Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Finland – Economic conditions – History'
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1
Hyry, Martti. "Industrial growth and development in Northern Finland : the case of Oulu 1970-2002." Thesis, Coventry University, 2004. http://curve.coventry.ac.uk/open/items/b3620f51-5b98-2b18-5c28-000644451ac4/1.
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This thesis explores the reason why the region of Northern Ostrobothnia and in particular the city of Oulu became known as the High Tech capital of the Nordic countries during the 1980s and 1990s. After World War II, the region’s economy was dependent upon its traditional industries of forestry, wood processing, pulp and paper manufacturing and to a lesser degree on iron and steel manufacture. In common with other parts of Northern Finland, Northern Ostrobothnia suffered from high unemployment, low educational standards, outwards migration and below average standards of living and life expectancy. Aware of these problems, the national government in Helsinki embarked on a series of measures to improve this situation. First and foremost, a university was established in Oulu and its first three faculties were teacher training, medicine and engineering. The university was charged with the specific tasks of educating and conducting research to benefit the economy of Northern Finland. It was realised that economic changes were essential and attempts were made to build an electronics industry in the region to make it less dependent on natural resources. To facilitate economic developments, infrastructural improvements were made and branches of VTT and Tekes were established in Oulu. A key factor here was the government realisation that decision-making for improvements in the region should and would be devolved to the local authorities. That was the opportunity for the city of Oulu to seize initiative, and in concert with the University and a group of local entrepreneurs, to set up a Technology Park, Technopolis, in 1982 at Linnanmaa beside both the university and VTT. These small beginnings provided the foundations for sectors such as electronics, computer software, telecommunications and biotechnology sectors to emerge gradually, so that by the year 2000 there were nearly 12,000 high tech jobs in the area. A crucial addition to this development in the long term was the arrival of Nokia to Oulu. At first Nokia concentrated on cable technology and base stations, but once it diversified into telecommunications and built up partnerships with local firms a clearly-defined high tech cluster became visible. Within the cluster, there is significant cooperation between the relevant New Technology Based Firms (NTBFs), Nokia and the local educational and research establishments. The outcome, at the time of writing, is that Oulu has gained a world reputation as an innovative centre of high technology, and it is the circumstances behind this reputation that the remainder of this thesis seeks to investigate.
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Nickel, Carsten. "Rhineland revisited : subsidiarity and the historical origins of coordination : comparing Germany with the Netherlands and France (800-1914)." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2016. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:9b3f50c9-cddf-43a2-bf5b-c6ab5689a4a3.
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What explains the historical emergence of coordinated economic institutions for human capital formation and welfare provision? Surveying roughly one millennium of political and economic development in Germany, the Netherlands and France up until 1914, this thesis argues that da-ting back to the Middle Ages, the earliest forerunners of modern economic coordination could develop only in institutional complementarity with a specific form of political decentralisation, connected via their jointly enabling effect on collective action. This mutually re-enforcing com-plementarity gave rise to societies organised around the principle of subsidiarity, in which an often structurally unclear distribution of decision-making powers prompts political and eco-nomic actors to coordinate across different hierarchical levels. The comparison of eventually federal Germany with the ultimately unitary Netherlands - both of which developed significant patterns of economic coordination - demonstrates that political decentralisation under subsidi-arity does not simply equal the modern (American) reference model of clear-cut, rights-based federalism. Meanwhile the experience of strongly centralised France highlights that without this decentralisation, institutions of economic coordination hardly develop. Collective action is diffi-cult to harness if subsidiarity is absent because on the central state level, and unlike in economically more homogenous local contexts, economic interests often remain too diverse to coordi-nate. The historical result has been the emergence of decentralised-coordinated political econo-mies under subsidiarity in Germany and the Netherlands, and of a centralised, non-coordinated system in France. A better understanding of these institutional complementarities can help us historically inform recent scholarly debates on the emergence of modern political-economic organisation in the 19th century and on current governance problems in the Eurozone. The thesis seeks to contribute to the historical study of comparative political economy by highlighting how particular complementary institutions of political and economic governance have co-developed over time. It is argued that this understudied aspect of institutional development is crucial for understanding processes of continuity and change in advanced capitalism.
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Martin, Marina. "An economic history of Hundi, 1858-1978." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2012. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/315/.
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A centuries-old artery of credit for Indian merchant networks, the indigenous credit system hundi has received no systematic attention in histories of the Indian subcontinent. Poorly understood and ill-defined, hundi was a highly negotiable instrument, and source of liquid capital. Hundi knitted together the properties of goods, capital, credit, information and agency, all of which served as the backbone of the Indian merchant network. Drawing on government proceedings, reports, and legal cases, this study provides an insight into the legal encounter between Indian indigenous institutions and the British colonial government. It simultaneously reveals the customs, contracts and individual functions of hundi determining its usage. In particular, this study addresses the important issue of how legal change in colonies affected the so-called ‘informal’ institutions which made trade possible. Between 1858-1947, hundi caught the eye of the British Indian government initially as an important taxable revenue stream. This resulted in hundi being integrated with statutes and regulations during the colonial period. However, this process of formalization was not without its own share of classificatory and interpretive problems, nor did hundi remain unchanged. Material from the 1930s reveals an appreciable change in how the government perceived hundi. The instrument distinguishes itself as a source of liquidity capable of promoting trade and modern banking developments. Moreover, hundi’s importance to the indigenous banking community underscores hundi’s function within the wider Indian economy. Nevertheless, the system’s integration with modern banking continued to present problems. The penultimate chapter explores why problems persisted, examining how a legal solution was proposed in 1978. Finally, the conclusion ties all the threads together and discusses the implications for hundi’s survival.
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Baiardi, Anna. "Essays in development economics and economic history." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2017. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/90133/.
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The first chapter provides an overview of the topics covered in this thesis. The second chapter explores the effect of historic gender division of labour during slavery on African American women’s performance in the labour market. Using census data from 1870 to 2010, I show that African American women living in areas with lower levels of gender division of labour were more likely to participate in the labour market and have higher occupation income scores after emancipation. The effects are persistent for at least 70 years after the end of slavery. I analyse the mechanisms driving the results, distinguishing between labour supply and demand channels, and I explore intergenerational transmission of gender roles. The third chapter empirically assesses the importance of ethnic networks in facilitating international trade. In particular, it investigates the impact of ethnic Cantonese networks in the United States on the export performance of firms based in Southern China. The results indicate that exposure to ethnic networks has a positive effect on exports, both at the extensive and the intensive margin. We explore the mechanisms underlying the results, distinguishing between information flows, contract enforcement, foreign investment and technology diffusion. The fourth chapter analyses the effect of ethnic Chinese networks in the United States on knowledge diffusion and innovation in China. I construct a proxy for the ethnic network based on historic Chinese settlements and current industry employment patterns, exploiting the migration restrictions imposed by the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. The results indicate that when innovation in the U.S. increases, industries that are more exposed to the ethnic network in the U.S. innovate more in China. This suggests that ethnic networks contribute to the diffusion of technology across countries.
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Yamasaki, Junichi. "Essays on development economics and Japanese economic history." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2017. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/3676/.
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This thesis consists of three independent chapters on development economics and Japanese economic history. The first chapter analyzes the effect of railroad construction in the Meiji period (1868–1912) on technology adoption and modern economic development. By digitizing a novel data set that measures the use of steam engines at the factory level and determining the cost-minimizing path between destinations as an identification strategy, I find that railroad access led to the increased adoption of steam power by factories, which in turn induced structural change and urbanization. My results support the view that railroad network construction was key to modern economic growth in pre-First World War Japan. The second chapter analyzes the effect of time horizon on local public investment in the Edo period (1615–1868). I use a unique event in Japanese history during this period to identify the effect. In 1651, the sudden death of the executive leader of the Tokyo government reduced the transfer risk of local lords, especially for insiders, who supported the Tokyo government during the war of 1600. Using a newly digitized data set and a difference-in-differences strategy, I find that after 1651, regions owned by insiders increased the number of public projects more than regions owned by the other lords. I discuss other possible channels to interpret the effect of tenure risk, but I find no strong support for these alternative channels and conclude that the results support a longer time horizon effect. The third chapter provides more general background and a complete description of the data availability in Japan in the 17th–20th centuries, to discuss future research directions. It would aid reexamination of the history of Japan and other East Asian countries, which have experienced different economic and political paths.
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Svanlund, Jonatan. "Svensk och finsk upphinnartillväxt : Faktorpris- och produktivitetsutjämning mellan Finland och Sverige 1950-2000." Doctoral thesis, Umeå universitet, Ekonomisk historia, 2010. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-30633.
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The aim of this thesis is to gain improved understanding of the income convergence between Finland and Sweden 1950-2000 with a focus on catch-up growth, wage formation, productivity growth, migration and structural change in a setting of structural and institutional differences on the factor markets. Earlier studies of Finnish and Swedish convergence has overlooked the international perspective and therefore missed the general European – US convergence during the period. The results shows that Sweden converged to 80 percent of the US productivity level in the early 1970s and is following US productivity growth thereafter. The Finnish catch-up growth towards the US continues until the beginning of the 1990s. This corresponds well with the convergence of labour productivity between Finland and Sweden which took place around 1970 and the gap was closed in the beginning of the 1990s. The convergence between the countries can therefore be understood from the catch-up growth against the USA and if the countries growth rates are plotted against their income level 1950 one can see that the two countries are well in line with other West European countries. This means that either country is deviating in a positive or negative direction during the period. This is to some extent in contrast with the view that has been put forward in the countries national economic historical writing where Finland is often since as a growth miracle while Sweden especially since 1970s is seen as a case of falling behind. In order to explain the convergence scenario structural and institutional differences on the countries factor markets is examined. One aspect concerns Barry Eichengreens hypothesis regarding wage moderation as cause of the Post-War European convergence. The wage setting system in Sweden has been put forward by Eichengreen as a raw model for the type of institutional setting that would promote wage moderation. One central finding in this thesis is that we can not find support for wage moderation for Sweden as the labour share of the national income rises during the phase of Swedish catch-up growth while the labour income share was constant and periodically falling in Finland. In contrast with the view of the Finnish low interest rate policy during the post- the actual real interest rate was lower in Sweden. There has also been a significant migration flow from Finland to Sweden especially from the 1950s to mid 1970s. In the thesis we find a positive and significant relationship between wage and productivity differences on industry level between the countries. This supports the conclusion that migration was leading towards factor price convergence between the countries. The shift-share analysis shows that there were higher gains for the productivity growth in reallocating labour on the Finnish labour market than in Sweden. This could be explained by the higher share of the labour in the agricultural sector as predicted by Peter Temin.
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Blouin, Arthur. "Essays on culture and economic relationships." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2013. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/66436/.
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Chapter two investigates whether insular cultures are less likely to adopt new technologies. Combining GIS crop production data with unique language data, I show that societies that are isolated on the language tree produce less of the crops that required adoption, but not of the crops not requiring adoption. Endogeneity of cultural isolation is addressed by exploiting ancestral migration route direction. Cultural isolation persists due to the endogeneity of land settlement. Land selection caused increased polarization and decreased fractionalization, a pattern that is argued to limit the incentives for cross-societal communication. Chapter three uses contract level data on a portfolio of 197 coffee washing stations in 18 countries to identify the sources and consequences of credit imperfections. Due to moral hazard, default increases following increases in world coffee prices just before the maturity date of the contract. Strategic default is deterred by relationships with the lender and foreign buyers: the value of informal enforcement amounts to 50% of the value of the sale contract for repaying borrowers. A RDD shows that firms are credit constrained. Prices paid to farmers increase implying the existence of contractual externalities along the supply chain. Chapter four analyzes the effect of interethnic trust on economic relationships in Rwanda/Burundi. The endogeneity of defaults impact on trust is dealt with by exploiting the eligibility of respondents’ grandparents to coffee corvée in the colonial era. Corvée contributed to Hutu-Tutsi tensions. Corvée eligibility is used as an exogenous instrument for interethnic trust, measured using a unique dataset collected in the field. Grandparent eligibility for corvée reduces interethnic trust, and that low trust increases the likelihood of being defaulted on. The evidence suggests that default becomes more likely among less trusting individuals due to adverse selection, not moral hazard.
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Sugiyarto, Guntur. "The economic effects and distributional implications of economic reform policies on the Indonesian economy : a CGE approach." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 2000. http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/11054/.
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Having discussed issues of economic reform and its applications on the Indonesian economy followed by Indonesian SAMs and CGE applications, three CGE models representative to the economy were developed by using SAMs of 1985, 1990 and 1993 for analysing the effects of economic reform. Production is specified as a two-level nesting of CES functions and total production is allocated to domestic demand and exports. Producers are assumed to be indifferent between selling domestically and exporting, while for imports the `small country' assumption is adopted. Total demands are derived from composite commodities of domestically produced and imported commodities. Fixed and planned consumption patterns are assumed for households and government, which makes government saving a residual. Aggregate investment is accordingly fixed, reflecting the 'investment driven' nature of the economy. Three policy changes (i.e. stabilisation, trade liberalisation and tax reform) are then simulated as well as sequencing simulations, in which the three policy changes are simulated in different orders. Stabilisation simulation results suggest that government spending cut will make contractions, leading to worsening welfare status. This policy, however, has favourable impacts on income distribution, since government consumption has increasingly been favouring higher income households. Trade liberalisation increases trades and availability of products. This in turn improves macroeconomic performance and welfare condition. Trade balance and government deficit, however, worsen. This policy also has favourable impacts on income distribution of rural households since urban households seem to be the ones benefiting from the existing tariff protection. Indirect tax reductions improve macroeconomic performances, welfare condition and income distribution, especially among agriculture households. Government bears the adverse effects due to its consumption behaviour and initial budget deficits. The sequencing simulations show that initial condition is crucial which affects choices of favourable policies. A sensible choice for sequencing of economic reform in Indonesia is to start with tax reform, which can then be followed by, trade liberalisation and stabilisation. By having less distorted domestic market, the benefits from trade and other reform policies can be more realised. If a deficit reduction is a matter of urgency, stabilisation should include other policies that reduce existing distortions. The same is also applied for trade liberalisation. There seems an urgent need to further dismantling the existing distortions in the domestic market, indicating that the actual government policies adopted during, the period concerned were 'not the best ones.
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Faber, Benjamin. "Three essays on globalization and economic development." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2013. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/602/.
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How do falling barriers to flows of trade and information both within and across countries affect economic livelihoods in developing countries? The three chapters presented in this PhD thesis aim to contribute to our understanding of this question.
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Mirza, Rinchan Ali. "Essays in the economic history of South Asia, 1891 to 2009." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2016. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:31ac00fe-f728-4e22-bcf1-62447a4e367c.
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This thesis presents research that subscribes to the broader theme of the Economic History of South Asia from 1891 to 2009. First, Chapter 2 shows that the Partition induced expulsion of religious minorities reduced school provision in Pakistan. The effect of minorities is explained by their education, occupational structure and their contribution towards local social capital. Then, Chapter 3 examines how areas affected by the Partition fare in terms of long-run agricultural development in India. It finds that areas that received more displaced migrants after Partition perform better in terms of crop yields, are more likely to take up of high yielding varieties (HYV) of seeds, and are more likely to use agricultural technologies. It highlights the superior educational status of the migrants as a potential pathway for the observed effects. Next, Chapter 4 shows that the agricultural productivity shock induced by the adoption of HYV of seeds reduced infant mortality across districts in India. It uses data on the characteristics of children and mothers in the sample to show that it was children born to mothers whose characteristics generally correlate with higher child mortality, children born in rural areas, boys, children born in rice and wheat producing districts and children born in poorer households who benefit more from HYV adoption. Furthermore, Chapter 5 shows that baseline differences in irrigation prior to the adoption of HYV are associated with differences in the growth of yields after adoption. It explores the relationship between irrigation and yields over time to uncover potential mechanisms for the observed relationship. Finally, Chapter 6 empirically investigates the relationship between religious shrines and literacy in the Punjab province of Pakistan.
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Wilkie, J. Callum. "Promoting innovation and economic growth in less developed territories." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2018. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/3750/.
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This thesis is about innovation and economic growth in less developed territories. It is motivated by the inadequacy of our understanding of innovation in lagging contexts. It is situated in the body of literature that examines and stresses the contextually contingent nature of innovation. It does, however, branch out to probe the link between innovation and economic performance and contemplate the design of strategic approaches to promote the latter. It is composed of an introduction, four related chapters and a short conclusion. Chapter 1 relies on an investigation of a large sample of North American and European regions to assess whether all less developed regions are, from an innovation perspective, functionally the same. In particular, it addresses the issue of what makes the less developed regions of North America more innovative than their European counterparts. Chapter 2 expands the scope of the thesis to include the emerging world. It unpacks the processes of innovation hosted by China’s more and less developed cities, respectively, with a view to identify and understand the differences between the sets of factors that drive and shape processes of innovation in them. Chapter 3 examines the relationship between innovation and economic performance in less developed regions. A comparison of two types of lagging regions in Europe is undertaken to explore the extent to which different types of economically disadvantaged regions are capable of transforming knowledge and innovation into economic dynamism, given their unique socioeconomic and institutional characteristics. Chapter 4 reflects on the strategic approaches that have been relied on to promote innovation and economic growth more generally. It reviews a handful of ‘strategies of waste’ and ‘of gain’ to ascertain insights into the steps policy-makers can take to maximise the likelihood that territorial development policies fulfil their potential and contribute to the reduction of territorial disparities.
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Breton, Steven Daniel. "Imperial sunset : grand strategies of hegemons in relative decline." Thesis, McGill University, 1996. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=26724.
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This thesis investigates the economic and military policies hegemons pursue while experiencing relative decline. Based upon the rising costs of leadership associated with hegemony, this thesis establishes that both systemic and domestic environments equally influence the hegemon's policy-making. Furthermore, the paper contends that hegemons do practice strategic planning during relative decline, in an effort to adjust its commitments and resources to the environment. Relative success or failure in maintaining the international system and thus adjusting for decline depends on how decision-makers compensate for two prevailing variables: threat of challengers and availability of allies. This study offers a predictive theoretical model for interpreting the dynamics of grand strategy formulation, compensating for the influences of the domestic environment three historical case studies, the Dutch Republic, Britain and the United States, test the accuracy and validity of the model. This thesis finds that periods of strong leadership, void of threat, while augmented by external balancing best support a hegemon's relative decline.
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Vanden, Eynde Oliver. "Three essays on political economy and economic development." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2012. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/523/.
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This thesis consists of three independent chapters. The first chapter examines the strategic choices of the targets and the intensity of violence by rebel groups. The chapter presents a theoretical framework that links a rebel group’s targeting decisions to income shocks. It highlights that this relationship depends on the structure of the rebels’ tax base. The hypotheses from the model are tested in the context of India’s Naxalite conflict. The second chapter estimates the impact of military recruitment on human capital accumulation in colonial Punjab. In this context, I find that higher military recruitment was associated with increased literacy at the district-religion level. The final chapter presents a model that describes the optimal design of civil-military institutions in a setting where some control of the military over domestic politics is deemed desirable.
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Benning, Elizabeth Jane. "Economic power and political leadership : the Federal Republic, the West and the re-shaping of the international economic system, 1972-1976." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2011. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/3215/.
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This thesis explores the role the Federal Republic of Germany played in the transformation of the Western international economic system between 1972 and 1976. It has two main aims: first, it examines Bonn's activities in the shaping of the Western response to the collapse of the Bretton Woods monetary system, the first oil crisis 1973174 and the 1975 world recession; and second, it studies the effect of these actions on West Germany's political position in the Western alliance. As will be shown, Bonn was able to have a significant impact via four means: an ability to manage its economic and political goals; clever use of its economic strength; the adoption of a mediating role among its Western allies, above all the United States and France; and the strong political leadership of Helmut Schmidt (as finance minister, then chancellor). As a final consequence, the Federal Republic through a combination of its actions, the waning of American, French and British economic and political power, the transformation of the institutional setting and the advancement of economic issues to the fore of political debates achieved the permanent enhancement of its political status within the Western alliance.
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Stavrou, Athanasia. "Socio-economic conditions in 14th and 15th century Thessalonike : a new approach." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2011. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/1630/.
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The thesis deals with the socio-economic conditions prevailing in the city of Thessalonikê in the 14th and 15th centuries. One of the main aims is to address certain methodological issues linked to the period of transition from the Byzantine to the Ottoman Empire. In this effort, we have employed as an analytical tool the economic theory of New Institutional Economics, which lays significant importance in the study of the institutional framework of societies. The main strands of the thesis are two: firstly, the exploration of the ideological concerns, internal conflicts and response of the Thessalonian society to the changing political environment until the final subjection of the city to the Ottoman Turks in 1430. Secondly, the behaviour of the Thessalonian elite in terms of social and economic practice through an examination of its relationship with the Athonite monasteries and the Late Byzantine state. Our ultimate goal is to shed light on the way provincial elite of Thessalonikê adapted to the political and economic conditions that prevailed in the Late Byzantine period.
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Persarvet, Viktor. "Svenskt tullskydd. En studie av svensk protektionism under trettiotalet." Thesis, Uppsala universitet, Ekonomisk-historiska institutionen, 2012. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-179815.
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This paper attempts to study the Swedish tariffs during the interwar period in order to asses the level of protectionism in Swedish tariff policy during the period. It is foremost the nominal tariffs that are studied, however an estimate of the effective rate of protection of the tariffs is also calculated for a number of goods. In order to asses the level of protectionism, the Swedish tariffs are also compared with Finnish tariff levels during the interwar period. The sample of Swedish tariffs that have been studied in this paper include the fifteen most important kinds of import goods and the fifteen most important kinds of export goods. The nominal tariff of each kind of goods have been weighted by their share of the total import value. The Swedish specific tariffs did not change much during the interwar period except for a few goods such as petroleum, coffee and automobiles. The fluctuation in nominal tariffs were in most cases the result of the steep fall in prices during the period. Compared to the Finnish tariffs, the Swedish tariffs seem to have been generally lower, especially in agricultural goods in which the Swedish tariffs are surprisingly immobile during the period. This paper finds that the Swedish tariff policy during the interwar period were inactive and relatively free-market oriented.
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Yoon, Yeo Joon. "A quantitative analysis of U.S. economic development, 1870-1913." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2013. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/64233/.
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The transition of U.S. economy, from a large primary products exporter based on abundant endowments of natural resources to a leading industrial producer and a successful manufacturing exporter from the late 19th century to the early twentieth century, is a remarkable historical event. In this thesis I investigate the quantitative importance of various factors and policies behind the development of the U.S. and the North Atlantic economy from 1870 to 1913. The factors considered are exogenous changes in : sectoral productivities; endowments in labour and land; and trade costs. While these may not be all the factors that mattered, they were certainly important forces behind the development of the region. I then ask some historically interesting counterfactual questions which are closely related to these forces. First, I explore the implications of the high tariffs imposed on U.S. manufacturing imports. More particularly, I ask "Could U.S. manufacturing and its economy grow as it did without the tariffs?" The second counterfactual exercise is related to the mass migration. There is no doubt that the mass immigration to the U.S. in the nineteenth century contributed considerably to its overall economic growth. But what is uncertain is its quantitative implications on the overall and the sectoral development. I also look at its implications on the Anglo-American real wage convergence. The focus is on several dimensions of the development : the large increase in U.S. share of world manufacturing output and the decline in that of Britain; the growth of their primary and manufacturing output and real GDP; and its structural transformation. In order to disentangle the effects of each force, I build a model of the North Atlantic economy calibrated to be consistent with some key facts during this period.
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Lage, de Sousa Filipe. "Location of economic agents in Brazil : an empirical investigation." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2009. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/2548/.
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This study focuses on regional aspects of the Brazilian economy. Three avenues are explored: two related to individuals' and firms' location decision and the last regarding public policy. In general, firms and individuals seem to be moving away from the main economic centre in Brazil, Sao Paulo. It seems nevertheless that public policy is not very related to these movements. In other words, government interventions to accelerate growth in less developed regions have not achieved their goal. Chapter 2 addresses the issue of internal migration in Brazil. This chapter investigates the influence of amenities and/or disamenities on migration flows, which is an issue not yet fully covered by the literature. It investigates whether changing dwellings across cities is associated specifically with violence using urban-urban migration data at municipality level. Results show that migration is affected by violence not only locally, but also when neighbouring effects are taken into account. These findings back up previous research which evidenced an inverse relationship between city size and violence. Turning to firms, Chapter 3 explores the role of geography in the location of manufacturing and of regional disparities in wages. According to theoretical models, employment concentrates closer to the market when increasing returns to scale are taken into account. As a consequence, regional wages are a decreasing function of transport costs to markets, since firms tend to compensate for these costs by paying less to their employees. Trade shocks may impact these regional wage disparities by making foreign markets relatively more attractive for firms than internal markets, or vice-versa. This chapter tested these hypotheses using Brazilian regional data. Having two isolated trade shocks, Brazil provides an excellent case for testing which shock was more effective in reducing regional disparities. Results show that regions with higher transport costs tend to have lower wages and a reduction in this cost through trade shocks has affected these regional disparities. However, it is not possible to distinguish which trade shock was more efficient to impact these regional unbalances. Chapter 4 evaluates the effects of the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES) loans on firms' productivity. The importance of BNDES in the Brazilian economy is quite sizeable, reaching over 10% of aggregate investment. Using micro level data, it was possible to investigate the impact on productivity, but also distinguish its effects between large and small projects as well as between rich and poor regions, since regional development is one of its statutory goals. Results suggest BNDES loans have no effect on firms' productivity, even though some association was found without controlling for all firms' characteristics. Overall, some lessons may be learned after this work. Not only are economic reasons key determinants for individuals' and firms' location decision as shown in Chapters 2 and 3 but also some other factors seem to be important as well. Social amenities, locally and in surrounding areas, are highly correlated to individuals' migration decisions in the Brazilian case, especially violence. For firms, economic reasons prevail since trade shocks appear to change regions' attractiveness between internal and external market. Last, but not least, government intervention does not seem to be associated to firms' productivity after BNDES loans.
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Borrell, Mireia. "The limits of economic convergence in the EU : the interplay between family values and economic incentives in shaping individual behaviour in social care." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2015. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/3369/.
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While there is an abundant literature on the moderating effects of formal institutions on changes in economic incentives, there is still little understanding on whether informal institutions – such as beliefs, values and social norms - exert a similar effect. In the current European context, with increasing demands to reform the welfare systems, the question becomes all the more relevant. With this in mind, and focusing on social norms about the role of the family, this thesis aims to provide insights into the following question: are the effects of family values on individual behaviour resilient to changes in economic incentives? Using EU survey micro data the thesis analyses the interplay between the effects of family values and changes in economic incentives in shaping individual behaviour in social care. The results suggest that the effects of family values remain resilient to changes in economic incentives. The first paper confirms that, in line with the existing literature, family values affect individual behaviour. Most importantly, however, it shows that this effect can be overridden by certain individual socio-economic characteristics. The second paper focuses on the strength of the effects, showing that the effect of family values on individual behaviour is strongest when economic incentives are changed in ways that do not directly challenge prevailing family values. Finally, the third paper demonstrates that the effect of family values on individual behaviour is resilient to a policy reform that conflicts with them. The extent of the resilience depends on the socio-demographic characteristics of the individuals. These results have direct implications in the EU context, suggesting that convergence of economic outcomes might be difficult to achieve given that the impact of common problems and policies differ depending on the prevailing family values. At the very least, these differences should be taken into account when designing EU-wide policies.
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Skjönsberg, Max. "Internecine discord : party, religion, and history in Hanoverian Britain, c. 1714-65." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2018. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/3720/.
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This thesis is a study of the place of ‘party’ and different ways of understanding this phenomenon in eighteenth-century British political discourse, especially between 1714 and 1765. Party is one of the most basic concepts of politics. If we are looking for party in any form, the idea of partisan division may be at least as old as the earliest societies where there was competition for office. But what did ‘party’ mean in the eighteenth century? While ancient factions usually denoted interest groups representing different orders in the state, party in the eighteenth century had a range of meanings, some general and others more specific. Broadly speaking, it could either mean a parliamentary constellation vying for power, or carry the more sinister connotation of civil war-like division, with roots in the Reformation and its aftermath. In spite of the fact that the emphasis was on principles and beliefs rather than organisation in both cases, modern historians have tended to focus on the latter. The party debate was considered by political writers at the time to be profoundly important, and political life in the period simply cannot be understood without reference to party. Although ‘party spirit’ waxed and waned, ‘party’ was consistently a key word in political debate. By concentrating on the writings of Rapin, Bolingbroke, David Hume, John Brown, and Edmund Burke, in the context of political developments, this thesis presents the first sustained examination of the idea of party in eighteenth-century Britain. It demonstrates that attitudes towards party were more diverse, penetrating and balanced than previous research has managed to capture.
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Hashim, Rao R. "An analysis of the relationship between the international economic-legal regime and the achievement of balanced and stable growth through the international economic cycle." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2011. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/49994/.
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The global economy is controlled by an 'international economic–legal regime' (hereinafter "IELR"), in which international economic institutions (hereinafter "IEIs") are the major nonstate actors. They provide the rules of the game for the interaction of the States in an international economic scenario. These IEIs, through their institutional capacity, enhance certainty and predictability within the IELR, thereby passively supporting stable and a balanced growth of global economy. This thesis argues that opportunities to achieve stable and balanced growth, in which both the financial and the real side of the economy grow, can be improved if the IEIs increase their focus on the relationship between the Economic Cycle and the IEIs' institutional role. This argument is developed by analysing the relationship between the IEIs' institutional role and the Economic Cycle, first describing the Economic Cycle, and then clarifying the functioning of the IEIs in their institutional role. To narrow the scope of this research, this thesis takes two IEIs as case studies; namely, the IMF and the WTO.
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Leidecker, Timo. "Three essays on the impact of economic change on the labour market." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2018. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/112180/.
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This thesis consists of three chapters addressing three different yet related issues on the impact of economic change on labour markets. In chapter 2, I assess the impact of United Kingdom (UK) job polarization at the worker-level by examining changes in the underlying labour reallocation. I use an annual random sample of UK employees from 1975 to 2015, based on NESPD and ASHE, following workers employed in a PAYE-registered job. To abstract from compositional changes, I conduct the analysis at the group level, distinguishing three age and gender groups. First, I identify distributional changes accounting for aggregate job polarization by decomposing employment share changes for low, medium, and high skilled employment into distributional and compositional changes. Second, I conduct a counterfactual exercise for changes in transition rates to compute their contribution to job polarization at the group and aggregate level. I find job polarization to be associated with a negative impact on young workers, who become more likely to start their career in low skilled jobs, and male workers, who experience longer non-employment periods. These changes combined can account for at least two thirds of the decline in the aggregate medium skilled employment share. Reallocation between job types appears unimportant. In chapter 3, I examine changes in the distribution of non-employment spell durations associated with job polarization. I estimate the duration distribution in terms of survival functions, considering all exits to employment. I suggest a competing risks model allowing to decompose changes in survival functions into changes in hazard rates to low, medium, and high skilled jobs. Based on findings from chapter 2, I argue that changes in the hazard rate to medium skilled jobs are associated with job polarization. Survival functions are estimated non-parametrically for flow samples, based on NESPD and ASHE, of UK workers of six demographic groups entering non-employment in successive expansionary periods from 1975 to 2015. To organize the discussion, I distinguish short-term, longer temporary and permanent spells, finding that job polarization is associated with a general shift towards longer temporary spells, suggestive of longer reallocation periods, and male workers also becoming more likely to be permanently jobless, suggestive of a failure to reallocate. Women experience no comparable distributional changes, suggesting results are driven by aggregate and group-specific factors. In chapter 4, I test whether skill-biased technological change (SBTC) differs across OECD countries. SBTC is often held to be an exogenous shock common to developed countries. I argue that seminal contributions establishing SBTC do not assess comparative aspects. Extending the approach by Katz and Murphy [1992] to a cross-country context, I test for SBTC differences using annual country-level panel data for 14 OECD countries from 1986 to 2010. I find evidence for significant variation. I explore whether differences are systematically related to institutional measures, for which I find tentative evidence.
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Kukić, Leonard. "Economic growth, regional development, and nation formation under socialism : evidence from Yugoslavia." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2017. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/3674/.
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Yugoslavia provides a fascinating historical setting to analyse the consequences of socialism – the greatest socio-economic experiment of the 20th century. Yugoslavia was one of fastest growing countries in the world until the late 1970s. During this period, it followed a different institutional trajectory compared to other socialist economies. But, during the 1980s, economic growth came to a standstill, and the country eventually descended into civil war. This doctoral dissertation is motivated by the aforementioned observations. It seeks to analyse them. The core of the thesis is composed of three closely related, but self-standing, papers. The unifying theme of the three papers is economic development in socialist Yugoslavia. The first paper revisits aggregate economic growth in Yugoslavia. I find that distorted labour incentives caused the slowdown of the Yugoslav economy. I argue that labour-managed firms hindered the ability of Yugoslavs to work. Since Yugoslavia was extremely heterogeneous, the second paper moves below the aggregate level in order to reconstruct the regional development trajectories. I find that regional income divergence was caused by the failure of the poorer regions to converge towards the employment rates and efficiency levels of the richer regions. I argue that this failure was caused by labour-managed firms as well, whereby they had a spatially uneven economic impact. In Yugoslavia, regional economic tensions were reinforcing, and were reinforced by, ethnic tensions. In the third paper, I explore ethnic relations by analysing the formation of Yugoslav national sentiment and its economic effects. I find that ethnically diverse municipalities were conducive towards the formation of Yugoslav sentiment because they stimulated ethnic intermarriage. In addition, I find that municipalities that contained a larger amount of self-declared Yugoslavs experienced a lower population fraction of deaths during the Bosnian War of 1992-1995.
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Ohinata, Shin. "Issues in economic growth and trade policy in East Asia." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2000. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/4205/.
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This thesis consists of three studies. The topics discussed are in the area of international trade and economic growth with a reference to the policy issues in East Asia. The study in Chapter 2 presents a model of North-South trade which can explain the observed cross-country variations in factor prices. Intuition and evidence suggest that knowledge is largely non-excludable and hence all countries should have access to broadly similar technology. However, this public-good assumption for technology leads to implausible predictions of factor prices in standard models. The model in this study does not assume any differences in technology but its predictions are consistent with observations. In Chapter 3, the implications of the two vintage models for growth accounting are examined. Growth accounting studies have shown that total factor productivity growth in East Asian economies has been slower than expected. Analysis of the vintages models suggests that this puzzling finding could be due to mismeasurements of capital arising from the particular characteristic of East Asian growth experience. In Chapter 4, it is shown that when asymmetric economies adopt an open regionalism policy, some of them may gain at the expense of others. This result is very different from the commonly held view in the literature. In certain situations, some economies in the bloc achieves a higher welfare level than under global free trade. A policy of open regionalism could therefore turn out to be an obstacle to the process of multilateral trade liberalization.
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Pham, Hung Hung. "'The developmental state', the evolving international economic order, and Vietnam." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2012. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/3802/.
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The developmental state has been widely credited as the most important factor behind the East Asian post-ar “miracles.” Indeed, it is generally seen as having helped to shift the weight of the international economic order towards ‘the East.’ However, the dominance of processes associated with ‘globalisation’ at the beginning of the twenty-first century is commonly thought to have substantially undermined the viability and potential of this state-led development model. Yet, the recent rapid transformation of some emerging economies, notably China and Vietnam, suggests that this economic development model may remain important even in an era of globalisation. Taking Vietnam as a case study, this thesis argues that despite significant differences in the actions, capacities and ideological orientations between the Vietnamese state and other states in the region, the political leaders of Vietnam have followed the interventionist, state-led pattern of development that is connected to the successful East Asian developmental states. As a consequence, and on the basis of the original empirical research undertaken here, the thesis further argues that despite the potentially transformative impact of processes associated with globalisation, the developmental state, or the state-led development model, remains a viable, influential, and persistent feature of the development processes in Vietnam.
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Resende, Guilherme Mendes. "Essays on spatial scope of regional economic development in Brazil." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2012. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/453/.
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The aim of my thesis is to investigate the spatial scope of regional economic growth and regional economic development policy in Brazil. First, it reviews the theoretical background on the spatial scope of economic development and growth literature as well as sets this discussion for the Brazilian context. This part forms the basis for the following empirical investigations. Then, the thesis investigates how the determinants of economic growth in Brazil may have manifested themselves differently on various spatial scales during the period of 1991-2000. The analysis suggests a general framework for addressing multiple spatial scales, spatial autocorrelation, spatial heterogeneity and model uncertainty. The robustness tests identified variables that are simultaneously significant on different spatial scales – higher educational and health capital, and better local infrastructure were related to higher rates of economic growth, although their impact on growth may differ across spatial scales. Next, the thesis investigates the extent of spatial autocorrelation effects in the context of regional economic growth at different spatial scales from 1970-2000 using standard panel data models. Among other results, it shows that spatial autocorrelation appears negligible at the state level but shows positive and significant values at the other three spatial scales. Moreover, the panel data models that control for time invariant fixed effects do not completely eliminate the spatial autocorrelation in the residuals at different spatial scales. Finally, the thesis formulates a framework to measure the micro- and macro - impacts of regional development policies in Brazil and applies this framework to measure the impact of northeast regional fund (FNE) industrial loans on employment and labour productivity growth at the micro (firm) level and on GDP per capita growth at macro (municipalities, micro-regions and spatial clusters) levels for the 2000-2003 and 2000-2006 periods. The results show a positive and statistically significant impact of the FNE industrial loans on job creation at the micro level but no significant impacts on the GDP per capita growth at the macro level.
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Dildar, Yasemin. "Institutional Approaches To Technology And Economic History." Master's thesis, METU, 2009. http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/3/12610822/index.pdf.
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This thesis is an attempt to reassess the long debated issues of economic history from the perspective of institutional economics. Besides examining different approaches to technology and its impact on economic and social life, it analyzes the role of institutions in history. It discusses the institutional interpretations of the critical developments of economic history such as, the Industrial Revolution and the Great Divergence, with an emphasis on differences between the two scholarly traditions, namely, the Original Institutional Economics and the New Institutional Economics. Although the arguments of New Institutionalists concerning the role of technology in history have been effectively incorporated into the economic history research, the potential contributions of the Original Institutional Economics to the study of economic history have remained for the most part unexplored. The aim of this thesis is to demonstrate the relevance and importance of original institutional analysis with respect to technology and economic history.
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von, Berlepsch Viola Konstanze Sitta Freiin. "The long-term economic impact of migration and its significance for US prosperity." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2018. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/3768/.
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Does past migration matter for economic development in the long-term? Does an area’s history in migration affect economic performance long after the initial migration shock has faded away? And – does it matter what type of immigrant settles in a territory for the economic impact of migration to persist in time? This dissertation examines the long-term economic impact of migration, connecting migrant settlement patterns at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century to present day levels of income per capita. It firstly estimates the effect of different compositional features of the historical migrant stock on long-term economic development levels in the United States (US), a country founded and essentially formed by migrants. Secondly, it tests whether there is a link between past European and recent Latin American migration to the US to identify whether one potential transmission mechanism could be at play in transferring the migrants’ economic impact across time. The results of the analyses conducted using a variety of methods – OLS, IV, and panel data estimation techniques – provide three novel insights. Firstly, historical migrant stock is one of the very few historical county features that still explain current levels of development. In contrast to other factors, such as past income and education levels or industry structure, the influence of past migration on economic development does not seem to fade over the very long-term. Secondly, compositional aspects related to the historical migrant stock remain highly decisive for economic development outcomes more than 100 years later. The diversity of the migrant population, the gender balance, as well as the average distance travelled by the migrant stock over a century earlier still influence regional economic development levels today. All three features have growth-enhancing implications over the short as well as over the long-term. Lastly, past migration – irrespective of the presence of family connections, ethnic ties, or migration networks – shapes the geographical patterns of successive migration waves spanning multiple decades and even generations. An area’s migration history acts as a crucial pull factor for future migrants and is at the root of the formation of migration-prone and migration-averse regions. Consequently, previous migration contributes to ‘rework’ the places of destination, making them more attractive for future generations of migrants. All in all, the findings show that migration not only matters for economic development, but that its economic influence determines the success and prosperity of territories and the well-being of their inhabitants over the very long-term.
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Figueirêdo, Lízia de. "The new economic geography and regional growth in Brazil and India." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 2002. http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/28684/.
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This dissertation tries to contribute to empirically assess hypotheses of the "New Economic Geography". Specifically, we tested the relevance of the combination of lower transportation cost with the role of economies of scale in explaining the regional distribution of total activity and of industrial activity. Economies of scale are assumed to be due to "backward and forward" linkages among firms. We also took into account congestion effects and asymmetry among regions. The model was tested for the regions of Brazil, in the period 1950-1995 and 1970-1995, and for the regions of India, in the period 1961-1991. Using panel results, we observed that transportation costs were generating concentration of total activity in the periods 1950-1995 arid 1950- 1970. For these samples, there is evidence that economies of scales were a cause of concentration of total activity. Other forces, not explained by the model, were generating dispersion and so were congestion effects. For the period 1970-1995, we found that congestion effects and lower transportation cost were helping to disperse economic activity, in the panel results. Economies of scale were not, contrary to the model's predictions, helping economic growth. In the case of Brazil, for the 18-state samples, industrial activity tended to concentrated due to the effects of lower transportation cost, although higher industrial growth rates were a characteristic of the states with less economies of scales. In the case of India, strong concentration effects were taking place, both due to lower transportation cost and due to other reasons. Economies of scale were not important in the explanation of the path of India activity.
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Caruana, Galizia Paul. "Economic development and market potential : European regional income differentials, 1870-1913." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2015. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/3062/.
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This dissertation examines the extent to which proximity to markets - as measured by market potential, the trade cost-weighted sum of surrounding regions’ GDP - can explain late-nineteenth century Europe’s regional per capita income differentials. The research questions are: (1) was the spatial distribution of regional income random; (2) how helpful are traditional explanations - coal and institutions - of regional income; (3) how helpful is market potential when controlling for traditional explanations; and (4) did market potential have an effect on other determinants of income? This dissertation finds that: (1) the distribution of regional per capita income increasingly concentrated in the northwest; that there was little tendency to income convergence; and regional inequalities were higher within than between countries; (2) while a measure of regional institutions is correlated with income, simple distance-to-coal and a cost-to-coal measures are not; (3) market potential has a significant effect on income; foreign market potential more so than domestic; and increasing core relative to peripheral market potential results in perpherial income losses; and (4) changes in literacy rates, a proxy for human capital, responded to changes in market potential. In conclusion, a new economic geography framework with market potential at its core fits the historical experience well. Certain regions performed better than others generally because they had cheaper access to markets. At the start of the period, trade costs were high, and so economic activity - long concentrated in Britain - was spread out more or less evenly across the Continent. By the end of the period, when trade costs dropped dramatically, economic activity concentrated in the northwest of Europe at the cost of the periphery.
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Palma, Nuno Pedro G. "Harbingers of modernity : monetary injections and European economic growth, 1492-1790." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2015. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/3283/.
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In this dissertation I assess some of the effects for the early modern European economy which resulted from the large-scale discovery and exploitation of precious metals in the New World. I argue that the monetary injections which were a direct result of the increased precious metals availability were an important cause of stimulus for several early modern European economies. The thesis mainly consists of three papers. In the first paper I argue variation in production of precious metals in America can be helpful to identifying the causal effects of money in a macroeconomic setting. Using a panel of six European countries for the period 1531-1790, I find strong reduced-form evidence in favor of non-neutrality of money for changes in real economic activity. The magnitudes are substantial and persist for a long time: an exogenous 10% increase in production of precious metals in America leads to a hump-shaped positive response of real GDP, peaking at an average increase of 1.3% four years later. The evidence suggests this is because prices responded to monetary injections only with considerable lags. The following two chapters are focused on different aspects of the measurement and analysis of the causal effects of the monetary injections for the English economy. In the second paper, I put forward new data on annual coin supply for England over the long run. This is offered not only as a data construction exercise within the specific context of England, but also as a methodological contribution which in principle can be reproduced for some other countries. Finally, in the third paper, I present a historical discussion of the long-term effects of the early modern monetary injections in the context of the English economy. I show the increased availability of precious metals led to liquidity injections which matter for our understanding of the English industrious, industrial, and financial revolutions during early modern period.
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Fuder, Katja. "No experiments : federal privatisation politics in West Germany, 1949-1989." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2017. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/3610/.
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Privatisation has been a key policy in the late 20th century in many countries. In West Germany, the federal government sold most of its corporate industrial shareholdings to private investors between 1949 and 1989. Unlike many other countries, West Germany did not nationalise entire industries after the Second World War. Instead, the portfolio of public enterprises and participations was mainly an inheritance from the Third Reich. The aim of the thesis is to explore the causes of privatisation and the driving and delaying forces in the privatisation process between 1949 and 1989 based on qualitative historical documents. After the sale of participations stemming from the war economy in the early 1950s, the conservative federal government of CDU and CSU and later the conservative-liberal government of CDU, CSU and FDP under the Federal Chancellors Konrad Adenauer (CDU) and Ludwig Erhard (CDU) pursued a larger scale privatisation programme by issuing people's shares between 1959 and 1965. The programme featured social elements and aimed at the property formation of employees and a wide dispersion of shares in the society. In the 1970s, public enterprises expanded under a social-liberal government of SPD and FDP, until a conservative-liberal government of CDU, CSU and FDP under Federal Chancellor Kohl (CDU) sold most of the remaining federal participations in industrial enterprises between 1984 and 1989. The total volume of privatisation as measured by revenues remained modest compared to other West European countries and strong political resistance within the government parties CDU and CSU manifested in the process. Findings indicate a high continuity of thought and policy patterns from the 1950s until the end of the 1980s while the main reasons for privatisation shifted slightly. In the 1950s and 1960s, privatisation was primarily motivated by fiscal reasons - access to equity capital proved to be limited for the growing federal enterprises. Privatisation in the 1980s was caused by re-interpretations of the economic situation due to globally changing conditions and increased international competition. Hence, it can be interpreted as a lagged response to market crisis in the 1970s. Ideological shifts of paradigm did not drive privatisation. Rather, advocates of ordoliberalism focused on other economic reforms in the 1950s and liberal ideas in the 1980s co-developed with privatisation politics. For many decades, public enterprises were not viewed as ineffcient per se as long as they were operating in competitive markets. This perception only began to change slowly in the 1980s.
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Simson, Rebecca. "(Under)privileged bureaucrats? : the changing fortunes of public servants in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, 1960-2010." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2017. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/3618/.
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At independence the emerging African elite was dominated by employees of the state. Many academics have since speculated that this over-reliance on public employment contributed to the continent’s poor economic performance, as resources extracted from society were captured by a rent-seeking public sector class. Because this elite was directly beholden to the state, it also lacked the independence needed to hold the political class to task. Was this diagnosis accurate and has the state’s role as a creator of the elite persisted? This dissertation explores how three East African governments –those of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda - have used their powers as the single largest employer in their respective countries to influence the structure of society. Using quantitative evidence, it traces how public employment and pay evolved between the 1960s and the present. It examines the effects of these changes on the economic standing of public sector employees and the educational, regional and ethnic backgrounds of the people who came to work for the state. This long-run perspective shows that the public services in all three countries have changed a great deal over the past half-century and suggests that public sector salaries have declined in importance for the region’s educational and income elites. It also reveals that public sector jobs have been more evenly distributed - on a regional, ethnic and gender basis - than is sometimes presumed. The thesis relates these findings to a rich political economy literature on public employment, social stratification and the development of the African postcolonial state.
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Eisenbarth, Sabrina. "Essays on international trade, environmental regulation and resource management." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 2016. http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/35736/.
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Liu, Chunping. "Model responses to crisis : an investigation of a behavioural finance model and a financial frictions model using U.S. data." Thesis, Cardiff University, 2012. http://orca.cf.ac.uk/36618/.
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This thesis aims to examine the response of a behavioural finance model and a financial frictions model to the financial crisis which was triggered in 2007.This thesis will test both models by using indirect inference as an evaluation method.The results of this study show that,when compared with the rational expectation model, behavioural expectation does not improve the model's ability to explain the real world. Therefore, behavioural expectation is unable to respond to the current crisis to form expectations .However,the financial frictions model which is suggested by the literature is found to be an efficient model that improves the model's overall performance. This thesis finds that although financial shocks contribute to the out put gap variation during the crisis, it does not respond so much to the variations of inflation and policy. interest rate.
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Żurawski, Piotr Marcin. "Essays on market liquidity." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2011. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/351/.
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In the first chapter of my Thesis I propose a model of front-running in noisy market environment. I demonstrate that even if the front-runner/predator has no initial knowledge about the position of a distressed trader he will be still able to front-run his orders in a linear Bayesian-Nash equilibrium. This is possible because initial orders of the distressed trader tend to reveal his initial position. The contribution of this chapter is also in the analysis of long-term dynamics of predatory trading under Gaussian uncertainty. Second chapter treats about the dark-pools of liquidity which are highly popular systems that allow participants to enter unpriced orders to buy or sell securities. These orders are crossed at a specified time at a price derived from another market. I present an equilibrium model of coexistence of dark-pools of liquidity and the dealer market. Dealer market provides the immediate execution, whereas the dark-pool of liquidity provides lower cost of trading. Risk-averse agents in equilibrium optimally choose between safe dealer market and cheaper dark-pool of liquidity. In the third chapter I solve for a partial-equilibrium optimal consumption and investment problem, when one of the investment assets is traded infrequently. Opportunity to trade the "illiquid asset" arises upon the occurrence of a Poisson event. Only when such event occurs a trader is able to change (increase or decrease) her position in the illiquid asset. The investor can consume continuously from the bank account. After deriving HJB equation, I analyze in details the implications of illiquidity on the optimal level of consumption, allocation and welfare. The optimal policy is solved using algorithm from aeronautics.
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Montaigne, Maxine. "The Malthusian and the anti-Malthusian : the use of economic ideas and language in the public discourse of nineteenth-century Britain." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2017. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/3822/.
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The nineteenth century saw the birth of economics as a distinct academic discipline in Britain, and with it a new relationship between economic thinkers, policy makers and the wider public, who played an increasingly active role in the sphere of economic discourse. One of the most contentious economic and social debates of this time was the question of population; population growth was seen as both essential to the new industrial economy, but also feared for its association with social unrest and degeneracy. This thesis aims to make sense of the changing content and nature of this debate starting from its intellectual foundation-the Malthusian theory of population-by examining the use of Malthusian theory and rhetoric in the public discourse of population throughout the century. In order to shed light on this changing discourse, this thesis contrasts two key moments in Britain's population debate; the public reaction to Poor Law reform in the 1830s and 40s, and the controversial question of birth control in the 1870s and 80s. Each of these debates can be seen as an independent, yet connected 'instance' of the Malthusian population debate, manifesting as public concern for the private matter of family size. Through an analysis of the discourse surrounding these two debates, notably the use of Malthusian language and rhetoric within the popular press, it is possible to draw some conclusions about the way economic rhetoric was used within the nineteenth-century public sphere. This thesis argues that the purposeful appropriation of Malthusian rhetoric within the public sphere represents a form of public engagement with economics that has until now been poorly understood.
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Chen, Ying. "Essays on urban and environmental economics in developing countries." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2018. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/3817/.
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My thesis is comprised of essays that study urban and environmental economic topics in developing countries. Three of the four essays study causal drivers behind the phenomenal urbanization and local economic growth in China. Its rapid growth in the recent decades provides an illustrative case for understanding how the spatial distribution of economic activities is affected by policies regulating factors of production. The fourth essay extends to another developing country, Tanzania, where the challenges posed by climate change faced by populations agglomerating in fast growing urban centers are substantial. This thesis strives to contribute to current research with my understanding of the contexts, utilization of new yet publicly available data, and novel methodology. The fist chapter, Political favoritism in China's capital markets and its effect on city sizes, examines political favoritism of cities and the effect of that favoritism on city sizes. To study favoritism we focus on capital markets, where defining favoritism is more clear-cut and not confounded with issues of city scale economies. Efficiency in capital markets requires equalized marginal returns to capital across cities, regardless of size. We estimate the city-by-city variation in the prices of capital across cities in China from 1998 to 2007. It shows how the prices facing the highest order political units and overall cross-city price dispersion change with changes in national policy and leadership. Next, the effect of capital market favoritism on city growth after the national relaxation of migration restrictions in the early 2000's is investigated. We develop a simple model to show that those cities facing a lower price of capital respond with larger population increases over the next decade, with the change labor mobility. The elasticity of the city growth rate with respect to the price of capital is estimated to be - 0.07 in the OLS approach and -0.12 in the IV approach. The second chapter, Early Chinese development zones: fist-mover advantage and persistency, studies the heterogeneous effects of China's special economic zone program by their level of government support and timing of designation. Using a difference-in-differences (DID) approach, I observe that the early national development zones in China have substantially greater and persistent success in attracting FDI compared to national zones established later, or those at the provincial level. Early national zones persistently attract higher levels of FDI inflows, attract more internal migration and are of significantly larger city sizes. To investigate whether the persistent success of early national zones is driven by their first-mover advantage or their unobservable high growth potential, I use their stronger ties to overseas Chinese investors in past waves of political instability as instrumental variable. The IV estimates are comparable to DID, suggesting the success of early national zones relative to newer and provincial zones can be attributed to their first-mover advantage. This conclusion also suggest that the large positive impacts found in China in the existing literature of evaluating place-based policies can potentially be driven by a small group of first-movers. In the third chapter, Air pollution, regulations, and labor mobility in China, I study the local economic impacts of pollution regulation in China at the time when migration costs fall. On the one hand, environmental regulations impose costs on firms, which tend to reduce local employment. On the other hand, lower pollution levels are an appealing amenity that attracts human capital to the region, possibly providing a boost to economic activity. The overall net effect of these two opposing forces is ambiguous. To investigate this, I study how local economies in China between 2000 and 2010 are affected by two significant reforms in environmental regulations and internal migration. Following the environmental reform, Chinese prefectures face new national air quality standards whose enforcement intensity can be proxied by their existing air quality at the time of the policy introduction. Meanwhile, the migration reform reduces migration costs and allows workers to relocate based on their preferences for air quality across prefectures. To formalize how air quality regulation affects local employment and city sizes by skill types following the two reforms, I first develop a spatial equilibrium model to guide the empirical analysis. To address the non-random spatial distribution of local air quality, I construct a novel instrumental variable of power plant suitability to capture a prefecture's likelihood to pollute heavily. Thermal power plants are major contributors to China's emissions, while electricity distribution and pricing are centralized. Therefore, locations with comparable economic characteristics may differ substantially in their air pollution levels simply because that some host thermal power plants and some do not. The estimation results show that air pollution regulations have an overall adverse impact on local manufacturing employment, with modest reallocation from heavy to non-polluting industries locally. There is little reallocation across space of low-skilled workers, whose employment prospects are more vulnerable under pollution regulation. However, the population of high-skilled workers in heavily polluted prefectures declines, showing their strong preference for air quality as migration costs fall. The last chapter, Cholera in times of floods: weather shocks and health in Dares Salaam, takes a slightly different perspective on urban and environmental issues in developing countries. We examine the challenges faced by urban population in Tanzania as the result of growing urban density and increasing extreme weather occurrences. Urban residents in developing countries have become more vulnerable to health shocks due to poor sanitation and infrastructure. This paper is the first to empirically measure the relationship between weather and health shocks in the urban context of a developing country. Using unique high-frequency datasets of weekly cholera cases and accumulated precipitation for wards in Dar es Salaam, we find robust evidence that extreme rainfall has a significant positive impact on weekly cholera incidences. The effect is larger in wards that are more prone to flooding, have higher shares of informal housing and unpaved roads. We identify limited spatial spillovers. Time-dynamic effects suggest cumulated rainfall increases cholera occurrence immediately and with a lag of up to 5 weeks.
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Azulai, Michel Dummar. "The political economy of government formation and local public goods." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2018. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/3824/.
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This thesis examines three questions: first, do national government coalitions favour local governments connected to them to receive local public goods? Secondly, does favouritism in the allocation of public goods imply large welfare losses? Finally, how national governments form, and what are the consequences of this for national policy making? These questions are answered in the particular context of Brazil, where rich data on national politics and local public good allocation is available. The first chapter of the thesis summarizes aspects of the Brazilian context that are relevant for the rest of the thesis - covering aspects of Brazilian national politics, and of the rules for allocation of funds for local public goods. The chapter also discusses the disaggregated data on the universe of matching grant transfers from the Brazilian national government to municipalities, used in the second and third chapters. The second chapter answers the following question: are regions connected to the national government favoured to receive funding for local public goods? While a broad literature shows that "politically connected" regions receive more funds from national governments, it is unclear whether this reflects favouritism, or simply connections allowing the national government to know better the needs of regions connected to them. The chapter finds evidence broadly consistent with favouritism. The third chapter then examines the welfare losses associated with favouritism. I build a model of grant requests by cities and approvals by the national government and provide estimates of the model's parameters. Despite ample evidence of favouritism, if the only source of conflict between the national government and society is due to favouritism, the welfare losses for society due to favouritism are of the order of 0.24% of the budget for grants. The second and third chapters suggest large effects of the national coalition over local public good provision. The fourth and final chapter, instead, analyses how national coalitions interact with national policies. More precisely, do government coalitions form to include legislators ideologically close to the executive, or ideologically unattached legislators whose votes are "easier to buy"? Moreover, what are the consequences of this for policy making at the national level - in particular, for roll call votes in the chamber of deputies?
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Albers, Thilo Nils Hendrik. "Trade frictions, trade policies, and the interwar business cycle." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2018. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/3840/.
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This dissertation is composed of six chapters. Based on a comparison with other recessions throughout history, the first chapter motivates studying the Great Depression from a trade perspective. The second chapter sets the stage for such an endeavour. It introduces a new macroeconomic dataset for the interwar period and investigates the prelude and global impact of the Great Depression. Highlighting the variation of its severity along two dimensions, depth and duration, within and across countries, it conjectures that trade must have played an important role for the global extent of the crisis. The third chapter tests this conjecture by resurrecting the concept of the trade multiplier. Based on a causal estimate of the multiplier and auxiliary data, it demonstrates that the trade channel can explain significant proportions of the initial depth of the Depression in small open economies. If the fall of trade was important for propagating the Depression, analysing trade frictions is imperative. The fourth chapter thus turns to the analysis of retaliatory trade policies in response to currency devaluations. It shows that tariff retaliation was an important feature of interwar protectionism. Its effects on trade were large, which casts doubts on the unqualified favourable assessment of unilateral currency depreciations. Relating to the literature on the post-war distance puzzle, the fifth chapter assesses the relative importance of tariffs and transport costs during the interwar period. Not only were tariffs the dominant trade friction during this period, but their increase rendered distancerelated trade costs relatively less important. Finally, the sixth chapter draws implications for the academic and political discourse.
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O'Keeffe, Thomas. "Development writ small." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2018. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/3850/.
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This thesis is concerned with using micro-level data to examine important features of the process of development which occur on a much larger scale. Using a uniquely long and detailed dataset for a single village in India, allied with data from other sources, we explore what development at the level of a village can tell us about development at the level of a state or country. In the first chapter we introduce the village setting of this thesis - Palanpur, describe the data, and document the broad features of development experienced by the village over the course of 60 years. We focus on changes in employment, education, migration within the village - and relate these to the development of India or other areas where appropriate. The overriding picture is one of a village which has been touched by the outside world. The Green revolution initiated sustained growth in agricultural productivity. Large numbers have moved out of subsistence agriculture into non-agricultural pursuits, many of these outside the village. There have been substantial increases in education, migration, and income levels - similar in magnitude to other areas of India. The second chapter investigates how structural transformation, the reallocation of economic activity from agriculture to manufacturing and services, is experienced for economic entities smaller than countries. Despite a vast macroeconomic literature concerning structural transformation for countries along their development path there is little evidence on the nature of structural transformation at a more microeconomic level. Firstly, we document the stylised facts of structural transformation from the empirical macroeconomic literature. Secondly, we show that these stylised facts are consistent with India's development experience over more than 100 years. We then proceed to document how these empirical facts map onto progressively smaller geographic areas within India. Finally we demonstrate that these features of structural transformation hold true even at the level of a single village in India. The pattern of sectoral reallocation in terms of both income and employment shares is strikingly similar and consistent with the extant stylised facts at all levels. This result has important implications for the way we should think about the complementarity of agricultural and non-agricultural development. The third chapter explores the role of employment networks within the process of development in rural India. The relevant networks we examine are caste and extended family networks, called dynasties. We first establish that there exist job networks in nonagricultural employment for individuals working outside the village. These networks have large effects, and these effects are larger for extended family networks. We then demonstrate that these job networks exhibit competition from fellow network members. As a placebo test we confirm smaller or non-existent network effects for another type of employment believed to be less prone to job referral networks. The second part of this chapter then tests if these dynasty network effects observed for outside employment are consistent with a model of labour market network dynamics. The data are consistent with the model and display both a negative competition effect and a positive information effect. Dynasty network cohorts who arrive in the labour market prior to workers have a positive effect on their employment prospects but those who arrive at the same time have a negative impact. The chapter finishes with some evidence on the potential long run implications of these networks.
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Zhang, Yanan. "Understanding saving, consumption, and healthcare systems in China." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2018. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/8497/.
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This thesis aims to explain the financial behavior of households and individuals in China, with a focus on the effects of the old-age dependency, household composition and healthcare systems. First, we investigate the association between old-age dependency ratio and household savings with 1995-2015 provincial-level panel data in China. The results show a negative association between the old-age dependency and the savings ratio, which is weaker in areas with higher level of government medical expenditure, financial development and insurance density. Second, we examine household composition and consumption with the 2011 and 2013 waves of China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS). We provide evidence that the reallocation of resources freed up when an offspring moves out depends on the lever’s age. Finally, using the 2011, 2013 and 2015 waves of CHARLS, we evaluate and compare the Urban Employee Basic Medical Insurance (UEBMI) and resident health insurance (RHI) schemes. Estimations show that UEBMI is associated with a higher level of household consumption, the utilization of healthcare services, and medical expenditure (compared to RHI). Additionally, RHI fails to help poor people in purchasing sufficient healthcare, whilst UEBMI encourages rich people to overuse healthcare services.
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Stephenson, Judy. "The organisation of work and wages in the London building trades in the long eighteenth century." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2015. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/3773/.
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The wage data that economic historians rely on for calculating key economic indicators and living standards across Europe are all derived from records of building craftsmen and labourers’ pay. Existing series suggest wages in London were substantially higher than in other European centres from 1650 to 1800, and current accepted theories ascribe Britain’s early industrialisation to the products and incentives of this wage structure. But the period after the Restoration was one of prodigious building in London, and of organisational change in the construction trades. This thesis examines the contractual and organisational context in which building craftsmen and labourers operated and shows that the nature of the ‘day rates’ used to construct wage series in London and England has been misunderstood. As a result, wages and real wages have been overstated for England throughout the long eighteenth century.
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Christodoulaki, Olga. "The origins of central banking in Greece." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2015. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/3801/.
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The establishment of a fully fledged central bank in Greece between May 1927 and May 1928 was a prerequisite for the country’s stabilisation programme prepared by the FinancialCommittee of the League of Nations. Prior to 1928, the National Bank of Greece had acted as a central bank whilst at the same time being by far the biggest and most powerful commercial bank in the country. Under pressure from the League, its governors faced the challenge of transforming it into a fully fledged central bank by shedding all business that was in the province of deposit and commercial banking. They chose instead for the Bank to retain its commercial activities and instead a new fully fledged central bank was established. This thesis explores both the central banking and commercial aspects of the National Bank from the enactment of the Law of Control in 1898 until de jure stabilisation in 1928. It addresses the following questions: why was the National Bank not in a position to transform itself into a fully fledged central bank on its own initiative following a path similar to that described by the natural evolution hypothesis? Why were the commercial activities of the National Bank so important that in the end it chose to retain that aspect of its business when prior to 1927 it had so fiercely guarded its central banking privileges? It is argued that it was the way in which the governors of the National Bank combined central banking responsibilities with commercial banking that safeguarded and preserved the financial strength and consequently the reputation of the Bank throughout its entire history as a bank of issue. The financial position of the dual-purpose Bank was also protected by the conservative and risk-averse way in which it pursued its commercial activities. The National Bank’s financial strength was based on its market power and its ability to select high quality assets and liabilities which resulted in its enduring profitability and solvency. The quality of its assets and liabilities was more important for its governors than maximisation of profits per se. The way that central banking reforms were implemented is also studied. The objectives and functions of the new central bank are evaluated as well as its financial position when it first opened its doors for business. It is maintained that the statutes of the Bank of Greece were at the heart of the central banking principles promoted by the Bank of England and were focused on the macro function of a central bank and on its role as the bank of the government. This thesis also sheds light on the complex relationship that arose between Greek governments and foreign supervisors between the enactment of the Law of Control in 1898 and stabilisation in 1928. Furthermore, it asks questions about the conditionality attached to bailout loans in the late nineteenth century and in the 1920s. The impact that international financial intervention had on monetary reforms is clearly demonstrated. It is argued that monetary developments in Greece between 1898 and 1928 reflect the political economy of the time as well as the historical circumstances. Monetary reforms were shaped by the objectives of the National Bank and the constraints under which it operated rather than foreign control. These findings provide valuable insights into why Greek governments have unsuccessfully struggled to implement widespread structural reforms demanded by their lenders since 2010 and as a consequence the country has experienced a deep and protracted economic recession.
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Wjuniski, Bernardo Stuhlberger. "Multiple exchange rates and industrialization in Brazil, 1953-1961 : macroeconomic miracle or mirage?" Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2017. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/3781/.
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This dissertation revisits Brazil's experience with multiple exchange rates (MERs) between 1953 and 1961. Exchange controls such as MERs were common across the world during the early days of the Bretton Woods arrangement, despite the resistance from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which assumed they caused instability and balance of payments crises. Latin America’s use of exchange controls was widespread, with different exchange rates also adopted as instruments to stimulate import substitution industrialization (ISI). Brazil’s MER system was, however, a unique experiment, with all the country’s imports included in a regime of auctions of foreign exchange, resulting in a controlled depreciation process with different sectoral exchange rates. The experience had two phases, the first of which diverged from other cases in the region in lasting much longer, maintaining stable macroeconomic conditions, and avoiding IMF interventions. The second phase resulted in a decline of the system's macroeconomic effectiveness and its eventual collapse in 1961. This research investigates the peak and decline of Brazil’s MER systems by analyzing a new quantitative dataset that is further complemented by qualitative sources. The main thesis is that Brazil’s MER regime was a ‘successful’ experience during its first phase, with a singular design that supported the stabilization of macroeconomic conditions. Officials were ‘guiding the invisible hand’ of the market to help balance macroeconomic variables. The dissertation also shows that the MER system was not a protectionist instrument to stimulate import substitution in advanced sectors and did not generate distortions to sectoral industrial growth. It was, however, transformed during its second phase into a mechanism to subsidize private sector imports and increase the government’s direct participation in the industrial effort, which was an industrial deepening process with costly macroeconomic consequences.
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Zobl, Franz Xaver. "Regional economic development under trade liberalisation, technological change and market access : evidence from 19th century France and Belgium." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2018. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/3755/.
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This PhD thesis analyses the spatial dimension of economic development in 19th century France and Belgium. During the 19th century Western European economies underwent a socio-economic and technological transformation to sustained rates of economic growth. The integration of domestic and foreign markets driven by declining transport costs and the reduction of trade barriers, shaped the economic geography of Western Europe. Consisting of three articles, this PhD thesis provides detailed empirical analyses of the spatial effects of trade liberalisation, technological change as well as the relative importance of market access and factor endowments. The first article studies the spatial effects of the Cobden-Chevalier treaty of 1860 which lifted all import prohibitions on British manufacturers, exposing French producers to intensified British competition. The results show that increased British competition has led to a shift in the spatial distribution of French production and employment. Regions located closer to Britain lost employment and output shares in industries which experienced a rising importance of British imports. The second article analyses the interrelatedness between the diffusion of power technologies and urbanisation. I ask the research question whether French adherence to water power, and slow diffusion of steam technologies, was associated with low urbanisation, limited gains from urban agglomeration and through this mechanism constrained economic development. I find that steam-powered firms were around twice as likely to be located in urban regions while water-powered firms were highly associated with rural municipalities. Moreover, urban firms paid higher wages and were more productive than their rural counterparts. The third article studies the importance of access to coal and markets to explain regional patterns of Belgian industrialisation. The analysis shows that both access to coal and markets played important roles, suggesting that supply and demand factors should be seen as necessary rather than sufficient conditions of 19th century industrialisation.
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Seibold, Arthur. "Essays on behavioral responses to social insurance and taxation." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2018. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/3759/.
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This thesis contains three essays on behavioral responses to social insurance and taxation. The first chapter documents and analyzes an important and puzzling stylized fact about retirement behavior: the large concentration of job exits at specific ages. In Germany, almost 30% of workers retire precisely in the month when they reach one of three “statutory” retirement ages, although there is often no incentive or even a disincentive to retire at these thresholds. To study what can explain the concentration of retirements around statutory ages, I use novel administrative data covering the universe of German retirees, and I take advantage of unique variation in retirement incentives as well as in the location of statutory ages across individuals created by the German pension system. Measuring retirement bunching responses to 644 different discontinuities in pension benefit profiles, I first document that financial incentives alone fail to explain retirement patterns in the data. Second, I show that there is a direct effect of “presenting” a threshold as a statutory age, which is substantially larger than that of financial incentives. Further evidence on mechanisms suggests the framing of statutory ages as reference points for retirement as an explanation. A number of alternative channels including firm responses are also discussed but they do not seem to drive the results. The second chapter analyzes bunching responses around reference points and argues that bunching methods are naturally suited to quantify reference-dependent preferences. Using a standard labor supply model, the workhorse of the bunching literature, I first show that different types of reference dependence all have a key prediction in common: They imply sharp bunching of the outcome at the reference point. Observed bunching can be linked to underlying parameters, which motivates both structural and reduced-form estimation methods to implement an empirical bunching approach to reference dependence. Finally, I present two applications in the context of retirement decisions. First, I find significant bunching responses at a type of “pure” reference point, namely round retirement ages. Second, I complement the analysis from chapter 1 with structural estimation and find a quantitatively important role of reference dependence at statutory retirement ages. Counterfactual simulations highlight that shifting statutory ages via pension reforms can be an effective policy to increase actual retirement ages with a positive fiscal impact. The third chapter turns to a topic from the realm of taxation. Modern systems of firm taxation typically feature a combination of payroll, valued-added, and corporate income taxes. However, they often exist alongside special presumptive tax regimes targeted at small and medium enterprises (SME), such as a single turnover tax. This chapter uses novel administrative data from S ̃ao Paulo (Brazil), including data on inter-firm trade, to shed light on the effects of such dual tax systems on firm growth, market competition, and production decisions. First, we show that the firm size distribution is distorted by the eligibility threshold for the presumptive tax system. Second, ineligible (larger) firms are adversely affected by reductions in the tax and compliance burden for SME. Third, we study the relationship between tax systems and production choices. The presumptive tax mainly replaces a payroll tax and a value-added tax by a turnover tax in our context. Accordingly, we find that firms in the presumptive tax regime use relatively more labor input and source more of their intermediate input from other firms in the same regime. This leads to partial segmentation of the trade network between firms in the two systems. We show that heterogeneity in firm production choices drives part of these correlations, but there is also a causal effect of tax regimes on input choices.
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Jaupart, Pascal. "Essays on the economics of migration." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2017. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/3636/.
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This thesis contributes to our understanding of the economics of international migration. It consists of three chapters exploring some of the consequences and implications of human migration. Chapter 1, ‘No Country for Young Men’, studies the effects of international migration on the schooling and labour outcomes of left-behind children. While a large literature on the topic already exists and focuses on Latin America and China, little is known about how migration affects left-behind individuals in other parts of the world; and Central Asia in particular. The study concentrates on Tajikistan, the country with the highest level of remittance inflows relative to the size of the economy. Using panel data tracking the same children over time, I find important and gender-differenced schooling and labour supply responses. In a nutshell, young males are found to benefit from the migration of one of their household members, while young women are not. The second chapter, ‘Invasive Neighbours’, provides new evidence on the effect of immigration on electoral outcomes in developing countries. The Dominican Republic is used as case study as it provides a highly interesting context to analyse this issue. The vast majority of its immigrants come from neighbouring Haiti, and together the two countries share the island of Hispaniola. I find robust evidence that higher immigrant concentration is associated with greater support for the right-wing political coalition that has traditionally been more opposed to immigration. At the same time, the popularity of the centre-left coalition is found to decline in localities experiencing larger inflows of foreigners. Political competition, citizenship and identity considerations seem to be shaping voting behaviour and individual attitudes towards immigrants in the Dominican Republic. The third and last chapter, ‘The Elusive Quest for Social Diversity?’, analyses the effect of social housing supply on ethnic and social diversity in France’s largest metropolitan areas. High income countries generally rely on the provision of affordable housing through various schemes to both facilitate access to decent accommodation and encourage social diversity at the local level. The analysis takes advantage of a national policy reform to shed light on the issue. I find strong evidence of a positive relationship between social housing and ethnic diversity in local labour markets with large immigrant networks and strong labour demand. Social housing provision also affects the distribution of households’ income at the local level. This chapter contributes to the small but growing literature on the impact of social housing developments on the neighbourhoods in which they are built.
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Lopez-Uribe, Maria del Pilar. "Essays on the political economy of development in Colombia." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2017. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/3646/.
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This thesis consists of three essays on the political economy of development and focuses on topics related to democratization, redistribution and conflict. It studies one the largest countries in Latin America, Colombia, and examines mostly his history during the 20th century. The first chapter, "Buying off the Revolution: Evidence from the Colombian National Peasant Movement, 1957-1985", studies the relationship between democratization and redistribution during periods of revolutionary threats. Far from causing an increase in broad redistribution (e.g. social spending), I show that the state organization of a social movement that extends the political rights of the threatening group can be used to identify rebel leaders and provide private goods to them, in return for preventing social unrest and demobilizing their supporters. I study the context of the organization by the state of the most important social movement in Colombian history -the National Peasant Movement (ANUC)- during the decades of a threat of Communist revolution (1957-1985), when the government gave ANUC direct political participation in the executive branch and economic support. Using three newly digitized data set of the Colombian municipalities, I find that this reform did not lead to higher broad redistribution towards the peasantry but it led to an increase in targeted redistribution in terms of public jobs and lands. By matching the names of the peasant leaders to the beneficiaries of the land reform, evidence suggests that peasant leaders disproportionally benefited from land reform and that targeted redistribution towards the peasant leaders was a mechanism to restrain the Communist threat. Finally, I find suggestive evidence that buying off the rebel leaders was an effective counter-revolutionary strategy as it led to less revolutionary activities after the support to ANUC was terminated (1972-1985). The second chapter, "Roads or Schools? Political Budget Cycles with different types of voters" also studies one form of democratization: the franchise extension. It uses a new Colombian data set (1830-2000), to analyze how changes in the electoral legislation with regard to the characteristics of voters (in terms of education and income levels) have affected fiscal policy in election years. In line with economic theory, I show that after the male universal suffrage law was reformed in 1936 the composition of the expenditure shifted towards social spending (like education, health, and welfare benefits) but there was a decrease in spending on infrastructure and investment projects (like roads). Consistent with the literature, I also find: 1.The timing and the size of the political budget cycles changed after 1936 and 2. After 1936 there was a shift in the funding mechanisms from indirect tax revenues to more debt. In addition to democratization and redistribution, the third chapter examines the causes of the civil conflict in Colombia. The third chapter "On the agrarian origins of civil conflict in Colombia", co-authored with Fabio Sanchez, investigates the impact of land dispossessions by landlords on the origin of the civil conflict in Colombia. The study exploits variation in floods to identify how peasants’ land dispossessions during the export boom (1914-1946) determine the rise of rural guerrilla movements and the consolidation of their rebel activities. It uses a novel municipal-level dataset on natural disasters and land dispossession, and documents that municipalities experiencing floods during the years 1914-1946 were substantially more likely to have land dispossessions than municipalities where floods was not severe. Floods reduced temporarily the conditions of the land and its value, facilitating the dispossession of the peasants of their lands by large landowners. Using a matching-pair instrumental variable approach, we show that the historical dispossession of lands by landlords that led to the rise of peasant grievances is associated with the presence of the rural guerrilla movement -The Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (FARC)- during the first stage of the Colombian civil conflict. We propose two mechanisms through which previous land dispossessions facilitated the emergence of rebel armed groups and use a mediation analysis to test the indirect effects. On the one hand, exposure to previous civil wars gave military training and access to weapons and military experience to the rural population that likely created incentives for the formation of rebel groups. On the other hand, the ideological politics of rebellion by the Communist party exacerbated the grievances and helped to the emergence of rebel armed groups.
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Paek, Christopher. "This is how we bury our dead : an institutional analysis of microinsurance and financial inclusion in South Africa." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2017. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/3677/.
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South African insurance companies have made substantial in-roads into the low-income segments of the insurance market. The strength of microinsurance—insurance products designed specifically for low-income individuals—has been fueled almost exclusively by the sale of funeral insurance products, an unsurprising trend considering the immense cultural value that many South Africans place on funerals. Insurance companies have managed to achieve scale by tapping into community-based infrastructures, which serve as low-cost distribution channels for these products. The incursion of “insurance culture” into this space has thus resulted in a market ecosystem in which formal and informal institutions are in fluid states of tension and cooperation. Building on institutional theory and adopting ethnography as its primary methodological approach, this thesis examines the institutional dynamics underpinning South African microinsurance markets. Based on fieldwork I conducted from June 2015-April 2016 (based primarily in Cape Town and the neighboring township of Khayelitsha), my thesis will highlight the ways in which formal and informal institutions interact to produce regulatory outcomes that enable and/or constrain individual actors. While these institutional structures shape individual decision-making with regard to risk management, I also consider the ways in which individuals exercise agency to navigate shifting institutional landscapes and effect change in underlying structures. Thus, this thesis contributes to the debates on microinsurance, as well as on financial inclusion more broadly, reframing them within this complex interplay between institutions and actors.