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1
Jennissen, Roel. "Macro-economic determinants of international migration in Europe". Amsterdam : Dutch University Press, 2004. http://dissertations.ub.rug.nl/faculties/rw/2004/r.p.w.jennissen/.
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Lamandé, Maxime. "Gestion des flux financiers internationaux et politique macro-prudentielle". Thesis, Rennes 1, 2018. http://www.theses.fr/2018REN1G012/document.
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L’objet de cette thèse est de contribuer à l’analyse de l’effet des politiques visant à endiguer les risques d’instabilité financière. Les investigations menées sont d’ordre théorique (modèle DSGE) et empirique. En se plaçant dans un cadre macroéconomique d’un pays ouvert, deux dimensions doivent être prises en compte. La dimension externe est couverte par la politique de contrôles prudentiels des capitaux. De par son caractère sélectif, cette politique peut permettre de diminuer les déséquilibres externes qui ne rentrent pas dans le champ d’application macro-prudentielle. Cette dernière aborde la dimension interne et cherche à internaliser le risque global consécutif aux choix d’investissement desagents résidents. L’analyse de la coordination interne de ces deux types de mesures, macro-prudentielles et contrôles prudentiels, est essentielle pour garantir leur efficacité. En outre, les potentiels effets de débordements internationaux que peuvent entraîner les politiques de régulation prudentielle doivent être étudiés avant de valider l’utilisation de telles politiques.Voici les résultats que nous tirons de notre analyse. La politique macro-pudentielle semblent offrir de meilleurs résultats en termes de stabilité financière, des prix et de performance économique que les contrôles de capitaux. Toutefois, les contrôles prudentiels de capitaux ont leur rôle à jouer. Nos résultats montrent surtout une utilité envers la croissance excessive du crédit. L’application de contrôles prudentiels, lorsque la croissance du crédit devient excessive, peut permettre d’atténuer la surchauffe du système financier et de diminuer le décalage entre le cycle économique et financier. Par conséquent, si un choc négatif survient, les conséquences économiques devraient être amoindries. Ensuite, la politique optimale s’avère être celle combinant la politique monétaire et prudentielle, menée par une agence commune qui prend les décisions en matière de politique monétaire et prudentielle conjointement. Les politiques prudentielles s’avèrent d’autant plus nécessaires que les prêts transfrontaliers sont importants. Enfin, des effets de débordement des politiques prudentielles sur les autres pays incitent à davantage de coopération internationale ou régionale en la matièreThe aim of this thesis is to contribute to the analysis of the effect of policies aimed at curbing the risks associated with financial instability. The investigations carried out are theoretical (DSGE model) and empirical. In an open country macroeconomic framework, two dimensions must be taken into account. The external dimension is covered by the policy of prudential capital controls. Because of its selective nature, this type of policy can help reduce external imbalances that do not fall within the macroprudential scope. The latter addresses the internal dimension and seeks to internalize the overall risk resulting from the investment choices of resident agents. The analysis of the internal coordination of these two types of macro-prudential measures and prudential controls is essential to ensure their effectiveness. In addition, the potential effects of international spillovers that may result from prudential regulation policies must be studied before validating the use of such policies. We find that macroprudential policies seem to offer better results in terms of financial stability, price stability and economic performance than capital controls. However, prudential capital controls have their role to play, especially with regards to excessive credit growth. The application of prudential controls, when credit growth becomes excessive, can indeed help mitigating the overheating of the financial system and reducing the gap between economic and financial cycles. Therefore, as a negative shock occurs, its economic consequences should be lessened. Then, the optimal policy turns out to bethe one combining monetary and prudential policy, led by a joint agency that makes decisions on monetary and prudential policies. Prudential policies are all the more necessary as cross-border lending is important. Finally, the effects of prudential policies on other countries encourage more international or regional cooperation in this area
3
Hong, Sung Il. "Analyse macro-economique du tourisme international en coree : impact et strategie". Paris 5, 1993. http://www.theses.fr/1993PA05D002.
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Aujoud'hui le tourisme international represente une part considerable dans les echanges economiques internationaux ; au fur et a mesure, la necessite de la specialisation des pays en tourisme international s'accentue. Pour analyser au mieux le phenomene du tourisme international en coree, en ce qui concerne la specialisation internationale du secteur, nous avons utilise les methodes de l'economie internationale a la fois theoriques et empiriques en comparant le tourisme international coreen avec son principal concurrent : le japon. Face a une evolution rapide de tourisme international, chaque pays tente de developper ce secteur pour ameliorer sa situation socio-economique. De fait la concurrence internationale dans le secteur du tourisme international s'intensifie de plus en plus. Ainsi, nous avons procede a la mise en place d'une strategie concurrentielle tenant compte a la fois des particularites economiques du tourisme international et de la place de celui-ci dans l'activite de la coree. Par connaitre les incidences de l'effet reel du tourisme international sur l'ensemble de l'economie coreenne, nous avons procede a une analyse macro-economique. Ceci permet de chiffrer l'importance de ce secteur par rapport aux autres et les consequences de son developpement dans le systeme economique coreen. En dernier lieu, en utilisant les resultats obtenus precedemment nous avons effectue une analyse perspective de developpement du tourisme international en coreeToday international tourism represents a considerable part in international economic trade ; progressively it has been a necessity for countries to specialise in international tourism. To analyse in the best way this phenomena of international tourism in korea, which concerns international specialization of this area, we have used the methods of international economics together with the theoretical and practical aspects of international tourism in korea in comparison with his principal competitor : japon. Facing the rapid evolution of international tourism, each country has tried to develop this area to improve it's social and economical situation. To the extent that international competition has intensified more and more in the area of tourism. Thus, we have started to put into place a competitive strategy taking in account at the same time the particular economic nature of international tourism and the place of this area in the economy of korea. We have made a macro-economic analysis, so that we may know the consequences of the real effect of international tourism on whole of the korean economy. This allows us to put in number the importance of this area comparing to others and the consequence of it's development in the korean economic system. Finally, by using the latest results obtained we have accomplished a plan of analysis in the development of international tourism in korea
4
Ducharme, Louis Marc. "Inter-industrial technology diffusion : a macro analysis of technical change in the Canadian economy". Thesis, University of Sussex, 1991. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.363049.
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It is now well recognised that the improvement of the economic performance and the restructuring of industries depends not only on the generation (or production) of new technology but also on the rate and level of diffusion of technology throughout the economy. This thesis presents an inter-industrial analysis of the effect of diffusion of technological change on the Canadian economy. To do so, it describes the diffusion of information using Canadian patent statistics potential sector of manufacturing and use. It then uses the patent matrices as 'support' matrices to transform R&D data by industry of origin into R&D data by industry of use to calculate the direct and indirect R&D inducement based on a static input-output model. Finally it is used to estimate the impact of own R&D and R&D spillover on total factor productivity growth, differentiating the R&D spillover according to various 'support' matrices and different 'gestation times'. II The empirical results confirm: i) the existence of an important interindustrial flow of innovation, ii) the existence of a 'common core' of industry at the source of technological change, as well as the importance of using industries as 'core innovative' industries, and iii) the emergence of service industries as a strong user of capital goods. It also concludes that i) the scale and structure of the external trade has an impact on the R&D inducement of all industries, ii) innovative activity has a positive and significant effect on productivity growth and iii) the rates of return in R&D spillover are found only after 8 years of 'gestation time'.
5
Doraisami, Anita Giselle. "International capital movements and financial crisis in Malaysia : macro and microeconomic analyses". Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2004. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.615677.
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Gomez, Galarza Vilma. "Marché international, politiques macro-économiques et politiques agricoles au Pérou : 1950-1990". Montpellier 1, 1994. http://www.theses.fr/1994MON10028.
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Dans une perspective de long terme, et pour la période comprise entre 1950 et 1990, l'économie péruvienne a subi d'importants changements, dûs à une relation particulière au marché international ainsi qu'à la mise en application de politiques en faveur des villes, au détriment du développement agricole et par conséquent des exportations. Cette thèse analyse la façon dont cette option générale a orienté les politiques agraires ainsi que l'impact de cet ensemble de mesures sur l'agriculture péruvienne. Une distorsion de plus en plus grande des prix relatifs, qui pénalise l'agriculture, explique la situation actuelle de pauvreté et la crise de ce secteur. Une conclusion importante est que les stratégies à long terme pour le secteur agricole doivent assurer une stabilité des politiques et une amélioration substantielle des revenus des producteurs. En ce sens, les politiques de compensation sociale, mises en oeuvre sous l'influence libérale actuelle, se montrent encore insuffisantes.
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Ifeanyi, Eziashi Michael. "Exploration and evaluation of the macro-environmental factors influencing firm competitiveness in the Nigerian manufacturing industry". Thesis, University of Sunderland, 2017. http://sure.sunderland.ac.uk/8303/.
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Multinational corporations (MNCs) are facing challenges relating to the fast changing and dynamic 21st Century global business environment. These challenges raise critical concerns relating to the strategic role of successive Nigerian governments in creating a favourable macro-environment that enhances industry competitiveness in attracting and sustaining foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows - considering the fact that since independence in 1960, there has been a significant decline in the Nigerian manufacturing industry output and contribution to the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP). These developments underpin the motivation and rationale for this thesis, which aims to provide better understanding of the dynamic nature of macro-environmental factors influencing the levels of firm competitiveness in the Nigerian manufacturing industry. To achieve this aim, the thesis adopts a pragmatists paradigm underpinned by a mix of Questionnaire Survey involving 84 MNCs operating in the Nigerian manufacturing industry, and a sample size of 925 respondents comprising of 288 Top managers, 460 Staff, and 177 Clients, and Semi-structured interviews of 5 CEOs. The data from the questionnaires and interviews were subjected to factor analysis, multiple regression analysis and content analysis using SPSS and NVivo respectively. The hypotheses tests (H1, H1a-H1e) reveal that increased perceived threats from macro-environmental factors significantly reduces the levels of firm competitiveness in the Nigerian manufacturing industry. This is supported by the evidence that, on aggregate, respondents’ perceived levels of threats from politico-legal, economic and financial, sociocultural, technological and ecological environmental factors have a statistically significant negative effect on firms’ competitiveness in the Nigerian manufacturing industry. Using Beta values, politico-legal, economic and financial, and sociocultural factors are identified as the key inhibitors; and in contrast, ecological and technological factors are identifies as the key drivers, of the levels of firm competitiveness. More specifically, on aggregate: (1) Politico-legal factors has statistically significant negative effect, (2) Economic and financial factors has a negative effect but statistically not significant, (3) Sociocultural factors has a negative effect but statistically not significant. In contrast, both (4) Technological factors, and (5) Ecological environmental factors were statistically significant with positive effects, on the levels of firm competitiveness. In addition, the results for both ‘Top Managers’ and ‘Staff’ were statistically significant, while, that for ‘Clients’ were statistically not significant. For the content analysis, a process of pre-coding, unitisation and relationship between themes was adopted. The thematic findings reveals that there is an urgent need for Top managers in manufacturing firms to continuously sense and seize market opportunities, in order to sustain firm competitiveness and to attract increased FDI inflows to the manufacturing industry. The implication of these findings from a decision-making point of view, is that in the short- medium term, strategizing managers need to focus more on the factors which have significant negative or positive effects on firm competitiveness - while in the long-term, they need to evaluate the potential future impact of the factors which at the moment do not have a significant effect on firm competitiveness. Considering the fact that the holistic framework developed in this study was not tested, future research would test the framework using a mix of quantitative and qualitative data from a case study of 3-5 Manufacturing firms in Nigeria.
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Lee, Sang Seok. "Essays in dynamic macroeconomics". Thesis, University of Oxford, 2014. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:cb12abc2-6b8c-4e77-9aeb-fc0b617cdc48.
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This thesis is concerned with macroeconomic dynamics under various forms of uncertainty. Chapter 2 recognizes that the information flow from the interest rate is impeded when the nominal interest rate hits the zero lower bound. This impediment can (a) increase the duration of zero lower bound episodes and (b) bring about more persistent deflationary pressure. Moreover, it can make the exit from the zero lower bound disorderly. Chapters 3 and 4 are concerned with dynamics of aggregate variables under Knightian Uncertainty. To overcome difficulties with expectations formation under Knightian Uncertainty, the agents follow Interactive Trial and Error Learning (ITEL) (Young, 2009; Pradelski and Young, 2012) to choose investment portfolios. This involves learning by occasionally experimenting with new actions even when the current action proves to be good. Two applications of ITEL are presented. Chapter 3 deals with the growth of aggregate variables. The growth model can match several business cycle features of the US real aggregate wealth data. Chapter 4 considers a portfolio choice problem. The portfolio choice model can match the first two moments of the US real excess return of equity over bonds almost perfectly. Chapter 5 explores “This Time Is Different Syndrome” of Reinhart and Rogoff (2009) in a setting where the agents are learning under Knightian Uncertainty. The agents are grouped into different generations and their models compete in terms of forecasting power. The predecessor’s model is discarded together with the data set when its forecasting power is worse than the current generation’s model. This loss of relevant data is rooted in focusing only on forecasting well in the short-run. By shifting the weight towards finding the true model of the economy, this problem can be substantially reduced.
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Abdullah, M. "Asset pricing with empirical, zero-beta, macro and state variables in international equity markets". Thesis, University of Salford, 2018. http://usir.salford.ac.uk/47224/.
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This study aims to improve asset pricing by using empirical, zero-beta, macro and state variables. Firstly, we improve asset pricing with empirical factors as we find the gap that the five-factor model augmented with momentum factor, is yet to be examined in international equity markets. We use the time-series and cross-sectional tests to assess the performance of this six-factor model and compare the performance with other traditional asset pricing models. Findings suggest that the five-factor model improves with the addition of momentum factor. Secondly, we attempt to improve asset pricing by using the gold return as a proxy of the zero-beta rate in global regions. We find that the gold beta is insignificantly different from zero in the U.S. and U.K. equity markets. We confirm the efficiency of gold markets with a battery of efficiency tests and find the position of gold at the minimum variance frontier. When we perform empirical tests by using gold as a zero-beta asset in empirical factor models, we find a convincing evidence in those equity markets as we obtain higher R-squared values, lower Sharpe ratios of alphas and fewer significant pricing errors. Thirdly, we examine the role of gold as a hedging factor in the Intertemporal Capital Asset Pricing Model (ICAPM) in the U.S. and global asset pricing. We perform multivariate and Generalised Method of Moments (GMM) to assess the joint significance of the market and gold price factors. We find that the gold is not a useless factor both in the U.S. and the global asset pricing. Fourthly, we employ empirical, macroeconomic, and state variables to improve asset pricing. We assess the performance of the 23 asset pricing models with the Merton (1973) criteria of multifactor models. We also explore the innovative role of inflation and industrial production with ICAPM and empirical multifactor models. We employ single and multiple predictive regressions to assess forecasting criteria and utilise first-stage GMM to assess the cross-sectional criteria of multifactor models. Results on the multifactor models confirm earlier findings that the applicability of gold return as a proxy of the zero-beta rate improves the model performance of not only empirical factor model but also ICAPM models. This research has many useful applications for investors, policy makers and regulatory bodies. The alternative zero-beta models are useful to obtain better estimates of expected returns during the market crisis and improve pricing of small and risky stocks.
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Luk, Sheung Kan. "Essays in macroeconomic modelling with frictions and rigidities". Thesis, University of Oxford, 2014. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:86ded0cc-99b1-418b-80f5-44bc56e2ea4c.
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This thesis presents three dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models to answer three macroeconomic questions. In each model, I impose one or more frictions or constraints and analyse how these frictions affect macroeconomic dynamics. Chapter 2 studies the coordination of fiscal and monetary policies under optimal commitment and discretion policies under a New Keynesian framework. The chapter shows that when there is indexation in price setting which depends on the lagged output gap as in Steinsson (2003), under the optimal commitment policy, both fiscal and monetary policies have active roles in inflation stabilisation, even although debt follows a unit-root process. Under the optimal discretion policy, both fiscal and monetary policies have active roles in inflation stabilisation to drive debt back to the pre-shock level, consistent with Leith and Wren-Lewis (2008). Extending the model to include capital accumulation does not alter these results. Chapter 3 presents a microfounded two-country model of global imbalances and debt deleveraging. During global imbalances a sustained rise in saving in one country can lead to a worldwide fall in the interest rates and an accumulation of debt in the other country. When an ensuing deleveraging shock occurs as a result of the global financial crisis, the interest rates are forced further down. I show that in the presence of a liquidity trap the deleveraging country may face a combination of a large fall in output, deflation and real exchange rate appreciation, as a result of debt deflation. Chapter 4 adds a highly-leveraged financial sector to the Ramsey model and shows that this augments the macroeconomic effects of aggregate productivity shocks. My model is built on the financial-accelerator approach of Bernanke, Gertler and Gilchrist (BGG), in which leveraged goods-producers borrow from a competitive financial sector. In this chapter, by contrast, financial institutions are leveraged and subject to idiosyncratic productivity shocks. They obtain funds by paying an interest rate above the risk free rate, and this risk premium is anti-cyclical, and so amplifies the shocks. My parameterisation, based on US data, is one in which the leverage of the financial sector is two and a half times that of the goods-producers in the BGG model. This causes a much more significant augmentation of aggregate productivity shocks than that found in the BGG model.
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Gara, Florence. "Détérminants et conséquences de l'investissement direct : vers une approche macro-sectorielle". Paris 1, 1996. http://www.theses.fr/1996PA010034.
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Nous proposons une approche de l'investissement direct dans laquelle ses conséquences macroéconomiques sont prises en compte de façon explicite. Après avoir redéfini les objectifs de l'implantation à l'étranger en termes de pénétration du marché et de délocalisation, un test empirique sur données sectorielles françaises expliquant la nature du lien qui unit l'investissement direct au commerce extérieur (substituts ou compléments) est effectué. Les observations empirique valident le comportement de pénétration des marchés étrangers comme vecteur de l'investissement direct mais mettent en évidence une complémentarité entre le commerce et l'investissement direct, ce qui est contradictoire avec les résultats des modèles traditionnels d'économie industrielle internationale. Nous développons alors un modèle d'approvisionnement simultané de plusieurs marchés où l'investissement direct et l'exportation se révèlent deux modes de vente complémentaires dès que l'exportation de la production délocalisée vers le second marché s'avère plus profitable que l'exportation depuis le marché d'origine. Le motif de pénétration du marché étranger conduit à admettre que la firme multinationale dispose d'un avantage par rapport à ses concurrents étrangers ou domestiques. Nous généralisons la notion d'avantage spécifique à celle d'écart technologique issu et entretenu par des dépenses de recherche et développement et la modélisons théoriquement et empiriquement comme le gain d'une course à l'innovation. Ayant établi les déterminants de l'investissement direct et ses relations avec les variables de commerce extérieur, nous envisageons les conséquences des investissements directs (français et étrangers) d'un point de vue macroéconomique. Nous modifions le modèle Hermes-France afin d'y intégrer les variables d'investissements directs. Nous quantifions également l'impact d'une réduction des cotisations sociales employeurs sur le comportement de délocalisationWe propose a direct investment approach in which macro-economic consequences are taken into account. After having defined the foreign setting up in terms of strategic entry or delocalization, we test on french data whether direct investment and trade are substitute or complememt. Our results show that strategic entry is generally the aim of direct investment but we find that direct investment is more often complementary to trade, which is opposite to the traditional results of industrial international economic models. In such a way, we develop a simultaneous pluri-markets supply model where direct investment and exportation become two complementary means of supply, as long as exportation is more profitable from the foreing market than from the home market. This direct investment meaning leads to acknowledge that the multinational firm is favoured with regard to its home and foreign competitors. We generalize this "specific advantage" as a technological gap leaded and maintained by research and development expenditures, then we theorically and empirically modelize it as a patent race. Since we explained direct investment factors and its relation with international trade, we use the Hermes-France macro-econometric model to modelize and quantify its macro-economic consequences. We also test the impact of an employers charges decrease on the delocalization behaviour
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Brafu-Insaidoo, William G. "Determinants and macro-volatility impact of international capital flows in selected sub-saharan African countries". Doctoral thesis, University of Cape Town, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/11814.
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Includes abstract.Includes bibliographical references.
International capital flows have been an important subject of discussion in the finance and development literature as well as among policymakers. Discussion on international capital flows is inspired by the associated potential benefits which, in turn, have motivated a number of countries in sub-Saharan Africa and other regions to liberalise cross-border capital flows and to encourage greater inflows of foreign capital in recent times. The result of these efforts has been the recent surge in capital flows and changes in its composition towards more short-term flows...In this thesis the major determinants of the volume and maturity of foreign capital flows in selected sub-Saharan African countries are investigated. The impact of the volume and type of international capital flows on the volatility of investment, output and consumption growth in the selected countries are also examined. The studies involved dynamic panel and time series regression analyses of data obtained from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The results of the research work are presented as six stand-alone essays.
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BASSANIN, MARZIO. "Essays in Macro-Financial Linkages". Doctoral thesis, Luiss Guido Carli, 2019. http://hdl.handle.net/11385/201073.
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This thesis consists in three essays that study the linkages between real and financial factors
from different perspectives. Chapter 1, co-authored with Ester Faia and Valeria Patella, introduces
a full set of ambiguity attitudes, which endogenously induces agents' optimism in booms
and pessimism in recessions, in a model where borrowers face occasionally binding collateral
constraints. We use GMM techniques with latent value functions to estimate the ambiguity
attitudes process, showing that agents update their belief over the credit cycle in a way coherent
with our preferences specification. By simulating a crisis scenario, we show that optimism
in booms is responsible for strong leverage build-up before the crises while pessimism in recessions
implies sharper de-leveraging and asset price bursts. Analytically and numerically, using
global non-linear methods, we show that our ambiguity attitudes coupled with the collateral
constraints help to explain relevant asset price and leverage cycle facts around the unfolding of
financial crises. Chapter 2, co-authored with Carmelo Salleo, studies the strategic interactions
between monetary and macroprudential authorities through the lens of an open-economy monetary
model featuring trade and financial
ows between two symmetric countries. Characterizing
a set of Within-Country Cooperative and Nash Equilibria for different degrees of trade and financial
integration, the analysis identifies large costs associated to the strategic interaction between
the domestic authorities. Moreover, the gains from cooperation are strongly affected by the degree
of cross-country integration and by the channel through which the integration is realized:
larger trade
ows reduce the gains, while higher financial globalization makes cooperation more
valuable. Then, moving to a Between-Countries Cooperative and Nash Equilibria analysis, we
confirm that cooperation is beneficial from both the country-specific and the global perspective.
Chapter 3, co-authored with Javier Ojea Ferreiro and Elena Rancoita proposes an innovative
methodology for the design of adverse scenarios for macroprudential policies calibration and
impact assessment. Our methodology allows building tailored scenarios characterized by two
main features. First, there is a stable and transparent mapping of the cyclical systemic risk level
into the path of the scenario's target variables, which are those variables that determine the
overall scenario's severity. Second, the path of the other complementary variables is calibrates
with a multivariate copula model estimated with macro and financial data (MacroFin Copula).
Simulating the model for Euro Area countries, we show that our methodology is able to calibrate
adverse scenarios that properly replicate the global financial crises dynamics in terms of
severity and co-movement between the key macroeconomic and financial variables.
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Olivier, Alison Michell. "The effect of South African and international macro-economic variables on the South African Stock Market". Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/29199.
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This study aims to answer the empirical question of whether South African and US macroeconomic variables are predictors of returns on the South African stock market. The results add to a body of literature, assessing the period from 1996 to 2016, which includes comparative analysis of data pre-and post the 2008 financial crisis. Furthermore, both local and US macro-economic variables are assessed. Variables selected include 1) GDP (SA and US), 2) Interest Rates (SA and US), 3) Inflation (SA and US), 4) South African Money Supply, 5) Rand/Dollar Exchange Rate, and 6) FTSE Index. These variables are assessed on a monthly and quarterly basis, to provide further information on whether the relationships between the selected variables and the stock market are affected by the timing of the data or the level of noise within the data set. The variables are tested using time series Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression analysis. This analysis is used to assess predictive relationships. The results show that South African Interest rates and the RandDollar exchange rate have a statistically significant negative relationship with the South African stock market. Additionally, the South African interest rate appeared to hold a more statistically significant relationship with the stock market when the change in the rate was high. Furthermore, the FTSE Index shows a consistent statistically significant positive relationship. These findings provide valuable information to investors who, with further testing to determine exact time lags, can consider these predictive variables when making investment decisions, assuming weak form efficiency exists within the market.
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Al, Haji Ghazwan. "Towards a Road Safety Development Index (RSDI) : Development of an International Index to Measure Road Safety Performance". Licentiate thesis, Linköping : Department of Science and Technology, Linköping University, 2005. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-2989.
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Atherton, Paul. "Causes and consequences of educational achievement : a macro and micro-economic analysis of international school test scores". Thesis, University of Nottingham, 2009. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.522990.
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Baller, Silja Maren. "Essays on product quality, international trade and welfare". Thesis, University of Oxford, 2014. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:eaebf607-3ccf-499c-8f60-0ce5b42a43b4.
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This dissertation consists of four related, sole-authored chapters. It considers the microeconomic mechanisms for gains from trade in the presence of quality investments by firms. It shows within the framework of a quality-augmented heterogeneous firms model that the quality dimension matters for welfare gains from trade. It also provides novel empirical evidence on adjustment mechanisms of aggregate quality as a consequence of globalization. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first contribution to provide a comprehensive analysis of the role of endogenous product quality in the determination of gains from trade. I first offer an explanation for observed industry heterogeneity in trade-induced productivity gains and show that results depend on whether or not firms have the option to invest in quality. I then take a broader view of welfare gains from trade, looking beyond productivity improvements. I find that globalization can imply a quality-variety trade-off when consumer quality preference is strong - a finding which holds under firm heterogeneity and symmetry. Nevertheless, overall gains from trade are positive. With quality being itself an important channel for gains from trade, I also investigate the detailed mechanisms by which aggregate quality changes as a consequence of globalization. This is done within the same theoretical heterogeneous firms framework as well as empirically using firm-level export data matched with firm-level quality ratings. I argue that firm heterogeneity matters for gains from trade by giving rise to an additional welfare channel in the presence of variable elasticity of demand preferences: high quality firms expand sales disproportionately in a larger market, thereby raising aggregate quality. This theoretical prediction is confirmed by the data. Furthermore, I study the mechanisms for gains from trade in a symmetric firms version of the baseline model. This allows me to isolate the role of firm heterogeneity in driving earlier results. In addition, I analyse the efficiency properties of the market equilibrium for the symmetric firms case.
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Maiorescu, Roxana. "Framing Analysis of Kosovo Independence". Thesis, Virginia Tech, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/32767.
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On February 17, 2008 Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia and the event spurred significant media attention. Countries like Spain, Romania, and Russia feared that the event would engender separatism on their own territories, while the U.S., Germany, France, Italy, and UK regarded it as a democratic step. This thesis uses the framing theory to content analyze newspaper articles in seven languages (N=191) that appeared between November 17, 2007 and May 17, 2008, three months before and three months after Kosovo became an independent state. The thesis uses the five generic frames (responsibility, human interest, consequences, morality, and conflict) developed by Semetko and Valkenburg (2000) as well as the three â macro-framesâ (cynicism, speculation, and metacommunication) established by Constantinescu and Tedesco (2007). Results revealed that media from the countries that supported the Kosovo independence framed the event from the perspective of democracy and were almost twice more likely to discuss the position of the U.S., a key decision- maker in the Kosovo issue, than media from the countries that opposed it. Furthermore, newspaper articles from countries that did not support the event were nearly three times more inclined to present the Kosovo independence from the perspective of a precedent for separatism in Europe and the world.
By applying the framing theory in an international study, this thesis sheds light on the discrepancies in media coverage from these different democratic systems.Master of Arts
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Chow-Kambitsch, Felix C. "Location and distance in economics". Thesis, University of Oxford, 2015. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:edf567a8-b1ab-4866-a4d9-789a8bfa0af2.
Texto completoResumen
In this collection of essays, I explore three topics where space and distance plays a fundamental role in international economics. Not only do spatial considerations affect the pattern of trade, the frictions that arise from distance also determine where and how goods are produced and where people live. In Chapter 1, I show that human made locational characteristics can determine the spatial allocation of economic activity. I take the standard core-periphery model and add endogenous housing to its forward-looking dynamic adjustment process. By introducing a model of adjustment with an extra state variable, which I interpret as housing, I show that the distribution of housing allows the model to converge to a unique spatial equilibrium. This explains the observed persistence and robustness of economic agglomerations in the data. Chapter 2 is a theory of task assignment in the production of final goods and across countries. By allowing for tasks to differ in their suitability of being used in the production of multiple goods, my model endogenizes the allocation of tasks in the production of goods that use them. The resulting equilibrium task allocation defines the pattern of off-shoring. Tasks that are used in only one good concentrate in the country with a specialization in production of that good. Tasks used in many goods are allocated across countries, with the more substitutable tasks located in the country with the larger overall output. Gains from off-shoring are derived from a better mix of allocation of tasks into goods as well as larger scale of production. Finally in Chapter 3, I study how real exchange rate fluctuations determine the size and composition of the export sector. Using the methodology set out in Dixit and Pindyck (1994) in a heterogeneous firms model, I determine the set of trigger real exchange rates for entry and exit into exporting. My primary result of this chapter is that exchange rate uncertainty coupled with sunk cost of entry causes hysteresis in the number and productivity of exporting firms. I then extend the model to allow free entry of firms. This explains the stylized fact of the existence of non-exporting firms with higher productivity than some exporting firms.
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TCHALIM, YAO B. BESSEI. "Dynamique du tourisme international et developpement des nations du sud : essai d'analyse en termes de circuit macro-economique". Besançon, 1989. http://www.theses.fr/1989BESA0002.
Texto completoResumen
Considerees dans l'optique traditionnelle comme etant des strategies puissantes en matiere de croissance, les approches en termes reels continuent encore aujourd'hui a inspirer de nombreuses politiques de developpement dans les nations du sud meme si leur efficacite est mise en doute. Pourtant cette etude a permis de voir que l'approche monetaire par le circuit keynesien comparee aux strategies invoquees permet de mieux saisir l'evolution et l'impact du tourisme international et qu'il est desormais possible, voire interessant, de concevoir des programmes de developpement privilegiant non plus l'epargne et l'industrialisation mais la motricite du credit combinee avec une ou plusieurs activites de services. Le developpement des nations en developpement n'exige pas la reduction prealable des salaires. A contrario le developpement harmonise a motricite touristique internationale demande une elevation progressive des niveaux de vie des populations d'accueil. Pour realiser ce type de developpement il faut avant tout remplacer le schema classique, consistant a agir uniquement par rapport aux variables economiques et financieres, par un schema dynamique qui lui s'occupe, en plus, des variables socio-culturelles, politiques et naturellesThe approach in real terms traditionally reputed an effective growth strategy still continues to motivate development policies of the south even if their efficacity is questionable. This study reveals however that the monetary approach by the keynesian circuit, compared to the strategies mentioned, enables a better appraisal of the evolution and the impact of international tourism and that it is therefore possible to envisage development programmes that foster free flow of credit combined with one or many service based activities rather than on savings and industrialisation. The growth of developing countries does not depend on reduction of salaries. On the contrary a harmonious development based on international tourism motricity demands a progressive rise in the standard of living of the people of the host countries. The realisation of this type of development necessitates the remplacement of the classical method which takes into consideration economic and financial variables only, by a dynamic scheme which considers also the social, cultural, political and natural variables
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Wu, Guiying. "Uncertainty, investment and capital accumulation : a structural econometric approach". Thesis, University of Oxford, 2009. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:27e70f50-488a-4113-b7b6-c5b6b916f156.
Texto completoResumen
This thesis contributes to the empirical literature about how uncertainty affects firm-level investment behavior and capital accumulation using a structural econometric approach. Chapter 2 surveys the literature and highlights that there are two key channels through which uncertainty may affect investment decisions. One reflects the non-linearity of operating profits in stochastic demand or productivity parameters, summarized as the Hartman-Abel-Caballero (HAC) effect. Another reflects frictions in capital adjustment, summarized by different forms of capital adjustment costs: partial irreversibility, a fixed cost of undertaking any investment and quadratic adjustment costs. Chapter 3 presents simulation evidence about the effects of uncertainty on investment dynamics and capital accumulation through different forms of adjustment costs. Using the Method of Simulated Moments, Chapters 4 and 5 estimate fully parametric structural investment models, for panels of Brazilian and UK manufacturing firms, respectively. Chapter 4 investigates the effects of reducing capital adjustment costs. Counterfactual simulations indicate that investment would be much more responsive to new information about profitability if firms in Brazil faced a lower level of adjustment costs. A lower level of adjustment costs would also induce firms to operate with substantially higher capital stocks. Both these effects are mainly due to the importance of the estimated quadratic adjustment costs. Chapter 5 then investigates the effects of changing the level of uncertainty. The estimated investment models predict a small effect of uncertainty on investment dynamics in the short-run, and a negative and potentially large effect of uncertainty on capital accumulation in the long-run. The long-run effect of uncertainty operates through the negative effect of quadratic adjustment costs in the baseline model, or through a richer combination of effects in an extended model that allows discount rates to vary with the level of uncertainty.
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Lockeyear, Cynthia Noelle. "Wars of words : an explication of the complex interface between transnational advocacy networks and the contemporary international system". Thesis, University of Exeter, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10871/17590.
Texto completoResumen
Transnational advocacy networks (TANs) are a rapidly proliferating phenomenon in international contentious politics. Widely known for waging headline-grabbing wars of words, TANs remain under-theorised on important levels of analysis. Unsurprisingly, they have been termed ‘elusive’ in the political literature. Typically portrayed as vital service-providing agencies that by-pass official controls to relay civil society concerns to the world’s media and international policy-makers, TANs are commonly assumed to be the vociferous, Internet-enabled, offspring of traditional NGOs and, thus, heirs to the reputational capital of NGOs. However, despite this respected provenance, it is evident that TANs frequently fail to achieve their goals. Knowledge of why some TAN strategies succeed while others fail is contested and inconclusive. This empirical thesis attempts to build on the international political literature by showing why the emerging NGO typology of TANs cannot be explained without paying attention to the systemic complexity of their environment and the essentially communicative functioning of these globe-spanning advocacy cooperatives. It seeks to demonstrate also the analytical value of applying complex realism in IR praxis. Hence, the thesis explicates a real-world conundrum: What is the place and function of transnational advocacy networks in the contemporary international system and how effective are they in achieving their aims? To identify macro-structural conditions and indicators of relationship quality — primarily involving state and non-state elements in the context of the United Nations — the thesis study reclaimed macro-sociological perspective as a first stage, ‘top-down’ approach to this complex, multi-dimensional problem space. The resultant data and patterns were then tested by way of a second-stage, micro-sociological, ‘bottom-up’, case study exploration of the UN’s interface with three iconic TANs — Greenpeace, Oxfam and Human Rights Watch. By conceptualising these relationships as intersections between systemic elements constituted on different social levels and scales of complexity, the scalable methodology enabled the study to transcend the micro-macro problems inherent in the primary research question. The results indicate that TANs are a distinctive typology of NGO that the international system is struggling to evaluate and accommodate within existing arrangements for NGO engagement. Unexpectedly, the study found plausible indications that the barriers many TANs encounter are endogenously produced. The results challenge prevailing assumptions about the place and function of grassroots diplomacy in the international arena; the ability of communications strategies to remedy global problems; and the reality and limitations of ‘people power’. By highlighting under-exposed features of the contemporary international relational landscape, the thesis argues, we might better determine whether many contemporary TANs are, in fact, evolving as the best-suited champions for the urgent, political quests they adopt.
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ROMEI, FEDERICA. "Essays in macroeconomics of debt deleveraging". Doctoral thesis, Luiss Guido Carli, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/11385/200962.
Texto completoResumen
This dissertation analyzes, in two chapters, how monetary and fiscal authorities can
optimally manage debt reduction episodes.
In the first chapter I show how public debt deleveraging leads to a recession with different
effects on real interest rates according to the fiscal instruments the government
is using to reduce the debt. The fiscal authority should not depress much consumption
of the agents who hold savings to improve the welfare of the ones who do not
have access to financial markets. Moreover speed and timing of public deleveraging
depend crucially on the type of instrument the fiscal authority uses to enforce it.
Nominal rigidities, in this context, seem to be beneficial for the agents who cannot
insure themselves through financial markets.
In the second chapter, written together with Prof. Pierpaolo Benigno, we show how
deleveraging from high debt can provoke deep recession with significant international
side effects. Due the debt reduction process, real and nominal variables can be subject
to high uctuations. All these movements are inefficient and interesting trade-offs
emerge from the perspective of global welfare. Counterintuitively, we show that the
optimal adjustment to global imbalances should not necessarily require large movements
in the nominal exchange rate. Moreover we show that, whenever countries have
an high degree of openness to trade, Central Banks needs to create a global liquidity
trap to face the deleveraging shock.
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CASTELLIN, LUCA GINO. "Ascesa e declino delle civilità. Elementi per una teoria delle macro-trasformazioni politiche e culturali nell'opera di Arnold Joseph Toynbee". Doctoral thesis, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10280/562.
Texto completoResumen
Con la fine della Guerra fredda, molti degli schemi interpretativi utilizzati per analizzare la politica internazionale hanno iniziato a essere oggetto di un’approfondita riconsiderazione teorica. Tutti questi elementi – la distinzione tra sistema internazionale e società internazionale (con la potenziale coesistenza di più società o regimi internazionali), il ruolo delle civiltà e quello delle religioni – sono stati quantomeno trascurati dal dibattito teorico successivo alla Seconda guerra mondiale. E, soltanto in parte, sono compresi in quello posteriore alla fine della Guerra fredda. Ognuno di essi è invece presente all’interno della teoria delle macro-trasformazioni politiche e culturali elaborata da Toynbee, fra gli anni Trenta e gli anni Sessanta del secolo scorso.With the end of Cold War, many interpretative schemes used to analyze international politics started to be subjected to a deep theoretical reconsideration. All these elements – the distinction between international system and international society (with the potential co-existence of different societies or international regimes), the role of civilizations and religions – have been neglected by the theoretical debate after the Second World War. These issues, which have been only partially comprehended by the debate at the end of Cold War, are extensively discussed in the theory of political and cultural macro-transformation Toynbee elaborated between 1930 and 1960.
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CASTELLIN, LUCA GINO. "Ascesa e declino delle civilità. Elementi per una teoria delle macro-trasformazioni politiche e culturali nell'opera di Arnold Joseph Toynbee". Doctoral thesis, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10280/562.
Texto completoResumen
Con la fine della Guerra fredda, molti degli schemi interpretativi utilizzati per analizzare la politica internazionale hanno iniziato a essere oggetto di un’approfondita riconsiderazione teorica. Tutti questi elementi – la distinzione tra sistema internazionale e società internazionale (con la potenziale coesistenza di più società o regimi internazionali), il ruolo delle civiltà e quello delle religioni – sono stati quantomeno trascurati dal dibattito teorico successivo alla Seconda guerra mondiale. E, soltanto in parte, sono compresi in quello posteriore alla fine della Guerra fredda. Ognuno di essi è invece presente all’interno della teoria delle macro-trasformazioni politiche e culturali elaborata da Toynbee, fra gli anni Trenta e gli anni Sessanta del secolo scorso.With the end of Cold War, many interpretative schemes used to analyze international politics started to be subjected to a deep theoretical reconsideration. All these elements – the distinction between international system and international society (with the potential co-existence of different societies or international regimes), the role of civilizations and religions – have been neglected by the theoretical debate after the Second World War. These issues, which have been only partially comprehended by the debate at the end of Cold War, are extensively discussed in the theory of political and cultural macro-transformation Toynbee elaborated between 1930 and 1960.
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Mavroeidis, Sophocles. "Econometric issues in forward-looking monetary models". Thesis, University of Oxford, 2002. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.273303.
Texto completoResumen
Recently, single equation approaches for estimating structural models have become popular in the monetary economics literature. In particular, single-equation Generalized Method Moments estimators have been used for estimating forward-looking models with rational expectations. Two important examples are found in Clarida, Gali, and Gertler (1998) for the estimation of forward- looking Taylor rules and in Gali and Gertler (1999) for the estimation of a forward-looking model for inflation dynamics. In this thesis, we address the issues of identification which have been overlooked due to the incompleteness of the single-equation formulations. We provide extensions to existing results on the properties of GMM estimators and inference under weak identification, pertaining to situations in which only functions of the parameters of interest are identified, and structural residuals exhibit negative autocorrelation. We also characterize the power of the Hansen test to detect mis specification, and address the issues arising from using too many irrelevant instruments as well as from general corrections for residual autocorrelation, beyond what is implied by the maintained model. In general, we show that the non-modelled variables cannot be weakly exogenous for the parameters of interest, and that they are informative about the identification and mis-specification of the model. Modelling the reduced form helps identify pathological situations in which the structural parameters are weakly identified and the GMM estimators are inconsistent and biased in the direction of OLS.We also ¯nd the OLS bias to be increasing in the number of over-identifying instruments, even when the latter are irrelevant, thus demonstrating the dangers of using too many potentially irrelevant instruments. Finally, with regards to the "New Phillips curve", we conclude that, for the US economy, this model is either un-identified or mis-specified, casting doubts on its utility as a model of in°ation dynamics.
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Bakut, Bakut tswah. "Self-determination and national self-determination : the marriage between macro international relations (IR) and micro historical sociologies as a framework for understanding Africa". Thesis, Nottingham Trent University, 2000. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.312320.
Texto completoResumen
This thesis argues that while the evolution of the African Political Community is based upon both human physiological needs and historical developments, modernity and its challenges and impositions, which are constantly changing the 'memories', imagination and re-imagination of the desires of the human species, also influence it. These desires for collective dignity and respect both as desires in themselves and as vehicles to secure and protect first-order needs have been articulated by David Mitrany's Functional theory of politics. However, in his work, A Working Peace System (1946), Mitrany missed the human and political preconditions and contingencies of Functionalism. He failed to recognise that needs and desires while central in the evolution of political communities cannot by themselves guarantee the success of such communities. In the case of the African continent and its people, it is the authentic articulation of Functionalism, based on the Spiritual basis of identity - the 'cyclical' link between 'the living dead - (ancestors)" 'the living - (present generations), and 'the many generations (future children) yet to be born' and their relationship to the geographical space - called Homeland, - what I have described as Ntu, which forms the African conception of nationality that facilitates success. Therefore, the success of African Political Communities is only possible on the basis of satisfied needs and placated desires which incorporate a Spiritual basis of identity, - what I have described as 'physiological security'. Thus, a circle is drawn, both in this theoretical statement and also, in the framework of African political history that has escaped what I have called the prevailing paradigm of African discourse. The framework, which I illustrate in this thesis, would make more rigorous the teHing of African History - which I agree, has become more sympathetic and elegant (Davidson, 1994: Oliver, 1991). The thesis introduces an African-centred social science paradigm with International Relations - IR as a discipline, at its centre, based on Understanding Africa through the marrying of a macro International Relations (IR) approach and the concerns of micro historical sociologies. This stands as an alternative to those approaches which, aim at explaining the continent as a site of resistance to an external world. The project also introduces a theory of Functional politics aimed at African continental integration based on the ideals of the African Economic Community - AEC (Abuja) Treaty of 1991.
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St, John Taylor. "The power of modest multilateralism : the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), 1964-1980". Thesis, University of Oxford, 2015. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:aeca5b93-4493-4b75-9654-182a2c76e62a.
Texto completoResumen
In 1965, amid antagonism between capital-importing and capital-exporting states over investment protection, the World Bank created ICSID. ICSID facilitates the resolution of disputes between foreign investors and states. Since major initiatives to create investment rules have failed within the UN and OECD, ICSID is the only successful attempt to create a multilateral, inter-state organization dedicated to investment. This thesis probes the intellectual, political, and economic forces behind the creation and early development of ICSID. This study combines archival work, oral histories, and interviews with econometric work. On this basis, it illuminates how ICSID's creators-mainly staff in the World Bank's Legal Department-adapted their ideas to suit the charged political context. When disseminating the idea of ICSID to states, they relied on ambiguity, expertise, and incrementalism. These three characteristics constitute an approach to organization building that I term "modest multilateralism" since the World Bank's President praised ICSID as "a modest proposal." By illustrating how this approach operated in ICSID's case, I generate insights that are applicable to other international organizations. ICSID's creation differs from the expectations of institutionalist IR theory in important ways. First, there was little state leadership, and ICSID's founding Convention is devoid of substance-it merely outlines a procedure. In this way, it takes the idea of ambiguity to its extreme. Second, ICSID's founders took steps to shield the organization from the politics of investment protection: they asked states to send legal experts, not elected representatives, and avoided deliberative debate. Third, ICSID's design was explicitly evolutionary. ICSID can operate alongside changing substantive rules-multilateral, bilateral, or domestic. Finally, contrary to previous accounts, in this thesis the ICSID Secretariat emerges as a dynamic agent. The Secretariat actively pursued ratifications and advance consents to investor-state arbitration. The creation of ICSID fostered a community of practice, which subsequently redefined international investment law through treaty making and arbitral practice.
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PONTICELLI, JACOPO. "Produttivita' e Allocazione dei Fattori di Produzione: Evidenza Empirica a Livello Macro e Micro". Doctoral thesis, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/10280/1080.
Texto completoResumen
Questa tesi presenta nuova evidenza empirica sulla relazione tra allocazione dei fattori di produzione e differenze di produttivita' tra paesi (primo capitolo) e tra imprese (secondo capitolo). Il primo capitolo analizza la questione degli scarsi movimenti di capitale tra paesi ricchi e paesi poveri (Lucas' paradox). Una calibrazione del modello neoclassico applicata a nuovi dati mostra come, una volta tenuto conto delle differenze nello stock di capitale umano e nella remunerazione del fattore capitale, i rendimenti da capitale fisico sono molti simili tra paesi ricchi e paesi poveri. Il secondo capitolo studia la relazione tra l'allocazione dei fattori fra imprese e la produttivita' totale dei fattori (TFP). Applicando il modello di Hsieh e Klenow (2009) a dati di imprese manifatturiere di Cile e Messico negli anni '80, si nota una minore presenza di distorsioni nell'allocazione dei fattori in Cile. Questa piu' efficiente allocazione dei fattori di produzione tra imprese potrebbe aiutare a capire perche' l'economia cilena, diversamente da quella messicana, recupero' velocemente dopo la crisi dei primi anni '80.This Thesis provides new empirical evidence on the relationship between the allocation of factors of production and differences in productivity across countries (first chapter) and across firms (second chapter). In the first chapter I address the issue of small capital flows between rich and poor countries (the so-called Lucas' paradox) observed in data. Applying a calibration approach to new data I show that, taking into account differences in human capital and in the capital share on output, returns to physical capital in rich and poor countries are fairly close. In the second chapter I investigate the relationship between the allocation of factors across firms within a country and TFP. Applying the model proposed by Hsieh and Klenow (2009) to firm level data of Chile and Mexico during 1980s I find that there are less distortions operating on average in the Chilean manufacturing sector with respect to the Mexican one. I argue that the more efficient allocation of factors across firms could help explain why Chile recovered rapidly while Mexico stagnated after the crisis of the early 1980s.
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PONTICELLI, JACOPO. "Produttivita' e Allocazione dei Fattori di Produzione: Evidenza Empirica a Livello Macro e Micro". Doctoral thesis, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/10280/1080.
Texto completoResumen
Questa tesi presenta nuova evidenza empirica sulla relazione tra allocazione dei fattori di produzione e differenze di produttivita' tra paesi (primo capitolo) e tra imprese (secondo capitolo). Il primo capitolo analizza la questione degli scarsi movimenti di capitale tra paesi ricchi e paesi poveri (Lucas' paradox). Una calibrazione del modello neoclassico applicata a nuovi dati mostra come, una volta tenuto conto delle differenze nello stock di capitale umano e nella remunerazione del fattore capitale, i rendimenti da capitale fisico sono molti simili tra paesi ricchi e paesi poveri. Il secondo capitolo studia la relazione tra l'allocazione dei fattori fra imprese e la produttivita' totale dei fattori (TFP). Applicando il modello di Hsieh e Klenow (2009) a dati di imprese manifatturiere di Cile e Messico negli anni '80, si nota una minore presenza di distorsioni nell'allocazione dei fattori in Cile. Questa piu' efficiente allocazione dei fattori di produzione tra imprese potrebbe aiutare a capire perche' l'economia cilena, diversamente da quella messicana, recupero' velocemente dopo la crisi dei primi anni '80.This Thesis provides new empirical evidence on the relationship between the allocation of factors of production and differences in productivity across countries (first chapter) and across firms (second chapter). In the first chapter I address the issue of small capital flows between rich and poor countries (the so-called Lucas' paradox) observed in data. Applying a calibration approach to new data I show that, taking into account differences in human capital and in the capital share on output, returns to physical capital in rich and poor countries are fairly close. In the second chapter I investigate the relationship between the allocation of factors across firms within a country and TFP. Applying the model proposed by Hsieh and Klenow (2009) to firm level data of Chile and Mexico during 1980s I find that there are less distortions operating on average in the Chilean manufacturing sector with respect to the Mexican one. I argue that the more efficient allocation of factors across firms could help explain why Chile recovered rapidly while Mexico stagnated after the crisis of the early 1980s.
31
Tischbirek, Andreas Johannes. "Essays on unconventional monetary policy and long-term government debt". Thesis, University of Oxford, 2014. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:7b01cae9-95d2-4973-805d-c79ffce22261.
Texto completoResumen
This thesis studies the optimal conduct of unconventional monetary policy in the form of purchases of long-term government debt by the central bank and, motivated by this policy tool, the evolution of long-term government debt holdings in household portfolios over the course of the life cycle. It is comprised of three self-contained chapters. The first chapter investigates whether it can be beneficial for central banks to use the unconventional tool even when the main policy rate is not constrained by the zero lower bound. A friction in the interaction between households and banks allows central bank purchases of long-term government debt to reduce long-term interest rates and thus to stimulate economic activity. If debt purchases and conventional short-term interest rate policy are coordinated in an appropriate way, the central bank is able to reduce the volatility of output and inflation. In the second chapter, the role that unconventional monetary policy can play in a currency union is analysed. A model is laid out, in which two countries form a currency union with a common central bank but separate and uncoordinated fiscal policy institutions. When monetary policy is implemented only through the common short-term interest rate, the central bank is unable to respond effectively to country-specific shocks. Due to segmentation in the market for long-term government debt, the yield on long-term debt can differ across countries. As a result, a monetary policy authority that can rely on bond purchases is able to address idiosyncratic shocks reflected in volatility of the natural terms of trade more effectively and to achieve higher welfare than one that cannot make use of this instrument. The final chapter studies the long-term government bond share in household portfolios over the course of the life cycle. US data from the Survey of Consumer Finances suggests that participation in the market for long-term government debt first increases and later decreases as agents approach the retirement age. The portfolio share conditional on participation is non-decreasing over the working life. These stylised facts can be explained by means of a portfolio choice model in which agents are subject to aggregate risk through asset returns as well as idiosyncratic risk through labour income and the stochastic events of retirement and death.
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Lind, Sara y Rebecca Zakrison. "Att arbeta strukturellt : Med världen som arbetsfält". Thesis, Ersta Sköndal högskola, Institutionen för socialvetenskap, 2013. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:esh:diva-2455.
Texto completoResumen
Allt fler socialarbetare väljer idag att åka ut i världen för att arbeta med olika projekt. Det internationella perspektivet är av stor relevans för socialt arbete då globaliseringen av världen gör länder allt mer beroende av varandra och sociala problem kräver internationella lösningar. Kunskaper om hur man arbetar med sociala problem på en strukturell nivå är mycket viktigt inom det internationella fältet för att uppnå hållbara förändringar. Syftet med uppsatsen har varit att bidra med en förståelse för hur socialarbetare arbetar med förändring utifrån ett strukturellt perspektiv inom socialt arbete i utvecklingsländer. Det vi frågat oss är vilka möjligheter som finns, vilka utmaningar och hinder som kan uppstå samt vilka metoder och kunskaper som är viktiga vid socialt förändringsarbete i utvecklingsländer då man arbetar utifrån ett strukturellt perspektiv. För att svara på uppsatsens syfte och frågeställningar har vi valt att genomföra fem kvalitativa intervjuer med socialarbetare med erfarenhet av strukturellt socialt arbete i utvecklingsländer. Intervjumaterialet har bearbetats och analyserats utifrån: Teorier kring Social Mobilisering, Systemteori och Maktteorier samt utifrån tidigare forskning. Intervjumaterialet visar på att det finns stora möjligheter att uppnå förändring på strukturell nivå men att det kan uppstå utmaningar och hinder på vägen. Makt och hierarkier är exempel på sådana hinder. Viktiga metoder för att öka dessa möjligheter är exempelvis att arbeta på flera nivåer i samhället och att arbeta tillsammans med de människor som hjälpen åsyftar. Kunskaper om helhetsperspektiv som inkluderar individ, grupp och samhälle är av betydande vikt för socialarbetaren i det strukturella förändringsarbetet i utvecklingsländer och vikten av att vara lyhörd, respektfull och ödmjuk lyfts fram.
33
Yun, Seong-Hun. "Toward theory building for comparative public diplomacy from the perspectives of public relations and international relations a macro-comparative study of embassies in Washington, D.C. /". College Park, Md. : University of Maryland, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/1903/2852.
Texto completoResumen
Thesis (Ph. D.) -- University of Maryland, College Park, 2005.Thesis research directed by: Communication. Title from t.p. of PDF. Includes bibliographical references. Published by UMI Dissertation Services, Ann Arbor, Mich. Also available in paper.
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Hanusch, Marek. "Electoral competition and the dynamics of public debt : context-conditional political budget cycles". Thesis, University of Oxford, 2010. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:9fa80792-826c-4fc6-b3e9-f120986b4472.
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Why and under what conditions do governments borrow before elections? This thesis aims to shed light on this question by exploring governments' incentives that give rise to political budget cycles, i.e. fluctuations in the budget balance during election times, under different political, institutional, and economic contexts. The argument will be developed in three stages. First, the thesis will explain why politicians may choose to use debt strategically to win elections and discuss and evaluate different models that can explain political budget cycles. One model, a moral hazard type competence model is, as will be shown, particularly suited for this study. It will be extended in stages two and three. The second stage will look at the benefits and costs from public debt, with a particular emphasis on the likelihood of re-election (government popularity), party system polarisation, and sovereign risk. Sovereign risk increases the cost of borrowing and thus dampens the magnitude of political budget cycles; the effect of government popularity on strategic debt is conditional on the degree of polarisation. The third stage will take the motives to borrow as given and examine the effectiveness of debt as a strategic instrument. The less voters attribute responsibility for fiscal policy to governments, the less effective debt is as a strategic instrument. Economic volatility, regulatory density, and economic openness, this thesis argues, reduce this effectiveness and in turn the political budget cycle. Similarly, coalition government reduces responsibility associated with individual coalition partners, and thus the strategic value of public debt - yet this effect is moderated by the distribution of cabinet portfolios. The argument in this thesis is based both on formal models and on empirical, time series-cross sectional, analyses. It is arguably the most comprehensive treatment of political budget cycles and adds to an increasing literature on the contextual determinants of fiscal policy.
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Boyer, Naomi Rose. "Building online learning [electronic resource] : system insights into group learning in an international online environment / by Naomi Rose Boyer". University of South Florida, 2002. http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/SFE0000026.
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Title from PDF of title page.Document formatted into pages; contains 459 pages.
Dissertation originally submitted in HTML and can be accessed at http://www.lib.usf.edu/ETD-db/theses/available/etd-12032001-125326/unrestricted/index.htm
Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of South Florida, 2002.
Includes bibliographical references.
Text (Electronic thesis) in PDF format.
ABSTRACT: The virtual world exists as a dimension between concrete physical reality and abstract fictional fantasy. This cyber essence has become a place of commerce, social development, and educational pursuit. To build an understanding of the Kingdom of the Internet, the resulting case study sought to explore the community learning experiences of groups involved in an international online distance education program to create a tale of the process of a system. An assumption in this research was that the program under study was framed within a social learning context. Therefore, the recommendations and findings must be considered within this context and applied within similarly framed learning programs. The method of this study followed an input-process-output model with an added element of outcomes.
ABSTRACT: Participants completed a preliminary technology survey, locus of control instrument, self-regulated learner instrument and a learning styles inventory along with provided background information to form group input profiles. The process of the system was observed through the use of focus groups with the participants, process leaders and instructors as well as transcripts from discussion and chats. The group interaction, the site usage information and technical feedback all served as output information. The outcomes were measured through the use of a group effectiveness measure and instructor rating of final products. The result of the system study was a story of challenge and frustration, excitement and yearning, experimentation and comfort, good and best intentions. A portraiture approach was used as the vehicle for sharing the unique experiences of the international leaders during the first semester of learning.
ABSTRACT: As an essay on not only this particular system but also the dynamics of on-line research, the study illustrated the difficulties in virtual data collection. Major themes that were determined to be critical to virtual group social learning include: role differentiation, concise curriculum development, minimization of intimidation factors, and the initial group characteristic (input relationships). The wide focus of this study provided an overview of many topics that demand further research from both the lens of individual virtual learning experience and in depth exploration of various program components.
System requirements: World Wide Web browser and PDF reader.
Mode of access: World Wide Web.
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Vijh, Rajneesh. "Return of high skilled migrants : an empirical investigation into the knowledge transfer process of two organizations in New Delhi, India". Thesis, University of Oxford, 2015. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:9f119a72-7463-4121-90dd-f5a3b3b08d8e.
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Against the backdrop of the brain drain-brain gain debate, this thesis explores certain facets of the return migration phenomenon. Drawing on several theories, the decision to return among high skilled migrants is likely to be influenced by the prospect of using their overseas-acquired knowledge to secure a better livelihood back home. While ample consideration is given to motivations to return, the choice of employer and issues adjusting to the work and social surroundings, the main objective of the research is to understand migrants' transfer of overseas-acquired knowledge upon their return to India. Given the interdisciplinary nature of the topic, the scope of the thesis is focused on returnees working in two organizations in New Delhi—Fortis Escorts Hospital and Research Centre (EHIRC) and Tata Consultancy Services' Government Industry Solutions Unit (GISU). Adopting a mixed methods approach, survey data and case interviews are analyzed to address the core research question: “How and in which ways do returnees transfer their newly acquired knowledge, skills and experiences in employing organizations?” A key hypothesis is that returnees' social ties affect the extent and nature of knowledge transfers and thus confer intended benefits and may lead to unintended consequences for their organizations. The analyses pit McPherson's (2001) principle of homophily in social networks against Granovetter's (1973) weak ties hypothesis to grasp the role of returnees in knowledge transfers within EHIRC and GISU. Results drawn from data collected on returnees, non-migrants and transnationals strongly confirm that social ties—strong, intermediate or weak—affect the transfer of knowledge to stakeholders in their organizations. The contribution of this thesis to the existing body of research is to shed light on both the potential and limitations of returnees as a conduit for transferring knowledge, upgrading skills and relaying insights to non-migrants, teams or units in the workplace.
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Lyons, Ronan C. "The economics of Ireland's property market bubble". Thesis, University of Oxford, 2013. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:c8b7f52f-af24-45be-a2a4-b57ed9ebc26d.
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This doctorate explores key aspects of the economics of housing by examining Ireland's housing market bubble of the early 2000s. For earlier chapters, the main source material is a previously unused dataset of almost two million property listings, covering the entire country from 2006 until 2012, maintained by property website daft.ie. An initial chapter outlines stylised facts of Ireland's housing market 2007-2012, including a greater spread of prices over property size in the crash but a narrower spread of rents. In contrast, the geographical spread of prices and rents was largely unchanged. The spread of rents was constrained relative to the spread of prices, suggesting either renter search thresholds or buyer "lock-in" effects. To examine which was at work, the daft.ie dataset is combined with information on a range of amenities, including landscape, transport, education, social capital and market depth. Overall, there is clear evidence that the rent effects of a range of amenities are smaller than the price effects. There is limited evidence of procyclical amenity pricing, which would indicate "lock-in" effects, with the analysis suggesting instead countercyclical pricing, or "property ladder" effects during the bubble. Results from these analyses are based on listed price and rents, rather than transaction prices. The relationship between the two is examined in a separate chapter, using an additional Central Bank of Ireland dataset on mortgages. The spread between list and sale prices gap that exists between the two is decomposed into four parts, a selection spread, a matching spread, a counteroffer spread and a drawdown spread. A selection spread of up to 10% emerged in the Irish housing market after 2009, while the counteroffer spread was positive before 2009 but negative for much of the period 2009-2011. The final chapter uses both inverted-demand and price-rent ratio methods to examine the long-run determinants of house prices in Ireland from 1980 on. In addition to careful treatment of standard fundamentals, it includes a measure of credit conditions as well as the ratio of persons to households, both contributions to the literature. The resulting inverted demand error-correction model shows a clear and stable long-run relationship, which is largely preserved when cointegration between series is explored. Similarly, a model of the price-rent ratio from 2000 shows clear error-correction properties. Together, they suggest that while a range of factors drove Irish house prices 1995-2001, credit conditions were largely responsible for the subsequent increase.
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Fujiwara, Ippei. "Three essays on dynamic general equilibrium models". Thesis, University of Oxford, 2009. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:b963d031-cd68-4bee-91b7-4541e5d600d2.
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This thesis aims at contributing to the existing studies in the dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model, particularly in the new Keynesian models, on three aspects. It consists of three chapters. Chapter 2 is on “Dynamic new Keynesian Life-Cycle Model.” Chapter 3 is on “Re-thinking Price Stability in an Economy with Endogenous Firm Entry: Real Imperfections under Product Variety.” Chapter 4 is on “Growth Expectation.” Abstracts of each Chapter are as follows. In Chapter 2, we first construct a dynamic new Keynesian model that incorporates life-cycle behavior a la Gertler (1999), in order to study whether structural shocks to the economy have asymmetric effects on heterogeneous agents, namely workers and retirees. We also examine whether considerations of life-cycle and demographic structure alter the dynamic properties of the monetary business cycle model, specifically the degree of amplification in impulse responses. According to our simulation results, shocks indeed have asymmetric impacts on different households and the demographic structure does alter the size of responses against shocks by changing the trade-off between substitution and income effects. In Chapter 3, we re-think price stability in an economy with endogenous firm entry under possible distortions. We first demonstrate that endogenous entry causes real imperfections. Reflecting fluctuations in the number of varieties, the gap between the natural and the efficient level of output is no longer constant and variant to shocks. As a result, the central bank faces a trade-off between stabilizing inflation and welfare-relevant output gap. Then, we show that this results in the non-zero optimal rate of inflation. We further check whether welfare can be enhanced by targeting welfare-based inflation instead of cross-sectional average inflation contrary to the previous findings. Simulations even with such distortions as unknown natural interest rate or no fiscal remedy for efficient non-stochastic steady states, however, support cross-sectional average inflation targeting although there may exist some small gains by referring also to welfare-based inflation rates. Incomplete stabilization may enhance welfare in an economy when agents cannot internalize the externality on the love for variety. Chapter 4 is about the difficulty in producing reasonable business cycles for the expectation shock about higher future technology. For a long time, changes in expectations about the future have been thought to be significant sources of economic fluctuations, as argued by Pigou (1926). Although creating such an expectation-driven cycle (the Pigou cycle) in equilibrium business cycle models was considered to be a difficult challenge, as pointed out by Barro and King (1984), recently, several researchers have succeeded in producing the Pigou cycle by balancing the tension between the wealth effect and the substitution effect stemming from the higher expected future productivity. Seminal research by Christiano et al. (2007a) explains the “stock market boom-bust cycles,” characterized by increases in consumption, labor inputs, investment and the stock prices relating to high expected future technology levels, by introducing investment growth adjustment costs, habit formation in consumption, sticky prices and an inflation-targeting central bank. We, however, show that such a cycle is difficult to generate based on “growth expectation,” which reflect expectations of higher productivity growth rates. Thus, Barro and King’s (1984) prediction still applies.
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Ahmed, Swarnali. "New approaches to understanding income differences and current account imbalances". Thesis, University of Oxford, 2013. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:3fd7e934-ed3f-4861-9647-88f439126463.
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This thesis employs two new approaches to explain some of the important debates in two key economic fields: labour market economics and macroeconomic studies related to current account imbalances. Chapter 1, Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 begin a new strand of research by introducing the normal inverse Gaussian (NIG) distribution to describe unobserved heterogeneity in the labour market. The NIG distribution can be represented as a normal variance-mean mixture with the inverse Gaussian (IG) distribution as the mixing distribution. A 0.01% subsample of the 1980 US Census, comprising all men between 18 and 65 who are in the labour force, as well as a comparable sample from Ghana, is used to show that the NIG distribution provides a better fit of the log earnings function than the normal distribution. The prediction of right skewness of the log earnings distribution arising from the log normal skill Roy selection model is rejected in favour of left skewness. The thesis then extends the model to describe the distribution of log earnings conditioned on education. The same two datasets (US males and Ghanaian males) are used for the empirical analysis. We find that, once the unobserved heterogeneity is accounted for, the return to education is almost flat for lower levels of education in Ghana, and then increases for education levels greater than ten years. One of the key differences between the two datasets is that skewness and unobserved heterogeneity is a function of education for Ghana but not for the US. The NIG framework is found to be a useful tool to model this heterogeneity. Chapter 4 uses a model that allows for a rich structure of age effects similar to those predicted by the life cycle theories to argue that the demographic shifts are partly responsible for the sustained rise in the US current account deficit and the rapid increase in China's current account surplus in the last decade. However, demographics do not have an impact on the long run equilibrium or level of current accounts. Rather, they are important determinants of the short run adjustment of current accounts to their equilibrium levels. In the next twenty years, the demographic shifts are likely to push towards further current account positive adjustments in China and current account negative adjustments in the US. Developing the infrastructure, financial markets, policy tools and regulatory settings to be able to cope with the excess capital flow remains an urgent task.
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Barker, Roger M. "Competition, parties and the determinants of change in European corporate governance : a macro-comparative analysis /". Thesis, University of Oxford, 2008. http://ora.ouls.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:31d9f1df-60e4-413d-80b2-e35e8790bac9.
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Brendon, Charles Frederick. "Essays in normative macroeconomics". Thesis, University of Oxford, 2011. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:f4531e94-54bf-43f6-843f-5d37054476f1.
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This thesis is divided into two main parts. The first provides a novel analysis of dynamic optimal taxation under the assumption that individuals in an economy have ‘hidden’ idiosyncratic productivity levels. Specifically, it shows how to derive a complete set of optimality conditions characterising the solution to a problem of this kind. The method relies on constructing perturbations to the consumption-output allocations of agents in a manner that preserves all relevant incentive compatibility restrictions. We are able to use it to generalise the ‘inverse Euler condition’ to cases in which preferences are non-separable between consumption and labour supply, and to prove a number of novel results about optimal income and savings tax wedges. The second main part investigates a more general problem. When policymakers are constrained in their present choices by expectations of future outcomes a well-known time-inconsistency problem hinders optimal decision-making: the preferences of policymakers who exist at different points in time are not in agreement with one another, because of differences in the constraints faced by each. We present a new approach to determining policy in this setting, based on asking: What policy would be chosen by a decisionmaker who did not know the time period in which their choice was to be implemented? This is akin to designing institutions from behind a Rawlsian ‘veil of ignorance’. The theory is used to obtain qualitative policy prescriptions across a number of environments; these policies have several appealing properties that we outline.
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Menzies, John Alexander. "Sovereign contingent liabilities : a perspective on default and debt crises". Thesis, University of Oxford, 2014. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:c25e36be-bd42-4a0f-9af6-42d17f87424f.
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Chapters 2-3: A global games approach to sovereign debt crises The first chapters present a model that investigates the risks involved when a fiscal authority attempts to roll-over a stock of debt and there is the potential for coordination failure by investors. A continuum of investors, after receiving signals about the authority's willingness to repay, decides whether to roll-over the stock of debt. If an insufficient proportion of investors participates, the authority defaults. With one fiscal authority, private information results in a deterministic outcome. When a public signal is available, the model behaves in a similar manner to a sunspot model. In line with much of the global games literature, improving public information has an ambiguous effect on welfare. Finally, the model is extended to include a second fiscal authority, which captures a similar sunspot result and illustrates the potential for externalities in fiscal policy. Lower debt in the less indebted authority can push a more indebted authority into crisis. Lower debt makes the healthier authority relatively more attractive, which causes the investors to treat the heavily indebted authority more conservatively. In certain circumstances, this is sufficient to cause a coordination failure. Chapter 4: A debt game with correlated information This chapter models of debt roll-over where a continuum of investors receives correlated signals on whether a debtor is solvent or insolvent. The investors face a collective action problem: a sufficient proportion of investors must agree to participate in the debt roll-over for it to be a success. If an insufficient proportion of investors participates in the deal, the debtor will default. The game has a unique switching strategy, which results in global uncertainty being preserved. The ex ante distribution of play (conditional on the true solvency of the debtor) follows a Vasicek credit distribution. The ex ante probability of a debt crisis is affected by the exogenous model parameters. Of particular interest is the observation that increasing private noise unambiguously reduces the probability of a debt crisis. Unsurprisingly, increasing the fiscal space or return on debt also decreases the probability of a crisis. Chapter 5: Bailouts and politics The final chapter examines the political-economic equilibrium in a two-period model with overlapping generations and a financial sector, which is inspired by the model in Tabellini (1989). The public policy is chosen under majority rule by the agents currently alive. It demonstrates that the bailout policy adopted in the second period has important effects on the bank's financing decisions in the first period. By adopting a riskier financing regime (i.e. higher leverage) in the first period, the older generation can extract consumption from the younger generation in the second period. Sovereign backstops of the financial sector are state-contingent: they can appear costless for long periods of time but eventually result in a socialization of private-sector debt. It is this mechanism that makes implementing capital requirements costly to investors yet beneficial to the younger generation. The model also highlights two important issues: (i) bank capital is endogenous and (ii) proposed resolution mechanisms must be politically credible. It suggests that a major benefit of increasing and narrowing equity-capital requirements or increasing liquidity ratios is that they are implemented ex ante and therefore available either to absorb losses in the event of a crisis or to reduce the possibility of large drops in asset values. Finally, this chapter also provides a structure by which to interpret the stylized facts of Calomiris et al. (2014): that more populist political institutions are associated with more fragile financial systems.
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Nkuepo, Henri J. "Enhancing the capacity of policy-makers to mainstream gender in trade policy and make trade responsive to women's needs: A South African perspective". Thesis, University of the Western Cape, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/11394/2551.
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Magister Legum - LLMThe impact of trade policies on the pursuit of gender equality is often ignored. Recognising the link between trade and gender, this dissertation aims to enhance the capacity of policy-makers to mainstream gender in trade policy and to help identify ways for using trade to respond to women's needs in South Africa. In order to meet this objective, it analyses the impacts that trade liberalisation has had on the economy and on gender in general and in South Africa in particular. In addition, it evaluates the impacts on men and women in order to see if trade has contributed to reducing, accentuating or perpetuating gender inequality in South Africa. Findings have confirmed that Trade liberalisation has had both positive and negative impacts on women and men. But, they have also demonstrated that trade liberalisation has affected women and men differently having negative influences on the pursuit of gender equality. The research has, however, concluded that the impact of trade liberalisation on the pursuit of gender equality is influenced by other key factors. As strategy to mainstream gender in trade policies, the research suggests that policy-makers should analyse the implications for women and men of any trade policy before adopting such policy. This analysis would help him/her to see the possible imbalances of the new policy and implement policies and programmes to eradicate them. Also, it will help him/her to identify possible ways for using trade to empower women. The research is based on the idea that the elimination of the existing inequalities will put women at the same stage with men and will, therefore, contribute to women's empowerment in South Africa.
South Africa
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Watugala, Sumudu Weerakoon. "Essays on interconnected markets". Thesis, University of Oxford, 2015. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:50c12fb0-a354-40bb-9d07-9174ad1f594a.
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This thesis consists of three essays that explore the dynamics of interconnected markets and examine the relationships between markets, investor behavior, and fundamental characteristics of the firm and the economy. In the first essay, we investigate the role of trade credit links in generating cross-border return predictability between international firms. Using data from 43 countries from 1993 to 2009, we find that firms with high trade credit in producer countries have stock returns that are strongly predictable based on the returns of their associated customer countries. This behavior is especially prevalent among firms with high levels of foreign sales. To better understand this effect we develop an asset pricing model in which firms in different countries are connected by trade credit links. The model offers further predictions about this phenomenon, including stronger predictability during periods of high credit constraints and low uninformed trading volume. We find supportive empirical evidence for these predictions. The second essay investigates the dynamics of commodity futures volatility. I derive the variance decomposition for the futures basis to show how unexpected excess returns result from new information about expected future interest rates, convenience yields, and risk premia. Using data on major commodity futures markets and global bilateral commodity trade, I analyze the extent to which commodity volatility is related to fundamental uncertainty arising from increased emerging market demand and macroeconomic uncertainty, and control for the potential impact of financial frictions introduced by changing market structure and index trading. I find that a higher concentration in the emerging market importers of a commodity is associated with higher futures volatility. Commodity futures volatility is significantly predictable using variables capturing macroeconomic uncertainty. The third essay investigates the differential explanatory power of consumer (importing countries) and producer (exporting countries) risk in explaining the volatility of commodity spot premia and term premia using trade-weighted indices of GDP volatility. Using data for major commodity futures markets, bilateral commodity trade, exchange rates, and GDP for countries trading these commodities, I test hypotheses on the heterogeneous impact of consumer and producer shocks, potentially driven by differences in hedging preferences and investment planning horizons. Producer risk is significant for both short-dated and long-dated maturities, while consumer risk has greater explanatory power for the volatility of the term spread.
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Dimova, Dilyana. "The role of consumer leverage in financial crises". Thesis, University of Oxford, 2015. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:cdc19fb0-183e-414e-90a6-ddac394e2ed1.
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This thesis demonstrates that consumer leverage can contribute to financial crises such as the subprime mortgage crisis characterised by increased bankruptcy prospects and tightened credit access. A recession may follow even when the leveraged sector is not a production sector and can be triggered by seeming positive events such as a technological innovation and a relaxation of borrowing conditions. The first preliminary chapter updates the Bernanke, Gertler and Gilchrist (1999) approach with financial frictions in the production sector to a two-sector model with consumption and housing. It shows that credit frictions in the capital financing decisions of housing firms are not sufficient to capture the negative consumer experience with falling housing prices and relaxed credit access during the recession. The second chapter brings the model closer to the subprime mortgage crisis by shifting credit constraints to the consumer mortgage market. Increased supply of houses lowers asset prices and reduces the value of the real estate collateral used in the mortgage which in turn worsens the leverage of indebted consumers. A relaxation of borrowing conditions turns credit-constrained households into a potential source of disturbances themselves when market optimism allows them to raise their leverage with little downpayment. Both cases demonstrate that although households are not production agents, their worsening debt levels can trigger a lasting financial downturn. The third chapter develops a chained mortgage contracts model where both homeowner consumers and the financial institutions that securitize their mortgage loan are credit-constrained. Adding credit constraints to the financial sector that provides housing mortgages creates opportunities for risk sharing where banks shift some of the downturn onto indebted consumers in order to hasten their own recovery. This consequence is especially evident in the case of relaxed credit access for banks. Financial institutions repair their debt position relatively fast at the expense of consumers whose borrowing ability is squeezed for a long period despite the fact that they may not be the source of the disturbance. The result mirrors the recent subprime mortgage crisis characterised by a sharp but brief decline for banks and a protracted recovery for mortgaged households.
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Nunan, Timothy Alexander. "Developing powers : modernization, economic development, and governance in Cold War Afghanistan". Thesis, University of Oxford, 2013. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:47afb7eb-9a6b-468f-98f5-b9d96fcdf0f6.
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In the last decade, scholars have recognized economic development and modernization as crucial themes in the history of the twentieth century and the ‘global Cold War.’ Yet while historians have written lucid histories of the role of the social sciences in American foreign policy in the Third World, far less is known on the Soviet Union’s ideological and material support during the same period for countries like Egypt, India, Ethiopia, Angola, or – most prominently – Afghanistan. This dissertation argues that the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan is best understood as the final and most costly of a series developmental interventions staged in that country during the latter half of the twentieth century by Afghans, Soviets, Americans, Germans and others. Cold War-era Afghanistan is best understood as a laboratory for ideas about the nation-state and the idea of a ‘national economy.’ One can best understand Afghanistan during that period less through a common but ahistorical ‘graveyard of empires’ narrative, and more in terms of the history of the social sciences, the state system in South and Central Asia, and the ideological changes in ideas about the state and the economy in 20th century economic thought. Four chapters explore this theme, looking at the history of the Soviet social sciences, developmental interventions in Afghanistan prior to 1978, a case study of Soviet advisors in eastern Afghanistan, and Soviet interventions to protect Afghan women. Making use of new materials from Soviet, German, and American archives, and dozens of interviews with former Soviet advisors, this dissertation makes a new and meaningful contribution to the historical literature on the Soviet Union, Central Asia, and international history.
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Wills, Samuel Edward. "Macroeconomic policy in resource-rich economies". Thesis, University of Oxford, 2013. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:a7050812-cec5-47f6-912b-d00252c3d69f.
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This thesis considers how fiscal and monetary policy should be conducted in resourcerich economies. It consists of three papers addressing: whether governments should spend, save or invest volatile oil income; the assets they should save in; and how monetary policy should respond. The first, “Eight principles for managing resource wealth”, shows that capital-scarce countries should save relatively less against oil price volatility, and invest more in domestic capital. They also should prepare for volatility in advance, and treat savings as a source of income rather than a temporary buffer. To show this the paper develops a framework that nests a variety of existing results, which are presented in eight principles. The second, “The Elephant in the Ground: Oil extraction and asset allocation in sovereign wealth funds”, shows that governments should use sovereign wealth funds to offset oil price risk, extract oil faster if its price is pro-cyclical, and use precautionary savings to manage any residual volatility. To do this it combines three strands of literature for the first time: on continuous-time portfolio theory, oil extraction and precautionary savings. The third, “Optimal monetary responses to oil discoveries”, addresses the anticipation effects around an oil discovery. It shows that the terms of trade will need to appreciate twice: once when oil is discovered and consumers anticipate future revenues; and again when the government begins spending the revenues. Oil wealth will give the monetary authority an incentive to appreciate the terms of trade, in addition to stabilising domestic inflation and the output gap. Optimal policy is well-approximated by a standard monetary rule that also responds to expected changes in the natural level of output.
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Wan, Simon Shui-Ming. "Real exchange rate volatility in the long-run growth process". Thesis, University of Oxford, 2014. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:9115f1f1-656c-4d3b-9147-4d061d30859d.
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The objective of this thesis is to examine real exchange rate volatility, with a particular focus on investigating the causes of exchange rate jumps. While the predominant approach in the literature is to examine the interaction between nominal rigidities and nominal shocks, this thesis examines the volatility that arises from real rigidities and shocks. Trying to better understand the transmission of real shocks to the exchange rate is a worthwhile task, given the substantial evidence that these shocks and rigidities are important for explaining other economic fluctuations. This thesis develops theoretical models that examine the contributions of specific real rigidities to exchange rate volatility. Chapter 1 introduces our baseline specification - a frictionless model, with the exception of capital adjustment costs. This baseline generates very mild exchange rate fluctuations. Additional rigidities are required to generate volatility of the magnitude that is typically observed. Chapter 2 finds that introducing imperfect asset substitutability - specifically, home asset bias - goes a little towards achieving this. When investors are biased, the exchange rate must adjust by more to equilibrate asset markets. This greater burden of adjustment on the exchange rate along the short run path typically translates to larger jumps after shocks. Similarly, Chapter 3 shows that augmenting the baseline with banks and financial frictions raises exchange rate volatility. The key point is that, in the presence of financial frictions, there is a risk premium that widens after negative shocks, increasing the required adjustment of the exchange rate. A fourth chapter extends Chapter 3 and shows that unconventional credit policy, while beneficial in some respects, nonetheless entails nontrivial costs because it invites moral hazard by encouraging banks to be more highly leveraged, which increases exchange rate and consumption volatility. So, the overall message is that, in the presence of plausible real frictions - including (i) capital adjustment costs, (ii) imperfect asset substitutability, and (iii) financial frictions - real shocks can generate a plausibly significant degree of real exchange rate volatility. This thus posits an additional explanation of exchange rate jumps that complements the predominantly monetary literature.
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Sagno, Niankoye. "La transmission internationale des taux d'intérêt : une approche macro économétrique". Paris 9, 1987. https://portail.bu.dauphine.fr/fileviewer/index.php?doc=1987PA090058.
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L'objectif de cette étude est de tenter, par une approche macro-économétrique, d'appréhender les principaux mécanismes qui commandent la transmission internationale des taux d'intérêt. Nous sommes partis du fait que les taux d'intérêt directeurs sont formes aux Etats-Unis et propages ensuite dans le reste du monde. Malgré l'absence de certains effets relatifs à la politique monétaire interne, la démarche suivie nous a permis de mettre en évidence l'importance des influences d'origine externe dans la formation des taux d'intérêt domestiques et internationaux. Ces influences qui varient selon le pays, déterminent également le degré d'autonomie monétaire localeThe purpose of the present research is an approach by way of macroeconometric analysis to understand the governing mechanisms that direct the conveying of international interest rates. We start from the notion that governing interest rates are fixed in the united states and then, wide spread throughout the world. Despite the lack of accurate proofs related to national monetary policy, the result of the research is to put in prominent position the importance of external influences as regard to the fixing of national and international interest rates. Theses influences witch differ from one nation to other, also determine the limit of national monetary autonomy
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Sagno, Niankoye. "La Transmission internationale des taux d'intérêt une approche macro-économétrique /". Grenoble 2 : ANRT, 1987. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb376095854.
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