Markets have always changed in response to either exogenous or endogenous shocks. Many large events have occurred in financial and energy markets the last ten years. This dissertation examines market behavior and volatility in agricultural credit and fossil fuel markets under exogenous and endogenous changes in the last ten years. The efficiency of elements within the United States Farm Credit System, a major agricultural lender in the United States, and the dynamic correlation between coal, oil and natural gas prices, the three major fossil fuels, are examined. The Farm Credit system is a key lender in the U.S. agricultural sector, and its performance can influence the performance of the agricultural sector. However, its efficiency in providing credit to the agricultural sector has not been recently examined. The first essay of the dissertation provides assessments on the performance of elements within the Farm Credit System by measuring their relative efficiency using a stochastic frontier model. The second essay addresses the changes in relationship in coal, oil, and natural gas markets with respect to changes and turbulence in the last decade, which has also not been fully addressed in literature. The updated assessment on the relative performance of entities within the Farm Credit System provides information that the Farm Credit Administration and U.S. policy makers can use in their management of and policy toward the Farm Credit System. The measurement of the changes in fossil fuel markets’ relationships provides implications for energy investment, energy portfolio anagement, energy risk management, and energy security. It can also be used as a foundation for structuring forecasting models and other models related to energy markets. The dynamic correlations between coal, oil, and natural gas prices are examined using a dynamic conditional correlation multivariate autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (MGARCH DCC) model. The estimated results show that the FCS’s five banks and associations with large assets have more efficiently produced credit to the U.S. agricultural sector than smaller sized associations. Management compensation is found to be positively associated with the system’s efficiency. More capital investment and monitoring along with possible consolidation are implied for smaller sized associations to enhance efficiency. On average, the results show that the efficiency of the associations is increasing over time while the average efficiency of the five large banks is more stable. Overall, the associations exhibit a higher variation of efficiency than the five banks. In terms of energy markets the estimates from the MGARCH DCC model indicate significant and changing dynamic correlations and related volatility between the coal, oil, and natural gas prices. The coal price was found to experience more volatility and become more closely related to oil and natural gas prices in recent periods. The natural gas price was found to become more stable and drift away from its historical relationship with oil.

China has developed a technological Social Credit System that monitors, collects, and analyses behavioural data from citizens and enterprises. The system categorises them trustworthy or untrustworthy according to their behaviour. This paper aims to investigate the technological elements of China’s Social Credit System and analyse its social functions. In doing so, I will address the human rights implications following from the system. The thesis uses a content analysis method and draws on three theoretical studies, including, dataveillance, social sorting and neoliberalism and subjectivity. The study shows that China intends to continue investing in immoral technological elements; might succeed to govern citizens in self-governing; and prioritises the system in front of scarce human rights regulations. The conclusion holds that China intends to continue developing and strengthening the Social Credit System to enhance the behaviour of their society, regardless of some human rights implications, to reach their desired outcome.

The international governance discourse has seen radical changes in both trends and understandings in recent years, from the global dominance of liberal democracy after the Cold War, to the current movement towards authoritarianism. The modern autocracy has progressed its reach by the use of new applications in technology, which has resulted in a digital authoritarianism, also known as E-governance. In China, a system known as the “Social Credit System” represents these changes in modern governance. It aims to improve civic governance by incorporating the social contract into a digital platform. The system has been described as both a technological salvation and Orwellian Panopticon, with approximately 900 million individual records whilst assigning each user with a social credit score depending on how well they perform on different areas, such as education, prosocial behavior, financial services and much more. “Trustworthy” users are given opportunities in life such as improved; welfare, housing, social status, employment, and mobility in society. Meanwhile, “trust breakers” are placed on a blacklist and face a variety of sanctions and restrictions.   This qualitative case study analyzes the overall functioning of the system in terms of social control, in order to open up the (currently) rather dualistic debate on the system in current academic literature since the system is usually presented rather simplistically as either a threat or a benefit. The thesis, furthermore, analyses the domestic governance implications of the Social Credit System and the changes it suggests to how social control might be operationalized by other societies in the future. Lastly, the study will investigate the effect of social labelling in the “Blacklist” component and discuss the consequences for minority groups, polarization, governance advances, legal improvements, and rule of law.

Выпускная квалификационная работа (магистерская диссертация) посвящена исследованию развития ломбардного бизнеса в России. Предметом исследования выступают экономические отношения, возникающие в процессе осуществления и развития ломбардного бизнеса. Основной целью диссертационной работы является разработка практических мероприятий по совершенствованию ломбардного бизнеса в России на основе изучения теоретического контента кредитных отношений и выявленных проблем его осуществления. В заключении выявлены макроэкономические проблемы осуществления ломбардного бизнеса в России и предложены практические мероприятия по его совершенствованию. / The Final qualifying work (master's thesis) is devoted to the study of the development of pawnshop business in Russia. The subject of the study are the economic relations arising in the process of implementation and development of the pawnshop business. The main purpose of the thesis is to develop practical measures to improve the pawnshop business in Russia based on the study of the theoretical content of credit relations and identified problems of its implementation. In conclusion, the macroeconomic problems of the pawnshop business in Russia are identified and practical measures for its improvement are proposed.

Master of Agribusiness / Department of Agricultural Economics / Allen M. Featherstone / Institutions of the Farm Credit System (FCS) focus on risk-based lending in accordance with regulatory direction. The rating of risk also assists retail staff in loan approval, risk-based pricing, and allowance decisions. FCS institutions have developed models to analyze financial and related customer information in determining qualitative and quantitative risk measures. The objective of this thesis is to examine empirical account data from 2006-2012 to review the probability of default (PD) rating methodology within the overall risk rating system implemented by a Farm Credit System association. This analysis provides insight into the effectiveness of this methodology in predicting the migration of accounts across the association’s currently-established PD ratings where negative migration may be an apparent precursor to actual loan default. The analysis indicates that average PD ratings hold relatively consistent over the years, though the distribution of the majority of PD ratings shifted to higher quality by two rating categories over the time period. Various regressions run in the analysis indicate that the debt to asset ratio is most consistently statistically significant in estimating future PD ratings. The current ratio appears to be superior to working capital to gross profit as a liquidity measure in predicting PD rating migration. Funded debt to EBITDA is more effective in predicting PD rating movement as a measure of earnings to debt than gross profit to total liabilities, although the change of these ratios over time appear to be weaker indicators of the change in PD rating potentially due to the variable nature of annual earnings of production agriculture operations due to commodity price volatility. The debt coverage ratio is important as it relates to future PD migration, though the same variability in commodity price volatility suggests the need implement multi-year averaging for calculation of earnings-based ratios. These ratios were important in predicting the PD rating of observations one year into the future for production agriculture operations. To further test the predictive ability of the PD ratings, similar regression analyses were completed comparing current year rating and ratios to future PD ratings beyond one year, specifically for three and five years. Results from these regression models indicate that current year PD rating and ratios are less effective in predicting future PD ratings beyond one year. Furthermore, because of the variation in regression results between the analyses completed for one, three and five years into the future, it is important to regularly capture ratio and rating information, at least annually.

This thesis deals with the issue of educating helath workers. It describes mainly the legal framework of current situation and touches also the aspects of adults' education, humen resources and the educational system. Based on the teoretical knowledges there is built the methodology for creating educational plan in Hospital Pelhrimov followed by recommendations.

O objetivo deste estudo consistiu-se em analisar os fatores influentes no comportamento de compra industrial, na situação de decisão de crédito bancário em pequenas empresas. Para tanto, foram entregues questionários a doze empresas da indústria gráfica, selecionadas pelo número de empregados (de 20 a 100 - pequenas indústrias, segundo o critério do IBGE), localizadas no Distrito Federal e associadas ao sindicato da categoria. De acordo com resultados obtidos por meio do levantamento de campo, as conclusões desta pesquisa puderam ser exploradas tendo-se como base três pontos principais: a) os resultados relativos aos fatores influentes no comportamento do consumidor industrial, tais como os referentes a importância da localização geográfica do fornecedor, dos seus recursos tecnológicos e da redução, pelos compradores, dos riscos percebidos nas decisões de compras, dentre outros que mostraram-se condizentes com as pressuposições do modelo de comportamento do mercado industrial adotado; b) a discussão relativa à situação de decisão de crédito bancário, baseado na literatura pesquisada. De acordo com os resultados, puderam-se detalhar os aspectos relativos aos atributos dos bancos e do crédito, destacando-se, dentre outros, a importância da imagem da instituição financeira, da qualidade do gerente de contas e do custo dos empréstimos e financiamentos; c) as especificidades da pequena empresa, que puderam ser visualizadas nos resultados da pesquisa de campo como, por exemplo, a estratégia intuitiva e pouco formalizada, a situação extra-organizacional incontrolável e a racionalidade político-econômico-familiar do pequeno empresário. / The objective of this study was to analyze the factors that can be able to influence the industrial buying behavior vis-à-vis the credit decision process in small enterprises. In order to achieve the objective, we delivered questionnaires to twelve enterprises located at the printing industry. These twelve enterprises were selected taking in consideration the number of employees from de IBGE criteria (20 to 100 employees are considered small enterprises). All of them are located in Brasília Region (Distrito Federal) and are members of the sector syndicate. According to the survey results, the conclusions of this research can be considered taking in consideration three main points: a) results related to factors that induce the behavior of industrial consumer. In this context, some results such as the importance of geographical localization and its technological resources and the importance of buyers\' perception about decreasing in risks when facing buying decision, among others results, were realized in agreement with the presuppositions of the industrial market behavior model; b) the discussion related to the situation of banking credit decision, based in the literature researched and, according to the results, we could describe, in detail, the aspects related to the attributes of banks and credit. In addition, we can emphasize the importance of financial institutions image, the quality of bank account manager and the cost of loans; c) the small enterprises features could be shown in the survey results, for example: the strategies are intuitive and non-formal; the extra-organizational factors are uncontrollable and the business rationality follows the feeling of the small entrepreneur, among other elements.

Este trabalho tem como objetivo sistematizar a teoria monetária e financeira de Marx, com enfoque em sua concepção acerca do sistema de crédito, dos ciclos industriais e da Lei Bancária de 1844, tida aqui como exemplo de institucionalidade financeira. Esses elementos da teoria de Marx se encontram em trechos dispersos ao longo de sua obra, sendo necessário um esforço de sistematização para facilitar a sua compreensão e o debate acerca dos mesmos. O que o trabalho revela é que, para Marx, a categoria dinheiro é uma categoria complexa, sendo necessário compreender suas múltiplas determinações, partindo dos elementos abstratos mais simples para derivar os mais complexos. Buscamos discutir essas determinações apresentando o dinheiro na circulação simples como forma da mercadoria, o dinheiro enquanto forma do capital, o capital-dinheiro enquanto mercadoria na forma de capital de empréstimo e o sistema de crédito em geral. Demonstramos como, na teoria de Marx, todos esses determinantes são necessários para compreender a totalidade da categoria dinheiro no modo de produção capitalista. A partir da descrição do sistema de crédito, sistematizamos a teoria de Marx dos ciclos industriais, em que o crédito impulsiona a produção capitalista a períodos sucessivos de estagnação, estabilidade, prosperidade, especulação e superprodução, e crise. Portanto, trata-se de uma teoria de crises endógenas impulsionadas pelo crédito e que tem como resultado periódico superprodução e pânico financeiro. Por fim, apresentamos a descrição de Marx sobre a Lei Bancária de 1844, que só pode ser compreendida a partir do embasamento teórico do Currency Principle e dos interesses dos banqueiros que dela se beneficiam. Nessa descrição, fica claro que, embora a crise seja inevitável para Marx por ser resultado estrutural do processo de produção capitalista, a institucionalidade financeira apresenta uma eficácia própria, sendo capaz de alterar os resultados econômicos durante a crise, embora esteja sempre circunscrita a uma dinâmica estrutural determinada. / This paper aims to systematize the monetary and financial theory of Marx, focusing on his conception of the credit system, the industrial cycles and the Bank Charter Act 1844, taken here as an example of financial institutionality. These elements of Marx's theory are in passages scattered throughout his work, and a systematic effort is needed to facilitate their understanding and the theoretical debate about them. What the study reveals is that, for Marx, money category is a complex category, being necessary to understand its multiple determinations, starting from the simplest abstract elements to derive the more complex ones. We discuss these determinations presenting money in simple circulation as a form of commodity, money as a form of capital, money-capital as a commodity in the form of loan capital, and the credit system in general. We demonstrate how, in Marx's theory, all these determinants are needed to understand the totality of the money category in a capitalist mode of production. From the credit system description, we systematize Marx’s theory of industrial cycles, in which the credit drives the capitalist production to successive periods of stagnation, stability, prosperity, speculation and overproduction, and crisis. Therefore, it is a theory of endogenous crisis driven by credit and that results in periodic overproduction and financial panic. Finally, we present the description of Marx on the Bank Charter Act 1844, which can only be understood from the theoretical basis of the Currency Principle and from the interests of the bankers who benefit from it. In this description, it is clear that, while crisis is inevitable for Marx for being a structural result of the capitalist production process, the financial institutionality has its own effectiveness, being able to change the economic results during the crisis, although it is always limited to a certain structural dynamic.

Magistro baigiamajame darbe nagrinėjama kredito esmė šiuolaikiniame Lietuvos statybinių medžiagų prekybos sektoriuje. Apžvelgiamos kredito reikalingumo, jo funkcijų pritaikymas minėtoje srityje, ypač didelę dėmesį skiriant atskirų kredito rūšių, formų, klasifikavimų analizei. Taip pat apžvelgiama bendra kredito sistemos veikimo schema Lietuvoje, detaliai išnagrinėjant pagrindinių jų dalyvių veiklą ir jų vykdomas funkcijas bei taikomas kredito formas. Ypač didelis dėmesys yra skiriamas kredito rizikos valdymui. Nagrinėjami kreditų rizikos valdymo principai bei jų klasifikacija, bei kaip tai gali būti įgyvendinama kredito sutartyje. Konkrečiu įmonės pavyzdžiu nagrinėjama, kaip kreditavimo sistemą galima pritaikyti ir nedidelėje įmonėje. Šiuo tikslu modifikuota įmonės naudojama kreditavimo sistema ir pateikti pasiūlymai, kurie dar labiau suefektyvintų šį procesą. Taip pat darbe patikrinama, kas lėmė įmonės pardavimų plano neįvykdymą ir ar tai nėra susiję su taikoma kreditavimo sistema. / Master work examines the essence of the modern credit Lithuanian building materials sector. Overview of the credit of necessity, the use of the functions in this area, focusing particularly on the individual credit forms, the forms, classifications of analysis. It also reviews the overall functioning of the system, the credit scheme in Lithuania, in detail, examining the main participants in their activities and their functions, and apply the credit forms. In particular, emphasis is given to the credit risk management. It examines the credit risk management principles and their classification, and how it can be implemented in the credit agreement. A specific example of the enterprise, as the credit system can be adapted and small enterprise. For this purpose, modified for use by the credit system and make proposals that further suefektyvintų the process. We also checked the work, which led to a failure to fulfill the company's sales plan and whether it is linked to the credit system. / In dieser Arbeit wird das Wesen des modernen Kredits des litauischen Baustoffsektors untersucht. Das ist die Übersicht über die Notwendigkeit der Kredit und die Nutzung der Funktionen des Kredites in diesem Bereich. Besonders aufmerksam werden die einzelnen Formen und die Formen der Klasifikationen betrachtet. Es wird auch die allgemeine Funktionsweise des Kredit – Systems in Litauischen analsiert. Es wird über die wichtigsten Akteure in ihre Aktiwitäten und ihre Funktionen, wie auch über die Formen des Kredits gesprochen. Der Schwerpunkt liegt insbesonde auf dem Kreditrisiko – Management. Es werden die Prinzipien des Kreditsrisiko – Managements und ihre Einführung untersucht, wie sie umgesetzt und im Kreditvertrag vorgesehen werden können. Es wird ein konkretes Beispiel für das Unternehmen verwendet, der zeigt wie das Kredit – System für das kleine Unternehmen angepasst werden kann. Zu diesem Zweck wird die Verwendung durch den Kredit geändert und es wird auch vorgeschlagen, wie dieser Prozess besser gemacht werden kann. Wir haben auch die Arbeiten, die zu der Nichterfüllung des Unternehmensumsatzes überprüft und fragen ob es im Zusammenhang mit dem Kreditsystem steht.

Este trabalho tem como objetivo sistematizar a teoria monetária e financeira de Marx, com enfoque em sua concepção acerca do sistema de crédito, dos ciclos industriais e da Lei Bancária de 1844, tida aqui como exemplo de institucionalidade financeira. Esses elementos da teoria de Marx se encontram em trechos dispersos ao longo de sua obra, sendo necessário um esforço de sistematização para facilitar a sua compreensão e o debate acerca dos mesmos. O que o trabalho revela é que, para Marx, a categoria dinheiro é uma categoria complexa, sendo necessário compreender suas múltiplas determinações, partindo dos elementos abstratos mais simples para derivar os mais complexos. Buscamos discutir essas determinações apresentando o dinheiro na circulação simples como forma da mercadoria, o dinheiro enquanto forma do capital, o capital-dinheiro enquanto mercadoria na forma de capital de empréstimo e o sistema de crédito em geral. Demonstramos como, na teoria de Marx, todos esses determinantes são necessários para compreender a totalidade da categoria dinheiro no modo de produção capitalista. A partir da descrição do sistema de crédito, sistematizamos a teoria de Marx dos ciclos industriais, em que o crédito impulsiona a produção capitalista a períodos sucessivos de estagnação, estabilidade, prosperidade, especulação e superprodução, e crise. Portanto, trata-se de uma teoria de crises endógenas impulsionadas pelo crédito e que tem como resultado periódico superprodução e pânico financeiro. Por fim, apresentamos a descrição de Marx sobre a Lei Bancária de 1844, que só pode ser compreendida a partir do embasamento teórico do Currency Principle e dos interesses dos banqueiros que dela se beneficiam. Nessa descrição, fica claro que, embora a crise seja inevitável para Marx por ser resultado estrutural do processo de produção capitalista, a institucionalidade financeira apresenta uma eficácia própria, sendo capaz de alterar os resultados econômicos durante a crise, embora esteja sempre circunscrita a uma dinâmica estrutural determinada. / This paper aims to systematize the monetary and financial theory of Marx, focusing on his conception of the credit system, the industrial cycles and the Bank Charter Act 1844, taken here as an example of financial institutionality. These elements of Marx's theory are in passages scattered throughout his work, and a systematic effort is needed to facilitate their understanding and the theoretical debate about them. What the study reveals is that, for Marx, money category is a complex category, being necessary to understand its multiple determinations, starting from the simplest abstract elements to derive the more complex ones. We discuss these determinations presenting money in simple circulation as a form of commodity, money as a form of capital, money-capital as a commodity in the form of loan capital, and the credit system in general. We demonstrate how, in Marx's theory, all these determinants are needed to understand the totality of the money category in a capitalist mode of production. From the credit system description, we systematize Marx’s theory of industrial cycles, in which the credit drives the capitalist production to successive periods of stagnation, stability, prosperity, speculation and overproduction, and crisis. Therefore, it is a theory of endogenous crisis driven by credit and that results in periodic overproduction and financial panic. Finally, we present the description of Marx on the Bank Charter Act 1844, which can only be understood from the theoretical basis of the Currency Principle and from the interests of the bankers who benefit from it. In this description, it is clear that, while crisis is inevitable for Marx for being a structural result of the capitalist production process, the financial institutionality has its own effectiveness, being able to change the economic results during the crisis, although it is always limited to a certain structural dynamic.