Extant studies generally suggest that severe measures are more effective, but also more costly. Using a game-theoretical model, with the assumption that the rivals' power...
Show moreMy dissertation consists of three essays of violent conflicts. In the first essay, we propose a novel solution to improve the efficiency of third- party interventions in conflicts. When an intervener coerces the rivals of conflicts into peace, he may face a tradeoff between the effectiveness and cost of interventions. Extant studies generally suggest that severe measures are more effective, but also more costly. Using a game-theoretical model, with the assumption that the rivals' power endogenously shift in conflicts, we find that moderate measures can achieve peace by inducing a reciprocal rival that attacks aggressively only if the other side strikes first. However, when the power dynamics determine that the rival's interest lies in exploiting the other side's passiveness instead of coordinating for peace, severe measures are needed to counteract opportunism. We also show that a weaker rival is not necessarily easier to restrain, and sometimes its aggressiveness comes from its weakness. In addition, we outline the empirical implications of another finding that interventions can work exclusively through the target's expectation instead of implementation. For example, the relationship between the presence of penalties and their effects may be correlational rather than causal. In the second essay, we tackle how the ownership of endowments in dispute affects the actor's behavior in crisis bargaining and the outbreak of costly conflicts. We design tailor-made Nash bargaining games and experimentally test the hypotheses derived. The results indicate that, first, the endowment as a salient focal point serves as a strategic tool rather than a reference associated with biased valuations; and second, the legitimacy of ownership can elicit behavioral responses from the actor, when it is in line with rational expectations. We also find that, conditioned on the actors' expectations, a chance to back down can but does not necessarily reduce conflicts when the status quo and power are roughly balanced. Due to the self-selection effect, aggressive demands do not necessarily cause more conflicts. More generally, we highlight two important perspectives to understand bargaining---the strategic application of focal points, and the subtle influence of the legitimacy of ownership. The third essay is a continuation of the second one. Crisis bargaining most often is a process, in which the disputants sequentially propose a demand and try to arrive at an agreement that both sides deem acceptable. Depending on the disputants' preferences, equilibrium of a bargaining game very likely varies. In this paper, we use variants of the Rubinstein bargaining game and a lab experiment to explore how the disputants communicate about their preferences in crisis bargaining, and the effect of such communication on the likelihood of bargaining failure and conflict. We find that the players mostly communicate their preference strategically according to rational expectations. Besides, inequality aversion and some overoptimism are observed. We also find that more focal points do not necessarily lead to more conflict, and a chance to back down decreases conflict only when the player's endowment in balanced with his probability of winning.
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Date Issued: 2018
Identifier: 2018_Sp_Guo_fsu_0071E_14371
Format: Thesis

Title: The Effects of Co-Ethnic Refugees on International Conflict, Repression, and Domestic Terrorism.
Creator: Ulasoglu, Saadet, Souva, Mark A., Grant, Jonathan A., Ehrlich, Sean D., Borzyskowski, Inken von, Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy,...
Show moreUlasoglu, Saadet, Souva, Mark A., Grant, Jonathan A., Ehrlich, Sean D., Borzyskowski, Inken von, Florida State University, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Department of Political Science
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Abstract/Description: This dissertation contributes to the political violence literature by examining the impacts of refugee communities on the likelihood of international conflict, repression, and domestic terrorism. The main message of this study is that the co-ethnicity of refugees with politically relevant groups in the receiving countries is crucial to the understanding of potential security risks created by refugee populations.
Date Issued: 2018
Identifier: 2018_Sp_Ulasoglu_fsu_0071E_14484
Format: Thesis

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