Economic Health, Inequality, and Resilience
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Start Date
8-5-2021 1:45 PM
End Date
8-5-2021 2:30 PM
Description
Economic Health, Inequality, and Resilience (speakers in order of appearance)
Zoe Brooks '23, “Photographing Appalachia: A Coal-Mining Town” (Faculty Sponsor: Mary Zompetti)
"Photographing Appalachia: A Coal-Mining Town" centers around the presenter's hometown of Appalachia, Virginia. Utilizing photography, historical reference images, research, and interviews, the project will focus on the town's dependence on coal as its sole source of income and how this has impacted the culture of the area. Without coal mining, Appalachia would not exist, which is why the decline of the industry has so visibly taken a toll. The town itself is small with only around 1400 residents, but its people are proud members of Appalachia as a region and identify as Appalachian culturally. Appalachia as a region is largely stereotyped and misrepresented—when represented at all. Movies and television depict the region and its people as backward and remote; the rest of the United States uses images from the 1960s "war on poverty" to depict an entire group of people. This project will serve to provide information on Appalachia from an insider's perspective. Will Appalachia be able to move on from coal—a source long past its prime? Or is it destined to be forever a shell of its former self?
Allison Goguen '24 “Relativity and Inequality: Redefining and Realigning America’s Approach to Poverty” (Faculty Sponsor: Charles Lowney)
Considering the standard of living in America, it may seem as though poverty is a war we have been winning, but this view is misguided. This presentation discusses America's growing poverty problem and the steps needed to remedy it. Drawing on economic, sociological, and political research, this presentation examines the poverty particular to the United States, showing how income inequality is a major cause of modern poverty, together with the loss of mobility between income brackets. Rather than the standard absolute poverty measure currently employed, this presentation suggests a hybrid relative poverty measure that compares the economic distance between one person or family unit to the median income in America, relying on a utilitarian approach of maximizing happiness to answer the question of why we should help. This philosophical approach also leads to the proposed solution: Universal Basic Income (UBI) distributed to each citizen. This will be funded through a wealth tax that will only marginally affect the wealthy, but will radically benefit the poor. This new approach to America's poverty will alleviate both absolute and relative poverty and generate greater happiness overall.
Pragya Khanal '21 “Gross Domestic Product Forecasting Using Linear Regression” (Faculty Sponsors: Molly Lynch & Giancarlo Schrementi)
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is seen as the most conventional and comprehensive way of measuring the economic growth of a country. Using twenty different indicators, this presentation showcases a data-driven forecasting model of nominal GDP of the United States. The indicators (lagging, leading, and coincident) were chosen in relation to business, trade, market, health, labor, government, and pricing. Using the concept of machine learning, this project creates a testing and training set to create a linear regression model, which illustrates how accurate the model is in predicting the nominal GDP of the country for the next decade.
Economic Health, Inequality, and Resilience
https://hollins.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Xwn3m2ipTNCB8bZVUrkOuQ
Economic Health, Inequality, and Resilience (speakers in order of appearance)
Zoe Brooks '23, “Photographing Appalachia: A Coal-Mining Town” (Faculty Sponsor: Mary Zompetti)
"Photographing Appalachia: A Coal-Mining Town" centers around the presenter's hometown of Appalachia, Virginia. Utilizing photography, historical reference images, research, and interviews, the project will focus on the town's dependence on coal as its sole source of income and how this has impacted the culture of the area. Without coal mining, Appalachia would not exist, which is why the decline of the industry has so visibly taken a toll. The town itself is small with only around 1400 residents, but its people are proud members of Appalachia as a region and identify as Appalachian culturally. Appalachia as a region is largely stereotyped and misrepresented—when represented at all. Movies and television depict the region and its people as backward and remote; the rest of the United States uses images from the 1960s "war on poverty" to depict an entire group of people. This project will serve to provide information on Appalachia from an insider's perspective. Will Appalachia be able to move on from coal—a source long past its prime? Or is it destined to be forever a shell of its former self?
Allison Goguen '24 “Relativity and Inequality: Redefining and Realigning America’s Approach to Poverty” (Faculty Sponsor: Charles Lowney)
Considering the standard of living in America, it may seem as though poverty is a war we have been winning, but this view is misguided. This presentation discusses America's growing poverty problem and the steps needed to remedy it. Drawing on economic, sociological, and political research, this presentation examines the poverty particular to the United States, showing how income inequality is a major cause of modern poverty, together with the loss of mobility between income brackets. Rather than the standard absolute poverty measure currently employed, this presentation suggests a hybrid relative poverty measure that compares the economic distance between one person or family unit to the median income in America, relying on a utilitarian approach of maximizing happiness to answer the question of why we should help. This philosophical approach also leads to the proposed solution: Universal Basic Income (UBI) distributed to each citizen. This will be funded through a wealth tax that will only marginally affect the wealthy, but will radically benefit the poor. This new approach to America's poverty will alleviate both absolute and relative poverty and generate greater happiness overall.
Pragya Khanal '21 “Gross Domestic Product Forecasting Using Linear Regression” (Faculty Sponsors: Molly Lynch & Giancarlo Schrementi)
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is seen as the most conventional and comprehensive way of measuring the economic growth of a country. Using twenty different indicators, this presentation showcases a data-driven forecasting model of nominal GDP of the United States. The indicators (lagging, leading, and coincident) were chosen in relation to business, trade, market, health, labor, government, and pricing. Using the concept of machine learning, this project creates a testing and training set to create a linear regression model, which illustrates how accurate the model is in predicting the nominal GDP of the country for the next decade.