Theses and Dissertations from UMD
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New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM
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Item The Economy and the American Presidency in a Polarized Era: Changes to Income and Unemployment by Class, Race, and Gender(2017) Mugglestone, Konrad Peter; Morris, Irwin L; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)For decades, political scientists have debated, with little consensus, whether Democratic and Republican presidents have contrasting macroeconomic records. While some scholars have argued that presidents can (and do) target economic benefits to constituents, existing research on party differences in macroeconomic politics has assumed that the two major parties have constituencies distinguished by class and that each party managed the macroeconomy to benefit these class-based constituencies. However, political and economic conditions have changed over the past thirty years. Scholars have been concerned about the effects of increasing political polarization, which has caused unusually contentious and slow-paced policymaking. High debt levels have made major budgetary changes more difficult, and monetary policy has been checked by the zero lower bound. In light of these new political and economic challenges, this dissertation utilizes a unique dataset to examine presidential administrations from 1970 to 2014. Using this data, this project seeks to answer several key questions: Do modern presidents of opposing parties have contrasting macroeconomic records? In light of changing political and economic conditions, have these differences grown or decreased from the differences observed in the past? Finally, do modern presidents reflect the identity politics of the polarized, modern era by focusing not only on class constituencies, but on race and gender constituencies as well? Some of the findings are predictable, but others are surprising. In terms of the macroeconomy, Democratic presidents demonstrate economic records superior to their Republican counterparts. However, the party of the president rarely has any meaningful impact on income growth for specific class, race, and gender groups. Even so, the party of the president does have a consistently meaningful effect on unemployment rates. On average, Democratic presidents have greater impacts than Republicans on the overall unemployment rate and the unemployment rates of some of their constituent groups: the working class, and racial minorities. Moreover, evidence suggests that other political factors sometimes matter – both divided government and an election year variable capturing the Political Business Cycle have statistical relevance, especially in unemployment models. Finally, this study finds little statistical evidence that polarization is having a meaningful impact on presidential economic policymaking.Item The Transformation of the Role of the Economy in U.S. Presidential Elections Over Time(2012) Curry, Jill; Morris, Irwin L; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Most studies in the presidential elections literature include only a narrow subset of more recent presidential elections. This exclusion is particularly evident in work examining the relationship between economic issues and the vote for president where early presidential elections are routinely excluded. This exclusion is often done without much justification or by leaning on the poorly defined concept of the modern presidency either explicitly or implicitly by the sample used. However, there is evidence to suggest that the influence of the economy on the vote for president occurred much earlier than well into the 20th century. Diverging from most of the existing literature, this study examines the relationship between the economy and presidential elections from 1789 to 2008. The findings of this analysis are two-fold. First, the relationship between the economy and presidential elections is an enduring one. The impact of the economy on the vote for president has been present in varying degrees for almost every presidential election held in the U.S. The role of economic issues in the vote for president is not limited to just more recent presidential elections. The second conclusion is that the relationship between the economy and presidential elections is changing over time. Even though economic issues have influenced presidential elections since the founding, the U.S. today is very different from the U.S.in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The political, economic, and social landscape of the United States has changed substantially over time. This work finds that the relationship between the economy and presidential elections is evolving in that the economic issues that influenced presidential elections in early U.S. history are different from the economic issues that have affected more recent presidential elections.Item The New Economy of the United States: A New Mode of Production?(2006-06-06) Hepler, Bradford Boyd; Landry, Bart; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In the past several years, academics, journalists, federal regulators and business gurus have been writing about the development of a New Economy in the United States. According to New Economy supporters, the recent technological developments in information technology and the expansion of globalization are changing the economy, producing increases in productivity, and creating economic growth. However, critics of the New Economy have emerged who argued against the veracity of the claims of New Economy supporters. A debate about the existence of a New Economy has ensued with supporters of the New Economy noting new changes and phenomena in the economy and critics expressing skepticism about either the existence of a New Economy or the claims of New Economy supporters. I endorse the view that there is a New Economy because the recent revolution in information technology can be seen as a new mode of production, where workers utilize computers in the performance of job tasks at work. However, the adoption and utilization of the computer varies by industry and thus adoption of a New Economy is also expected to vary by industry. I will use the October 1984, October 1989, October 1993, October 1997, and September 2001 Current Population Surveys to test my hypothesis that a new mode of production has been adopted by examining computer usage within the six major industries of the economy. By 2001, computer usage had become dominant in the industries of 'Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate,' 'Wholesale Trade,' 'Manufacturing,' 'Communications and Public Utilities,' and certain sectors of the 'Service' economy, which is a strong sign that a New Economy had been adopted in these industries by 2001.