Theses and Dissertations at Montana State University (MSU)
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Item Blood and black gold: natural resource extraction and violent crime on American Indian reservations(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Agriculture, 2023) Sikoski, Laura Kate; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Wendy A. StockUsing 2001 to 2016 precinct-level crime data, I examine the relationship between natural resource development in the Bakken oil fields and violent crime on American Indian reservations. While previous studies find positive effects of the Bakken oil boom on crime, the impacts of the oil boom on crime within reservations have never been evaluated. I find that the increase in crime caused by the Bakken oil boom was significantly more severe in reservations, driving the increase in regional crime found by other studies. These results suggest that community safety outcomes should be considered by federal, state, and tribal governments for future natural resource development on reservation.Item The relative poverty of American Indian reservations : why does reservation poverty persist despite rich neighbors?(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Agriculture, 2006) Cookson Jr., John Anthony; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Robert K. Fleck.American Indian reservations have per capita incomes $9,000 lower than adjacent counties. This paper seeks to explain why using an approach akin to the analysis of country-level data. I estimate differences in levels of income and income growth for a decade where Indian economies were transformed greatly by casino gambling - the 1990s. I test several recent innovations in the theory of economic growth within the context of American Indian economies and assess how economic performance depends on veto players, human capital investment, and windfall wealth. I find that measures of rule of law, rent seeking, and human capital are the most economically significant predictors of the per capita income gap. In addition, the size of Indian casinos is strongly correlated with convergence and economic growth, suggesting that tribal investment in Indian casinos plays an important role in reservation economies. From the work done here, promoting economic growth through enhancing a stable investment climate appears to be the most successful development strategy. Moreover, this study contributes to the broader literature on economic growth by providing new insight into the way institutional quality affects the speed of, or potentially lack of, convergence.