Several high-tech regions today show signs of displacement and exclusion of low-skill workers from the employment and wage benefits of a booming economy. Whether high-tech activities are responsible for these trends or if the ex ante characteristics of the region could predispose its residents to exclusion, in the absence of high-tech growth, are issues that regional scientists have left largely unexplored. Understanding what low-skill and high-skill workers undergo in the presence of this activity, and how that compares to the reality of those who reside in regions whose economy is not dependent on knowledge-intensive sectors, provides a backdrop for policymakers to evaluate industry-choice decisions in the interest of economic growth and social equity in regional development. To provide that backdrop, I empirically answer: How are the benefits of high-tech development distributed between less- and more-educated workers? How does this distribution compare to that of regions that do not follow an education-intensive development path? Are social equity and sustained growth possible under these conditions? (More)

This dissertation will examine the interdependence of cities and suburbs and the unique agglomeration economies central cities are purported to have through an analysis of the intra-metropolitan location of producer services and the spatial linkages between producer service establishments, their clients and suppliers, and specialized institutions. (More)

Place-based development strategies are being increasingly utilized to address the complex, localized problems in distressed urban neighborhoods. Although economic development is one of the critical concerns of these programs, determining the most effective economic strategy for impoverished communities is problematic. (More)

Two important issues face the banking industry today: discrimination in lending and banking industry mergers and acquisitions. Although financial economists have frequently written about these two issues independently, an abyss exists at their intersection. This dissertation begins filling this void in three important ways. (More)

Owner-occupied housing plays a central role in the portfolios of many households. Recent work has explored the connection between a household's position in home equity and the demand for risky assets in the financial portfolio. This dissertation examines the role of the mortgage contract on the definition of and demand for housing wealth. (More)

In the wake of Emancipation, African Americans viewed land and homeownership as an essential element of their "citizenship rights." However, efforts to achieve such ownership in the postbellum era were often stymied by credit discrimination as many Black were ensnared in a system of debt peonage. Despite such obstacles, African American achieved land ownership in surprising numbers in rural and urban areas in the South.

At the beginning of the 20th century, millions of African Americans began leaving the South for the North with continued aspirations of homeownership. As Blacks sought to fulfill the American Dream, many financial institutions refused to provide loans to them or provided loans with onerous terms and conditions. In response, a small group of African-American leaders, working in conjunction with a number of the Black churches in Philadelphia, built the largest network of race financial institutions in the United States to provide credit to Black homebuyers. The leaders recognized economic development through homeownership as an integral piece of the larger civil rights movement dedicated to challenging White supremacy. The race financial institutions successfully provided hundreds of mortgage loans to African Americans and were a key reason for the tripling of the Black homeownership rate in Philadelphia from 1910 to 1930. (More)