Divergence in labour force growth : should wages and prices grow faster in Germany?

We develop a model which shows that wages, prices and real income should grow faster in countries with low increase in their labour force. If not, other countries experience growing unemployment and/or trade deficit. This result is applied to the case of Germany, which has displayed a significantly lower increase in its labour force than its trade partners, except in the moment of the reunification. By assuming that goods are differentiated according to their country of origin (Armingtons hypothesis), a low growth of the working population constrains the production of German goods, which entails an increase in their prices and in German wages. This mechanism is magnified by the low price elasticity of the demand for German goods.Hence,the German policy of wage moderation could severely constrain other countries policy options. The simulations of an extended model which encompasses offshoring to emerging countries and labour market imperfections suggest that (i) the impact of differences in labour force growth upon unemployment in Eurozone countries has been significant and (ii) the German demographic shock following unification could explain a large part of the 1995-2005 German economic turmoil

Exchange Rate Dynamics, Intervention and Regime Shifts in China: A Market Microstructure Analysis

This thesis applies the market microstructure approach to investigate exchange rate dynamics, intervention and regime shifts in China’s exchange rate system. This research first examines exchange rate determination and dynamics from a microstructural perspective. An index of order flow is constructed in the Chinese context to reflect excess demand pressure. A VAR model is then estimated to explore to what extent order flow may explain long-term determination and short-term fluctuations of the renminbi exchange rate. Focusing on the cointegrating relationship between cumulative order flow and the exchange rate of the RMB against the US dollar, this research find that in the new Chinese exchange rate regime in place since 2005, order flow is able to explain a significant part of fluctuations in the RMB-dollar exchange rate. China is internationally noted for its intervention in the foreign exchange market. Based on high-frequency data this thesis adopt a multi-dimensional approach to explore how interventions are conducted in China, what the consequences are, and to what extent they are effective. This thesis identify evidence of China’s extensive intervention and find that the authority is more likely to intervene to curb devaluation. Decomposition analysis shows that the direct impact of intervention on the exchange rate is more important than the impact via order flow. Intervention via the central bank’s involvement in trading is effective in influencing both the exchange rate and order flow, but tends to increase volatility. Intervention by the central bank’s varying the central parity condition plays some role in ‘leaning against the wind’, but cannot reverse the trend. China announced the reform of its exchange rate system in 2005. The reform was disrupted by the breakout of the global financial crisis around 2008, but was reiterated in 2010. The thesis analyses the behaviour of China’s exchange rate policy since then. This research detect 21st June 2010 as the date of regime shift, since when the RMB has been allowed greater room for flexibility, and consequently exchange rate volatility has increased. This research unearths evidence confirming that the renminbi no longer pegs only to the dollar. During the crisis period, deviations from the central parity rate (CPR) increase the possibility of government intervention, and the intervention correlates with bid-ask exchange rate spread. The Chinese monetary authority is found to act to keep the exchange rate stable. In the post-crisis period, the correlation becomes time-varying and the government prefers the RMB exchange rate to gradually appreciate. This research finds evidence that appreciation of the RMB exchange rate is order flow driven during the post-crisis period. There is a significant negative currency exposure during the financial crisis, caused by changes in the RMB exchange rate, indicating that the Chinese stock market exhibits a negative reaction in the period. However, no significant impact is found in the post- crisis period. In order to modify the exchange rate exposure to fluctuations of the US dollar, the Chinese government seems to have adopted the relatively more efficient exchange rate regime to handle the effects of the global financial crisis

Environmental Information Systems and Community-Based Resource Management in Ghana: An Investigation of Institutional Policy and Implementation in Context

This study employed a case-study approach and cross-case analysis to investigate the impact of Environmental Information Systems (EIS) and Local Knowledge Systems (LKS) on agro-forestry management and biodiversity conservation. Questionnaire-based interviews with service providers, resource managers and focus group discussions with farmers associated with the United Nations Capacity 21, the Netherlands Tropenbos International (TBI) and the United Nations Project on People Land Management and Conservation (UNPLEC), projects yielded in-depth information on agro-forestry practices in southern Ghana. The findings of the survey revealed that computer-based information systems have been used to identify areas of resource degradation. This has served as a sanitization tool to organize and intensify tree-planting exercises and agroforestry management activities in the affected areas. Evaluation of individual cases and cross-case analysis of EIS projects in Ghana showed parallels and divergences in the modus operandi of EIS implementation at national and district levels. The Capacity 21 project initiated the District Environmental Resource Information System (DERIS). The project procured datasets (eg. satellite images, software, computers and printers) in 8 pilot districts including Sekyere West and Assin Fosu Districts and offered training and skill development programmes under the auspices of the Centre for Environmental Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Services (CERSGIS) to equip focal district planning officers to use tools and datasets to analyze the state of the environment and the extent of resource degradation as well as other development-related activities. This fostered cooperation between the national coordinator of the project, district planners and local farmers to organize regular tree-planting exercises and workshops on alternative livelihood activities which have helped to lessen pressure on the environment to some extent. This approach exhibits a greater degree of top-down planning and implementation. The field survey revealed that PLEC used computer-based information systems during the earlier stages of the project to demarcate demonstration sites and capture spatio-temporal variations in agro-ecological conditions. However, during the subsequent phases, the PLEC project relied heavily and predominantly on local agro-ecological knowledge from a diverse group of farmers to assess resource conditions, and promoted the use of various traditional and exotic agro-forestry and agro-diversity management techniques in the Manya Krobo and Suhum Kraboa Coaltar Districts. The PLEC approach was more bottom-up in its philosophy and practice by allowing natural and social scientists to learn from farmers, and the scientists in turn offered technical advice which enabled farmers to improve their local farming techniques and maximize their farm productivity, while at the same time enhancing the capacity of the biophysical environment to support conventional and alternative livelihood activities continually. The Tropenbos International (TBI) project exhibits elements of both top-down and bottom-up implementation approaches. It recognizes the significant role of tailor-made information (computer-based systems and socio-economic studies mainly from the Forest Services Commission and the University of Ghana, respectively) and skill in forest management. The TBI GORTMAN project streamlined the capacity for information collection in the Goaso and Offinso districts. The findings revealed that farmers associated with the three projects apply various knowledge systems and techniques in agroforestry management. These include, mixed cultivation of domestic, economic and medicinal trees as well as food crops. Reasons such as windbreak, construction materials, medicine, food, fuelwood and nutrient enhancement were cited by farmers for practicing agroforestry. Common food crops found on farms include cocoyam, okro, maize, plantain and yams, among others. These crops are the mainstay of family food and income sources. Other livelihood activities include beekeeping, snail rearing and grasscutter raising and livestock breeding. The diversities of agroforestry practices have engendered decades of farm management practices and resource conservation measures. Another challenge of agroforestry management which is common to all the three projects is that farmers are victims of indiscriminate felling of trees on their farms by timber companies which destroys their crops. Farmers repeatedly cited logistical (tools, seedlings etc) challenges and financial constraints as factors that hamper effective application of knowledge systems in agroforestry management. This is a dominant problem that PLEC and TBI farmers face. Capacity 21 farmers benefited initially from logistical supplies but it was short-lived. In view of these problems, the study recommended measures for improving environmental information systems and local knowledge systems applications in agroforestry management and agrodiversity conservation in southern Ghana

Essays on Growth, Finance and Inequality

This dissertation consists of three chapters. The first chapter examines the frequency of banking crisis is statistically significantly correlated to growth for the time windows of 1 decade and 2 decades, this negative relationship becoming increasingly more statistically insignificant overall for time windows from 3 decades to 10 decades before finally becoming positive, though statistically insignificant, for the time windows of 13 decades and longer for our sample. The frequency of currency crisis is statistically significantly negatively associated with growth overall for the time windows of 1 decade to 10 decades, before becoming insignificantly positive for time windows of 13 decades and longer for our sample. The second chapter examines the effect of capital account openness on growth using two measurements of capital account openness, i.e., CAPITAL (1955-2004) and The Chinn-Ito Index (1970-2014). I find that capital account openness had a positive effect on 5-year average growth, 10-year average growth and 20-year average growth based on panel analyses, but an insignificant even negative effect on growth in the long run based on cross-sectional regressions. The results are robust to controlling country dummy and time dummy. The third chapter uses data of Gini coefficient, GDP per capita, ratio of fixed capital to GDP and ratio of labor to GDP from China for period 1978-2013, this paper attempts to explore long run and short run causality relationship between income inequality and growth. My findings show there exist neither long run nor short run causality link between Gini coefficient and log of GDP per capita

The countrywide effects of aid

There are three main approaches to analyzing the effects of aid money and aid-supported reform: before-and-after comparison; control group (simple and modified) studies; and modeling. All three approaches have been used to carry out macroeconomic analysis of policy reform. But before-and-after and simple control group approaches are not valid explanatory techniques, say the authors; the results may be used to describe what happened, but not why it happened. Theoretically, the modified control group is the strongest approach. In practice, it has many shortcomings - in particular, its failure to allow for the effects of aid and other capital flows as an explanatory variable. The macroeconomic impact of aid inflows is best understood within the context of an accounting framework, say the authors. The literature on the macroeconomic effects of aid funds has relied almost entirely on modeling. But much work has used only single equations, so that many potentially important relationships - notably aid's effects on output and income - are excluded from the analysis. Even the simultaneous models used are mostly partial, not general, equilibrium models - which makes the findings doubtful. And much of the empirical work suffers from methodological shortcomings. Much research is needed on how aid affects the private sector macroeconomically; more is known about how to analyze the public sector's response to aid inflows. The analysis of aidmoney and aid-supported policy reform can be incorporated into a single framework - but with the effects of each clearly separable. The authors favor a country-specific modeling approach because it allows the separate analysis of policies and money as well as the separate analysis of different policies. Country-specific analysis can capture local factors that may be omitted from cross-country analyses. They argue that counterfactual analysis using econometric or general equilibrium models may be the most legitimate approach to analyzing the relationship between poverty and economic reform. Modeling has yielded results quite different from the common view about the social impact of reform policies, they say, but existing models fail to incorporate aid as an important macroeconomic variable. Project aid, program aid, commodity (mainly food) aid, and technical assistance are the four main types of aid. One problem in much of the literature is that an aggregate aid figure is used, even though the macroeconomic repercussions of these different types of aid will differ. Much analysis is also flawed by considering the effects of a program (despite different intensities and compliance rates) rather than the policies implemented.Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Development Economics&Aid Effectiveness,School Health,Poverty Assessment

Transforming U.S. Energy Innovation

The United States and the world need a revolution in energy technology—a revolution that would improve the performance of our energy systems to face the challenges ahead. A dramatic increase in the pace of energy innovation is crucial to meet the challenges of: • Energy and national security, to address the dangers of undue reliance on dwindling supplies of oil increasingly concentrated in some of the most volatile regions of the world, and to limit the connection between nuclear energy and the spread of nuclear weapons; • Environmental sustainability, to reduce the wide range of environmental damages due to energy production and use, from fine particulate emissions at coal plants, to oil spills, to global climate disruption; and • Economic competitiveness, to seize a significant share of the multi-trillion-dollar clean energy technology market and improve the balance of payments by increasing exports, while reducing the hundreds of billions of dollars spent every year on importing oil. In an intensely competitive and interdependent global landscape, and in the face of large climate risks from ongoing U.S. reliance on a fossil-fuel based energy system, it is important to maintain and expand long-term investments in the energy future of the U.S. even at a time of budget stringency. It is equally necessary to think about how to improve the efficiency of those investments, through strengthening U.S. energy innovation institutions, providing expanded incentives for private-sector innovation, and seizing opportunities where international cooperation can accelerate innovation. The private sector role is key: in the United States the vast majority of the energy system is owned by private enterprises, whose innovation and technology deployment decisions drive much of the country’s overall energy systems. Efficiently utilizing government investments in energy innovation requires understanding the market incentives that drive private firms to invest in advanced energy technologies, including policy stability and predictability. The U.S. government has already launched new efforts to accelerate energy innovation. In particular, the U.S. Department of Energy is undertaking a Quadrennial Technology Review to identify the most promising opportunities and provide increased coherence and stability. Our report offers analysis and recommendations designed to accelerate the pace at which better energy technologies are discovered, developed, and deployed, and is focused in four key areas: • Designing an expanded portfolio of federal investments in energy research, development, demonstration (ERD&D), and complementary policies to catalyze the deployment of novel energy technologies; • Increasing incentives for private-sector innovation and strengthening federal-private energy innovation partnerships; • Improving the management of energy innovation institutions to maximize the results of federal investments; and • Expanding and coordinating international energy innovation cooperation to bring ideas and resources together across the globe to address these global challenges

Exploring Blockchain Governance

Blockchain systems continue to attract significant interest from both practitioners and researchers. What is more, blockchain systems come in various types, such as cryptocurrencies or as inter-organizational systems in business networks. As an example of a cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, one of the most prominent blockchain systems to date and born at the time of a major financial crisis, spearheaded the promise of relying on code and computation instead of a central governing entity. Proponents would argue that Bitcoin stood the test of time, as Bitcoin continues to operate to date for over a decade. However, these proponents overlook the never-ending, heated debates “behind the scenes” caused by diverging goals of central actors, which led to numerous alternative systems (forks) of Bitcoin. To accommodate these actors’ interests in the pursuit of their common goal is a tightrope act, and this is where this dissertation commences: blockchain governance. Based on the empirical examples of various types and application domains of blockchain systems, it is the goal of this dissertation to 1) uncover governance patterns by showing, how blockchain systems are governed, 2) derive governance challenges faced or caused by blockchain systems, and, consequently, to 3) contribute to a better understanding to what blockchain governance is. This dissertation includes four parts, each of these covering different thematical areas: In the first part, this dissertation focuses on obtaining a better understanding of blockchain governance’s context of reference by studying blockchain systems from various application domains and system types, for example, led by inter-organizational networks, states, or an independent group of actors. The second part, then, focuses on a blockchain as an inter-organizational system called “cardossier”, a project I was involved in, and its governance as a frame of reference. Hereupon, for one, I report on learnings from my project involvement in the form of managerial guidelines, and, for two, I report on structural problems within cardossier, and problems caused by membership growth and how they can be resolved. The third part focuses on a wider study of blockchains as inter-organizational systems, where I summarize findings of an analysis of 19 blockchain consortia. The findings, for one, answer the question of why blockchain consortia adopt blockchain technology, and, for two, show internal and external challenges these systems faced to derive managerial recommendations. The fourth and last part studies blockchain governance’s evolution and contributes an analysis of blockchain’s governance features and its contrast to established modes of governance. These four parts, altogether, have scientific value as they increase our understanding on blockchain governance. Consequently, this dissertation contributes to the body of knowledge on modes of governance, distributed system governance, and blockchain governance in general. I do so, by grounding the concept of blockchain governance in empirical detail, showing how these systems are governed on various application domains and system types, and by studying empirical challenges faced or caused by these systems. This approach is relevant and necessary, as blockchain systems in general, but particularly outside of cryptocurrencies, mostly still are in pursuit of a sustainable blockchain governance. As blockchains can be expected to continue to mature, the upcoming years offer very fruitful ground for empirical research along the empirical insights and theoretical lines shown in this dissertation

Econometric analysis of exchange rates in East Asia.

This study is concerned with the behaviour of exchange rate movements focusing specifically on purchasing power parity (PPP) and the non-stationarity of real exchange rates, for a number of East Asian currencies during their recent floating periods. As one of the most important building blocks in international economies, PPP forms a core component of several models of exchange rate determination, and it is the most intensively tested hypothesis in open-economy macroeconomics. Nevertheless, in contrast to the relative abundance of research on the currencies of industrialised countries, very few studies on East Asian currencies have been carried out, leaving an important gap in the literature. Using recent advances in time series analysis, the results reveal for the East Asian countries that there existed long-run comovement between the nominal exchange rate and domestic and foreign price levels, but that the strict PPP condition claimed by the theory did not hold. This implied that any deviation from the PPP equilibrium was permanent and that there was little tendency for the real exchange rate to be mean reverting. Further investigation suggested that the real exchange rate was cointegrated with fundamentals, with most of the variables entering the cointegration vector significantly, suggesting that the movements of real exchange rate were driven by these factors. Investigating the dynamic paths of the real exchange rate and the long-run relationship (cointegrating relationship) in response to exogenous shocks also revealed that the real exchange rates did not revert to their pre-shock equilibrium, but that the long-run relationship did. It took, normally three to five years, for the real exchange rate to reach and settle down to a new equilibrium and even if the effect of shocks on the long-run relationship was transitory, the speed of convergence to the equilibrium was slow. The results also showed that the effects of shocks vary from one country to another. This meant that there was no universal panacea to deal with fluctuations in real exchange rates, as they were influenced by a country's natural endowment, stage in industrialisation, as well as monetary and exchange policies