The imbalances within the Euro-zone were the main reasons of the crisis that had led to the growing budget deficits in the Southern Europe resulting in the accumulation of unsustainable debt. The imbalances were caused by the declining competitiveness of the South vis-s-vis the North. The main causes of the declining competitiveness are the differences in unit labor costs invoked by different regulations concerning the labor markets in the Euro-zone countries and the diverging levels of productivity, which is liked with the different levels of technological advancement. The contributing factor is the institutional imperfections of the EMU, that did not allow the countries in Southern Europe to restore their competitiveness by traditional means without providing them with alternatives.

The aim of the thesis is to characterize the folding containers as one of the potential solutions to the problem of the repositioning of empty containers and to evaluate the possibility of their practical use in intermodal transport. The theoretical part characterizes contemporary development in international trade, intermodal transportation, the issue of empty containers and also characterizes foldable containers together with the assumptions of their successful introduction to the market. The practical part deals with current concepts of foldable containers, there is also an example for comparing the costs of transport when using standard or foldable containers and the opinion of a representative of one of the leading shipping companies on use foldable containers in practice. To obtain information used in the practical part of the thesis a secondary research was carried out, where most information comes from research papers and websites, and also primary research was done in the form of an interview with a representative of the shipping company. In conclusion is the evaluation of the possibility of using foldable containers in practice which is based on the information obtained through research.

This master´s thesis describes the design of the project concerning the introduction of CRM system in the company using project management methodologies. The company, to which the project will be applied, excels in industrial automatization.

The thesis analyzes the measure of academic procrastination among students and the measure of general procrastination among working population with a university degree. The thesis includes 3 studies. In study 1 an experiment was conducted on 33 students of the University of Economics in Prague. The results show, that students achieve better academic results given external, evenly distributed deadlines compared to when they are allowed to set the deadlines themselves. The second study analyses long-term data about 1909 students of the University of Economics and their academic results. The results show that procrastination can influence as much as 8% of the final grade. Study 3 analyzes information about 2487 subjects and their tax-return forms. It puts into context the dates of submission of the tax returns and personal characteristics of the submitters. The results show that procrastination declines with age. Methods on how to fight procrastination are suggested at the end of the thesis.

This thesis examines the evolution of China's economy and the competitive position of its exports in the international market. The thesis explores whether China is losing its competitive edge in export to the group of developing countries called Post China 16. First chapter identifies macroeconomic variables that significantly influence exports of a specific economy. Second chapter discusses the development of selected economic variables in Post China 16 economies. It studies whether the development of selected variables reveals possible changes in the competitive position of China and selected developing countries. Final part of the thesis develops an econometric model that tests the influence of selected variables on development of exports across several industries of The Post China 16 economies. Results confirm that most of the variables influence exports as the theory predicts and that the influence is higher in some industries than others. However, the model has limitations due to the shortcomings of the data.

The master thesis deals with the analysis of the profitability of the sales channels of the Decodom company. The thesis primarily focuses on the Activity Based Costing technique for measuring the performance of the company sales channels. The main aim of the thesis is to analyse the informational ability of the costing system in the company and prepare and propose a cost model, based on the Activity Based Costing method. The goal is achieved by the analysis of the current state of the company, the proposal of a model based on the costs of activities and the proposal of a new cost model based on this method. The contribution of the sales channels in the form of a pilot project is evaluated in the thesis which is performed on a sample of the kitchen range of the Decoplan product line. The thesis is divided in to three parts: theoretical, practical and applied (pilot project). The contribution of the thesis is a new view of the profitability of the examined company and general conclusions from the research, which can potentially be used in companies with a similar business model.

The master thesis focuses on effective and efficient use of supply chain management in a corporation with international scope of trade and its related risks, costs and efficiency management across the supply chain. The theoretical part includes basic foundations of the problematics, such as current trends, innovations, fundamental management strategies and the most popular methodologies used in analysing the supply chain management. The practical part of the thesis focuses on the analysis and comparison of set-ups and approaches towards efficient supply chain management among nine international corporations based on interviews with employees from each of the company. The goal of the thesis is to answer the research questions and come to a conclusion about how the companies could positively manage the problematics related to effective supply chain management.

This thesis contributes to the literature on making agricultural markets work for the poor, with specific reference to Ethiopia. It contains three substantive chapters, which may be read independently. The chapters use primary surveys with traders conducted in 2002 (chapters 2 and 3) and 2007 (all the chapters).Chapter 1 investigates Ethiopian traders’ decision on whether and how much to use brokers. Results shine light on how the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange (ECX), which recently formalized the brokerage functions, could be most beneficial for the functioning of agricultural markets. We show that the ECX could consider introducing new food crops in the trading system, offering warehouse receipt financing to its clients, and spreading the network of its warehouses throughout the country. Chapter 2 inquires whether the focus on technological and institutional upgrading is sufficient to make Ethiopian agricultural markets more efficient and if the existence of many small intermediaries causes market inefficiency. Findings suggest that, when transporters are used, transport costs could be reduced by avoiding trans-shipment, and reducing the number of times the transporter has to stop to allow for cargo loading and off-loading. No evidence is found for increasing returns to transaction size. Chapter 3 conceptualizes the notion of market integration as ‘tradability’ and analyses what determines the likelihood of market diversification among Ethiopian traders. The variables that are found to significantly impact on this probability are location (which is correlated with access to asphalt roads), availability of market information, traders’ educational level, access to commercial finance and storage capacity. Results indicate that market fundamentals affected the likelihood of market diversification more in 2007, when prices were rapidly surging, than in 2001 when prices were decreasing. The findings of this thesis support the ‘getting markets right’ school, in that incentives, infrastructure and institutions are essential for market development, and long-distance coordination of market exchange can be achieved through public-private cooperation.

This study is concerned with- the effects of changes in industrial concentration on average costs of production in 17 Canadian 4—digit food manufacturing industries over the period 1961-1982. The model employed is a dual Translog cost function adapted to include a concentration variable (Herfindahl index) and technical change, and is estimated using pooling techniques to allow simultaneous analysis of all 17 industries. The results indicate that there was a significant relationship between concentration and average costs for this sample. In particular, there appears to have been a decrease in average costs for low-concentration industries as concentration increased, ceteris paribus, while in high-concentration industries, increases in concentration led to increases in costs. Concentration changes have also had an effect on the relative shares of factors of production for these industries. An evaluation of employment effects across industries indicates that the benefits in efficiency due to increases in concentration in low-concentration industries must be weighed against apparent decreases in the overall employment (of labour) for these industries. Alternatively, the efficiency losses in high-concentration industries appear to have been offset by increases in overall employment as concentration has increased. Thus, depending on the criterion used, relative concentration effects may have been beneficial or detremental to social welfare; the outcome is not unequivocal. / Land and Food Systems, Faculty of / Graduate

This dissertation consists of two essays dealing with two selected aspects of the investment decision process faced by individuals and corporations. In the first essay, I develop a model of a multiple-stage patent race between two rival firms to study the impact of technological competition on value and return dynamics of Research and Development (R&D) ventures. The model describes a firm's capital budgeting decision process in the presence of technical uncertainty, market uncertainty and preemption. I characterize the equilibrium of the race and derive optimal investment strategies. Analysis of the equilibrium firm value shows that the premium accruing to the technology "leader" is larger than the loss accruing to the technology "lagger" and that the marginal effect of success/failure is increasing in the uncertainty of cash flows. Risk premia demanded by an ownership claim to competing R&D ventures (i) increase when a rival pulls ahead in the race and (ii) are lower when rivals are "closer" to each other in the development process. Compared to the case where rival firms merge, R&D competition reduces the industry value and lowers the expected completion time for a project. The erosion in value, due to preemption, is higher when firms are "neck-and-neck" and in early stages of development. Numerical simulations show that, in later stages of development, risk premia demanded by the perfectly collusive market are generally lower than risk premia demanded by a portfolio of competing firms. The opposite is true in early stages of development, which suggests that R&D competition may actually lower the cost of early stage financing. In the second essay, I solve a portfolio allocation problem for an individual who can select between two risky assets and a riskless asset in the presence of capital gains taxes. I treat capital gains taxes as a form of endogenous transaction costs. Using this analogy, I characterize the trading strategy for the two assets, and study the effect of taxes on optimal portfolio diversification. The optimal strategy contains a "no trade" region and a dynamic tax-timing option. I find that the diversification costs due to capital gains taxes are substantial and the value of the tax deferral option is decreasing in the correlation among assets and in the volatility of the risky assets. By comparing the solution of the multiple asset portfolio problem to the one of an investor who can trade only in a mutual fund I am able to measure the value of the flexibility option of the multi-asset case as well as the cost of mutual fund turnover. Finally, I show that imposing a wash-sale constraint generates discontinuous portfolio rebalancing strategies. / Business, Sauder School of / Finance, Division of / Graduate