Honors Theses, Ohio Dominican University, 2023, Honors Theses

It is crucial to analyze the relationship between formal institutions and the informal sector to gain a better understanding of the challenges that certain informal industries face. Given the wide-ranging nature of the informal economy, this paper will focus on the food sector, specifically street food vending in three Colombian cities–Barranquilla, Bogota, and Medellin–which has garnered considerable social and cultural significance over time. This paper will employ a political economy research approach. A surveying method will be the primary source of data collection. Insights obtained from first-person accounts provide invaluable information regarding the reality of the challenges that small-scale informal vendors face. This study posits that the majority of the businesses surveyed surpass the upper-middle income economy poverty line and minimum wage. The majority of businesses responded that they have attained education up to the secondary level. Additionally, the tenure exhibited spans from 8 years of age to someone who has been informally operating for a period as short as 5 months. The study highlights that women in the informal sector face higher financial barriers, especially in regard to the low supply of microcredits. Finally, the data suggest that males are more likely to become formally recognized businesses compared to females, although both genders present a high disposition toward formalization. This exploratory research may furnish policymakers with pertinent information on how to introduce incentives to expand the economic activities of the informal food sector while improving the transition process from informality to formality.

Committee: Kenneth Fah (Advisor); Michael Dougherty (Committee Member); Douglas Ruml (Committee Member) Subjects: Behavioral Sciences; Cultural Anthropology; Demography; Economic Theory; Economics; Political Science; Public Policy; Social Structure; Statistics; Urban Planning

MCP, University of Cincinnati, 2008, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning : Community Planning

Urban transportation in third world countries has always been a political and economic issue. Not only because of the strong necessity it represents but because of the tendency of these places to copy first world projects regardless of the required National capital or the population attitude change that such investments require. For these countries it is important to understand that these solutions are not always the most adequate; not only because of the investment of capital but because of the environmental and social impacts have these approaches implies. Several countries around the world have attempted to solve the transportation problem, some of them have succeeded and some others have discovered flaws in their approaches. This research project considers two cities that are considered successful by using the same system, a Bus Rapid Transit System (articulated buses). One of them, Curitiba, has been using the solution for more than twenty years and the other one, Bogota, is almost ten years old. If this is true, the application of the same system into a similar situation will be just as effective, in other words, if the traffic situation in Santiago de Chile is just as inadequate as Curitiba and Bogota where, the solution will be just as good. The primary objective is to answer the question: what would have happened if the BRT system was never implemented in these two cities? The proposed methodology is to compare the congestion levels with and without the BRT systems, measured as number of private vehicles per capita and number of buses per capita in both cities. The WITH situation is determined by demographic data, but the WITHOUT situation requires development of a regression model to project historic measurements to the point where the transportation system was implemented in each one of the cities. Both models were developed with correlation factors higher than 95%, which means that they represent reality in a very close manner. (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: David Edelman J. (Committee Chair); Christopher Auffrey (Committee Co-Chair) Subjects: Area planning & Civil Engineering; Demographics; Engineering; Transportation; Urban Planning; development