Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2016, Sociology

For decades the study of unemployment has been dominated by psychologists and economists and has largely been overlooked by sociologists. When the world economy entered a period of prolonged economic decline in the fall of 2007, this began to change. During this period many workers found themselves facing extreme economic hardship as they were involuntarily unemployed for extended periods of time. Yet even as the Great Recession forced sociologists to rediscover the topic of unemployment, most of this research followed the traditions set forth by economists and psychologists by focusing on macro-level factors associated with the decline or the psychological responses of unemployed workers. While this research is important, it provides little insight into the lived experiences of unemployed workers and their families. In the following paper I begin addressing this gap by utilizing qualitative methods to explore the lived experiences of unemployed and underemployed workers during two of the most devastating economic collapses in U.S. history: the Great Depression and the Great Recession. Data on the experiences of workers during the Great Recession come from eighty-four semi-structured interviews with displaced workers in Columbus, OH conducted between 2012 and 2013. In contrast, the experiences of unemployed workers during the Great Depression are explored using research conducted by E. Wight Bakke and his team during the 1930s. The current analysis focuses primarily on the material responses of workers during both periods. Material responses are conceptualized as the strategies individuals and families employ in order to maintain their standard of living in the face of economic hardship. Given the substantial technological, industrial, and institutional changes that have occurred since the start of the Great Depression, one would expect there to be significant differences in the material responses of workers during both periods. Yet, the current analysis discovers t (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Steven Lopez (Advisor); Rachel Dwyer (Committee Member); Vincent Roscigno (Committee Member) Subjects: Social Research; Sociology

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2023, Human Ecology: Family Resource Management

Homeownership and marital stability significantly influence various aspects of older Americans' lives, including financial security, health outcomes, and overall quality of life. The generation born between 1946 and 1964 (Baby Boomers) has experienced transformative social, economic, and cultural changes throughout their lives. Understanding their housing choices and marital dynamics in later life stages provides valuable insights into the aging issues as Baby Boomers age. This dissertation focuses on the aging issues of Baby Boomers, specifically examining the topic of homeownership and marital stability within the context of the economic hardship caused by the Great Recession. It consists of three interconnected studies that explore these issues among Baby Boomers. In the first chapter, I outline the aim of this dissertation and provide the description of the methods, data, and key findings for each study. Chapters Two, Three, and Four provide detailed discussions of each study. Chapter Five provides the conclusion and highlights the key findings of this dissertation. In the second chapter, I investigate the recovery in homeownership rates among Baby Boomers following the Great Recession and examine homeownership trajectories in later life stages. Previous research has primarily focused on homeownership recovery among younger generations, with few studies exploring older cohorts such as Baby Boomers. This study uses the longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) covering periods from 1998 to 2018. By conducting the age-period-cohort (APC) analysis, I assess homeownership differences among older cohorts. The findings suggest that homeownership among the Early Baby Boomers (born 1948-1953) is significantly lower after the Great Recession compared to pre-recession levels. The third chapter explores the relationship between homeownership and marital stability among Baby Boomers in later life stages. Using the HRS data from 2004 to 2018 for three B (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Tansel Yilmazer (Advisor); Andrew Hanks (Committee Member); Cäzilia Loibl (Committee Member); Sherman Hanna (Committee Member) Subjects: Economics; Social Research

Bachelor of Arts, Walsh University, 2020, Honors

Many believe that capitalism is inherently immoral, a system designed by the rich, for the rich. Events like the 2008 financial crisis seem to point to a conclusion of this sort as well. However, delving deeper into the roots of capitalism and its founder, Adam Smith, paint a different picture, with different intentions. The Theory of Moral Sentiments predates and provides the foundation for the Wealth of Nations. In both the timing of the books, and in their content, morality is clearly shown to be the bedrock upon which capitalism was built. Having proved this, one must then look to the 2008 crisis through the previously constructed lens, and evaluate the actions that led up to it. If they were immoral, as this thesis claims them to be, then the theory that morality is the basis of capitalism is given practical application.

Committee: Bradley Beach (Advisor) Subjects: Banking; Economic Theory; Economics; Finance; Philosophy

Doctor of Philosophy, University of Toledo, 2019, Spatially Integrated Social Science

Migration trends in the late 20th and early 21st centuries have been the lowest in the nation's history for the past six to seven decades. The early part of the 21st century was hit by the Great Recession (2007-2009); this period experienced low GDP growth rates coupled with high unemployment rates, low demand for labor, decreased government spending and a drastic collapse of the housing market. The historical analysis of internal migration in the country so far portrays a trend that follows business cycles and structural changes in the economy, such as a period of economic boom records high migration rates and vice versa. Research on whether migration at smaller spatial unit, such as counties, experience similar trends in migration patterns is very limited. I adopted a Fixed Effect Spatial Durbin Model (SDM) to understand the pattern of in and out migration at the county level between 2001 and 2010 with more emphasis on the recessionary period using Gini Index of inflow and out flows as a dependent variable. I found that the demographic characteristics of a county or its neighbors, particularly race, age and gender distribution, were critical in explaining migration patterns exhibited between 2001 and 2010. Also, the limited within variations in inflow and outflow patterns suggested that while the country saw a decline in migration during this period, only a few counties recorded significant changes during this time. I observed that counties which experienced significant changes are clustered around large cities or metro areas and are mostly concentrated in the west and southeastern parts of the country.

Committee: M. Beth Schlemper (Advisor); Neil Reid (Committee Member); Daniel Hammel (Committee Member); Xu Yanqing (Committee Member); Sujata Shetty (Committee Member) Subjects: Economics; Geographic Information Science; Geography

Doctor of Management, Case Western Reserve University, 2011, Weatherhead School of Management

The “Great Dilemma” of the Great Recession forced nonprofit organizations to manage the dual challenge of carrying out their missions to greater, needier constituencies and survive, with fewer resources. Despite suggestive advice garnered from seminars and practice-based sector think-tanks, there is little in the scholarly literature that would specifically inform and guide nonprofit leaders through cycles of economic adversity. This exploratory, mixed methods inquiry was intended to lay the groundwork for further examination of nonprofit performance and reliability during the Great Recession, and by extension, to subsequent episodes of economic adversity. We were guided by, and contribute to, organizational ecology and survival theory, as well as research pertaining to highly-reliable organizations to study how nonprofits managed the challenge of carrying out the organizational mission during this stressful period. We first focused on the lived experience of executive leaders, and found very clear distinctions between the most stable and most vulnerable organizations in their prevention-oriented, pre-planned stance against risk and crisis events. A second phase of the research used a conceptual model focused on mission-defensive behavior, comprised of mindful, protective, and coping mechanisms, to analyze 351 executive leader survey responses. The results indicate the impact of executive and board leadership on organizational resiliency and resourcefulness under conditions of financial duress. We found the Great Recession provoked “conflicts of commitment” (Golden-Biddle & Rao, 1997) and a willingness to engender deep financial retrenchment and deficit spending, if necessary, to keep serving constituents. However, executive-driven coping strategies and outwardly-focused orientation, augmented by mindful and protective policies, significantly improved financial resiliency and enterprising resourcefulness. We also propose a novel construct – Mission-D (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Kalle Lyytinen, Ph.D. (Advisor); Paul Salipante, Ph.D. (Advisor) Subjects: Ethics; Organizational Behavior

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2019, Agricultural, Environmental and Developmental Economics

This research examines specific impacts of the Great Recession on local and regional economies across the United States. This recession was the worst economic downturn in the last sixty years, and the first of its kind since modern datasets are available to explore more localized effects. The following essays explore patterns in labor markets that affect wages, regional employment, and firm growth. My first chapter explores how a region's endowment of natural amenities affects labor market outcomes during an economic downturn. Using national wage and employment data from the Census Bureau and the USDA's Natural Amenities Scale, I examine how the recession influenced local wage levels across high and low amenity areas. I find the preexisting wage gap between low and high amenity areas that represents the capitalized value of these amenities disappeared during the recession. These results combined with evidence of larger declines in employment in the high amenity areas point towards a relative reduction in labor supply, not increased labor demand, consistent with the results expected from a decrease in the demand for natural amenities. My second chapter examines shifts in the balance of agglomeration and competition among restaurants and retail firms during the recession. For these firms, location choice represents a trade-off between the forces of local spatial competition that push similar firms apart, and the benefits from clustering in the form of shopping externalities. Shopping externalities arise because consumers prefer destinations with a wide variety of goods that minimize their shopping costs. I hypothesize that the recession reduces these shopping externalities through increased competition and income effects on consumers' budgets. Using spatial concentration of firms in the same industry as a signal of higher competition, I classify the level of competition in each firm's local environment based on the number of other firms in the same 6-digit (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Elena Irwin (Advisor); Mark Partridge (Committee Member); Brian Roe (Committee Member) Subjects: Economics; Regional Studies

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2019, Agricultural, Environmental and Developmental Economics

The United States is a highly urbanized nation. Today, with a growing number of people living in cities, a better understanding of how changes within urban areas impact the well-being of residents has important implications for policymakers and communities. The urban spatial structure of these cities is continually evolving, and in different ways across cities. This changing urban environment has substantial impacts on health and well-being. This dissertation takes a comprehensive view of social welfare from a policy perspective, including questions related to environmental degradation and public health, in order to scrutinize how urban gradients and urban spatial structures yield different consequences and affect residents in various ways. My first chapter explores how changing urbanization patterns in the United States influences air quality outcomes. Specifically, I seek to answer whether more compact forms of residential development result in better air quality relative to more sprawling patterns. I use spatially explicit data on air pollution and residential development, including over 6 million observations on new housing from tax assessment data, across large metropolitan areas to reveal a causal link between urban sprawl and air pollution from vehicle traffic. I find that compact cities experience a larger reduction in nitrogen dioxide and ozone compared with sprawling cities. In my second chapter, I explore the health benefits of urban green space. In order to better understand the impacts of urban green space on health outcomes, I examine the effects of city park area on mortality rates from cardiovascular disease among the elderly. I combine city park data with data on mortality rates, behavioral risk factors, and socioeconomic characteristics to conduct comparative case studies utilizing a synthetic control method. I select cities with significantly increased and reduced park area and examine how health benefits vary compared to cities where park (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Elena Irwin (Advisor); Mark Partridge (Committee Member); Abdoul Sam (Committee Member) Subjects: Economics; Environmental Economics; Regional Studies

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2017, Agricultural, Environmental and Developmental Economics

The years following the Great Recession have been marred by several alarming economic trends. The slow recovery of employment, very low productivity growth, and historic lows in inter-regional migration and new firm creation all raise concerns about the dynamism of the US economy. Traditionally, recessions have been periods of intensified economic change, and at best these changes improve aggregate productivity through creative destruction. Yet, the changes that occurred during the Great Recession do not appear on the surface to have had beneficial effects. In this dissertation, I examine the US economy during the Great Recession and recovery from a regional perspective to bring new insights into the decline in US economy dynamisms. Chapter I: Much attention has been given to the process of “creative destruction” during the business cycle in which employment is reallocated from low productivity firms to firms that are more productive. Yet, the process of job reallocation across regions has never been evaluated. This paper provides the first description of inter-regional job reallocation during the Great Recession, and tests whether this reallocation was consistent with productivity enhancing creative destruction. I find that during the recession period of 2007 – 2010, counties with lower levels of productivity lost a larger share of employment than high productivity regions, consistent with the “trimming effect” associated with creative destruction. Yet, during the recovery period from 2010 to 2014, high productivity counties did not grow faster than low-productivity regions. Taken together, these results are inconsistent with productivity enhancing job reallocation during the Great Recession, pointing to the need for policies that address barriers that are prevent firms and labor from relocating to the most productive regions in the US. Chapter II: Past recessions and recoveries have been periods of increased entrepreneurship as new firms replace old, low pr (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Mark Partridge (Advisor); Betz Michael (Committee Member); Faggian Alessandra (Committee Member) Subjects: Economics

Artium Baccalaureus (AB), Ohio University, 2017, Political Science

This thesis will take a case study approach to apply the theory of Quiet Politics to the 2008 Great Recession and the Occupy Wall Street Movement.

Committee: DeLysa Burnier Dr. (Advisor) Subjects: Banking; Finance; Organizational Behavior; Political Science; Public Administration

Doctor of Education, Ashland University, 2017, College of Education

This study explored four school leaders in a small, rural school district in a case study during the Great Recession of 2007-09. The exploratory study was based on their experiences and actions throughout the financial crisis. Many of the changes they created restructured their individual situations. The result of the recession provided a wide range of institutional changes for all of the school leaders. The study was based on semi-structured interviews, detailed observations, and carefully reviewed documents. The data were analyzed in response to two research questions: “What was the financial and leadership role for the school leaders of the small, rural school district during the Great Recession?”, and “What financial and operational changes made within the small, rural school district would be retained as the New Normal after the Great Recession waned?”

Committee: Harold Wilson Ph.D. (Advisor); Judy Alston Ph.D. (Committee Co-Chair); Constance Savage Ph.D. (Committee Member); Daniel Wilson (Committee Member) Subjects: Educational Leadership

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2016, Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies

This dissertation considers the experiences of unemployed people with unpaid labor in and around their homes in the aftermath of the Great Recession of 2008. Unemployed people perform increased amounts of cooking, cleaning, and caring labor for themselves, for their families, and for others. The experience of these practices differs for participants with different intersecting class, gender, racial identities, and different physical locations in and surrounding the Midwestern city of Columbus, Ohio, which has recently earned a reputation as a city with immense opportunities due to its engagement in race-to-the-bottom economic incentives for employers. Comparing participants' discussions of their increased role in unpaid labor reveals that the experience is an overall positive and empowering one for participants, while it contributes to the further limitation of opportunities at job and financial advancement and personal and familial well-being. The dissertation argues that these labors not only constitute critical, unrecognized contributions to the reproduction of the current austere, neoliberal economy, but also that the effects of these labors on the individuals performing them, and the stories they tell about this performance, reproduce the inequalities that put them on different trajectories from the outset. These labors produce, reproduce, and deepen existing material and ideological inequalities in and across the working and not-working classes, particularly through the different effects of this work on participants' relationships to time, place, and others. The dissertation concludes with proposals for strategies which could reduce the inequality-producing effects of unpaid labor during unemployment and proposes a social-reproduction political framework for resisting the current austerity-entrenched political discourse.

Committee: Mytheli Sreenivas (Advisor) Subjects: Gender; Gender Studies; Sociology; Womens Studies

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2015, Human Ecology: Family Resource Management

This study focused on households' expectations of the likelihood of a substantial income decrease during the Great Recession, and examined whether or not they behaved rationally based on the rational expectation hypothesis. In Study 1, the objective was to examine which factors were related to whether households experienced substantial income decreases during the recession. The 2007-2009 Panel of the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) was used to estimate the likelihood that a household would have a decrease in income of at least 50% between 2006 and 2008. Over 8% of U.S. households experienced at least a 50% decrease in income, and a logistic regression model showed that many household characteristics were related significantly to the probability of suffering such a dramatic decrease. From the results of Study 1, the estimated likelihood that households would experience a substantial decrease in income was used as an independent variable in Study 2. In economics, the rational expectation hypothesis posits that if rational households expect future income to decrease, current saving should increase. Thus, the purpose of Study 2 was to examine whether or not households behaved in a rational manner in holding emergency funds, based on having a substantial income decrease. In Study 2a, the ratio of monetary assets to spending in 2007 was regressed on the likelihood of having a substantial decrease in income decrease. The higher the likelihood of a substantial income decrease, the higher the ratio, controlling for other household characteristics in 2007. In Study 2b, the ratio of the subjective need for emergency funds to estimated annual spending in 2007 was used as a dependent variable. The estimated likelihood of a substantial income decrease was related positively to the ratio of subjective need to spending. Not only households' actual behavior in accumulating liquid assets, but also their perceptions of the need for emergency funds were related positively to the li (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Sherman Hanna (Advisor); Robert Scharff (Committee Member); Tansel Yilmazer (Committee Member) Subjects: Families and Family Life; Home Economics

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2014, Human Ecology: Family Resource Management

With increasing income uncertainty during the Great Recession, many households might have had difficulty in projecting future income changes. Ideally, a household should consider lifetime wealth and the distinction between transitory and permanent income changes in making saving decisions, but during the Great Recession it was probably very difficult for households to identify which income changes were transitory. Gain-loss utility based on prospect theory assumes that household inter-temporal decisions are determined not only by current or permanent income but also by their own expectations or assessment about income and income uncertainty in the first period. In this study, how households' perception of their past and future income compared to reference points in the first period and how households' perception of their income uncertainty change affect saving decisions in the second period and between the periods were examined with estimates of future income change. Saving decisions were tested based on relative gain and loss utility using loss aversion theory of consumption and a two period model. Possible asymmetric saving responses between positive and negative changes in reference dependent income and uncertainty were also analyzed. The 2007 and 2009 Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) panel dataset was used. Both total and subsamples were analyzed based on the expected income change measure to identify possible asymmetry of saving in response to a set of reference dependent income and uncertainty variables, such as deviation from normal income, expected income change, and income uncertainty change, as well as the effect on saving measured in two ways, savings between 2007 and 2009 and whether or not saved in 2009. This study found a set of reference dependent income and uncertainty variables had significant effects on saving decisions of households and asymmetric saving responses between negative and positive changes in those variables. H (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Kathryn Stafford (Advisor); Sherman Hanna (Committee Member); Robert Scharff (Committee Member) Subjects: Home Economics

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2014, Human Ecology: Family Resource Management

This dissertation provides insights into the impact of the Great Recession upon the retirement decisions of U.S. households. The expected retirement age is used as a proxy for an individual's retirement decision. In the face of the Great Recession, U.S. workers would have three options to adjust the timing of their retirement; delay retirement, retire earlier or retire at the same expected retirement age. Based on the 2007-2009 Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) panel dataset, the analytic sample is restricted to currently working households whose heads were aged from 30 to 60 in the first survey wave. More than three-fourths of households changed their retirement expectations during the survey period; in 2009, 38% of households responded that they expected to retire earlier age by comparison to their responses in 2007, while 37% of households in 2009 responded that they expected retire at a later age than the age they had given in 2007. Only 25% gave the same anticipated retirement ages in both years. This study utilizes difference-in-differences (DID) model to analyze factors related to changes in the expected retirement age before and after the Great Recession. The Difference-in-Difference ordinary least squares (OLS) regression results indicated that the constructed financial wealth shock had a negative influence on changes in expected retirement age, implying that the increase in financial wealth shock during the recession is correlated with a delayed expected retirement age. However, the average impact of financial shock on the retirement expectations of most working households was very small. Based on the unweighted OLS regression, households that were in the 25th percentile of the effect of the wealth shock (greater shock than 75% of the households) had an increase in expected retirement age of only about 0.17 years, while those in the 10th percentile had a predicted increase of 0.41 years. The weighted OLS results indicated that a household with a (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Sherman Hanna (Committee Chair); Robert Scharff (Committee Member); Tansel Yilmazer (Committee Member) Subjects: Families and Family Life; Home Economics

MFA, Kent State University, 2014, College of Communication and Information / School of Visual Communication Design

National manufacturer brands generally outsell private label brands in most product areas. For instance, Hoyer and Brown found that when inexperienced buyers were asked to decide between two brands, they were more likely to choose the brand name with which they were most familiar. However, during periods of economic distress, consumers tend to purchase store brand products, as they are generally less expensive than those branded nationally. Private label brands (also referred to as store brands or in-house brands) usually refer to products branded and sold through a specific chain of stores. These brands are manufactured by a third party and are thus sold at lower prices. As a result of the recent economic downturn in the United States and abroad, private label brands have experienced a rapid increase in sales – one of over 40% in the past decade. Consumers trust national brands, but have also developed new trust in private label products. A survey conducted by DataMonitor in August of 2010 notes that 44% of Americans agree they are spending more on private label products than they were a year ago. In addition to this, the recent evolution in private label brand development has helped to increase sales of private labels in most products areas, regardless of the socio-economic condition of the consumer. There is a documented correlation between good package design and the perception of luxury or quality. Product packaging has an increasingly important role as a marketing communication vehicle for brand managers. Private label brands are beginning to utilize this data to their advantage and are winning over consumers who are otherwise loyal to national brands, greatly in part to increased appeal and product diversity. However, certain categories appear to be immune to the store-brand swap. Consumers have only slightly increased their purchases of private label personal products, such as hygiene, health, and beauty products. Secondary research suggests tha (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: David Middleton (Advisor); Sanda Katila (Committee Member); AnnMarie LeBlanc (Other) Subjects: Communication; Design; Marketing; Packaging