The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the extent of competition between generic products and therapeutic substitutes under different regulatory regimes in the European Union (EU) pharmaceutical industry. In particular, this study investigates generic competition among the five largest European pharmaceutical markets; the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy and Spain, with comprehensive IMS data for 10 years (1994-2003), in order to estimate the effect of generic entry on drug prices at the product level. This analysis finds that generic entry has a negative effect on prices in countries with free pricing originator market, whereas in EU countries with strict price and reimbursement regulation, generic competition is ineffective and/or counterproductive. Fewer generics and less competitive late entrants are consistent with incentives in regulated environments: low regulated prices for originator products discourage generic entry following patent expiration. These findings suggest that regulation of both manufacturers' prices and retail pharmacy prices undermines price competition in the off-patent sector, and that budgetary savings from generic price competition are not realized in countries with strict regulatory systems.

This study examines the comparative magnitude of disturbances in intraday data for exchange traded foreign exchange (FX) options. An in-depth time series analysis on the frequency and extent of discrepancies in the disturbances is conducted. The purpose of this study is twofold. First, using intraday data and trading volume, this study attempts to determine whether both put-call parity and lower boundary conditions consistently hold for exchange traded options written on U.S. dollar denominated options on the Euro trading on the Philadelphia Stock Exchange (PHLX). Second, this study attempts to investigate the magnitude of any discrepancies that may exist due to a temporary cessation of either put-call parity or lower boundary conditions. Intraday (tick-by-tick) bid prices, ask prices, and trading volume on U.S. dollar denominated European style call options and put options on the Euro are obtained. Option data is collected through a Structured Query Language (SQL) request from the Bloomberg database. Corresponding tick-by-tick spot rates for the underlying exchange rate are obtained for the same time period. Tick-by-tick 3-month Treasury bill rates are obtained to for use as the relevant risk-free interest rate. The primary data set spans an approximate one month period from 11/1/2011 to 12/6/2011. Call and option pricing data for near-the-money exercise prices are obtained for options expiring in December 2011, January 2012, February 2012, March 2012, June 2012, and September 2012. A total of 7,212 ticks (minutes) are analyzed for the conversion strategy and 7,209 ticks are analyzed for the reversal strategy. The data is structured into an unbalanced panel data set (cross-sectional time series data) using put-call pairs as the cross sectional units and ticks as the time-series unit. To test the efficiency of the foreign exchange options market, lower boundary and put-call parity conditions were tested on tick-by-tick currency option data. Analysis shows that lower boundary conditions hold for the overwhelming majority of options, with less than 0.0001% of violations for the observed options. A more detailed econometric analysis was prepared to test the put-call parity condition for currency options. A fixed effects model specification is used to describe the put-call parity relationship. Based on the analysis, it is possible to obtain arbitrage profits in the short run through the use of either a conversion or reversal strategy even after accounting for transaction costs. Taking the first differences of the variables resulted in a model with stationary variables and statistically significant estimators. The inclusion of dummy variables for moneyness did not add significant explanatory power to the deterministic put-call parity relationship. For both first differences of conversion and reversal strategies, the large t-statistics for the slope coefficients and intercept terms indicate a rejection of the null hypothesis, H0: λ0 = 0 and λ1 = 1 after adjusting for standard error. This implies that once transaction costs are adjusted for, put-call parity does not hold. However, the intercept term is only very slightly negative, and the intercept term is only slightly less than one in both cases. This implies that when put-call parity is violated, arbitrage profit should be relatively small.

Africa is one of the richest continents on the planet in terms of natural resources, but has the highest poverty rate, fastest growing population and includes many of the world ́s most corrupt countries. There is an ongoing discussion if the quality of institutions affects economic growth, and the applicability of economic institutional theory to the African continent. North and Thomas (1973) argues that indicators such as education innovation, capital accumulation, etc. are not causes of growth itself but rather the growth itself. Instead they suggest that economic institutions are the fundamental reason behind economic growth, since they allow new ideas, and firms and stakeholders to exist in the market. Our research question therefore examines if the quality of institutions can explain the rate of economic growth in Africa? In this study we used a panel data analysis based on 12 variables including, GDP per capita growth, Rule of Law, Control of corruption, Voice and Accountability, Government Effectiveness, Regulatory Quality, Political Stability and Absence of Violence/Terrorism, Education, Population, Foreign Direct Investment, Gross Capital Formation as well as initial GDP, between year 2003-2017, to examine the relationship between economic performance and institutional quality in 50 African countries. Our results showed that six out of our six institutional variables had a positive significant effect on economic growth. This supports the theory that institutional quality impacts economic growth.

為解決地方財政問題，落實地方自治，自2002年12月「地方稅法通則」發佈以來，各地方政府在於「租稅法定主義」及「公共選擇理論」中官員、民代、利益團體之運作之下，開源確有其困難性，因此開發新稅源或稅目，不如對於現有之租稅債權著手。欠稅係指納稅義務人應繳納而未繳納之稅捐，對於稅制之「公平性」及「效率」均有極大之影響；本文試就當年度欠稅之發生原因著手，期能抑制新欠之發生與擴大。因此利用2003年至2008年共6年間，臺灣地區23縣市欠稅之追蹤資料，別以就總體經濟變數、納稅義務人相關變數、稅目及稅捐稽徵機關相關變數等三方面，針對各縣市政府欠稅原因分為以不動產為主之房屋稅及動產為主之牌照稅及總欠稅之比率進行迴歸分析，實證結果顯示，一：欠稅之主要影響原因為經濟成長率與各縣市每戶平均所得，故所得乃納稅義務人欠稅之主要原因，牌照稅為財產稅中之動產，其流動性較高，故易受總體經濟變數之影響；而房屋稅為財產稅中之不動產，其流動性較低，較不易受總體經濟因素之影響，二：自2007稅捐稽徵法第6條修正後，由於修法前地價稅及房屋稅無優先受償，修法後排擠牌照稅應得受償之部分，故造成牌照稅之欠稅率愈高；三：財產稅中牌照稅之罰則、違章相對較多且重，依牌照稅法第28條第2項納稅義務人車輛逾期未驗車，遭監理機關通知逾檢註銷時，納稅義務人若行使道路遭取締違規時，除罰本稅每年均加罰2倍，造成納稅義務人相當大之負擔，無力繳納；四：都市化程度的上升提高房價，加重人民的負擔，且新屋之折舊年數少，且隨地段率、經濟景氣、房屋建材價格不斷提高，造成核算之課稅現值較重，對於初次貸款購屋者乃為一大負擔，因此本文建議， 重新檢討修正稅捐稽徵法、牌照稅罰則及房屋稅對於購屋貸款者於新購、裝潢中之房屋改採住家用稅率，以減輕民眾納稅的負擔，減少欠稅之發生。

隨著全球化與國際化趨勢越來越普及與受到重視，國際間資本與人力流動越加頻繁，因而造成世界各國均面臨強大的國際競爭壓力，而紛紛力求可以打造吸引國際資本停駐投資之最佳環境，其中北歐四個國家，就冀望透過採取雙元所得稅制 (Dual Income Tax, 以下簡稱DIT) 的租稅制度改革，來改善國內投資環境。DIT係將所得來源依勞動所得及資本所得分成兩類，對勞動薪資所得課累進稅率，而資本所得按比例稅制稽徵，其目的即盼望促進資本累積，並降低租稅對資本所造成的扭曲，建構一個取消租稅優惠，同時可以擴大稅基的租稅環境。為了探討DIT究竟對於經濟成長有無助益，本研究利用歐洲18個國家從1983年至2008年之總體經濟追蹤資料，以是否實行DIT為主要虛擬變數，同時加入文獻中所舉出影響經濟成長之幾個重要變數進行迴歸分析，實證結果發現，實行DIT對於GDP成長率的效果並不顯著；但對於GDP之水準值效果卻有顯著正向影響，這也表示就整體GDP相對水準來說，實行DIT的國家，其GDP水準值本身也會較高，但卻不一定對GDP成長率有明顯的助益，究其原因可能為實行DIT稅制或許對GDP有正向的效益，但這效果可能出自於其國家自身經濟實力已經相當不錯，而當經濟發展程度已達到了某種臨界值，要再求GDP之成長率能夠顯而易見的提升，往往會有所難度，因此實行DIT對經濟發展就無法再有太大的激勵效果。 台灣近年來也致力於稅制改革，於效率面的考量上，DIT不失為一項值得努力之方向，然而事實上不可能存在一個可以保證完全讓人都滿意的稅制，所有方針都是在不同考量下做出取捨，因此不妨參循DIT的細節與版本來加以改良修正，針對個別國家發展特性與民情來制定稅制，才是所有政府值得努力與應該思考的方向。

恆常所得假說認為消費者依終生期望所得來做消費規劃，不受短暫性所得變動而改變消費。然實際資料顯示：在景氣循環過程中，暫時性所得變動確會影響消費變動，顯示該假說實際上不成立。本文利用華人家庭動態資料庫，配合追蹤性資料的計量方法來進行檢測該假說。實證結果發現：消費行為違反恆常所得假說。接著加入景氣變換來解釋消費違反恆常所得假說導因於流動性限制。最後利用追蹤性資料的特性，從世代差異的角度看消費者違反恆常所得假說，發現不同世代受流動性限制的影響效果不同，隨著年齡增加，消費者違反恆常所得假說的情況愈弱。 / Permanent income hypothesis(PIH) states that consumers make choices regarding their longer-term income expectations. Transitory income variety could not affect consumption. However, the reality is that consumption would be affected by transitory income during economic fluctuation, and this fact violates the hypothesis. Due to this reason, this paper use Taiwanese panel data : PSFD(Panel Study of Family Dynamics) and econometric model to test the hypothesis. In the empirical results, we concluded: Taiwanese consumption violated PIH. Then generation difference was incorporated into the model to explain the degree of violation of PIH. And the result explained that the generation difference exists in the degree of PIH’s violation.

<p>In this thesis, Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs are used to measure the effects of organized crime on young men’s experience of narcotics. The study relies on panel data for Swedish counties stretching over the period 1995-2005, using results from conscript surveys to determine young men’s experience of narcotics. When applying a fixed effect model, the results show that Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs actually have a negative effect on the experience of narcotics among 18-year-old Swedish men. However, when lagging the time of establishment for the gangs one year, positive estimates are derived for individuals ever used, or been offered to use illicit narcotics. These findings are only significant on a ten percent level, but the results could implicate that it may take some time for the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs to penetrate new markets; finding a profitable way of adapting to the new market conditions. Due to possible problems with endogeneity, it’s difficult to derive any definitive conclusions regarding the true effects of Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs. It’s possible that the location of a new OMG is partially determined by the use of narcotics, wherefore the results are to be taken with some caution.</p>

In the first chapter of this thesis, we investigate the impact of human capital and wage structure on the gender pay in a panel of European countries using a newly available and appropriate database for cross-country comparisons and a comparable methodology for each country. Our first question is : What role do certain individual characteristics and choices of working men and women play in shaping the cross-country differences in the gender pay gap? What is the exact size of the gender pay gap using the “more appropriate” database available for our purpose? Giving that there are mainly only two harmonized data-sets for comparing gender pay gap throughout Europe: the European Community Household Panel (ECHP) and the European Structure of Earning Survey (ESES). Each database having its shortages: the main weakness of the ECHP is the lack of perfect reliability of the data in general and of wages in particular. However the main advantage of this database is the panel-data dimension and the information on both households and individuals. The data of the ESES is, on the contrary, of a very high standard but it only covers the private sector and has a cross-sectional dimension. Furthermore only few countries are currently available : Denmark, Belgium, Spain, Ireland and Italy. We use the European Structure of Earning Survey (ESES) to analyse international differences in gender pay gaps in the private sector based on a sample of five European economies: Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, Italy and Spain. Using different methods, we examine how wage structures, differences in the distribution of measured characteristics and occupational segregation contribute to and explain the pattern of international differences. Furthermore, we take account of the fact that indirect discrimination may influence female occupational distributions. We find these latter factors to have a significant impact on gender wage differentials. However, the magnitude of their effect varies across countries. In the second chapter, we analyse the persistence of the gender pay differentials over time in Europe and better test the productivity hypothesis by taking into account unobserved heterogeneity. Our second question is : What is the evolution of the pay differential between men and women over a period of time in Europe? And what is the impact of unobserved heterogeneity? The researcher here provides evidence on the effects of unobserved individual heterogeneity on estimated gender pay differentials. Using the European Community Household Panel (ECHP), we present a cross-country comparison of the evolution of unadjusted and adjusted gender pay gaps using both cross-section and panel-data estimation techniques. The analysed countries differ greatly with respect to labour market legislation, bargaining practices structure of earnings and female employment rates. On adjusting for unobserved heterogeneity, we find a narrowed male-female pay differential, as well as significantly different rates of return on individual characteristics. In particularly, the adjusted wage differential decreases by 7 per cent in Belgium, 14 per cent in Ireland, between 20-30 per cent Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain and of 41 per cent and 54 per cent in the UK and in Denmark respectively. In the third chapter, we investigate causes of the gender pay gap beyond the gender differences in observed and unobserved productive characteristics or simply the sex. Explanations of the gender pay gap may be the penalty women face for having children. Obviously, the motherhood wage penalty is relevant to larger issues of gender inequality given that most women are mothers and that childrearing remains a women’s affair. Thus, any penalty associated with motherhood but not with fatherhood affects many women and as such contributes to gender inequalities as the gender pay gap. Furthermore, the motherhood wage effect may be different along the wage distribution as women with different earnings may not be equal in recognising opportunities to reconcile their mother’s and earner’s role. This brings us to our third question. Our third question is : What is the wage effect for mothers of young children in the household? And does it vary along the wage distribution of women? This chapter provides more insight into the effect of the presence of young children on women’s wages. We use individual data from the ECHP (1996-2001) and both a generalised linear model (GLM) and quantile regression (QR) techniques to estimate the wage penalty/bonus associated with the presence of children under the age of sixteen for mothers in ten EU Member States. We also correct for potential selection bias using the Heckman (1979) correction term in the GLM (at the mean) and a selectivity correction term in the quantile regressions. To distinguish between mothers according to their age at the time of their first birth, wage estimations are carried out, separately, for mothers who had their first child before the age of 25 (‘young mothers’) and mothers who had their first child after the age of 25 (‘old mothers’). Our results suggest that on average young mothers earn less than non-mothers while old mothers obtain a gross wage bonus in all countries. These wage differentials are mainly due to differences in human capital, occupational segregation and, to a lesser extent, sectoral segregation between mothers and non-mothers. This overall impact of labour market segregation, suggests a “crowding” explanation of the family pay gap – pay differential between mothers and non-mothers. Nevertheless, the fact that we still find significant family pay gaps in some countries after we control for all variables of our model suggests that we cannot reject the “taste-based” explanation of the family gap in these countries. Our analysis of the impact of family policies on the family pay gap across countries has shown that parental leave and childcare policies tend to decrease the pay differential between non-mothers and mothers. Cash and tax benefits, on the contrary, tend to widen this pay differential. Sample selection also affects the level of the mother pay gap at the mean and throughout the wage distribution in most countries. Furthermore, we find that in most countries inter-quantile differences in pay between mothers and non-mothers are mainly due to differences in human-capital. Differences in their occupational and sectoral segregation further shape these wage differentials along the wage distribution in the UK, Germany and Portugal in our sample of young mothers and in Spain in the sample of old mothers. In the fourth chapter, we analyse the combined effect of motherhood and the family status on women’s wage. Our fourth question is : Is there a lone motherhood pay gap in Europe? And does it vary along the wage distribution of mothers? Substantial research has been devoted to the analysis of poverty and income gaps between households of different types. The effects of family status on wages have been studied to a lesser extent. In this chapter, we present a selectivity corrected quantile regression model for the lone motherhood pay gap – the differential in hourly wage between lone mothers and those with partners. We used harmonized data from the European Community Household Panel and present results for a panel of European countries. We found evidence of lone motherhood penalties and bonuses. In our analysis, most countries presented higher wage disparities at the top of the wage distribution rather than at the bottom or at the mean. Our results suggest that cross-country differences in the lone motherhood pay gap are mainly due to differences in observed and unobserved characteristics between partnered mothers and lone mothers, differences in sample selection and presence of young children in the household. We also investigated other explanations for these differences such as the availability and level of childcare arrangements, the provision of gender-balanced leave and the level of child benefits and tax incentives. As expected, we have found significant positive relationship between the pay gap between lone and partnered mothers and the childcare, take-up and cash and tax benefits policies. Therefore improving these family policies would reduce the raw pay gap observed.

The subject of this thesis concerns pricing the use of transport infrastructure. We are empirically investigating the relationship between railway traffic volumes and infrastructure management costs. More specifically, we are interested in estimating the change in infrastructure management costs from marginal variations in traffic volumes, i.e. to estimate the marginal cost of railway infrastructure wear and tear. Both Europe and Sweden have moved towards a marginal cost based transport pricing policy, thus driving the need for more empirical work on rail infrastructure costs to underpin the level of a wear and tear charge. The thesis consists of five papers. In paper I, the data situation for planning railway maintenance and renewal is surveyed internationally. The survey indicates that most infrastructure managers are still in the data gathering phase, rather than ready to use modern computerised planning tools to make sound decisions in the field of maintenance and renewal. In paper II, we investigate the data situation for infrastructure cost analysis in Sweden. A panel data set that consists of cost, traffic and infrastructure information is created. The data covers 1999-2002 and contains almost 190 annual observations. Three main cost categories are identified; infrastructure operation, maintenance and renewal. This data is used for estimations of cost functions in paper II, III and V. Econometric techniques are applied for this purpose, with several different model specifications. In paper II, the method of pooled ordinary least squares (POLS) is applied. In paper III, we turn to unobserved effects models to exploit data heterogeneity. Finally in paper V, a dynamic generalised method of moments estimator is used to explore a potential dynamic cost dependency. The main findings are that the POLS approach, which has been used in similar studies in Europe recently, is rejected in favour of fixed effects estimation for this data. Furthermore, we also reject the idea of regression analysis to capture marginal rail renewal costs. In paper IV, we suggest an analytical expression combined with survival analysis of rail ages to estimate marginal renewal costs. We derive elasticities with respect to output as well as marginal costs for the different cost categories, and find that the current charge for wear and tear in Sweden is well below these new estimates. This opens up for increased, marginal cost based rail infrastructure wear and tear charges, which would reduce the financial burden on Swedish tax-payers. / QC 20100622

The thesis contains the four chapters: Testing parameter constancy in unit root autoregressive models against continuous change; Dickey-Fuller type of tests against nonlinear dynamic models; Inference for unit roots in a panel smooth transition autoregressive model where the time dimension is fixed; Testing unit roots in nonlinear dynamic heterogeneous panels. In Chapter  1 we derive tests for parameter constancy when the data generating process is non-stationary against the hypothesis that the parameters of the model change smoothly over time. To obtain the asymptotic distributions of the tests we generalize many theoretical results, as well as new are introduced, in the area of unit roots . The results are derived under the assumption that the error term is a strong mixing. Small sample properties of the tests are investigated, and in particular, the power performances are satisfactory. In Chapter 2 we introduce several test statistics of testing the null hypotheses of a random walk (with or without drift) against models that accommodate a smooth nonlinear shift in the level, the dynamic structure, and the trend. We derive analytical limiting distributions for all tests. Finite sample properties are examined. The performance of the tests is compared to that of the classical unit root tests by Dickey-Fuller and Phillips and Perron, and is found to be superior in terms of power. In Chapter 3 we derive a unit root test against a Panel Logistic Smooth Transition Autoregressive (PLSTAR). The analysis is concentrated on the case where the time dimension is fixed and the cross section dimension tends to infinity. Under the null hypothesis of a unit root, we show that the LSDV estimator of the autoregressive parameter in the linear component of the model is inconsistent due to the inclusion of fixed effects. The test statistic, adjusted for the inconsistency, has an asymptotic normal distribution whose first two moments are calculated analytically. To complete the analysis, finite sample properties of the test are examined. We highlight scenarios under which the traditional panel unit root tests by Harris and Tzavalis have inferior or reasonable power compared to our test. In Chapter 4 we present a unit root test against a non-linear dynamic heterogeneous panel with each country modelled as an LSTAR model. All parameters are viewed as country specific. We allow for serially correlated residuals over time and heterogeneous variance among countries. The test is derived under three special cases: (i) the number of countries and observations over time are fixed, (ii) observations over time are fixed and the number of countries tend to infinity, and (iii) first letting the number of observations over time tend to infinity and thereafter the number of countries. Small sample properties of the test  show modest size distortions and satisfactory power being superior to the Im, Pesaran and Shin t-type of test. We also show clear improvements in power compared to a univariate unit root test allowing for non-linearities under the alternative hypothesis. / Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögskolan, 2004