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This paper examines the relationship between the development of the aggregate bond markets and real GDP in 13 highly developed economies. The recent interest in the ties between the real and the financial sector has usually been on the banking sector and the stock markets, rather ignoring the bond markets as a third essential source of external finance. We fill this gap by providing empirical evidence for causality patterns supporting the supply-leading approach in the USA, UK, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and Spain over the 1950 to 2000 period. In the cases of Japan, Finland and Italy we find evidence of interdependence between bond market capitalization growth and real output growth. Granger causality test and co-integration approach are employed to support this conjecture. (author's abstract) / Series: EI Working Papers / Europainstitut

This thesis investigates the relationship between Tobin’s Q and regional housing investment in Sweden for the time period of 1998-2012. The relationship is tested through estimation of two models for time-series analysis, a vector error correction model (VECM) and an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model. Depending on which model that is used, I find some evidence of positive correlation between Tobin’s Q and regional housing investment in the long run while the short run dynamics of investment does not seem to be explained by Tobin’s Q. By transforming the regional data into a panel data set and running a fixed effects model, I examine the gain in explanatory power of Tobin’s Q from using disaggregated data rather than aggregated. My findings suggest that using disaggregated data improves the explanatory power of Tobin’s Q on investment. However, the Granger Causality test indicates two-way causality between Tobin’s Q and investment, causing endogeneity problem in the estimated equations.

This dissertation both theoretically and empirically examines the relationship between health and wealth, using proxies for health and wealth that are standard in the economics literature. We first model the endogenous interactions between life expectancy and income by modifying a standard overlapping generation model to allow individuals to directly choose their own longevity. The model displays a positive feedback between life expectancy and income that generates multiple stable equilibria. The worse equilibrium is a “poverty-trap” in which poverty and low longevity reinforce each other. The second portion of the dissertation is empirical. We first show that income has statistically significant effects on various proxies for health. The results are robust to different ways of controlling for the endogeneity of income: both instrumental variable estimation with external instruments and also generalized method of moments estimation when internal instruments are applied. We next directly test for the causal relationship between income and various proxies for health using three panel Granger causality tests. Evidence is found to support the existence of a bi-directional causal link. Sensitivity tests further suggest that middle-income countries play a more important role than low-income countries in explaining the overall wealth-health causality.

Traditional demonstration of price fluctuation in the wheat market, by the theory of supply and demand is not comprehensive enough. With limited understanding of macroeconomic effects on the wheat market, accurate prediction of wheat price is impossible. Given the Chinese self—sustainable food policy, grain imports is a sensitive topic which may incur fierce argument. In this paper, however, I emphasize effect of exchange rate on nominal wheat price. By application of the cointegration theory, CPI shows slight negative correlation with nominal wheat price, yet GDP and population move in the same direction as the wheat price. The cointegration study of exchange rate implies, with appreciating Chinese RMB, domestic buyers incline to purchase wheat from the cheaper foreign market. According to the Granger causality test, the whole package of variables suggests significant causal relation with the wheat price.

The main concern of the thesis is the problem of reconciliation of freedom and natural causality and to investigate how Kant makes a room for freedom. Kant, firstly, in &ldquo / Analytic&rdquo / , constitutes the conditions of knowledge upon which the objective validity of the law of causality entirely rests. This process of constitution also determines the limits of experience. On the other hand, Kant, in &ldquo / Dialectic&rdquo / , postulates freedom as a noumenal cause together with the law of causality. Transcendental freedom, in this case, is a problematic concept which transcends the limits of experience, as it seems to destruct the unity of experience. However, Kant gives up neither the law of causality nor the idea of freedom, but rather he insists upon the idea that they can exist together without contradiction by asserting the distinction between phenomena and noumena as different grounds on which these two different types of causalities rest. According to Kant both are indispensable, as the former is necessary for the knowledge and the latter is absolutely needed for morality. In this context this thesis aims to explain the objective validity of natural causality which is proved in Second Analogy and the transcendental ground of the idea of freedom which is established in the solution of Third Antinomy in Kant&rsquo / s Critique of Pure Reason. And it is discussed whether Kant&rsquo / s solution of this issue is satisfactory and legitimate or not.

The main thesis of this dissertation is that final causes are beings of reason (‘entia rationis’) in the philosophy of Francisco Suárez (1547-1617). The rejection of final causes is often seen as one of the hallmarks of Early Modern philosophy, marking the transition from an earlier Aristotelian tradition. However, in this dissertation it is shown that final causes had a problematic position already within the Aristotelian tradition. Although other examples of this can be found, this dissertation centers around the thinking of the philosopher and theologian Francisco Suárez and his treatment of final causes in his Disputationes Metaphysicae from 1597. Suárez counts final causes as one of the four kinds of causes, in line with the Aristotelian tradition. However, what these are and how they cause is, at closer inspection, not at all clear, as Suárez shapes his notion of final causation against the background of a definition of causation where efficient causation is the principal kind of causation. Due to this basic view on causes, he is faced with a host of problems when it comes to “salvaging” final causes. Though at first sight seemingly real, in a final analysis final causes are shown to belong to the class of “beings of reason,” ‘entia rationis,’ which are not real beings at all. However, it is also argued that this does not in itself preclude counting final causes as causes; something can really be a cause without being real. Chapter one presents Suárez’ general view on causes and causation. Chapter two presents his view on final causation. Chapter three examines the close link between final causation and moral psychology. Chapter four relates the question of final causation to God’s concurrence with the world. Finally, chapter five argues for the thesis that final causes are beings of reason.

This research paper investigates the causality issue between economic growth rate (GDP) and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) investment in Sweden by applying modern time series techniques. It mainly covers time series analyses of 30 years of Sweden data (1980-2009). During that period, development in Information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure of Sweden was an evolutionary process based on innovation and technological knowledge. Telecommunication revolution which occurred and developed on the basic idea that economic change can be explained as co-evolution of technologies, institutions and development blocks (such as investment). The other way of describing it as an analysis of a long wave based on telecommunication technological revolution and key factor involved the share of investment in it. Standard tests of Unit roots, Cointegration and Granger Causality tests are presented. The main reason of such study is the assessment of ICT investment influence directly on economic growth. The results provide an interesting aspect that ICT investment share can possibly be a contributing factor to telecommunications infrastructure development but it cannot be as a whole sufficient enough for stimulating economic growth (GDP).It is found that one way causality running from ICT investment to economic growth (GDP) but only at one year lagged values not at other higher lagged values. The lack of long run relationship may be due to the inadequacy in reflecting the full effect of ICT investment in other complementary segments. The other complementary factors of ICT 's infrastructure are quite essential as well in describing economic growth and development level.

Borges saw narrative as the bearer of universally re-combinable elements. Although these elements seem sequential, their essential formal integrity guarantees their rearrangement to generate new narratives. The ficción lives beyond its author. However, Borges’ ontological anxieties also have a life of their own that undermines the ficción’s assimilative potential. By developing poetic and linguistic insights Borges creates immortal text through the construction of a symbolic repertoire. Each element of the repertoire has its genesis in the author’s personal development. This history is archaeologised in the early poetry and mediated through a theory of metaphor and the reader’s interaction with the text. Borges sees no need for a Freudian reading theory. Instead he develops an antipsychological poetics. He enlists the reader as a willing participant in the text by a dual strategy of symbolic incorporation. Firstly, readers identify with characters through vicarious emotional prediction. Secondly, he refreshes the reader’s participation by presenting emblematic devices serving as sub-text to enhance symbolic participation. Together these strategies constitute a ‘magic causality’ of negotiated textual interpretation continually operating in his narratives. But the discipline of magic causality also conceals a rhetoric of presence establishing counter-motivational effects to disturb symbolic incorporation at the level of genre. The dissertation extracts key features for scrutiny from Borges’ early literary theory and criticism, elaborating them into a general aesthetic programme. It examines biographical influences in shaping his critical and creative work. It problematises his texts from the point of view of his ideas about linguistics, their identity as contributions to the genre of the ficción, and the centrality of metaphor and analogy as interpretative strategies. I use a number of approaches for this enterprise, including biographical criticism (ontological preoccupations), substitutional analysis (temporal subjectivity), linguistic interpretation (theory of metaphor), literary criticism (readerly reception), structuralism (readerly incorporation), and deconstruction (rhetoric of suppression). The dissertation pragmatically investigates, and contests, Borges’ assimilative poetics of textual presence.

This dissertation both theoretically and empirically examines the relationship between health and wealth, using proxies for health and wealth that are standard in the economics literature. We first model the endogenous interactions between life expectancy and income by modifying a standard overlapping generation model to allow individuals to directly choose their own longevity. The model displays a positive feedback between life expectancy and income that generates multiple stable equilibria. The worse equilibrium is a “poverty-trap” in which poverty and low longevity reinforce each other. The second portion of the dissertation is empirical. We first show that income has statistically significant effects on various proxies for health. The results are robust to different ways of controlling for the endogeneity of income: both instrumental variable estimation with external instruments and also generalized method of moments estimation when internal instruments are applied. We next directly test for the causal relationship between income and various proxies for health using three panel Granger causality tests. Evidence is found to support the existence of a bi-directional causal link. Sensitivity tests further suggest that middle-income countries play a more important role than low-income countries in explaining the overall wealth-health causality.