Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Rent (Economic theory)'

Most reputation-based models of sovereign debt assume that a default on a loan obligation leads to the imposition of an immediate and permanent credit embargo. The first part of this thesis examines the case in which the length of exclusion is endogenously determined and may consequently be finite or infinite. In this way, lulls in activity followed by enthusiastic lending in the international credit market can be modelled. Additionally, examining the optimal exclusion strategy of the creditor allows investigation of the consequences of `excusing' default. By not punishing a defaulter immediately, it is more likely that a complete loan embargo will be imposed in the future. The effect of excusing default on the expected value of the credit relationship to the country is also examined. A negative externality can arise in the relationship between a sovereign borrower and a creditor due to the existence of countries which repeatedly default on their debt: a default by one country may make the creditor more cautious in lending to others. The effects of this externality are examined in a dynamic model in which the bank does not know the type of customer it faces, but can learn its identity over time. The equilibrium actions of the players then depend crucially on the borrower's reputation for creditworthiness. Even a country which is not an inherent defaulter may be tempted to repudiate its debt obligations with this type of incomplete information structure. Each successive default causes reputation to fall until a critical level is surpassed, at which point a permanent lending embargo is imposed. In this dynamic model of debtor reputation, borrowers face an additional problem as they do not always possess the funds needed to make a repayment and thus reveal their type. In recognizing that borrowing countries can be different by nature, the final part of this thesis examines an economy which is driven to borrow externally as an endogenous outcome of a political system in which interest groups lobby political parties. The amount of borrowing is shown to depend upon the number of redistributive policies the parties can use and the attitude of the voters to external borrowing. A proposal is put forward for linking debt forgiveness in this type of lobbying economy to the level of rent-seeking carried out by the interest groups. lt is demonstrated that this proposal is capable of improving the well being of the ordinary citizens of the economy who share the repayment cost but may not enjoy the benefits of external borrowing.

[Truncated abstract] The 1997 Asian Financial Crisis raised serious questions about the nature of East Asia's rise to economic prosperity, once labelled as a 'miracle' by the World Bank. In particular, East Asian governments were criticised for allowing rampant corruption to pervade their economies. At a conceptual level, the overwhelming majority of studies argue that corruption, defined as the misuse of public office for private gain, has impeded growth. Empirically, many studies have shown the detrimental impact of corruption on economic growth but few have analysed the particular effect of corruption on East Asia's economic growth in the years leading up to the 1997 Crisis, a period characterised by superior economic growth rates against the backdrop of corruption. This study seeks to fill that gap. By virtue of its clandestine nature, any study on corruption is subject to measurement limitations and this study is no exception. The only available data on corruption are indices published by a handful of various international organisations. Each of these indices follows a similar format: they are based partly or wholly on surveys of the corporate sector in each of the sample countries, the results of which are converted into corruption scores and used to rank the sample countries. Although there is a general consistency in rankings across the different indices, the survey questions tend to equate corruption with bribery. In one survey which questioned respondents about corruption and bribery in separate questions, the results indicated that the two are not necessarily synonymous at least in the minds of respondents. A brief analysis of the nature of corruption within East Asia reveals why the tendency to equate corruption with bribery can be misleading, and therefore raises doubts about the credibility of the aforementioned corruption indices. Many countries in East Asia are shown to harbour a network of patron-client relationships within a centralised framework. ... When using the available corruption indices as measures of corruption in a corruption-growth model that is applied to cross-sectional data covering 141 countries in 1996, corruption is found to have a significant positive relationship with economic growth for two of the corruption indices. However, no particular significant relationship is found to exist for East Asian countries within the sample. The corruption indices are then combined to produce a single index of corruption which is then used in a corruption-growth model and applied to panel data covering 33 countries over a twenty year period from 1984 to 2003. This time the corruption variable is found to have a significant positive relationship with economic growth for East Asian countries (excluding Singapore) during 1986-1996. Finally, the concept of rent-seeking is examined as an alternative to the typical principal-agent model of corruption used in the literature, based on its strong resonance with the particular nature of corruption in East Asia. A measure of rent-seeking is developed, and using cross-sectional data for 57 countries in 1996 reveals that rent-seeking has a significant positive relationship with economic growth.

Recent economic debate has focused upon regional labour markets, with particular reference to unemployment, earnings and apparent rigidity in the labour market. In the regional context, two sources of labour market rigidity have been proposed, firstly through wage rigidity, and secondly through mobility costs and cost-of-living differences generated by the housing market. Using unique data from the New Earnings Survey (NES), the earnings differential between Scotland and the rest of Great Britian is shown to consist of both long-run ('equilibrium') factors and short-run ('disequilibrium') factors. Further spatial disaggregation has highlighted Greater London and the South East of England as particularly distinctive in terms of labour market behaviour and characteristics. Use of the NES database has also enabled analysis of female employees, who have hitherto been overlooked by analysis of regional labour markets. In general female employees, especially non-manual, are shown to have fewer characteristics of competitive regional market behaviour than males. This implies that previous analysis may have under-estimated the rigidity of regional labour markets. Confirming previous studies, evidence from NES data for Scotland (using both time-series and cross-section analysis) only weakly supports evidence of regional wage rigidity, however there is strong evidence supporting the influence of the housing market on regional labour markets. Cost-of-living differences and mobility costs are further fuelled in the U.K. by considerable tax relief incentives in the housing market. The immediate policy prescription is therefore reduction of these incentives and general attention to mobility costs of both employees and employers.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2004.
Title from first page of PDF file. Document formatted into pages; contains xi, 179 p. : ill. Advisor: Oded Shenkar, Business Administration Graduate Program. Includes bibliographical references (p. 128-153).

This dissertation comprise of two chapters on the macroeconomic effect of natural resource rents. Specifically, we focus on the effect of resource rents on human capital accumulation. In chapter one, we present a new mechanism for the curse of natural resources, i.e., "why natural resource rents if distributed as transfers to individuals' income might retard economic growth and development: their effect on incentives to invest in human capital". Extending an OLG model for this purpose, we show that the windfall rents from natural resources, when transferred directly to citizens distort their incentives away from accumulating the optimum level of human capital and thus from economic growth. This increases the chance of a low-level equilibrium trap and reduces the chance of converging to a higher income per capita in the long run.

In chapter two, we present a dynamic panel data model, and a cross section model to see the effect of transfers in countries with high natural resource rents per person on human capital accumulation. We use tertiary education as a human capital indicator, since at this educational level, people choose to accumulate professional skills and direct their talents to sectors with the highest expected return. Using a dynamic panel data model for five years averages of tertiary education, one can see that the combined effect of government transfers and natural resource rents per labor have a negative and significant effect on human capital. However, using a cross section analysis for the same purpose, one can see that not only the combined effect of resource rents per labor and government transfers have a negative and significant effect on tertiary education, but also resource rents per labor alone have a negative and significant effect on tertiary education. Our cross section results coincide with the natural resource curse literature as it shows that resource rents have a long-term negative effect on social capital investments such as tertiary education.

This thesis studies the role of financial frictions in shaping the consumption and investment behavior in China and its implications on rest of the world. The first chapter uses a panel of Chinese individual level data to show that the inability to borrow against future labour income forces a significant portion of individuals to deviate from a smooth consumption path over the life cycle, which they would otherwise follow. Financial frictions also affect the Chinese corporate sector. The second chapter relates China's current account surplus, as well as productivity differential between state-owned (SOEs) and privately-owned enterprises (POEs), to differences in access to finance. I consider an open- economy DSGE model of the Chinese economy with two productive sectors. I model SOEs and POEs as start-ups which need to borrow in order to begin production. Following a policy-induced asymmetric shock to the borrowing constraints, SOEs are on average less productive than POEs. Because of the lower hurdle rate for investment they face, SOEs end up creating more investable assets than POEs, while, due to more constrained credit availability, POEs save more and invest less than SOEs. In aggregate, this simple mechanism implies investment (driven by less productive SOEs) does not keep up with savings (driven by more productive POEs), resulting in a current ac- count surplus. Furthermore, the savings of Chinese POEs owners in search of investable foreign assets put downward pressure on the world long run real interest rate. In the third chapter, I move from China to an international perspective. This chapter constructed a measure of financial frictions for 41 emerging economies (EMs) between 1995 and 2008 in order to shed light on common factors across countries. Finally, Chapter four shows econometrically that financial frictions pose a serious danger to EMs, by reducing long run economic growth, raising the probability of a crisis, and leading to asset bubbles. Consistent with Chapter 2, I confirm that financial fractions can also help explain the current account position of EMs.

Denna studie undersöker bakomliggande faktorer till lokaliseringsbeslut när kontorssektorn väljer att etablera sig utanför stadens centrum. Vi analyserar hur företagen resonerar och vilka faktorer som påverkar deras beslut. Tidigare forskning och teori talar för att ett centralt läge är det mest optimala för kontorssektorn, då det genererar agglomerationsfördelar. Därför är kontorssektorns betalningsvilja för mark också högst i centrala lägen. På ett icke-centralt läge som Hyllie, skulle företag som är beroende av billiga transporter som tillverkningsindustrin valt att lokalisera sig. Detta då de föredrar närheten till motorvägar över de centrala platserna. Studien är avgränsad till området Hyllie, vilken är lokaliserad i utkanten av Malmö och nära infrastrukturen. Hyllie var också en ödelagd åkermark när de första kontorsföretagens gjorde beslutet om att etablera sig där. Det fanns dock visioner och en framarbetad detaljplan som kommunen skapat tillsammans med marknadens aktörer, där Percy Nilssons engagemang troligen hade en stor inverkan. Därför har kommunen och Percy ingått som respondenter i studien för att även fördjupa författarnas inblick i områdets utveckling. Studien bygger på en kvalitativ ansats där empirisk data har insamlats genom både ostrukturerade- och semistrukturerade intervjuer med ett urval av anställda inom banksektorn. De banker som ingår i studiens urval är Nordea, Sparbanken Syd och Swedbank. Det valda teoretiska materialet har byggt grunden för intervjufrågor och även för analysen. Resultaten av studien visar på att de främsta faktorerna bakom lokaliseringsbeslutet i Hyllie var att platsen ansågs vara strategisk, erbjöd en bra kollektivtrafik samt gav tillgång till de människorna som skulle röra sig i området på grund av bland annat Emporia och arenan.
This study explores the underlying factors that affect location decisions when the office sector chooses to establish outside the city center. We analyze how companies are reasoning and the factors that influence their decisions. Previous research and theory suggest businesses in the office sector prefer central location, as they generate agglomeration advantages. Therefore, the office sector’s willingness to pay for land is highest at central locations. At a non-central location like Hyllie, should companies which rely on cheap transports of goods such as the manufacturing industry choose to locate. This because of that they prefer nearness to motorways over central locations. The essay focuses on the area Hyllie, which is located outside of Malmoe and close to the infrastructure. Hyllie was also a loamy field when the first office companies made the decision to establish there. However, there were visions and a zoning plan that were prepared by the municipality along with the market actors, where Percy Nilsson's involvement probably also had a great impact. Therefore, the municipality and Percy have been included as respondents in this study to deepen the authors' insight into the development of the area. The essay is based on a qualitative approach where the empirical data has been collected through both unstructured- and semi-structured interviews with a selection of employees in the banking sector. The banks that are included in the study's selection are Nordea, Sparbanken Syd and Swedbank. The selected theoretical material has been the basis for the interview-questions and also for the analysis. The result of the study shows that the main factors behind the location decision in Hyllie are that the place is perceived as a strategic location, offers a good public transport service and provides access to people who are in the area because of Emporia and the arena for instance.

Studien undersöker de faktorer som ligger bakom spelutvecklingsföretagens val vid etablering i de centrala delarna av Malmö. Analys har gjorts på hur spelutvecklingsföretagen resonerar kring deras beslut samt vilka faktorer de grundar sin lokalisering på. Enligt tidigare studier är det vanligt att kontorssektorn lokaliserar sig centralt då företaget kan dra nytta av de agglomerationsfördelar som generellt skapas genom kluster. Vid en nyttomaximerad verksamhet blir betalningsviljan högre på dessa platser. Andra studier har däremot visat att spelutvecklingsföretag har möjligheten att placera sig utanför städerna eftersom de inte har samma karaktärsdrag som den karakteristiska kontorssektorn. Den här studien är avgränsad inom spelutvecklingsindustrin i Malmö, vilket inte inkluderar online gambling. Malmö är en välkänd spelhubb världen över och det sker många internationella rekryteringar. Staden erbjuder bra kommunikationer både regionalt men också internationellt då Köpenhamns flygplats bara ligger 20 minuter från Malmös centralstation. Det empiriska materialet är insamlat via semistrukturerade intervjuer gjorda med representanter från både Massive Entertainment och Avalanche Studios. Studien bygger på en kvalitativ ansats men också textanalys då vi granskat spelutvecklingsföretagens internethemsidor. Grunden för studien har byggts upp med hjälp av teoretiskt material. Resultatet av studien visar att spelföretag beaktar medarbetarnas närhet till arbetsplatsen som en av de viktigaste faktorerna vid placering av deras kontor. Det är viktigt att kontorsplaceringen förenklar gång- och cykelavstånd till och från de stora kommunikationspunkterna. En annan orsak till att både Massive och Avalanche etablerade sig i Malmö var att man ville vara en del i stadens gemenskap. De flesta spelutvecklingsföretagen i Malmö är beroende av varandra därför att de delar samma typ av arbetskraft, kompetens och genom närhet till varandra underlättas stora sammankomster och samarbeten.
The study examines the underlying factors behind game development companies choices when establishing in the central parts of Malmö. The analysis has been based on how game development companies reason about their decision as well as which factors they found their localisation on. According to previous studies it is common that the office sector often choose to localise centrally because the company can benefit from the agglomeration economies that are generally created through clusters. By having a utility maximized business the willingness-to-pay increases in these places. However previous studies have shown that game development companies have the opportunity to locate outside of the cities since they do not have the same characteristics as the common office sector.This study is limited to the game development industry in Malmo, which do not include online gambling. Malmo is a well-known gaming hub worldwide and there is frequent international recruitment. The city offers good communications both regionally and internationally, since Copenhagen Airport is only 20 minutes away from Malmo centralstation.The empirical material is gathered through semi-structured interviews made with representatives from both Massive Entertainment and Avalanche Studios. The study is founded on a qualitative approach but also text analysis by examining game development companies websites. The foundation of the study has been based on theoretical material. The results of the study show that the game development companies take their employees commute into consideration as one of the most important factors for the placement of their office. It is of importance that the office placement simplifies with easy access to and from the workplace by foot and cycling as well as the main commuting routes. Another reason why both Massive and Avalanche established themselves in Malmo was because they wanted to be part of the city's community. Most game development companies in Malmo are dependent on each other because they are sharing the same type of workforce and competence, and through proximity to each other, large gatherings and collaborations are facilitated.

The Capturetheory wants to give an alternative explanation for the need of regulation. From this point if view the government does not have enough information to make an optimal regulation. There is a possibility for different interest groups to take advantage of the political arena by rent- seeking behaviour. An industry may be willing to be regulated to protect itself from competition. The objective of this paper is to account for the pros and cons of the theory of regulatory capture and also if it can be applied to the Swedish market of pharmaceuticals. The theory of regulatory capture is first and foremost a theory of the motives behind regulation. The Swedish market for pharmaceuticals has been analysed by looking into the underlying force of both the pharmaceutical industry and that of the State. There is room for the regulatory agencies to be captured by the industry because of the information provided to them by the industry. The concluding findings show that the Capture theory can applied to the Swedish market for pharmaceuticals.

La thèse traite du cas des << mdd >> dans la grande distribution en france. Son objet est, dans un premier temps, de mettre en évidence la spécificité des mdd, par rapport a une marque traditionnelle telle qu'elle est approchée par la théorie de la différenciation. Cela est fait par une analyse du jeu concurrentiel qui se déroule entre les marques nationales et les mdd. La spécificité apparaît alors du type rente génère par les mdd. Le type de stratégie mis en oeuvre par les distributeurs conduit néanmoins a des types d'affrontements différents avec la marque nationale : la mdd différenciée peut conduire a une éviction du fabricant, tandis que la mdd non différenciée nécessité davantage la conservation de la marque nationale pour sa propre valorisation. Quelle que soit la stratégie adoptée,le succès repose néanmoins sur la capacité du distributeur a animer le noeud de contrats qui permet de valoriser la mdd : il faut coordonner les acteurs qui offrent les produits en amont, et les acteurs qui les distribuent, les points de vente en aval. Hiérarchie, contrats, incitations, confiance, tous ces mécanismes sont utilises par les distributeurs. La deuxième partie de la thèse montre, dans ce cas précis, quelles sont les organisations les plus a même de générer une quasi-rente organisationnelle qui pourra être conservée dans l'organisation. L'organisation << adéquate >> est également mise en relation avec la stratégie poursuivie. Dans ce travail, la coopération, comme organisation stable, voire peu coûteuse, occupe une place particulière ;

Ce travail analyse les relations entre la mutation informationnelle, l'organisation économique et les territoires. Il est d'abord expliqué, grâce à un filtrage permettant de montrer l'évolution des performances technico-économiques des TIC (Technologies de l'Information et de la Communication) à travers l'exemple du télé-enseignement dans le département de la Manche, en quoi et comment le champ des possibles en matière d'allocation et de création des ressources notamment " informationnelles " est profondément élargi, ce qui implique de repenser l'espace et l'économie spatiale au moins en ce qui concerne les services. Ensuite, une interprétation théorique des évolutions liées à l'information et aux TIC est proposée en caractérisant la mutation informationnelle et son " impact ", sous l'influence des asymétries de pouvoir informationnel qu'elle engendre, sur les marchés, les organisations et les territoires. A travers l'émergence d'une Nouvelle Logique d'Organisation Economique (NLOE) touchant les pôles que sont les conditions de base, les structures, les comportements et les performances des marchés, des firmes, de l'économie dans son ensemble et les relations d'influence existant entre ces pôles, la prédominance des comportements sur l'ensemble de la LOE est mise en évidence, comme une caractéristique importante des effets de la mutation informationnelle. Enfin les articulations nouvelles engendrées par la NLOE, entre les territoires, l'information et l'innovation, sont expliquées à l'aide de l'economie spatiale, de l'économie de l'information et de la socio-économie de l'innovation. Les bases du fondement théorique d'une politique informationnelle et des outils d'aide à la décision publique sont proposés afin de maximiser les effets de cette mutation informationnelle en termes de développement économique et d'aménagement du territoire, grâce aucconcept " d'Espace Serviciel " et aux notions de " learning by commuting " et de Rente Informationnelle Collective.

The thesis investigates the failure of market price to incorporate a payment to the environment for its economic contribution to the process of production. Owner-operated agricultural land is used as the 'link' between the two value systems. The Aristotelian concept of 'nature's bounty' is identified as the basis of an historical connection between environmental and economic value in land. The concept of a natural surplus is observed to play a critical role in the theory of rent. Ricardian rent theory is pivotal in effecting a separation of environmental, from economic value by attributing zero value for rent on sub-marginal land, thus making, it is argued, the environmental component on land at the margin, valueless. It is observed that the status of a surplus value has contributed to rent being seen as price determined, with a consequent 'weakening' in its role as a cost of production. The argument is made that, while supply and demand ultimately determine price, labour and capital, due to their political and theoretical status, determine price in the shorter term, with these costs paid irrespective of price. It is argued that land, due to its price determined magnitude, fails to determine price even in the short term and thus the environment suffers through land's categorization as a surplus value. This carries implications for policy making where an assumption is made that environmental costs can be retrieved by the landowner through price.

Government policies with redistributive implications have been a source of many social and political conflicts. Until recently, positive economics has lacked a consistent analytical framework that could explain how such policies are formed and how they respond to exogenous shocks. This study makes a contribution towards this direction by offering a consistent theoretical framework for short-run policy modelling. Assuming that tariff rates are the only available instruments of a government’s redistributive policy this study addresses the following two specific questions: (i) how the tariff rates are determined; (ii) and how do they respond to exogenous shocks? To answer these questions, a general equilibrium model of a political economy is developed by combining a model of the political sphere with a Ricardo-Viner type model of the economic sphere. Policies are determined by strategic interactions between government and the conflicting interest groups in the political sphere which, in turn, determine the welfare of the interest groups in the economic sphere and political support for the government in the political sphere. The conflicting interest groups may spend resources in predatory political activities or may choose to cooperate. A general equilibrium of the political economy is obtained when both the political and the economic spheres are simultaneously in equilibrium. Under fairly general conditions, it is shown that at least one equilibrium exists in a political economy whether it exhibits cooperative behaviour in the political sphere or not This study has employed the analytical framework of cooperative-bargaining theory in obtaining a general equilibrium model of the political economy. This approach is taken because a noncooperative equilibrium is not necessarily Pareto efficient Several interesting results follow from the comparative static properties of the model. In particular, it is shown that: (i) the import-competing sector receives increased protection if the relative price of the home importable falls in the world market; (ii) the protection afforded to a particular sector declines if the domestic endowment of factors moves in favour of that sector, and (iii) so long as the distribution of relative bargaining power remains unaffected by the shocks, the response of the tariff rate to the shocks will be independent of the distribution the bargaining power. These analytical results are very similar to ones that follow from the maximization of a conservative social welfare function. The implications are that: (i) a government’s redistributive policy could be modelled as an equilibrium outcome of a bargaining process between the organized interest groups holding conflicting interests on the level of the redistributive policy; and (ii) the bargaining process may be viewed as the mechanism of generating a conservative social welfare function. The self-interest, and public-interest approaches in policy modelling can thus be reconciled.

The purpose of this dissertation is to establish a historically specific theory of landed property in Australia that can serve as the foundation for a socially significant theory of mineral-rent. This task is necessary because the orthodox theory of rent is unable to explain effectively the formation and distribution of mineral-rents. This failure of the orthodoxy not only obscures clear understanding of the social significance of rent but also retards the rational organisation of the minerals industry. It is therefore imperative that the theory of rent is critically examined. This critical reappraisal of economic theory will be conducted in relation to the operations and consequences of the global mining industry within Australia in the contemporary period. The aim of this analysis is to illuminate the dynamics of capital accumulation that underpinned debates around the ill-fated Australian ‘mining tax’. It is argued that these parliamentary-political machinations were a phenomenal manifestation of an essential contradiction of the capitalist mode of production. As landed property conditions the formation and distribution of mineral-rents, the question becomes one of how to identify the character and function of modern landed property in relation to the dynamics of capital accumulation. This research contributes to debates within the fields of Marxist rent theory, the political economy of Australian capitalism and the theorisation of landed property. The methodology employed throughout the analysis can be characterised as a generative class analysis in the tradition of the materialist conception of history utilising dialectical reasoning. The analysis is organised according to three distinct yet connected parts. The first part establishes the case for a new theory of mineral-rent by critiquing the prevailing orthodoxy in rent theory. The second part demonstrates the need for a theory of landed property as a necessary precondition for a new, socially significant, theory of mineral-rent. The third part elaborates a historically specific theory of landed property in Australia in relation to the dynamics of capital accumulation. The dissertation concludes by reiterating the core thesis, comprised of three interconnected claims: orthodox rent theory is incapable of explicating the social signification of rental payments for the use of mineral lands; a new theory of mineral-rent necessarily requires a theory of landed property in relation to the dynamics of capital accumulation; the modern form of landed property in Australia is denoted by the separation of ownership and control functions.

The preservation of agricultural land, especially that which lies close to cities (in the so-called urban fringe), is a concern in many jurisdictions around the world. Agricultural land values change dramatically as farmland is located nearer to urban areas and development pressure has increased on these lands as urban populations have expanded. In British Columbia, Canada, a provincial-wide zoning system forbids the development or non-agricultural use of land without special permission. This system is explicitly designed to protect the capability of the land to produce food in the future, but it also implicitly protects the positive spillovers from agricultural land such as environmental services and open space. Three empirical papers comprise the original research in this dissertation. They seek to answer related questions about agricultural land values in the urban fringe. First, a statistical investigation is conducted into the factors that are associated with successful applications for exclusion from the agricultural zoning system. This study finds that a measure of distance (metres from the main highway) is highly significantly correlated with a parcel’s chances of being excluded. Next, a paper examines the trend of hobby farmers springing up in the urban fringe. Two different models seek to illuminate common trends in the types of parcels that hobby farmers choose, and the price that hobby farmers pay for the land, respectively. This study finds that hobby farmers seem to be very selective about the parcels they choose, likely trying to take advantage of favourable taxation rates for agricultural producers in place in the province. Lastly, a study seeks to understand how residential parcels’ values are influenced by the nearness to and view of agricultural land. Agricultural land in the study does not appear to exhibit an open space premium, though this could be influenced by uncertainty about the future use of the land. All the empirical work in this dissertation utilizes geographic information systems (GIS) technology that allows the calculation of distances to features of interest. Hedonic pricing models and binary choice models are the main statistical tools used.

Ontario’s current regulatory approach to low-income housing lies between two primary challenges: the human right to housing, and political/fiscal constraints. This thesis draws on legal theory and economic analysis of law to articulate the proper goals of housing access policy. A structural theory is proposed to explain the normative relationship between efficiency, communitarianism and justice in housing. An array of regulatory options are compared and considered in light of the features that characterize Ontario’s low-income rental housing markets. This analysis favours demand-side housing subsidies to low-income households, combined with supply-side tax expenditures to improve elasticity in the low-income rental market. Further reform of rent and covenant controls, social and affordable housing supply, and land use planning is recommended to ensure an efficient residential tenancy market. These reforms are offered as a framework for the implementation of the human right to housing in Ontario.

Cette thèse s'articule autour de trois essais portant sur des questions internationales en économie des ressources naturelles. Le premier essai examine la production et l'échange des ressources non-renouvelables dans un modèle spatial et souligne le rôle de la superficie des pays et du coût des transports dans la détermination du sens de l'échange. Le deuxième essai considère le tarif d'extraction de la rente de rareté liée aux ressources naturelles non-renouvelables avec le modèle spatial développé dans premier essai. Le cadre spatial (plus général) permet de représenter des pays qui sont à la fois importateurs et producteurs de la ressource, ce qui n'est pas possible dans les modèles traditionnels de commerce international où les pays sont traités comme des points (sans dimension). Le troisième essai aborde la question des droits de propriétés sur les zones maritimes et examine l'allocation d'une population de pêcheurs entre les activités productives et non-productives dans une communauté côtière. Le premier chapitre propose un modèle spatial de commerce international des ressources non-renouvelables. Le cadre spatial considère explicitement la différence de taille géographique (superficie) entre les pays et permet ainsi de tenir compte du fait que les gisements naturels et leurs utilisateurs soient dispersés dans l'espace, même à l'intérieur d'un pays. En utilisant un modèle spatial à la Hotelling, nous examinons l'évolution dans le temps du sens de l'échange entre deux pays (ou régions) qui diffèrent du point de vue de leur technologie de production, de leur superficie et de leur dotation en gisement d'une ressource naturelle non-renouvelable. Le chapitre met en évidence le rôle de la taille géographique dans la détermination du sens de l'échange, à côté des explications traditionnelles que sont l'avantage comparatif et les dotations des facteurs. Notre analyse est fondamentalement différente des autres contributions dans la littérature sur le commerce international des ressources naturelles parce qu'elle souligne l'importance de la taille géographique et du coût de transport par rapport à d'autres facteurs dans la détermination des flux de ressource à l'équilibre. Le coût unitaire de transport joue un rôle capital pour déterminer si la différence de superficie entre les pays influence le sens de l'échange à l'équilibre plus que les autres facteurs. Le chapitre discute aussi du caractère régional des échanges qui a été observé pour certaines ressources telles que le minerai de fer et la bauxite. Le chapitre deux aborde la question de la répartition de la rente de rareté liée aux ressources naturelles non-renouvelables entre les pays producteurs et les pays consommateurs. Cette question a été abordée dans la littérature sous une hypothèse quelque peu restrictive. En effet, dans la plupart des travaux portant sur ce sujet le pays importateur est automatiquement considéré comme dépourvu de gisement et donc non producteur de la ressource. Pourtant la réalité est qu'il existe des ressources pour lesquelles un pays est à la fois producteur et importateur. Le cadre d'analyse de ce second essai est le modèle spatial développé dans le premier essai, qui permet justement qu'un pays puisse être à la fois importateur et producteur de la ressource. Le pays importateur détermine alors simultanément le tarif optimal et le taux d'extraction de son propre stock. Nous montrons que le tarif optimal croît au taux d'intérêt et de ce fait, ne crée aucune distorsion sur le sentier d'extraction de la ressource. Le tarif optimal permet de récupérer toute la rente lorsque le pays exportateur ne consomme pas la ressource. Néanmoins, la possibilité pour le pays exportateur de consommer une partie de son stock limite la capacité du pays importateur à récupérer la rente chez le pays exportateur. La présence de gisements de la ressource dans le pays importateur réduit la rente du pays exportateur et de ce fait renforce la capacité du pays importateur à récupérer la rente chez le pays exportateur. Le tarif initial est une fonction décroissante du stock de ressource dans le pays importateur. Cet essai aborde également la question de la cohérence dynamique du tarif obtenu avec la stratégie en boucle ouverte. Le troisième chapitre examine un problème d'allocation de l'effort entre les activités productives (par exemple la pêche) et les activités non productives (par exemple la piraterie maritime) dans une population de pêcheurs. La répartition de la population entre les activités de pêche et la piraterie est déterminée de façon endogène comme une conséquence du choix d'occupation. Nous établissons l'existence d'une multiplicité d'équilibres et mettons en évidence la possibilité d'une trappe de piraterie, c'est-à-dire un équilibre stable où une partie de la population est engagée dans les actes de piraterie. Le modèle permet d'expliquer l'augmentation significative des attaques de piraterie dans le Golfe d'Aden au cours des dernières années. Le chapitre discute aussi des différents mécanismes pour combattre la piraterie et souligne le rôle crucial des droits de propriété.
This thesis consists of three essays on international issues in natural resource economics. The first essay proposes a spatial model of trade in exhaustible resources and emphasizes the role of geographical size and transport costs in the determination of trade patterns. The second essay considers the rent-extracting tariff in a spatial (more general) framework in which the importing country can be simultaneously a producer and an importer of the resource, a feature which is not possible in the traditional trade model, where countries are assumed dimensionless. The third essay tackles the issue of property rights in maritime zones and examines the allocation of a population of fishermen between productive and unproductive activities in a coastal community. The first chapter proposes a model of trade in exhaustible resources that explicitly accounts for the fact that countries have different geographical sizes while resource sites and their users are spatially distributed, even within a country. Using a spatial model à la Hotelling, we examine the evolution over time of the pattern of trade between two countries (or regions) which differ in terms of their technology, their geographical size, and their endowment of some nonrenewable natural resource. The model emphasizes the importance of geographical size in determining trade patterns besides the traditional explanations of comparative advantage and factor endowments. Indeed, three forces influence the direction of international trade in the presence of transport costs. The analysis fundamentally differs from other contributions in the natural resource literature because it emphasizes the importance of geographical size and of transport cost relative to other factors in the determination of the equilibrium resource flows. The unit cost of transport is shown to play a decisive role in determining whether the international asymmetry in terms of geographical sizes of countries has a greater influence than other factors on the equilibrium pattern of trade. The chapter also discusses the regional character of trade which has been observed for some resources such as iron ore and bauxite. Most findings in the literature on tariff and exhaustible resources have been derived under a serious abstraction. Indeed, virtually all contributions on that issue have assumed that no stocks of the resource are available within the importing country's borders and therefore the importing country is not itself a producer. Reality is in fact quite different: there are many instances of countries that are simultaneously importers and producers of a natural resource. The second chapter makes use of the spatial trade model of chapter one to depart from the usual assumption and allow the importing country to have access to a stock of the resource of its own and to determine simultaneously the optimal tariff and the rate of depletion of its own stock. The optimal tariff is shown to increase at the rate of interest and is therefore nondistortionary. Moreover, the optimal tariff captures all the rent if the exporting country gets no utility from consuming the resource. Allowing the exporting country to consume the resource restricts the ability of the importer to capture all of the foreign rent. The presence of resource deposits in the importing country reduces the available rent to foreign producers and, in essence, reinforces the ability of the importer to capture the foreign rent. In effect, the initial tariff is shown to be a decreasing function of the initial resource stock in the importing country. The essay also discusses the time consistency of the open-loop tariff. The third chapter examines how agents in a coastal community allocate effort between productive (fishing) and unproductive (piracy) activities. The allocation of population between fishing activity and piracy attacks is determined endogenously as a consequence of the occupation choice. We prove the existence of multiple equilibria and emphasize the possibility of a piracy trap, that is a steady state equilibrium where part of the population is engaged in piracy acts. The chapter offers an explanation for the significant increase in piracy attacks in the Gulf of Aden in the recent years. The chapter also discusses different schemes in combating piracy and highlights the crucial role of property rights.

Esta tese avalia a performance e os riscos de três Real Estate Investment Trusts (REIT) portfólios: EREIT, MREIT e AREIT. O portfólio EREIT é composto apenas por ações REIT, MREIT é composto por ações REIT hipotecárias e AREIT composto por ambas as ações descritas. Ao analisar os retornos excessivos, desvio padrão e Sharpe Ratio, os resultados sugerem que o portfólio que contém ambos os tipos de ações REIT (AREIT) teve a melhor performance de todos, para o período em análise (janeiro de 2000 até janeiro de 2020). A performance dos índices S&P500 e Russell 2000 foi igualmente avaliada. Os resultados obtidos sugerem que o Russell 2000 teve melhor performance do que o índice S&P500. Quando todos os ativos foram comparados - MREIT, EREIT, AREIT, S&P500 e Russell 2000 – verificou-se que o portfólio que contém ambos os tipos de ações REIT (AREIT) teve a melhor performance, para o período em análise. O presente trabalho desenvolve a sua análise ao estudar a capacidade explicativa que o modelo de três fatores de Fama e French (1992), o modelo de três fatores de Fama e French (1992) aumentado com o fator momento (MOM) do modelo de Carhart (1997) e ainda o modelo de cinco fatores de Fama e French (2015) têm em explicar os retornos excessivos em cada um dos portfólios REIT. Os resultados obtidos sugerem os fatores MKTRF, SMB e HML como sendo os mais capazes de explicar os retornos excessivos. Quando comparando qual ou quais os modelos mais válidos para explicar os retornos de cada um dos portfólios REIT, verificou-se que o modelo de três fatores de Fama e French (1992) é o único capaz de os explicar. Verificou-se igualmente que o modelo de quatro fatores de Carhart (1997) e o modelo de cinco fatores de Fama e French (2015) não acrescentam valor, ao não serem capazes de explicar os retornos excessivos em cada portfólio.
This paper examines the performance and risk sensitivities of three (Real Estate Investment Trusts (REIT) portfolios, when compared to more conventional funds: MREIT, EREIT and AREIT. The MREIT portfolio includes only the returns on investment of mortgage REIT stocks (MREIT), the EREIT portfolio includes the returns on investment of equity REIT stocks (EREIT) and the AREIT portfolio includes the returns on investment of both equity and mortgage REIT stocks (AREIT). Analyzing excess returns, standard deviation and Sharpe Ratio, results suggest that the portfolio holding all types of REIT stocks (AREIT) was the most attractive investment during the twenty-year period covered (January 2000 - January 2020). The performance of a large capitalization index (S&P500) and a small capitalization index (Russell 2000) were also tested. Results suggest that the Russell 2000 index outperformed the S&P500 index. When risk-adjusted returns of all commodities were evaluated - MREIT, EREIT, AREIT, S&P500 index and Russell 2000 index - results obtained indicate the AREIT portfolio as the one which performed the best among all. This thesis broadens its scope evaluating the explanatory capacity for the Fama and French (1992) asset pricing model augmented with the Carhart (1997) momentum factor and the Fama and French (2015) five-factor model to help explain excess returns in REIT portfolios. Results suggest the market risk-free (MKTRF), small minus big (SMB) factor and the high minus low (HML) factors, as the main variables capable of explaining their excess returns. Results also show that the Fama and French (1992) three-factor model is the most capable at explaining the REIT portfolio excess returns. It was also shown that Carhart (1997) four-factor model and Fama and French (2015) are insufficient at explaining excess returns in any REIT portfolio.