Do participants with external attribution styles outperform participants with internal explanatory styles in pressure-filled situations? Explicit-monitoring theory suggests that performance becomes impaired when conscious attention is devoted to performing a task normally carried out by automatic processes. Attributing potential failure to an external source (e.g., blaming a sudden gust of wind for a poor golf shot) can decrease the negative effects of stereotype threat, a social-psychological predicament known to engender feelings of stress similar to those experienced in pressure-filled situations, by preventing explicit monitoring from taking place. The current study examined whether individual differences in attribution style, as measured by the Attributional Style Questionnaire, affects golf-putting performance under stereotype threat. The present author hypothesized that participants with external explanatory styles would perform better than participants with internal explanatory styles under stereotype threat, because external participants would be predisposed to create external sources to attribute the cause of poor performance.

This dissertation explores several aspects of financial globalization, inequality and economic growth. In the first two essays, we show that cross-border capital inflows raise the domestic credit volumes and lead to higher bank risk-taking. In particular, capital inflows are related to an increased credit supply towards ex-ante risky and low performing firms. These results are amplified when the financial system is more prone to agency problems—problems that rise in the financial system’s size/concentration and undercapitalization. Therefore, from a policy perspective, we gauge that the regulation of the financial sector shapes the allocation of global liquidity to the real economy. Turning our attention towards firms’ real activities, we show that capital inflows are negatively linked with the ex-post performance of firms. Consequently, foreign capital is not only allocated overproportionally to firms with a low ex-ante profitability; additionally, low performing firms display further decreases in their future profitability, constituting long-run hazards for the aggregate economic performance. This result helps to explain the difficulties of the empirical literature to identify a distinct positive relationship between cross-border capital flows and aggregate economic growth. In the third essay, we identify the growth effects of another macroeconomic variable that has been shown to increase with financial globalization—income inequality. We find that higher income inequality increases the growth rates of industries that are dependent on physical capital. In contrast, human capital intense industries grow less in countries with a more unequal distribution of income. We further gauge that higher aggregate investments (in financially more closed economies) and devaluations of the real exchange rate (in financially more open economies) drive the positive growth effects of inequality. The negative growth effects are an implication of lower human capital investments. Consequently, policy makers should keep in mind the potential negative implications of inequality for aggregate economic growth in case their country’s industrial structure relies to a great extent on human capital.

兩岸經貿在政治的隔閡與反復中，從小到大，從封閉到逐漸開放。在這個過程中，兩岸資金融通的不斷擴大成為這場華麗經濟表演的背景。但隨著人民幣在國際舞台角色變化，兩岸貨幣流通從背景中走出，金融合作發展甚至可能成為兩岸經濟未來的最重要之組成。 從法律角度審視兩岸跨境資金流通，繁瑣的管制措施與複雜的法律體系正在逐漸消減。從直接投資角度而言，對外中國大陸不斷推動外商投資企業法規的改制以吸引外商投資；對內則努力減少中國企業融資阻礙，以推動中國大陸企業走出去。而台灣雖然對於陸資仍然保持著較大的戒心，亦逐步放開對大陸投資管制，並開放陸資來台來台促進經濟發展。從間接投資角度而言，中國大陸逐步放開資本項下的管制， QDII、QFII等投資管道不斷推陳出新，更加開放的未來成為可能。 而在這場以人民幣國際化為目的的改革中，自貿區扮演了急先鋒的角色。自貿區階段式的政策開放有著中國大陸改革和法律變遷的典型特征，「試點—推廣」模式使自貿區走在了人民幣國際化的最前沿。而台灣的自由經濟示範區卻步入了困境。 自貿區的現在很大可能將會是中國大陸的未來，人民幣國際化成為一個大概率事件。面對這種未來，台灣可以如何應對？從法律角度而言，本文提出以下四個建議：1．推動兩岸貿易以本幣結算，深化兩岸經貿往來；2．建立雙邊貨幣交換機制，共同推動人民幣區域化及國際化；3．推動兩岸資本市場的交流與合作，建構台灣為人民幣離岸中心；4．推動兩岸金融監理合作、建置兩岸金融防火牆。 / The economic and trade have developed since 1980s though faced with the political barriers. The two sides is expected to work together in peace in the future. From the perspective of cross-border capital flow, the two sides set up a complicated and complex control measures, forming a complex legal system. From the view of direct investment, China is currently promoting the restructuring of foreign investment enterprises and regulations to attract foreign investment. Reducing the financing pressure of Chinese enterprises and promoting the Chinese mainland enterprises to go out become one of the focus of the mainland policy. However, Taiwan resist the Chinese capital. From the perspective of indirect investment, China's mainland is currently expanding various investment pipelines, such as QDII, QFII, etc.. In the future, capital of cross-border capital flows will be more convenient. Taiwan also has more space to intervene. The establishment of free trade zone has become the pioneer of China's financial reform, and its development has been the most advanced in the financial reform, capital projects and the internationalization of RMB. Negative list and a series of financial reform measures will gradually move to the country. Taiwan's free economic demonstration zone has entered a difficult situation. Facing such a future, from a legal point of view, this paper puts forward the following five suggestions: 1. Promote cross-strait trade in local currency settlement, deepen economic and trade exchanges between the two sides; 2. The establishment of bilateral currency exchange mechanism, and jointly promote the RMB regionalization and internationalization; 3. To promote exchanges and cooperation on both sides of the capital market, build Taiwan as an offshore RMB Centre; 4. To promote cross-strait financial supervisory cooperation, build cross-strait financial firewall.

This study investigates how the mandatory adoption of the international reporting standards IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards) for publicly listed companies affect countries’ levels of in- and outflow of cross-border capital. The continued harmonization of financial reporting standards on an international level is bringing up questions regarding supposed benefits of their implementation. These benefits cover areas such as increased accessibility of external financing, lower costs of capital, greater opportunities to receive a loan with longer terms, and the perceived improvements to the quality and transparency of annual reports. These factors, along with others, are driving forces as to why countries should experience changes in cross-border flows of capital when they officially adopt IFRS. It is this study’s goal to establish differences and relationships between different components of the international flow of capital and the aforementioned adoption. In this study the components are represented by the dependent variables; foreign direct investment inflow, foreign direct investment outflow, foreign portfolio investment, foreign loans as well as loans that are given to other countries. To analyse differences caused in these values by the adoption, paired t-tests are performed on data consisting of 2 360 observations from 59 countries during the period of 2001-2019. In addition, 42 countries from the continent of Asia are investigated during the period of 2013-2019 with several multiple regression analyses to determine relationships, in this case the data consisted of 4 410 observations. The paired t-tests exhibited statistically significant increases in all variables as of the adoption while the multiple regressions analyses resulted in only one out of five variables having a significant relationship with the event, that variable being foreign direct investment outflow. The results put to question previous studies successful attempts to show significant positive relationships between adoption and countries’ levels of foreign direct investment inflow, foreign portfolio investment, foreign loans and loans given to other countries. The result also has implications for further research in regard to choice of controlling variables as well as method of data collection. / Denna studie undersöker hur den obligatoriska implementeringen av de internationella redovisningsstandarderna IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards) för börsnoterade företag påverkar länders in- och utgående flöden av gränsöverskridande kapital. Den fortsatta harmoniseringen av redovisningsstandarder på internationell nivå tar upp frågor gällande implementeringens påstådda fördelar. Fördelar som implementering av IFRS leder till täcker områden såsom ökad tillgänglighet av extern finansiering, lägre kapitalkostnader, större möjligheter att ta ut lån med längre löptider, och att årsredovisningar upplevs få bättre kvalitet och bli mer transparenta. Ovanstående faktorer m.fl. utgör grunden till varför länder borde uppleva förändringar i gränsöverskridande kapitalflöden i och med implementering av redovisningsstandarderna. Det är denna studies mål att etablera skillnader och samband mellan olika beståndsdelar av det internationella kapitalflödet och denna implementering. De beståndsdelarna representeras i denna studie av de fem olika beroende variablerna; ingående utländsk investering, utgående utländsk investering, utländsk portföljinvestering, utländska lån samt lån som delas ut till andra länder. För att undersöka ifall skillnader uppstår i dessa värden i och med implementering utförs parade t-test på ett dataunderlag av 2 360 antal observationer tagna från 59 länder under perioden 2001–2019. Dessutom undersöks 42 länder i kontinenten Asien under perioden 2013–2019 med multipla regressionsanalyser för att påvisa samband, datan i detta fall uppgick till 4 410 stycken observationer. T-testen visade på statistiskt signifikanta ökningar i alla variabler i och med implementeringen av IFRS medan de multipla regressionsanalyserna resulterade i att endast en av de fem olika variablerna, nämligen utgående utländsk investering, hade ett signifikant positivt samband med händelsen. Resultaten problematiserar tidigare studier som föreslår att det existerar signifikanta positiva samband mellan implementering och länders nivåer av ingående utländsk investering, utländsk portföljinvestering, utländska lån och lån som delas ut till andra länder. Undersökningen har även implikationer för framtida undersökningars val av kontrollvariabler och datainsamlingsmetod.