Faculty Research
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Item Natural Disasters, Economic Growth and Sustainable Development in China-An Empirical Study Using Provincial Panel Data(Sustainability, 2015) Guo, Ji; Liu, Hui; Wu, Xianhua; Gu, Jiong; Song, Shunfeng; Tang, YinshanUsing a newly developed integrated indicator system with entropy weighting, we analyzed the panel data of 577 recorded disasters in 30 provinces of China from 1985-2011 to identify their links with the subsequent economic growth. Meteorological disasters promote economic growth through human capital instead of physical capital. Geological disasters did not trigger local economic growth from 1999-2011. Generally, natural disasters overall had no significant impact on economic growth from 1985-1998. Thus, human capital reinvestment should be the aim in managing recoveries, and it should be used to regenerate the local economy based on long-term sustainable development.Item Mapping the Future of Occupations: Transformative and Destructive Effects of New Digital Technologies on Jobs(Foresight and Sti Governance, 2019) Fossen, Frank; Zorgner, AlinaWe investigate the impact of new digital technologies upon occupations. We argue that these impacts may be both destructive and transformative. The destructive effects of digitalization substitute human labor, while transformative effects of digitalization complement it. We distinguish between four broad groups of occupations that differ with regard to the impact of digitalization upon them. "Rising star" occupations are characterized by the low destructive and high transformative effects of digitalization. In contrast, "collapsing" occupations face a high risk of destructive effects. "Human terrain" occupations have low risks of both destructive and transformative digitalization, whereas "machine terrain" occupations are affected by both types. We analyze the differences between these four occupational groups in terms of the capabilities, which can be considered bottlenecks to computerization. The results help to identify which capabilities will be in demand and to what degree workers with different abilities can expect their occupations to be transformed in the digital era.Item Collaborative Modeling to Assess Drought Resiliency of Snow-Fed River Dependent Communities in the Western United States: A Case Study in the Truckee-Carson River System(2017) Singletary, Loretta; Sterle, KelleyAssessing the drought resilience of snow-fed river dependent communities in the arid Western United States has taken on critical importance in response to changing climatic conditions. The process of assessing drought resiliency involves understanding the extent to which snow-fed dependent communities can absorb the effects of uncertain and variable water supplies while acknowledging and encouraging their capacity for adaptation. Participatory research approaches are particularly well suited to assess resiliency in this context because they rely upon local water managers' knowledge and perspectives. The research presented here provides measured insight into local water managers' perceptions of drought resiliency in the Truckee-Carson River System in northwestern Nevada. These findings are reported in the context of the collaborative modeling research design developed for this case study. The objectives of this study are: (1) to define resiliency and present a rationale for a participatory approach to assess drought resiliency in snow-fed arid river basins in the Western United StatesItem Consistency of Trend Break Point Estimator with Underspecified Break Number(2017) Yang, JingjingThis paper discusses the consistency of trend break point estimators when the number of breaks is underspecified. The consistency of break point estimators in a simple location model with level shifts has been well documented by researchers under various settings, including extensions such as allowing a time trend in the model. Despite the consistency of break point estimators of level shifts, there are few papers on the consistency of trend shift break point estimators in the presence of an underspecified break number. The simulation study and asymptotic analysis in this paper show that the trend shift break point estimator does not converge to the true break points when the break number is underspecified. In the case of two trend shifts, the inconsistency problem worsens if the magnitudes of the breaks are similar and the breaks are either both positive or both negative. The limiting distribution for the trend break point estimator is developed and closely approximates the finite sample performance.Item Industrial Policy to Develop a Multi-Firm Industry(2017) Melkonyan, Tigran; Banks, Dwayne; Wendel, JeanneGovernments face pressure to act when coordination and learning externalities block development of otherwise-profitable industries that would produce merit goods for the domestic market. A short-term subsidy that offsets these externalities could potentially jump-start a multi-firm industry, if the subsidy induces a pioneer firm to enter and then the pioneer's first-period output generates coordination and learning externalities. These externalities could induce subsequent entry by input suppliers and/or competitors. However, empirical evidence raises questions about the ability of governments to use short-term subsidies to jump-start new industries. We explore one explanation for the difficulty of jump-starting new industries: the subsidy could generate counter-productive incentives for the pioneer firm to prevent entry of additional firms. We model the jump-start strategy and examine whether coupling a short-term fixed subsidy with a per-unit subsidy can achieve the objective of creating a multi-firm industry.