Thesis (M.S. in Econ.)--School of Economics, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2004. Directed by Willie J. Belton. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 30-31).

Thesis (M.A.)--Zhong guo wen hua xue yuan, 1977. / Reproduced from typescript. Includes bibliographical references (p. 224-230).

Thesis (M.A.)--Trinity International University, 2000. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 99-103).

Local currencies have been founded in dozens of communities around the United States. By printing their own money that can only be used at participating local merchants or service providers, or in direct exchange with community members, advocates of local currencies try to reinvigorate local commerce, demonstrate community opposition to "big box" retailers and globalization, and support local employment. Although many local currencies have been founded, most of them have had only limited success, but even where local currencies fail to thrive, they raise important questions about the ways in which we organize institutions. This dissertation has two key concerns that emerge from those questions, the first of which is to explore the ways in which the meaning of money is reconfigured by the organizers and the users of local currencies. Second, this project seeks to explain the conditions under which local currencies operate, with the goal of building an understanding of how organizations successfully challenge the deeply embedded and institutionalized practices that surround the use of money. Local currencies are an innovative form of community economic organization that has previously gone under-studied by scholars. This project, the first to address local currencies with a large set of quantitative macro-level data as well as case-oriented archival and survey data, adds to knowledge of movement development and maintenance, and the social construction and use of money. Local currency reminds us that the systems of dollars and cents are socially constructed and that they therefore are changeable. But changing institutions that are part of our everyday life is difficult; because the use of money is so deeply embedded in routines and institutions, it's difficult to even ask questions about money: Where does money come from? Why do we trust it? And how might alternatives to money work? Local currency reminds us that money is not necessarily as "real" as we tend to think and it invites us to think about the system of institutions in which we live.

The goal of this dissertation is to examine the theoretical and empirical implications of the inventory theoretic approach to the demand for money. Chapter 1 reviews the existing inventory theoretic frameworks and empirical money demand literature and provides an overview of this thesis. One of the main conclusions is that the elasticity results from the existing inventory theoretic models are not robust. Chapter 2 develops a partial equilibrium inventory theoretic model, in which a fixed cost is involved per cash transfer. The key feature is that a firm endogenously chooses the frequency of pay periods, which a household takes as given. When the firm must borrow working capital and pay wages by cheque, I show that both the firm and the household choose to transfer cash every payday only. The model keeps the basic result from the classical inventory theoretic approach that both the income and interest elasticity of money demand are 0.5. Chapter 3 extends the partial equilibrium model into a general equilibrium framework and shows that the partial equilibrium elasticity results no longer apply in the general equilibrium. First, the income elasticity is 1 in the general equilibrium. Second, the interest elasticity has two values depending on a threshold interest rate. When interest rates are below this threshold, the model is the Cash-In-Advance model with a constant income velocity of money and zero interest elasticity; otherwise the interest elasticity is close to 0.5 and the velocity fluctuates in response to variations in interest rates. Finally, the general equilibrium elasticity results are robust across alternative specifications of the agent's utility. Chapter 4 calibrates the general equilibrium model to the last 40 years of US data for M1. By constructing a residual measure of money transaction costs from the structural money demand function, I find that a structural break in the transaction costs occurred in 1981 might have been responsible for the instability of long-run money demand. The benefit of this approach is that it can explain this pattern of money demand without appealing to an exogenous structural break in the money demand function.

No description available.

This thesis consists of an analysis of electronic money (e-money), e-money’s privacy policies and relevant privacy laws. The value of information and the development of technology enhance the risk of privacy violations in the information era. Consumer privacy interests with respect to e-money are governed in part by the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) in Canada and by the European Union’s Data Protection Directive. The analysis is directed at whether the privacy policies of three kinds of e-money – Octopus Card, PayPal and MasterCard – comply with the spirit and letter of these laws. In light of technology change, the laws should be interpreted to apply broadly to protect privacy interests. Enhanced privacy protection may in fact lead to greater adoption of e-money by consumers. / Thesis (Master, Law) -- Queen's University, 2011-09-27 17:53:30.503

No description available.

Money laundering is the act of converting money gained from illegal activity, such as drug smuggling, into money that appears legitimate and in which the source cannot be traced to the illegal activi ty. Criminal proceeds also include that which is derived from tax evasion. Estimates of the scale of money laundering globally range between 2 and 5% of the worlds Gross Domestic Product. Another study refers to money laundering as the third largest industry globally. Money laundering has devastating consequences for countries individually and for the global economy as a whole. Potential macroeconomic consequences include inexplicable changes in money demand, greater prudential risks to banks' soundness, contamination effects on legal financial transactions and greater volatility of international capital flows and exchange rates due to unanticipated cross-border asset transfers. A number of initiatives have been established for dealing with the problem at international level. Amongst the most significant is the formation of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a body that was established by the G-7 nations in 1989 to develop a coordinated international 096572 response to money laundering. South Africa was recently accepted as a full member of the FAFT, having satisfied the FATF recommendations with the implementation of a Financial Intelligence Centre Act. The provisions of the Act came into effect on 1 June 2003. The Act imposes reporting obligations on accountable institutions like banks, insurance companies, estate agent and casinos. The Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) is established by the Act in order to identify the proceeds of unlawful activities and to combat money-laundering activi ties. It aims to do so by making information collected by it available to investigating authorities (South African Police, Scorpions, Asset Forfeiture Unit etc. including SARS). The FIC will in the course of its functions build up a database of information, which it will retain and utilise to support the above-mentioned bodies in the performance of their functions. The FICA creates a special relationship particularly with SARS. The FIC data will assist SARS to combat tax evasion and to collect taxes more effectively. The Act explicitly requires all institutions to report any transactions that may be relevant to the investigation of any evasion or attempted evasion of any tax, levy or duty. Money laundering by its very nature does not lend itself to being accurately measured but based on estimates discussed above, this can amount to a substantial loss to the fiscus. The estimated range of between 2 and 5% of the world's GDP would translate to between R24 and R60 billion being laundered annually in South Africa. If one applies the minimum marginal tax rate of 18%, one arrives at a potential loss of between R4.32 and RI0.8 billion to the fiscus. Whilst the new Financial Intelligence Centre Act cannot totally eradicate the laundering of undeclared or criminal proceeds, the many obligations now placed on accountable institutions in terms of the Act is most likely to be a further deterrent or obstacle to tax evasion. / Thesis (M.Com.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2004.

Nel primo articolo, stimiamo l'economia sommersa di 49 paesi dal 1981 al 2005. Il nostro studio si basa sull'utilizzo dei consumi elettrici filtrati per i cambiamenti tecnologici e le variazioni nella quota del settore industriale. Contrariamente agli studi basati sul metodo MIMIC, noi otteniamo una riduzione nella dimensione dell'economia sommersa. Contrariamente a La Porta and Shleifer (2008), inoltre, identifichiamo misure di qualità istituzionale che sono significativamente correlate all'economia sommersa, pur controllando per il PIL pro-capite. L'economia non registrata non può, dunque, essere considerata una conseguenza del sotto sviluppo. Al contrario, l’attività economica sommersa è relazionata a specifici aspetti istituzionali che possono sopravvivere con la crescita economica. Inoltre, identifichiamo un forte effetto sostituzione tra il settore ufficiale e quello non ufficiale. Questo risultato ha importanti implicazioni sia per la convergenza dei redditi che per la relazione tra volatilità e crescita. Nel secondo articolo, analizziamo il ruolo di istituzioni, crescita e politiche nel determinare l’economia sommersa. La forte separazione tra assunti teorici sulle determinanti istituzionali del sommerso e le tecniche di misurazione utilizzate rappresenta il primo aspetto innovativo del lavoro. Sfruttando, inoltre, la dimensione time-series del panel, siamo in grado di meglio analizzare il nesso tra crescita del PIL ufficiale e dimensione relativa del sommerso. Il terzo aspetto innovativo dell’articolo si riferisce al contributo apportato al lungo dibattito circa il ruolo di istituzioni e politiche nel determinare i risultati economici. In terzo articolo, rovesciamo l’approccio standard tipicamente seguito nella letteratura relativa all’economia sommersa. Invece di utilizzare i dati sulla domanda di moneta per ottenere stime sulla dinamica del sommerso, analizziamo gli effetti di lungo periodo dell’economia non registrata sulla velocità di circolazione della moneta. Il nostro contributo è duplice: i) apportiamo un miglioramento alla letteratura sulle determinanti della velocità di circolazione della moneta; ii) testiamo indirettamente la credibilità delle stime del sommerso presentate nel primo articolo della tesi. / In the first paper, we estimate the unrecorded economy in 49 economies from 1981 to 2005. Our study is based on electricity consumption series which are filtered to account for technological change and for the changing weight of the energy-intensive industrial sector. In contrast with studies based on the MIMIC method, we obtain a reduction in the weight of the unobserved economy. Unlike La Porta and Shleifer (2008), we identify measures of institutional quality which are significantly related to the shadow economy even after controlling for per-capita GDP. Thus the shadow economy should not be dismissed as the unpleasant side effect of underdevelopment. Instead it is related to some specific institutional aspects that may well survive even when the economy reaches higher development stages. We identify strong substitution effects between official and unofficial sectors both in the long run and over the business cycle. This has important implications for income convergence and for the relationship between volatility and growth. In the second paper, we investigate the distinct roles played by institutions, growth and policies in determining the shadow economy. The sharp distinction between theoretical priors on the institutional determinants of the shadow economy and the technique used for its measurement is the first novel contribution of the paper. The second innovation is that, by exploiting the time series dimension of our panel, we are able to better investigate the link between official output growth and the relative size of shadow economy. The third innovation is that we can contribute to a long-standing controversy about the distinct roles of "institutions" and "policies" in determining economic outcomes. In the third paper we reverse the standard approach typically followed in the literature on the shadow economy. Instead of exploiting money demand data to extrapolate the dynamics of the shadow economy, we explore the long run effect of shadow economy measures – obtained independently from money demand functions - on money velocity. By doing this, the original contribution of the paper is twofold. First, we improve the understanding of money velocity determinants. Second, we provide an indirect test of the reliability of the estimates on the shadow economy presented in the first paper of the thesis.