Planejadores têm recomendado políticas de uso do solo e desenho urbano visando à promoção do transporte não motorizado e a consequente redução do uso do automóvel. A grande parte destes estudos foi desenvolvida em países industrializados. Em cidades em desenvolvimento, com rápido crescimento urbano, e problemas de transporte intensificados, tais como congestionamento e poluição do ar, qual o impacto que é possível esperar de mudanças na estrutura urbana no padrão de viagens a pé? Esta tese pretende responder essa questão no contexto de América Latina, focando o estudo na cidade de Porto Alegre, Brasil. O desenvolvimento do trabalho ocorre através de cinco etapas, que são apresentadas em formato de artigos. Os artigos procuram analisar através de diferentes abordagens e diferentes fontes de dados a interação entre estrutura urbana e viagens a pé. Assim, em alguns artigos os dados de viagens são coletados através de questionários domiciliares realizados especificamente para fins do estudo, em outros, são utilizados dados de pesquisas domiciliares Origem- Destino realizadas em Porto Alegre. Os dados da estrutura urbana analisados são de dois tipos: (i) subjetivos percebidos pelos entrevistados, e (ii) objetivos, medidos e processados através de Sistema de Informação Geográfica (GIS). Os resultados obtidos apontam que existe uma relação entre estrutura urbana e viagens a pé. Ainda, a relação existente é primariamente uma função das características socioeconômicas dos viajantes, e, secundariamente, função da estrutura urbana. Dentre as características urbanas, densidade populacional, padrão viário em forma de grelha, topografia pouco acentuada e comércios e serviços próximos à residência mostraram ser as mais significativas. Resultados similares foram obtidos em estudos realizados em cidades em desenvolvimento, como é o caso de Santiago (Chile), Bogotá (Colômbia) e São Carlos (Brasil). Efeitos decorrentes de mudanças na estrutura urbana serão positivos. Porém, efeitos maiores serão obtidos, provavelmente, por políticas que tornem a posse do carro menos desejável ou mais cara. Enquanto no longo prazo os esforços devem ser dirigidos à construção de estruturas urbanas que melhor acomodem e estimulem a realização de viagens a pé, no curto prazo deve ser destacada a importância de ações que influenciem a atitude e as percepções das pessoas sobre a caminhada. / Researchers have studied the impact of policies for land use and urban design in order to promote non-motorized trips and the consequent reduction in car use. However, the majority of these studies had been performed in cities of developed countries. In developing countries, cities undergo rapid urban growth, fast increase in car ownership rates and this enhanced transportation problems such as congestion and air pollution. This dissertation aims to better understand what impact can be expected from changes in urban structure in the pattern of walking trips, in the context of Latin-American city such as Porto Alegre, Brazil. The research conducted in this dissertation is structured in five stages, which are presented in the form of five scientific papers. These articles seek to analyze through different approaches and different data sources, the interaction between urban structure and walking trips. Thus, in some of them travel data were collected through household surveys, which were conducted specifically for this study, while in others, data from household surveys obtained from the Origin-Destination Study for the City of Porto Alegre was used. The data about the urban structure analyzed are of two types: (i) subjective perceived by respondents, and (ii) objective, measured and processed using Geographic Information System (GIS). The results indicate that there is a relationship between urban structure and walking trips. Though, this relationship is primarily a function of socioeconomic characteristics of travelers and secondarily a function of urban structure. Among the urban characteristics that favor walking trips, the following proved to be the most significant: population density, road pattern in a grid, topography without high slopes, and shops and services close to home. Similar results were obtained in studies conducted in developing cities, such as Santiago (Chile), Bogotá (Colombia) and San Carlos (Brazil). Effects arising from changes in the urban structure will be positive. However, larger effects are obtained, probably due to policies that make car ownership less desirable or more expensive. While the long-term efforts should be directed to the construction of urban structures that better accommodate and encourage walking trips, in the short term should be highlighted the importance of actions that influence individual’s attitudes and perceptions towards walk.

Planejadores têm recomendado políticas de uso do solo e desenho urbano visando à promoção do transporte não motorizado e a consequente redução do uso do automóvel. A grande parte destes estudos foi desenvolvida em países industrializados. Em cidades em desenvolvimento, com rápido crescimento urbano, e problemas de transporte intensificados, tais como congestionamento e poluição do ar, qual o impacto que é possível esperar de mudanças na estrutura urbana no padrão de viagens a pé? Esta tese pretende responder essa questão no contexto de América Latina, focando o estudo na cidade de Porto Alegre, Brasil. O desenvolvimento do trabalho ocorre através de cinco etapas, que são apresentadas em formato de artigos. Os artigos procuram analisar através de diferentes abordagens e diferentes fontes de dados a interação entre estrutura urbana e viagens a pé. Assim, em alguns artigos os dados de viagens são coletados através de questionários domiciliares realizados especificamente para fins do estudo, em outros, são utilizados dados de pesquisas domiciliares Origem- Destino realizadas em Porto Alegre. Os dados da estrutura urbana analisados são de dois tipos: (i) subjetivos percebidos pelos entrevistados, e (ii) objetivos, medidos e processados através de Sistema de Informação Geográfica (GIS). Os resultados obtidos apontam que existe uma relação entre estrutura urbana e viagens a pé. Ainda, a relação existente é primariamente uma função das características socioeconômicas dos viajantes, e, secundariamente, função da estrutura urbana. Dentre as características urbanas, densidade populacional, padrão viário em forma de grelha, topografia pouco acentuada e comércios e serviços próximos à residência mostraram ser as mais significativas. Resultados similares foram obtidos em estudos realizados em cidades em desenvolvimento, como é o caso de Santiago (Chile), Bogotá (Colômbia) e São Carlos (Brasil). Efeitos decorrentes de mudanças na estrutura urbana serão positivos. Porém, efeitos maiores serão obtidos, provavelmente, por políticas que tornem a posse do carro menos desejável ou mais cara. Enquanto no longo prazo os esforços devem ser dirigidos à construção de estruturas urbanas que melhor acomodem e estimulem a realização de viagens a pé, no curto prazo deve ser destacada a importância de ações que influenciem a atitude e as percepções das pessoas sobre a caminhada. / Researchers have studied the impact of policies for land use and urban design in order to promote non-motorized trips and the consequent reduction in car use. However, the majority of these studies had been performed in cities of developed countries. In developing countries, cities undergo rapid urban growth, fast increase in car ownership rates and this enhanced transportation problems such as congestion and air pollution. This dissertation aims to better understand what impact can be expected from changes in urban structure in the pattern of walking trips, in the context of Latin-American city such as Porto Alegre, Brazil. The research conducted in this dissertation is structured in five stages, which are presented in the form of five scientific papers. These articles seek to analyze through different approaches and different data sources, the interaction between urban structure and walking trips. Thus, in some of them travel data were collected through household surveys, which were conducted specifically for this study, while in others, data from household surveys obtained from the Origin-Destination Study for the City of Porto Alegre was used. The data about the urban structure analyzed are of two types: (i) subjective perceived by respondents, and (ii) objective, measured and processed using Geographic Information System (GIS). The results indicate that there is a relationship between urban structure and walking trips. Though, this relationship is primarily a function of socioeconomic characteristics of travelers and secondarily a function of urban structure. Among the urban characteristics that favor walking trips, the following proved to be the most significant: population density, road pattern in a grid, topography without high slopes, and shops and services close to home. Similar results were obtained in studies conducted in developing cities, such as Santiago (Chile), Bogotá (Colombia) and San Carlos (Brazil). Effects arising from changes in the urban structure will be positive. However, larger effects are obtained, probably due to policies that make car ownership less desirable or more expensive. While the long-term efforts should be directed to the construction of urban structures that better accommodate and encourage walking trips, in the short term should be highlighted the importance of actions that influence individual’s attitudes and perceptions towards walk.

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This thesis consists of three self-contained essays about immigrants’ experiences in Sweden. They all focus on the interaction between institutional settings and effects on immigrants’ economic conditions. Essay I examines the effects of changed eligibility rules for disability pension in the 1979 Swedish pension reform on immigrant retirement behavior. The reform made disability pension in the form of basic pension available to a wider group of immigrants. Before the pension reform, the eligibility for a basic pension for foreign citizens living in Sweden was dependent on bilateral and multilateral agreements on social security between Sweden and other countries. Thus, immigrants who were not covered by any of these agreements had no access to a basic pension before the reform. Through the reform, all foreign citizens residing in Sweden were made eligible for a basic pension after a short qualification period. The results indicate a substantial impact on the retirement rate with disability pension on the immigrant group that was made eligible for a basic pension by the reform. These findings confirm previous research showing that the size of the benefit levels in the pension system affects early retirement behavior. Essay II analyzes the impact of the Swedish taxi and bus deregulations on the differences in labor earnings between Swedish born and foreign born workers in these sectors. The changes in the gap in labor earnings that are due to the deregulation are estimated. The results show that there was no significant decrease in the differences in labor earnings between Swedish born and foreign born workers in the bus sector as a result of the 1989 deregulation. As regards the taxi sector, the results show that, before the deregulation, there were only small differences in labor earnings between Swedish born and foreign born workers. After the deregulation, the real labor earnings of foreign born workers decreased substantially more than those of Swedish born workers. However, there was a larger increase in the inflow of foreign born workers than of Swedish born workers into the taxi sector after the deregulation, which may have changed the composition of immigrant workers in this sector. Essay III investigates the impact of becoming a Swedish citizen on annual labor earnings. The study finds a positive impact of naturalization on labor earnings, in particular for immigrants originating from Africa and Asia, an effect than cannot only be attributed to selection into citizenship. A clear trend of increasing labor earnings during the years before becoming a Swedish citizen is found. This trend also continued during the years after citizenship acquisition. The study also suggests that the effects of naturalization on labor earnings are larger for men than for women, and larger for individuals with very low income.

Among better-educated employed workers, the fraction of full-time full-year (FTFY) workers is quite high and stable over time in the U.S. Among those with low education levels, however, this fraction is much lower and considerably more volatile. These observations suggest that the composition of unobserved skills is subject to sharp movements within low-educated employed workers, while the scale of these movements is potentially much smaller within high-educated ones. The standard college premium framework accounts for the observed shifts between education categories, but it cannot account for unobserved compositional changes within education categories. This thesis uses Heckman&#039 / s two-step estimator on repeated Current Population Survey cross sections to calculate a relative supply series that corrects for unobserved compositional shifts due to selection in and out of the FTFY status. We find that the well-documented deceleration in the growth rate of relative supply of college-equivalent workers after mid-1980s becomes even more pronounced once we correct for selectivity. This casts further doubt on the relevance of the plain skill-biased technical change hypothesis. We conclude that what happens to the within-group skill composition for low-educated groups is critical for fully understanding the trends in the relative supply of college workers in the United States.

Among better-educated employed workers, the fraction of full-time full-year (FTFY) workers is quite high and stable over time in the U.S. Among those with low education levels, however, this fraction is much lower and considerably more volatile. These observations suggest that the composition of unobserved skills is subject to sharp movements within low-educated employed workers, while the scale of these movements is potentially much smaller within high-educated ones. The standard college premium framework accounts for the observed shifts between education categories, but it cannot account for unobserved compositional changes within education categories. This thesis uses Heckman&#039 / s two-step estimator on repeated Current Population Survey cross sections to calculate a relative supply series that corrects for unobserved compositional shifts due to selection in and out of the FTFY status. We find that the well-documented deceleration in the growth rate of relative supply of college-equivalent workers after mid-1980s becomes even more pronounced once we correct for selectivity. This casts further doubt on the relevance of the plain skill-biased technical change hypothesis. We conclude that what happens to the within-group skill composition for low-educated groups is critical for fully understanding the trends in the relative supply of college workers in the United States.

Paper [I]- Household Migration and the Local Public Sector: Evidence from Sweden, 1981-1984 (co-authored with Michael L. Wyzan), contains an empirical explo­ration of the nexus between variables related to the local public sector budget and migration. Micro-data is employed in binomial and multinomial-logit regressions esti­mating the probability to migrate. We report results separately for metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas, because the per capita levels of the tax base and intergovernmen­tal grants are theoretically important migration determinants where population is sparse, while the tax rate may be more important where population is dense. Empirical results support our fiscal hypotheses and are consistent with previous findings on household characteristics. Paper [II]- Internal Gross Migration in Sweden: The effects of Variation in Mobility Grants and Regional Labour Market Conditions, focuses on the effects of labor market conditions and migratory stimuli on over county-border migration. Aggregate data on the flows of all migrants and on the flows of migrants receiving extra mobility stimuli are used in estimations of a single-equation migration model based on the hiring function. The results indicate that regional migration flows respond to changes in labor market conditions in accordance with predictions from economic theory. This result seems mainly to stem from the migratory behavior of the unemployed. In addition, nonmatching migration subsidies at the levels employed are not found to be migration enhancing. Paper [IH]- Employment Opportunities, Wages and Interregional Migration in Sweden 1970-1989, deals with the impact of aggregate labor turnover and regional labor market conditions on gross in- and outmigration. Annual panel data is used in estima­tion of separate in- and outmigration functions, where regional labor market conditions are assumed to be endogenous with migration under two different assumptions concer­ning the working of the labor market. An increase in the regional excess supply of labor is found to increase outmigration and decrease inmigration. Moreover, cyclical variation in labor turnover is positively correlated with gross migration. The hypothesized effects of real wages on migration are not confirmed. The results are not sensitive to the various assumptions concerning regional wage formation considered in this study. Paper [IV]- A Panel Study of Migration, Household Real Earnings and Self-Selec- tion (co-authored with Roger Axelsson). The effects of migration on household real earnings are examined. Data pertain to a sample of stable household constellations in Sweden, 1978-1991. A treatment-effect model is employed, whereby the potential effects of nonrandom sampling of data on earnings for migrants and nonmigrants are taken into account. We find that stable multi-adult household constellations did not gain in income from migration during the 1980s. In addition, we find no strong indications of selection bias in the income equation. / digitalisering@umu

El primer capítulo de la tesis sobre "Estudios Empíricos sobre Capital Humano e Instituciones" presenta estimaciones de retornos a la educación en Alemania y analiza los determinantes de las preferencias educativas. El segundo capítulo utiliza estimaciones de retornos a la experiencia en el país de origen de inmigrantes en Estados Unidos para proporcionar evidencia empírica que el comercio aumenta la acumulación de capital humano en el trabajo, incluso en los países menos desarrollados, resolviendo la ambigüedad teórica si el comercio aumenta o disminuye "learning-by-doing". La acumulación de capital humano en el trabajo es también positivamente asociada con el PIB per capita, un alto nivel de educación y una mayor calidad de políticas e instituciones. El último capítulo analiza el efecto de recursos naturales y asistencia externa sobre la calidad de instituciones, proporcionando evidencia empírica que -contrario a la asistencia externa, la abundancia de mineral y combustible tiende a ser asociada negativamente con la calidad de instituciones si la fragmentación étnica es grande. / The first chapter of the thesis on "Empirical Studies on Human Capital and Institutions" presents estimates of returns to education in Germany and analyses the determinants of educational choices. The second chapter uses estimated returns to home country experience of US immigrants to provide empirical evidence that trade increases on-the-job human capital accumulation even in less developed countries, thereby resolving the theoretical ambiguity whether trade increases or decreases learning-by-doing. Similar to trade, GDP per capita, a high average level of educational attainment and stronger quality of policy and institutions are found to be positively associated with on-the-job human capital accumulation. The last chapter analyses the effect of natural resources and aid on institutions, providing empirical evidence that contrary to aid, mineral and fuel abundance tends to be associated with significantly lower quality of institutions if ethnic fractionalization is large.

This thesis consists of four independent chapters on bank capital regulation and the issue of unsolicited ratings.<p> The first chapter is introductory and reviews the motivation for regulating banks and credit rating agencies while providing a detailed overview of the thesis.<p> The second chapter uses a simultaneous equations model to analyze how banks from six G10 countries adjusted their capital to assets ratios and risk-weighted assets to assets ratio between 1988 and 1995, i.e., just after passage of the 1988 Basel Accord. The results suggest that regulatory pressure brought about by the 1988 capital standards had little effect on both ratios for weakly capitalized banks, except in the US. In addition, the relation between the capital to assets ratios and the risk-weighted assets to assets ratio appears to depend not only on the level of capitalization of banks, but also on the countries or groups of countries considered.<p> The third chapter provides Monte Carlo estimates of the amount of regulatory capital that EMU banks must hold for their corporate, bank, and sovereign exposures both under Basel I and the standardized approach to credit risk in Basel II. In the latter case, Monte Carlo estimates are presented for different combinations of external credit assessment institutions (ECAIs) that banks may choose to risk weight their exposures. Three main results emerge from the analysis. First, although the use of different ECAIs leads to significant differences in minimum capital requirements, these differences never exceed, on average, 10% of EMU banks’ capital requirements for corporate, bank, and sovereign exposures. Second, the standardized approach to credit risk provides a small regulatory capital incentive for banks to use several ECAIs to risk weight their exposures. Third, the minimum capital requirements for the corporate, bank, and sovereign exposures of EMU banks will be higher in Basel II than in Basel I. I also show that the incentive for banks to engage in regulatory arbitrage in the standardized approach to credit risk is limited.<p> The fourth and final chapter analyses the effect of soliciting a rating on the rating outcome of banks. Using a sample of Asian banks rated by Fitch Ratings, I find evidence that unsolicited ratings tend to be lower than solicited ones, after accounting for differences in observed bank characteristics. This downward bias does not seem to be explained by the fact that better-quality banks self-select into the solicited group. Rather, unsolicited ratings appear to be lower because they are based on public information. As a result, they tend to be more conservative than solicited ratings, which incorporate both public and non-public information.

Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögskolan, 2007