Showing 1 - 3 of 3 Items
Hunter-Gatherers: The Survival of the Foraging Practice In Modern States Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
Date: 2015-05-01
Creator: Tristan C Van Kote
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
Investigating the Effects of Student Debt on Career Outcomes: An Empirical Approach
Date: 2019-05-01
Creator: Gideon Moore
Access: Open access
- High student debt has been hypothesized to affect career choice, causing students to desire stable, high paying jobs. To test this hypothesis, I rely on plausibly exogenous variation in debt due to a federal policy shift. In the summer of 2007, the Higher Education Reconciliation Act (or HERA) expanded the cap for federally subsidized student loans. I examine how variation in debt affects career choice and eventual salary of students using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 Child and Young Adult Cohort of students who were of college age during the implementation of the policy. I find that student debt has no impact on salary two years after graduation; however, it does seem to shift students’ career choices, leading some to avoid careers in public service industries such as teaching and social work.
The Price of Carbon: Politics and Equity of Carbon Taxes in the Middle Income Countries of South Africa and Mexico
Date: 2015-05-01
Creator: Bridgett C McCoy
Access: Open access
- This study provides the first analysis of the politics and ethics behind carbon taxation in South Africa and Mexico. Using the preexisting scholarly frameworks of climate change policy, tax policy, and Robert Putnam’s two level games, I determine that in both cases, international pressures from multilateral negotiations and international development funding sources initiated the carbon tax policymaking process within the environment and treasury ministries of both countries. Once environment ministry bureaucrats initiated the carbon tax a lack of politicization of climate change (both countries) and an additional gain of raising revenue (Mexico) allowed the taxes to become law. I then turn to the laws themselves, analyzing their implications for climate justice. In both cases, the government did not adopt any proposals made interest groups representing environmental concerns and poverty groups, and instead shaped the bills so as to tailor to the interests of heavy manufacturing. This policy decision had the main effect of weakening the climate change mitigation impact of the carbon tax, and exacerbating issues of regressivity by not recycling revenues towards projects aimed at poverty reductions. I conclude this paper with an analysis of the ethics of such a carbon tax in developing countries. The carbon taxes, as they currently exist, sacrifice the rights and needs of the present poor for those of the future generation while an ideal policy that addresses poverty betters the condition of both groups. In order to ensure climate justice and for all groups and prevent political backlash, policy makers in middle-income countries must make carbon reduction policies with the unique challenges of poverty and climate change mitigation in mind.