This thesis consists of three essays in Political Economy: “China’s Political Business Cycle” uncovers the fact that the timing of China’s business cycle correlates to the timing of the Communist Party’s Congress and constructs a theory to explain the mechanism of the political business cycle. An empirical test of the theory derives a result consistent with the predictions of the theory. “A Theory of Dynastic Cycle” provides a politico-economic theory to explain the mechanism of the dynastic cycle, a repeating pattern in China’s theory. The core of the theory is the ruler’s trade-off between the political account and the economic account in choosing a successor. “A Politico-Economic Theory of Corruption in Non-Democracy” investigates the ruler’s incentive to have corrupt agents. The key point is that a corrupt agent has a bad reputation and is less likely to replace the incumbent ruler. The major implication is that unless there is fundamental institutional change, it is hard to eradicate corruption in non-democracy.

The purpose of this thesis is to contribute to the empirical research on how institutions of economic freedom affect country levels of entrepreneurship. Whilst the concept of economic freedom has been much applied in other areas of macroeconomics research, there are only a few studies of its effect on entrepreneurship. By analyzing 2011 data on a country sample of 48 countries representing various regions and stages of economic development, this thesis complement previous research with a larger and more recent country sample. Similarly to previous studies, self-employment data is used to obtain a proxy measure of entrepreneurship. However, in this thesis an attempt is made to elaborate this measure, and it is taken into account whether the choice of self-employment was based on opportunity or necessity. The results of a set of Ordinary Least-Square regressions do not support the hypotheses of a positive relationship between sub-components of economic freedom and entrepreneurship. Neither is the composite measure of economic freedom found to be statistically significant as a determinant of entrepreneurship. These results are contradictory to previous studies on this topic as well as the theoretical foundation of economic freedom.

No description available.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of New South Wales, 1993. / Also available online.

The National Congregations Study surveys a representative sample of America's churches, synagogues, mosques and other local places of worship. It gathers information about a wide range of characteristics and activities of congregations. Search and analyze both the 1998 and 2006-07 National Congregations Survey data. / Title from home page (viewed Mar. 18, 2009). The original NCS web site was created in collaboration with the University of Arizona library and the Alban Institute. The University of Arizona library also maintained the site. In 2008, the NCS web site was updated and redesigned by Scott Thumma and Jennifer Musto of Hartford Seminary, and by Bob Jackson and Gary Thompson of Duke University. It is now maintained by Duke University's Sociology Department.

Thesis (M.S.)--Ohio State University, 2008. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 147-151).

Thesis (M.S.)--University of North Texas, August, 2008. / Title from title page display. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (doctoral)--Friedrich-Alexander-Universität zu Erlangen.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität München, 1969. / Includes bibliographical reference (p. v-xvii).

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität Freiburg i. Br., 1935. / Includes bibliographical references.