Bethany Stich | University of New Orleans Transportation Institute

Social Media Handle: @UNOTI

Presentation Description

This research examines transportation and international trade policy through the lens of the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) to understand and explain transportation and trade policy changes through different actors forming coalitions of power. ACF describes a cycle of systems such as relatively stable parameters, long-term coalition opportunity structures, external (system) events, short-term constraints and resources of subsystem actors, and political subsystems. Though transportation has benefitted from a long-term, stable, and powerful coalition, it is currently in flux, largely due to changes in freight movements. Using the Lower Mississippi River port complex as a case study, this research adds to the ACF literature. Further, the research analyzed the impacts of President Trump’s tariffs on trade volumes of steel and aluminum imports, and the exports of soybeans and corn. The research also measured the impacts of the trade policies on Louisiana’s transportation jobs, and economic productivity. To analyze the impact of trade policies on cargo volumes, at the same time controlling for lagging effects of the policy and other cofounds, the research utilized multivariate time series analysis using the Auto-Regressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) modeling. Implications for ACF and transportation and trade coalitions are discussed.

Speaker Biography

Dr. Bethany Stich is the Director of the Transportation Institute (UNOTI) at the University of New Orleans. Dr. Stich has served as the Principal Investigator of UNOTI’s two University Transportation Centers, the Maritime Transportation Research & Education Center housed at the University of Arkansas and the National Center for Strategic Transportation Policies, Investments and Decisions housed at the University of Maryland. Additionally, Stich served as the Principal Investigator for the Department of Homeland Security Center of Excellence for Maritime Resiliency housed at Louisiana State University. Dr. Stich has published and presented globally on issues associated with intermodal transportation as it relates to economic, business, and workforce development and land-use. Her research ranges from work on chassis, Cuban trade to E-Navigation integration, Container on Barge supply chain integration to Liquefied Natural Gas development. Additionally, Dr. Stich serves as a committee member for the Transportation Research Board’s AT010 – Standing Committee on Freight Transportation Economics and Regulation and as a Board Member for the American Society of Public Administration’s Section on Transportation Policy and Administration.

Co-presenters

Faisal Mallum
University of New Orleans Transportation Insitute

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