Thomas Boston
Professor Emeritus
- School of International Affairs
Overview
Thomas “Danny” Boston is a Professor of Economics and International Affairs in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at Georgia Tech. He received the MA and Ph.D. degrees in Economics from Cornell University, where he specialized in economic development and macroeconomics. His appointment at Georgia Tech began in 1985 in the School of Economics. In 2013, he moved his appointment to the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs. His current research areas are Performance Evaluation (focusing on quantitative assessments of public policies, programs, and projects), and entrepreneurship (focusing on minority and diverse groups and small businesses). He is the author or editor of six books and numerous scholarly articles and reports, past President of the National Economic Association, and former editor of The Review of Black Political Economy. He served as Senior Economist to the Joint Economic Committee of Congress and primary researcher and data analyst to the U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship. Danny is a regular economics contributor to CNN and Al Jazeera America, and he frequently testifies before Congressional Committees on federal policies affecting business programs for minority and small companies and public housing programss. Prolific in sponsored research and grantsmanship, he has secured numerous awards from leading foundations, government agencies, public policy organizations, and nonprofit institutions. Through an award from the MacArthur Foundation, he conducted a landmark multicity longitudinal examination of all public housing recipients in Atlanta, Chicago, and New Haven. Current Research Grants:
1. Benefit Cost Analysis of TIA, (Transportation Investment Act), Phase III, Agency/Company: Georgia Department of Transportation, Total Dollar Amount: $185,000, Fall 2018 – Spring 2020
2. Research and Support to Implement Recommendations of the GDOT Small Business Program Evaluation, Agency/Company: Georgia Department of Transportation, Total Dollar Amount: $180,000, August 2017 – December 2018
3. GDOT Local Beneficiary Analysis of TIA (Transportation Investment Act) Project Expenditures: Phase II, Agency/Company: Georgia Department of Transportation, Total Dollar Amount: $178,748, July 2016 – April 2018
Danny's research on business dynamics led to improvements in federal procurement policies for minority contractors. Internationally, Dr. Boston provided capacity training to the Nigerian National Assembly of Nigeria and South Africa Free State Legislature on monitoring and evaluating Millennium Development Goals. He was commissioned to create DADD (Database on African Democratic Development) for the African Union. Most recently, he worked with the National Democratic Institute to deliver capacity training on workforce development programs aimed at youth unemployment in six Southern African countries. His honors and awards include Georgia Tech’s “Professor of the Year Award”, the “Ivan Allen College Legacy Award” and the Purple Heart for service as an Army officer and ranger platoon leader during the Viet Nam conflict. Danny is also a successful entrepreneur, founder, and CEO of EuQuant (an economic research company). In 2012, the company was designated by the Atlanta Tribune as the #2 among black-owned enterprises in the State of Georgia, for its innovation, commitment to community and financial capacity. The Atlanta Business League selected Danny as the "2016 Entrepreneur of the Year" see: www.euquant.com.
Interests
- Development Economics
- Economics of the Firm
Focuses:
- Africa (Sub-Saharan)
- United States
- Inequality and Social Justice
- Race/Ethnicity
- Entrepreneurship
Courses
- ECON-4450: Afric-Amer Entrepreneur
- INTA-3303: Pol Economy-Development
- INTA-4740: Sem-Political Economy
All Publications
Books
- Leading Issues in Black Political Economy
Date: 2002
- Affirmative Action and Black Entrepreneurship
Date: 1999
- The Inner City: Urban Poverty and Economic Development in the Next Century
Date: 1998
- A Different Vision: Race and Public Policy, Vol. 2
Date: 1997
- A Different Vision: African American Economic Thought. Vol. 1.
Date: 1997
- Race, Class and Conservatism
Date: 1988
Journal Articles
- Housing Solutions for Low Income Families: The Standard for Quality and Sustainability
Date: 2017
- Do megaregions produce greater regional convergence or divergence? Implications for spatial planning and infrastructure investment
In: Journal of Urban Planning and Development [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2015
© 2014 American Society of Civil Engineers.The population and economic activities encompassed by megaregions are ever expanding. As this occurs, investments are often recommended to ensure the regions are globally competitive from an economic standpoint. However, although such investment may accelerate growth in megaregions, that growth may have an uneven impact on the national economy. To date there has been very little empirical research on the relationship between the internal growth characteristics of megaregions and their effects on surrounding areas and the national economy. This paper examines the growth of megaregions within the context of regional convergence and divergence theory. U.S. counties are reorganized by megaregion to compare the inequality of counties and the extent to convergence in each megaregion. In particular, it uses the Theil index and conditional β convergence for measuring the relationship between growth, inequality, mobility, and social welfare. The results show a process of conditional β convergence at the national level but divergence among some megaregions. The core areas of megaregions, their socioeconomic characteristics, and their transportation infrastructure are identified as major forces of regional growth. - A National Building Process
Date: 2011
- Secrets of gazelles: The differences between high-growth and low-growth business owned by African American entrepreneurs
In: Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science [Peer Reviewed]
Date: September 2007
The research findings are based on a national survey of 350 African American business owners whose companies had ten to one hundred employees. Each quarter of 2002 and 2003, owners were randomly selected and interviewed. Companies were classified into three groups according to their annual employment growth over five years: gazelles (20 percent or greater rate of growth), growth-oriented firms (1 to 19 percent), and no-growth firms (less than 1 percent or negative). In comparison to no-growth firms, gazelles were more likely to market to the government sector, less likely to compete on the basis of price, more likely to serve regional and national markets, and more likely to have fewer African Americans workers. CEOs of no-growth companies were more likely to have entered business because they lost a previous job. Surprisingly, no statistically significant differences appeared in thirty-nine other variables that defined owner attributes, firm characteristics, and business strategies of gazelles and no-growth firms. - Response
In: Journal of the American Planning Association
Date: September 2005
- The effects of revitalization on public housing residents: A case study of the Atlanta Housing Authority
In: Journal of the American Planning Association [Peer Reviewed]
Date: September 2005
This research uses administrative data to examine the long-term socioeconomic status of households that relocated from public housing projects in Atlanta as a result of mixed-income revitalization. The research spans 7 years, covering the period before relocation and demolition had begun and ending after mixed-income redevelopment was completed. Residents who lived in three public housing projects that were revitalized are compared to a control group of residents who lived in three projects that were not revitalized, showing that mixed-income revitalization greatly accelerated the residential mobility of public housing residents and that households displaced by revitalization did not experience a statistically significant loss of housing assistance. Households that relocated by using vouchers or by moving to mixed-income revitalized communities experienced significant improvements in their socioeconomic status, and they moved to higher quality neighborhoods. Additionally, their long-run socioeconomic status was similar to the status of households who moved from housing projects voluntarily, i.e., not in response to a planned demolition. This is one of few empirical studies of the effects of HOPE VI revitalization on public housing residents, and its conclusions argue against the elimination of funding for HOPE VI as called for in the president's budget for 2006. © American Planning Association, Chicago, IL. - An employment and business strategy for the next century: A comment
In: REVIEW OF BLACK POLITICAL ECONOMY
Date: 1998
- Race and culture: A world view - Sowell,T
In: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC LITERATURE
Date: March 1996
- Location preferences of successful African American-owned businesses in Atlanta
In: REVIEW OF BLACK POLITICAL ECONOMY [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 1996
- Characteristics of black-owned corporations in Atlanta: With comments on the SMOBE undercount
In: REVIEW OF BLACK POLITICAL ECONOMY [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 1995
- Location Preferences of Successful African American-owned Businesses in Atlanta
Date: 1995
- Black Entrepreneurship in America
In: SOUTHERN ECONOMIC JOURNAL
Date: October 1992
- The History of African American Economic Thought and Policy
In: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
Date: May 1991
- W.E.B. Du Bois and the Historical School of Economics
Date: 1991
- SEGMENTED LABOR-MARKETS - NEW EVIDENCE FROM A STUDY OF 4 RACE-GENDER GROUPS
In: INDUSTRIAL & LABOR RELATIONS REVIEW [Peer Reviewed]
Date: October 1990
- URBAN TRANSIT - THE PRIVATE CHALLENGE TO PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION - LAVE,CA
In: JOURNAL OF REGIONAL SCIENCE [Peer Reviewed]
Date: February 1987
- RACIAL-INEQUALITY AND CLASS STRATIFICATION - A CONTRIBUTION TO A CRITIQUE OF BLACK CONSERVATISM
In: REVIEW OF RADICAL POLITICAL ECONOMICS [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 1985
- Capitalist Development and Afro-American Land Tenancy
Date: 1983
- On the Transition to Feudalism in Mozambique
Date: 1982
Chapters
- Public Housing Demolition and Neighborhood Revitalization
Date: 2014
- The role of black-owned businesses in black community development
Date: December 2006
Over the last three decades, central cities have been burdened by high rates of unemployment, significant population losses, and concentrated poverty. The economic expansion of the 1990s moderated this burden to some extent, reducing by 24 percent (to 2.5 million) the number of people living in neighborhoods where the poverty rate was 40 percent or more (Jargowsky 2003). Still, by the turn of the new millennium 67 cities had poverty rates of 20 percent or higher (U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development 2000). Central-city unemployment and poverty are concentrated heavily in the low-income Black inner-city communities. These neighborhoods have been abandoned by businesses once located in and around the central business district and have been largely sidestepped by investors, who have favored developing businesses in more suburban locations. The lack of jobs within these neighborhoods combined with the dispersal of cities away from the urban core has created an employment barrier in the form of a spatial mismatch. (See Chapters 4 and 5.) The most extreme manifestations of economic distress and neglect are found in the large, densely populated public housing projects within central cities. A recent study of a distressed public housing project found that in 1995 only 18 percent of household heads 16 to 62 years of age were employed, 49 percent depended upon welfare as their primary source of income, 98 percent of households were Black, and 87 percent were headed by single women (Boston 2005a). The presence of these projects has an adverse impact on the surrounding communities, leading to the development of what is known as "underclass" neighborhoods (Wilson 1996). These communities lack many of the attributes and capacities that typically are necessary for economic development. In addition to economic capital, these neighborhoods also lack social capital. Civic organizations and social, religious, and political groups are usually too weak to protect the quality of schools, demand infrastructure improvements, and regulate zoning patterns for commercial and residential development. The poor housing conditions of these communities are compounded by extreme social and human circumstances. Most residents live in constant fear of gunfire, drug traffickers, and other crime. Communities like these, as well as other low-income Black neighborhoods, desperately need economic development. But there remains a good deal of debate about the most appropriate strategy (Ferguson and Dickens 1999; Boston and Ross 1997). Participants in these debates usually argue over whether the development principles are sufficiently holistic and about the role the public and private sectors should play in redevelopment. The debates also include issues such as affordable housing, gentrification, and the relative merits of mixed-income development. An issue rarely considered, however, is the role that Black-owned businesses can play in the revitalization of Black communities.1 Black-owned businesses are often dismissed because they are only a small part of the whole economy. In 1997, these firms comprised only 4 percent of all firms and generated 0.4 percent of all sales.2 Even among a more restrictive universe of minority-owned businesses, Black-owned businesses comprised only 27 percent of firms and generated 12 percent of sales. The aggregate statistics, however, obscure some important characteristics of Black-owned businesses, which are described in detail later in this chapter. First, Black business owners have an affinity for the residents of distressed Black communities and are committed to community development. Second, Black-owned businesses are becoming increasingly important as generators of jobs for Black workers. This has resulted from the rapid growth of these businesses and their tendency to employ Black workers. Third, a significant portion of the workforce in Black-owned firms is drawn from low-income inner-city neighborhoods; indeed, some of the most successful Black businesses are located in low-income neighborhoods. Fourth, the quality of the average job for Black workers in Black-owned businesses is superior to that for Black workers in firms owned by Whites. Finally, revitalization offers numerous opportunities to promote the growth of Black-owned businesses. Ignoring the potential contributions of Black-owned business, therefore, would be an unfortunate oversight. In the remaining sections of this chapter, I explore these themes in more detail and also draw upon the results of a case study of low-income neighborhood revitalization in Atlanta. The chapter draws on national data and information and data and information for the Atlanta region. The next section documents the employment-generating capacity of Black-owned businesses. While Blacks are substantially underrepresented among business owners, they are nonetheless a sizeable and growing source of employment for Blacks. The middle section of the chapter examines the role of these businesses in low-income Black neighborhoods. The evidence shows that Black owners want to help these neighborhoods and contribute to the employment base in these communities. Given Black-owned businesses' potential and willingness, it is good policy to incorporate Black-owned business in efforts to revitalize the most distressed neighborhoods, those with public housing projects. The final section presents a case study of how this can be done by examining an effort in Atlanta through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's (hud's) hope vi program. The chapter concludes with some recommendations about the role of Black-owned businesses in Black community development. © 2006 by Temple University Press. All rights reserved. - The Conceptualization and Implementation of Affirmative Action in the United States, India and Brazil
Date: 2004
- Minority Business Trends. In America Becoming: Racial Trends and their Consequence.
Date: 2000
- A Common Destiny- How does it Compare to the Classic Studies of Black Life in America
Date: May 1990
Working Papers
- GDOT Local Beneficiary Analysis of TIA (Transportation Investment Act) Expenditures: Establishment of Baseline Conditions and Expectations
Date: 2016
Scholarly Editions
- Cash and In-Kind Payments
In: The Sage Encyclopedia of World Poverty
Date: 2015
- Endemic Poverty
Date: 2015
- Macroeconomic Policies
Date: 2015
- Malawi
Date: 2015
- Millennium Promise Alliance
Date: 2015
- Poverty Gap Index
Date: 2015
Other Publications
- Sixteenth Century European Expansion and the Economic Decline of Africa
Date: 1992