This dissertation consists of three essays in development economics. The first chapter studies the effects of migrant remittances on economic development and education investments. The second chapter examines the drivers of charitable donations on an online charity platform. The third chapter studies the political economy of education in…

This dissertation includes three studies that investigate the factors that shaped emergency educational policymaking during the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing upon scholarship on federalism, bureaucratic behavior, and partisanship, these studies expand our knowledge on the impact that local and state politics can have upon street-level bureaucrats'…

With rapid globalization, competition among universities around the world has been increasing. In the case of Japan, the government initiated the internationalization of higher education by offering grants to selected universities for internationalization. Those universities have been making extensive efforts to promote internationalization in…

In recent years, privatization has been a growing phenomenon in Sub-Saharan Africa. It is viewed as an instrument used by the public sector to reduce the role of the state in the economies while enhancing the scope of private ownership and participation of goods and services (Akram et al, 2011). Researchers have noted that the telecommunication…

This study focused on the federal and Illinois State the reform legislation titled the Performance Evaluation Reform Act and Senate Bill 7. The Performance Evaluation Reform Act or "PERA" was created from collaboration between stakeholders as Illinois competed in a federal competition titled "Race to the Top." The legislation…

I develop and structurally estimate an equilibrium model of the college market. Students, who are heterogeneous in both abilities and preferences, make college application decisions, subject to uncertainty and application costs. Colleges observe only noisy measures of student ability and set up tuition and admissions policies to compete for more…

The research study examines the relationship of international students to changing U.S. political economy. The research attempts to move international students from the periphery to the center of understanding the changing U.S. political economy in the twenty-first century. I argue that international students play an important role in building a…