This doctoral thesis contains three essays on the economics of climate change and the electricity sector. The first essay deals with the subject of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and economic growth. The second essay addresses the issues of climate change policies, especially the role of the emergent innovative technologies, and the restructuring of the electricity sector. The third essay presents a model of transmission investments in electric power networks. Chapter One studies the impacts of climate change on economic growth in the world economies. The paper contains explicit formalization of the depletion process of exhaustible fossil fuels and the phase of technology substitution. The impacts of climate change on capital flows and welfare across countries are also investigated. The restructuring of the electricity sector is studied in Chapter Two. It also analyzes how climate change policies can benefit from emergent innovative technologies and how emergent innovative technologies can lower GHG emissions. It is shown that the price of electricity is strictly rising before emergent innovative firms with zero GHG emissions enter the market, but strictly declining as the entry begins. In Chapter Three, a model of electricity transmission investments from the perspective of the regulatory approach is formulated. The Mid-West region of Western Australia, a sub-system of the South West Interconnected System is considered. In contrast with most models in the literature that deal only with network deepening, this model deals with both network deepening and network widening. Moreover, unlike the conventional investment models which are static and deal only with the long run, this model is dynamic and focuses on the timing of the infrastructure investments. The paper is a study of an optimal transmission investment program which is part of the optimal investment program for an integrated model in which investments in transmission and investments in generation are made at the same time.

The EU's lagging economic growth and global competitiveness require the pro- motion of technological innovation, the key determinant of long term economic growth. On the other hand, increasing disparities among EU member states require the promotion of convergence as they may threaten the EU's economic feasibility and political viability. Cohesion policy has adopted the dual role for the promotion of EU global competitiveness and EU economic cohesion; concepts incompatible by nature. The objectives of Europe 2020, specifically the promotion of technological innovation through investment in R&D, are as- sessed in terms of their compatibility with the objectives of Cohesion policy, specifically the reduction of disparities within the EU. An analysis of conver- gence in the EU determines that both beta convergence and sigma convergence are taking place, although large disparities in GDP per capita persist. An em- pirical analysis of the relative effects on GDP per capita of investment in R&D and investment in human capital determines that investment in human capital plays a significant role. Thus, key policy focus areas that meet the objectives of both Europe 2020 and Cohesion policy include investment in human capital as well as purposive diffusion of technology within the EU and the distribution of the...

OF MASTER THESIS The master thesis called Comparative analysis of George Bush Junior second term and Barack Obama second term foreign policy towards Iranian nuclear program till 2015 submits broader understanding of George W. Bush and Barack Obama presidency in terms of their Middle Eastern policy, concretely the issue of Iranian nuclear policy. The main interest lies in an intention to conclude which particular circumstances led American governments to rethink its position towards Iranian nuclear program, bearing in mind changes which took place in security, economic and foreign policy interests of the United States. Closer analysis of the economic sanctions, wars in Syria and Iraq, changes of the Iranian political elites, menace of Israelian air strikes against key iranian nuclear, industrial targets and main infrastructure capacities will create supporting arguments to answer the examined question: Which aspects in particular, and why led to the significant changes in the American foreign policy towards Iranian nuclear pogram during the last decade. Anotace diplomové práce Diplomová práce Komparativní analýza druhého prezidentského období George Bushe mladšího a druhého prezidentského období Baracka Obamy se zaměřením na problematiku Íránského jaderného programu do roku 2015 se zabývá širším...

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Thesis (Ph.D. Commerce (Economics)) -- University of Limpopo, 2021 / This study focused on examining the contributions of inclusive growth and innovation towards economic development in South Africa. Empirically literature showed that there must be equitable opportunities for all economic participants regardless of economic class, gender, sex, disability, and religion. Thus, inclusive growth has been seen to be a weapon to curb poverty and inequality on a long-term perspective and the focus is on productive employment rather than merely direct income redistribution as a means of increasing income for excluded groups. This expands from traditional economic growth models such as the equity of health, human capital, environmental quality, social protection and food security in the country. Thus, inclusive growth goes hand in hand with innovation and economic development at large. This study employed the Autoregressive Distributed Lags (ARDL) approach on the annual time series data ranging from 1990 to 2018 obtained from the South African Reserve Bank and the World Bank. The results revealed that general government expenditure on education, gross fixed capital formation, and information and communication technology have a positive relationship with economic development in the long-run. On the contrary, trade openness and research and development have a negative impact on economic development in the long-run. In the short-run, government expenditure on education, gross fixed capital formation, and information and communication technology has a negative impact on economic development. In that case, trade openness and investment in research and development have a positive impact on economic development. The error correction term was found to be negative and significant which is an indication that the system will revert to equilibrium even though economic development will have a slow rate of speed of adjustment of about 0.04%. Lastly, the existence of unidirectional causality among the series was noticed. Therefore, this study advocate for bridging the gap between income inequality, improving education policies, managing social mobility in the long-run to balance inclusive growth / South African Zakat Fund (SANZAF)

Thesis advisor: Matthew O. Jackson / In this dissertation, I focus on networks in macroeconomics and finance. In Chapter 1, I develop a theoretical model of rescue of distressed financial institutions. I study rescues in a coalition formation framework, which provides new insights into the financial contagion and stability and rescue of systemically important financial institutions. The findings show that the levels of negative shock, bankruptcy costs, interbank obligations of each financial firm and the topology of the interbank network all together determine financial firms’ contributions in rescues, where government assistance in rescues is not required in certain types of network structures. In Chapter 2, which is a joint work with Matthew O. Jackson, we study the impacts of sector level technological changes on wage inequality and GDP growth in production networks. Our results show that the macroeconomic implications of sector level technological changes depend on additional factors than the input-output structure such as type of the intermediate good (e.g., substitutes for labor vs complements to labor), task weights in production processes and labor supply. Chapter 1. I model bank rescues in a setting where banks hold each other’s financial instruments creating a network of financial linkages. Costly bankruptcies reduce interbank payments, which creates incentives for rescues by other banks. Accordingly, I analyze the sources of inefficiencies in bank rescues and show that the social welfare is maximized if regulators promote financial networks that are evenly connected (without disconnectedness/clustering) and have intermediate levels of interbank liabilities at bank level. Such networks maximize banks’ total contributions to the rescue of a distressed bank hit by a relatively small negative shock, but also ensure that banks do not fail sequentially like dominos when a bank hit by a large shock does actually fail. The results also provide a rationale for why some systemically important banks were not rescued in 2007-2008. In the model, a social welfare maximizing government assists the rescues designed to prevent the potential contagious failures and maintain financial stability instead of assisting the rescue of a bank that is hit by a large shock. Chapter 2. We study the impact of technological change on wage inequality and GDP growth in production networks. We do this in a simple model that contrasts the effects of changes in intermediate goods that substitute for labor with those that complement labor. Technological changes in intermediate goods that complement labor result in increased GDP and do not change relative wages. Technological changes in intermediate goods that substitute for (low-skilled) labor involve three phases: pre-automation, transition to automation, and post-automation. During the transition phase, technological changes in such intermediate good lead to increased wage inequality and relatively smaller increases in GDP than comparable changes in complementary goods. In addition, our results show that firm-level weights of tasks performed by different types of labor play key roles in macroeconomic network consequences of interconnectedness. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2018. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics.

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.

La presente investigación tiene como principal objetivo analizar la relación a largo plazo entre la innovación y el crecimiento económico para proporcionar evidencia empírica al estudio del crecimiento económico. Para ello, se realiza un análisis dinámico del efecto de tres variables de creatividad económica y tres variables de implementación de la innovación en el crecimiento del producto por trabajador. Para lograr este objetivo, utilizamos modelos de ecuaciones estructurales en una muestra de 39 países de las bases de datos del Banco Mundial y el World Economic Forum, de los cinco continentes, con ingresos altos, medios y bajos, durante el período comprendido entre 2014 y 2018, utilizando máxima verosimilitud como método de estimación. Los resultados muestran que el efecto de la innovación sobre el crecimiento económico es inverso en un periodo de 4 años. / The paper has the main objective of examines the long-term relationship between innovation and economic growth to provide empirical evidence for the study of economic growth. For that purpose, a dynamic analysis of the effect of three variables of economic creativity and three variables of implementation of innovation in the growth of the product per worker is carried out. To achieve this goal, we used structural equation models in a sample of 39 countries from the World Bank and World Economic Forum databases, from the five continents, with high, medium and low incomes, during the period between 2014 and 2018, using maximum likelihood as estimation method. The results show the effects of innovation is inversely on economic growth over a period of 4 years. / Trabajo de investigación

Este trabajo de investigación se busca estimar el impacto que tiene el precio del cobre sobre la dinámica de los créditos al sector privado en la economía peruana. La literatura nos muestra que el crecimiento del crédito desmesurado puede debilitar el sistema financiero en una economía y más aún si esta depende de la exportación de commodities. El efecto de los denominados booms de commodities suelen llevar a incrementos atípicos en el crédito otorgado al sector privado. Este comportamiento a largo y mediano plazo puede conducir a crisis financieras. Para el caso del Perú, no solo se sigue el modelo primario exportador, sino que también se ha registrado en su economía un crecimiento persistente en los créditos otorgados al sector privado a lo largo de casi 20 años. Sumado a esto, la incertidumbre provocada por la guerra comercial EE. UU y China ha impactado en los precios de los commodities y la balanza comercial peruana ya que ha disminuido la demanda de cobre, la exportación principal del Perú, del gigante asiático, su mayor comerciante. Cabe resaltar que en este trabajo no se está tomando en consideración los posibles efectos de la actual crisis sanitaria causada por el SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19). Dada la literatura sobre los orígenes de las crisis financieras y la coyuntura actual del Perú, se analizará el comportamiento del precio del cobre, commodity principal exportado del país, y su relación a largo plazo con el crédito total privado peruano. El periodo de análisis escogido es desde el 2004 hasta el primer trimestre del 2020 debido a que a partir de ese periodo es que el crédito demuestra un crecimiento inusual que se ha mantenido hasta la fecha. / This paper seeks to estimate the impact that the Price of the cooper has on the private credit Dynamic for the peruvian economy. Literature shows that excessive growth of private credit could have a negative effect on the financial system and it could be even worse if said economy is commodity dependent. The effect of the so called commodity boom usually leads to an unsual increase on the private credit. In the long run, if such behavior persists, it could end up in a financial crisis. For the peruvian case, not only are its economy commodity dependant but his economy has registered a persistent growth of the credit provided to the private sector for almost 20 years. Moreover, the uncertainty caused by the trade war between USA and China has impacted the prices of some of the most important commodities to Peru and therefore had negative implications on their comercial balance. Copper demand from China has decreased, copper been the main commodity exported by Perú and China its bigger partner. It should be noticed that this paper will not take in consideration the possible effects of the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19). By taking in consideration the literature about financial crisis and given the peruvian economic enviroment, in this work we will focus on analysing the intenational prices of cooper, main commodity exported by Peru, and it’s relationship with the private credit. Our time period will be from 2004 to the first quarter of 2020. / Trabajo de investigación

The environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis describes the relationship between economic growth and environmental degradation through an inverted U-shape where environmental degradation first increases with economic growth, to later stagnate and decline as economic growth reaches specific threshold limits. The aim of this study is to investigate the EKC hypothesis when environmental degradation is measured through a country’s renewable energy implementation. This is achieved through multiple scatterplots and a Granger causality test, and the key finding are (1) that a consensus regarding the relationship between economic growth and energy consumption is missing, (2) that countries seems to significantly increase their consumption of renewable energy between US$ 30 000 - 50 000 when measured in real GDP per capita, (3) that the theoretical shape of the EKC holds for most countries, (4) a unidirectional causality running from economic growth to fossil fuel consumption for a panel of developing countries, and (5) a unidirectional causality running from economic growth to both fossil fuel and renewable energy consumption as well as a unidirectional causality running from renewable energy consumption to fossil fuel consumption for a panel of developed countries. When the EKC is measured though a country’s renewable energy implementation the hypothesis seems to hold for most countries. However, the decrease in environmental degradation is so far limited to developed countries with smaller economies and populations. These countries also need to ensure that decreases in environmental degradation is a result of underlying mechanisms like energy efficiency improvements and not other more counterproductive behaviors like outsourcing and deindustrialization.