No description available.

Using UK manufacturing data, this study attempts to identify the presence of irreversible investment considerations at the industry group level of aggregation, and investment disaggregated by investment good category, and its influence on investment patterns and relationships. A selection of asymmetry tests is utilised in an attempt to identify 'lumpy' patterns induced into the investment series when it is irreversible, before attempting to directly identify investment irreversibility with the use of Ramsey and Rothman's (1996) time reversibility test. A second theme of investigation concentrates on testing for a negative investment-uncertainty relationship, which it is suggested will hold in the presence of irreversible investment. The uncertainty relationship is examined indirectly initially, through the relationship of output growth to output growth uncertainty, as modelled through the application of an Asymmetric Power Autoregressive Conditionally Heteroskedastic in Mean (APARCH-M) model. The uncertainty relationship is then subject to further, more direct scrutiny, through examination of the relationship of investment to output growth uncertainty, effect on investment being modelled using the previously applied APARCH-M models. A final approach utilises a non-linear Self Exciting Threshold Autoregressive (SETAR) model to represent investment to account for 'lumpy' investment patterns. While evidence of asymmetry is relatively weak, a number of industry groups (Engineering, Fuels and Textiles) are found to display time irreversibility. It is found that these industry groups are more likely to display negative investment-uncertainty relationships, especially when modelled directly rather than through the output growth-uncertainty relationship. These investmentuncertainty relationships are also found to hold with the imposition of the SETAR model, which is found to successfully explain much of the neglected non-linearity present when investment is modelled with the use of linear autoregressive models. This study suggests, therefore, that industry groups display investment patterns that are heterogeneous in nature, and where irreversible investment characterises the investment patterns at the industry group level of aggregation for certain groups, but not all groups.

This thesis is broadly involved with growth economics. It starts with a theoretical analysis of the relation between credit markets and economic growth. It considers an exogenous production function model with risky investment projects in which a borrower's (an investor's) risk type is private information. This asymmetry induces lenders to offer loan contracts which separate borrowers as to type. Self-selection can be induced by credit rationing or a screening mechanism which allows lenders to acquire information about a borrower's type. Screening is assumed to be imperfect in the sense that lenders can draw an imperfect inference if borrowers declare themselves as low-risk. The joint determination of the equilibrium loan contract and the economy's growth path and the steady-state capital stock is then explained. The next chapter investigates the extent at which financial development or trade openness of a country influences competition using data for 50 sectors for 8 Eurozone member states and the U. S. over 1981-2004. Financial depth may be associated with greater ease of entry and thus increased competition. Moreover, the effect might be greater in sectors where firms are relatively more dependent on external finance. The relation between trade openness and competition is then investigated. In response to greater foreign competition and increased imports, the market share for domestic producers falls and markups should decline. This relation might be stronger for those industries for which the relative volume of international trade is greater. The fourth chapter is an empirical analysis of the relationship between inequality and growth following on from the AER paper by De La Croix and Doepke. They suggest a mechanism whereby inequality has large effects on growth via the effect on differential fertility of rich and poor and provide empirical support for this thesis. This chapter goes back to the original data and also extends the econometric techniques used to analyze the relationship. Moreover, it suggests a more comprehensive measure of differential fertility and human capital inequality and finds that the relationship between differential fertility and growth is very fragile. It also raises concerns about the use of the squared value of a RHS variable as instrument. This point is addressed in the last chapter which investigates the properties of such instrument and the effect on the size of the bias of the Instrumental Variables's estimator.

This is a study of the parallel development of trade unionism and nationalism among the working men of nineteenth century Cork. Until the 1840s local trade unionism was a subversive movement which pursued ite ends through violence and intimidation, but thereafter, it tried to secure public approval for its objectives through reasoned and moderate behaviour. Trade unionism in nineteenth century Cork, as in other Irish centres, was extremely introspective, tradesmen from other centres being excluded as far as possible from the local labour market. However, from the 1830s onwards, the advent of British-based amalgamated unions in Cork helped to broaden the base of local labour organization. Yet, for most of the century unionism was confined to the skilled artisans who, in some cases, actively worked against the unionization of the unskilled. Though in the 1890s many unskilled occupations were organized, effective unionization of the general labourer was not attempted until the early twentieth century. While trade unionism was slowly developing, nationalism - both constitutional and militant - was putting down roots at popular level. The Repeal movement of 1830-50, the Home Rule movement of 1870-1900, and the Fenian movement of 1860 onwards, all drew their rank-and-file following from the working classes of the city - artisans, labourers, and shopkeepers. In nineteenth century Cork politics tended to engulf all other matters. A number of successive attempts to revive local industry were swamped by the nationalist movement, and the organized trades of the city regarded themselves as the local strongholds of nationalism, tending to spend exorbitant sums of money on political demonstrations. Such involvement was due to the fact that Cork artisan nationalism was at heart economic: political independence was seen as the gateway to economic prosperity, and the most distressed trades in the city were also the most enthusiastically nationalist. As the century passed, however, the local trades began to separate economic from political matters. Disillusionment with the performance of middle class nationalist politicians set in, and from the 1880s onwards the organized trades of Cork placed their hopes in independent labour representation at local level rather than in the traditional panacea of national independence.

No description available.

During the last century we have been frustrated by the number of economic crises which trigger extreme uncertainty in the global economic system. Economic agents are sensitive to the uncertainty of inflations, as well as to asset values, for survival in such circumstances. Hence, modern finance and monetary economics emphasise that risk modelling of asset values and inflations are key inputs to financial theory and monetary policy. The risk is completely described by the distribution which is verified to be time-varying and non-normal. Although various parametric and non-parametric approaches have been developed to model the time-varying nature and the non-normality, they still suffer from intrinsic limitations. This study proposes the dynamic modelling of the non-parametric distribution (Functional Autoregressive Model (FAR) and Spatial Distribution Analysis) in order to overcome the limitations. Firstly, we apply FAR to the Value-at-Risk analysis. It forecasts an intraday return density function by the functional autoregressive process and calculates a daily Value-at-Risk by the Normal Inverse Gaussian distribution. It reduces economic cost and improves coverage ability in the Value-at-Risk analysis. Secondly, we apply FAR to forecasting the cross-sectional distribution of sectoral inflation rates, which holds the information of the heterogeneous variation across sectors. As a result, it improves the aggregate inflation rate forecasting. Further, the heterogeneous variation is utilised for constructing the uncertainty band of the aggregate inflation forecast, like the fan-chart of the Bank of England. Thirdly, we apply the spatial distribution analysis to rank investment strategies by comparing their time aggregated utilities over the investment horizon. To this end, we use a spatial dominance test. Since a classical stochastic dominance approach considers only the return distribution at the terminal time point of the investment horizon, it cannot properly evaluate the risk, broken out exogenously or endogenously, in the middle of the investment horizon. However, the proposed spatial dominance approach considers completely the interim risk in evaluating alternative investment strategies.

The aim of this work is to provide a systematic theoretical basis for economic nationalism, and to defend this as an appropriate analytical framework for political economy. In the first part of the work, the author reviews relevant literatures on economic nationalism and defines it as <i>the view that the primary aim of economic policy is establish, maintain or strengthen the power of an actual or potential nation. </i>Next, the author examines Friedrich List’s political economy and shows that his approach is cultural, historical, institutional, political, dynamic and geographical. The second part of this work examines David Hume’s political economy, philosophy of social science and political theory. The author show that Hume’s economic thought significantly shares the characteristics of List’s political economy and argues that it is best understood as economic nationalism. Although they have often been misunderstood, Hume’s ideas – institutional economics, symbolist theory of social action, interpretive approach to social science, and political conservatism – are argued to provide appropriate philosophical foundations for economic nationalism. The third part shows that key elements of economic nationalism are evident in the political and economic thought of Edmund Burke, Alexander Hamilton and G. W. F. Hegel. Under the ideological dominance of economic liberalism, economic nationalism has been regarded as economic heresy. However, a heresy in economics turns out to be an orthodoxy of the Western intellectual tradition. In the fourth part, the author constructs a general theory for economic nationalism by drawing upon Émile Durkheim’s political sociology and recent contributions to the study of nationalism and political economy, and discusses its practical implications for the contemporary world of globalisation. It is argued that economic nationalism is a preferable alternative to economic liberalism.

This thesis provides an extension of panel data models on the analysis of Economics and Finance Data, discusses methods of estimation and evaluation for such models and presents empirical applications. The thesis consists in three Chapters.  The first Chapter proposes three alternative approaches to test the Permanent Income Hypothesis (PIH) in the context of dynamic panels: the aggregate consumption approach, the Euler equation approach and finally Friedman (1957)’s original characteristic tests. The empirical evidence, using the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) data, strongly supports the PIH. Hence, the analysis presented can be considered as supporting the view that empirical tests of PIH, based on aggregate time-series data, might suffer from misspecification or overlook some fundamental characteristics of micro data. The second Chapter addresses the issue of testing for factor price misspecification via a panel data approach. A theoretically coherent framework based on panel data techniques has been constructed. This allows for both the homogeneous and heterogeneous parameters that are present when testing for anomalies in factor pricing models. The tests presented have a clear advantage over the traditional two-pass based tests because they do not suffer from the errors in variable problem and have all the usual desirable asymptotic properties associated with the maximum likelihood approach. The empirical illustration shows that book to market equity and market value firm specific characteristics help explain asset returns in the UK over 1968-2002 even when all three of Fama and French’s factors are present. This finding, which is in contrast to much of the literature, may be due to the improved efficiency of our estimates and power of our tests relative to those based on the two-pass method predominant in the existing literature. Finally, we find that the overall significance of firm size is attributable to its importance during the 1980’s subsample, a period of relatively calm stock market growth. Lastly the third Chapter presents an application of Hausman-Taylor estimation in heterogeneous panels with time-specific common factors to gravity models of intra-EU trade. As an extension to the Hausman-­Taylor procedure, an efficient instrumental variable estimation of a panel data, which includes time-­specific common factors and their heterogeneous individual parameters, is presented. The underlying econometric techniques are developed and an alternative source of instruments is suggested. This methodology is applied to gravity models for international flows of trade using data on fifteen European countries over 42 years (1960-2001). Following the most recent developments of the literature, a complete analysis of the sources of bilateral trade amongst European countries is presented using three different specifications. The final model is also originally extended in order to allow for observed common factors and their heterogeneous parameters. The empirical evidence confirms the effectiveness of the gravity model in explaining international trade flows. Results also encourage the use of our extended approach as a valid alternative to the basic time dummy specification.

This thesis provides a new approach to both the forecasting of telecommunication development and to the assessment of its consequences; this enables a social value analysis to be undertaken, by which the significance of a new telecommunication system may be examined from several points of view. The research centred on proposals currently being studied for a national data network designed to replace existing inadequate data transmission facilities. A computerized analysis of the future growth of both numbers of data terminals and of the cost of a data network to carry these enables a preliminary decision analysis to be made; this indicates that an early introduction of a national data network would be favoured by all affected parties. Since the build-up of demand will be influenced by both costs and benefits, it is necessary to model benefits explicitly. By modelling general applications of a national data network, a methodology of considerable generality is developed for the quantitative assessment of benefits to the business community. Since the constraints of time, distance, and "physical being" bound the operational environment of an establishment, constraint reduction is. taken to be the essential benefit of national data network usage. Considering the most valuable constraint reduction to involve time, the value of time to an establishment is quantified in various modelled situations. Benefits are aggregated to give estimated limit lines of the total social benefit of national data network usage; the results obtained are coirparable to the macro-benefit derived using a simplified form of a dynamic input-output model. A preliminary social value analysis suggests that a national data network would involve a favourable use of national resources. A dynamic theory of demand for a national data network is also developed. Market saturation levels, particularly for the production and distribution sectors of the British economy, are first estimated. A theoretically derived general S-curve, which models the underlying value of data network usage and the possible mechanism of network build-up, is fitted to those and to current growth trend lines; a forecast of market growth over time is thus obtained. By attempting to "see into the minds" of rational decision- makers, this new approach assesses underlying demand rather than just expressed demand. The use of quantitative models throughout this development enables sensitivity analyses to be made; thus the results obtained are considerably more useful than are point- estimate forecasts. Since many consequences of a national data network cannot yet be quantified, a framework is provided within which social consequences may be qualitatively assessed. By analyzing interactions between various interest groups, a limited scenario of a possible future is obtained; it is suggested that the net effect of a national data network will be highly beneficial. Although a comprehensive social value analysis of the whole future of a national data network cannot yet be made, many of the component parts of such an analysis have been provided : these should be of considerable value in decision-making.

In this thesis I study the implications of the speed of learning in an overlapping generations model. The equilibrium can be altered, for example, by a change in the level of government purchases and this can be financed in various ways. The purpose is to examine the effects on a number of important economic variables including welfare during the learning transition to the new steady state. Chapter 1 contains the introduction. In chapter 2 there is a comparison between an economy in which all agents are fast learners with an economy in which all agents are slow learners. Under certain conditions it is shown that while welfare may initially be higher in an economy with fast learners, this will not continue to be the case during the whole learning transition. After some time, possibly quite early, welfare will be higher in an economy populated by slow learners. This analysis is extended to a model with externalities and coordination failures in chapter 3 and models with random productivity and preference shocks are studied in chapter 4. In chapter 5, I consider the consequences of agents having heterogeneous expectations, i.e. slow and fast agents in the same economy. The analysis considers two issues: (i) under what conditions is convergence of learning guaranteed when there is heterogeneous learning and (ii) how does welfare compare for fast relative to slow learners, when there is a mixture of the two types. The stability analysis extends earlier results in the literature for the homogeneous case. The welfare comparison gives a much more intuitive result. The welfare of the fast agents is higher than the welfare of the slow agents during the entire learning transition. This does not depend on whether one is looking at expansionary or contractionary monetary policy, providing that the economy started in equilibrium.