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.

In existing economic literature on finance and economy, it is argued and generally accepted that financial intermediation contributes to economic growth though the contending argument is that financial development is simply a result of economic growth. However, studies on the contribution of financial intermediation of nonbanks (as opposed to banks) to economic growth are relatively scant and too general to clarify the mechanism through which nonbank financial intermediation might help economy to expand and develop. The focus of this study is on whether nonbank financial intermediation contributed to economic growth in the case of Korea where the share of nonbank financial intermediation increased from around 20% in 1970 to more than 60% in the early 1990's. This study is particularly interesting in light of the fact that rapid economic growth in Korea was accompanied by a concomitant increase in the share of nonbank financial intermediation. As a precursor to the empirical analysis, this study shows theoretically that financial intermediation of nonbanks subject to lesser liquidity control is complementary to, rather substitutional for, that of banks. Further, it is shown by optimizing a two-period dynamic model that under certain conditions nonbank intermediation increases an economy's savings mobilization and contributes to the economic growth. For empirical analysis, we used the annual data from 1972 to 1994 which can be considered as a financially repressed period. The empirical results are all consistent with the theoretically expected: nonbanks are complementary to banks in financial intermediation, increased the savings mobilization, and in the end contributed to the economic growth of the Korean economy during the sample period. Further, the estimated allocative efficiencies of nonbanks are almost in phase with business cycles, which may well be interpreted as consistent with the proposition that nonbanks financial intermediation made a significant contribution to Korea's economic growth.

Ongoing globalisation has resulted in more liberalisation, integration, and competition among countries. An upshot of this has been higher levels of cross-border investment. Foreign direct investment (FDI), long considered an engine of growth, has led to widespread probe with its recent rapid spread. Nevertheless, while research on the contribution of FDI to host countries has concentrated heavily on the developed and developing economies, there has been a marked neglect of small, developed economies. This study proposes to focus on New Zealand, a country that falls within the latter category. The study seeks to verify econometrically the impact of FDI on the country through causality links with growth, trade, domestic investment and labour productivity. The analysis is based upon time-series data, the econometric techniques of single, autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL), and the multiple equations approach, vector error correction method (VECM). The study found that there have been substantial gains to the New Zealand economy. A positive effect of FDI on the variables mentioned above led to an improvement of the balance of payments through an increase in exports rather than in imports. Economic growth has mainly been achieved through FDI's impact on exports and domestic private investment. The dynamic innovation techniques indicated a bi-directional causality between FDI and the variables. The long-run causality, however, runs mainly from growth and labour productivity to FDI rather than in the opposite direction. Another noticeable feature is that New Zealand's regional agreement with Australia, Closer Economic Relations, has brought the country significant gains in terms of growth and development through FDI. Both the ARDL and VECM approaches suggest that for a small, developed country qualitative impacts are greater than quantitative ones. The policy implication is that maintaining sustainable economic growth with a positive domestic investment environment is vital for attracting foreign investors. New Zealand, while continuing to encourage inward FDI, should aim to channel it into 'innovative' tradable sectors. The challenge lies in providing the right kind of policy mix for this purpose.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Uppsala : Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet, 2005. / Härtill 5 uppsatser.

In 1995, Jeffrey Sachs and Andrew Warner found a negative relationship between natural resources and economic growth, and claimed that natural resource abundance is a curse. The work of Sachs and Warner has been widely cited, and many economists now accept the curse of natural resources as a proven phenomenon (e.g. Papyrakis and Gerlagh, 2004; Kronenberg, 2004). In this thesis, I provide a new framework for evaluating this claim. I begin by providing a summary of the related literature and discussion of possible explanations for the curse. This summary is followed by a critical assessment of the theory underlying previous research. Next, I develop a new model for evaluating the curse of natural resources. I find that natural resource abundance does not directly impact economic development. However, petroleum resources are associated with rent-seeking behaviour that can negatively influence economic development. Finally, I show that my results are robust to various sensitivity analyses. The results from my model provide a deeper understanding of how natural resource abundance affects economic outcomes.

Innovation is generally regarded as an essential aspect of the economic growth for a country. Intellectual property rights such as patents are often held in the same regard of importance towards promoting the pursuit of innovation. This paper examines this assumption and explores whether patent applications positively or negatively influence GDP growth in a sample of 4 countries chosen for their similarity in stages of economic development. In my research, I also test for the influence of patent applications on commercialized innovation. I find that GDP growth and commercialized innovation are negatively affected by patent applications. This suggests that the commonly assumed link between patents and innovation may need to be reevaluated, and that using patents as an indicator of the economic growth of a country may also need to be reevaluated.

Martin Ravallion ("Why Don't We See Poverty Convergence?" American Economic Review, 102(1): 504-23; 2012) presents evidence against the existence of convergence in global poverty rates despite convergence in household mean income levels and the close linkage between income growth and poverty reduction. We show that this finding is driven by a specification that demands more than simple convergence in poverty headcount rates and assumes a growth elasticity of poverty reduction, which is well-known to accelerate with low initial poverty levels. If we motivate the poverty convergence equation using an arguably superior growth semi-elasticity of poverty reduction, we find highly significant and robust evidence of convergence in absolute poverty headcount ratios and poverty gaps. Relatedly, we show that the results in Ravallion (2012) are driven by the special income growth and poverty dynamics in Central and Eastern European transition economies that started with low initial poverty rates and thus observed a high elasticity of poverty reduction. Once we control for their abnormal poverty dynamics, we again find robust evidence of global convergence in poverty, even in the original specification by Ravallion (2012). (authors' abstract) / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series

Face au succès des économies d'Asie du sud-est, favorisé par une stratégie de croissance tirée par les exportations, une importante littérature s'est développée autour de la question de l'incidence des mésalignements du taux de change sur la croissance économique. Notre travail apporte un éclairage complémentaire sur ce sujet, en focalisant sur le cas particulier des économies d'Afrique Subsaharienne dont l'évolution globale de la croissance semble connaitre un regain depuis le début du 21ème siècle. Dans cette perspective, nous nous intéressons, dans un premier temps, à la question de la détermination du taux de change d'équilibre, puisque ce dernier sert de référence dans l'évaluation des mésalignements. Cette étape nous permet d'aborder la question de l'apport du régime de change dans la limitation des mésalignements. Il apparaît alors que l'apport du régime de change en termes de limitation des mésalignements est ambigu. À l'issue de cette analyse, nous envisageons, dans un second temps, l'évaluation proprement dite de l'influence des mésalignements sur la croissance de 16 pays d'Afrique Subsaharienne. Au terme de cette recherche, les résultats obtenus montrent que la surévaluation agit négativement sur la croissance économique. Pour autant, la sous-évaluation n'exerce pas d'effet favorable, quel que soit le cadre institutionnel retenu. De ce fait, il semble que la solution de sortie de l'union monétaire pour les pays de la Zone Franc ne peut pas être justifiée par l'espoir de retrouver une marge de manœuvre supplémentaire à travers la manipulation du change. / Faced with the success of Southeast Asian economies, fueled by an export-led growth strategy, an important literature developed around the question of the growth effects of exchange rate misalignments. This work provides further insights on this question, by focusing on the particular case of Sub-Saharan African countries, whose growth has picked up since the beginning of the 21st century. In this perspective, we first determine the equilibrium exchange rate as this value provides a benchmark for the computation of misalignments. This step allows us to tackle the importance of the exchange rate regime in limiting misalignments. It seems that the exchange rate regime has an ambiguous effect on limiting misalignments. Subsequent to this analysis, we assess the impact of misalignments on growth in 16 Sub-Saharan African countries. The results of this assessment are in favor of the thesis that the overvaluation acts negatively on growth. However, the under-valuation of the exchange rate does not have a positive effect, irrespective of the institutional framework considered. Therefore, it seems that countries' exit from the Franc Zone cannot be justified by the expectation that the manipulation of the exchange rate would offer countries more policy flexibility.

Orientador: Eduardo Strachman / Banca: Frederico Gonzaga Jayme Junior / Banca: Alexandre Sartoris Neto / Resumo: O objetivo desse trabalho é identificar se o crescimento econômico no Brasil no longo prazo sofreu alguma restrição promovida pelo Balanço de Pagamentos. Assim, as questões de pesquisa que norteiam este trabalho podem ser expressas da seguinte maneira: o crescimento econômico do Brasil no período marcado entre os anos de 1951 e 2008 foi restrito pelo Balanço de Pagamentos? Para responder a essa questão trabalhamos com a abordagem de crescimento restrito pelo setor externo proposta, entre outros, por Lima e Carvalho (2009). Em relação aos testes estatísticos, utilizamos a metodologia do Vetor de Correção de Erros (VEC). Concluímos que, para o período pesquisado, a taxa de crescimento econômico do Brasil foi restrita pelo setor externo, confirmando a teoria acerca da abordagem sobre restrição externa, para a história econômica brasileira / Abstract: The aim of this study is to identify IF the economic growth in Brazil over the long term has been somewhat restricted by the Balance of Payments. The research questions that guide this work can be expressed as follows: the economic growth of Brazil in the period marked between the years 1951 to 2008 is restricted by the Balance of Payments? To answer this question we work with the approach of external sector restricted growth proposed, among others, by Lima and Carvalho (2009). Regarding the statistical tests, we used the method of the Vector Error Correction (VEC). We conclude that for the period studied the rate of economic growth in Brazil was restricted by the external sector, confirming the theory about the approach of external sector restricted growth, in relations to the economic history of Brazil / Mestre

Researchers tend to disagree on the direction of the relation among R&D and economic growth, suggesting that if economic performance determines R&D investments countries might overinvest in their R&D expenditure. The purpose of this thesis is therefore to shed new light to this question by first establishing a relation among the variables and thereafter investigate the Granger causality between them. This paper is based on a panel study consisting of 60 countries, with various levels of income during the period 1996-2015. Using a fixed effects model, we can establish a positive relation between growth in R&D expenditure and GDP growth and using Granger causality tests and the Toda-Yamamoto augmented Granger causality tests, we can conclude that the growth of R&D expenditure determines economic performance in the short-run for countries in all income levels, however no conclusions can be made regarding the direction of Granger causality in the long-run. Hence, our results show that R&D investments stimulate economic growth and should, to some extent, be favoured by policy regardless of a nation's level of development.