This thesis studies the impact of labor markets on economic growth in both developed and developing countries and China's urbanization, by formalizing dual labor market characteristics and China's Hukou system in two theoretical models. The first is a unified growth model in an open economy environment that captures dual labor market characteristics. The mechanism involves economic growth driven by capital accumulation in the country with Lewisian labor market leading to increasing labor participation at a near constant wage. The model shows that surplus labor plays a critical role in explaining different economic growth paths and structural changes in developing and developed countries, such as China and the US. The second is a dynamic general equilibrium model with endogenous rural-urban migration to analyze the provision of rural and urban government services in China, with special emphasis on the role of the household registration (Hukou) system in shaping its urbanization process. It argues that China’s urban bias policy, which is enabled by the Hukou system restricting rural-urban migration, did not necessarily reduce economic efficiency, rather it might have only raised urban welfare at the expense of rural residents. As the Hukou system also ties people to particular geographical locations, our model argues that China's continuous bias towards coastal and big cities has started to cause economic inefficiency as well as inequality. It suggests that progressive Hukou reform reducing barriers to cross-region migration would improve economic efficiency and welfare.

A l’exact opposé des intuitions selon lesquelles la disparité régionale est une conséquence inéluctable du dilemme des gagnants et des perdants, la construction des inégalités en Tunisie est imputée à des forces réelles. La première force fait écho au modèle de développement économique à l’œuvre depuis l’ajustement structurel. En effet, la marche forcée vers le libéralisme et la mondialisation et parfois l’excès de zèle dans l’application des thérapies néo-libérales ont significativement contribué à l’élargissement du fossé entre la Tunisie littorale et la Tunisie profonde. La polarisation des activités économiques qui s’inscrit dans la logique d’accroissement de la productivité, n’a pas exercé l'effet d'entraînement souhaité. Ce qui a provoqué l’approfondissement du clivage séparant le littoral du reste du territoire tunisien. La deuxième source d’inégalités soulevée par la thèse est l’environnement institutionnel. En effet, la qualité de régulation, la stabilité politique et la faible participation de la population locale dans la conception des politiques de développement et dans la vie politique ont significativement contribué à la construction des inégalités régionales. En revanche, la croissance économique est d’une manière générale pro-pauvre. Elle a contribué dans la réduction des inégalités. En termes de recommandation de politique économique, afin de réduire sinon corriger au strict minimum les inégalités, il nous paraît impérieux de revoir la fuite libérale de l’économie tunisienne et son intégration poussée dans l’économie mondiale en réhabilitant le rôle de l’État de sorte qu’il puisse jouer de nouveau son rôle régulateur (repenser les incitations aux investissements dans les régions profondes, engager une discrimination positive en faveur des zones profondes et ce en matière d’investissements publics dans l’infrastructure). La deuxième recommandation renvoie à la nécessité d’un basculement vers une approche territoriale de développement qui accorde une place de choix aux acteurs locaux dans la conception et l’exécution des politiques de développement. La troisième recommandation concerne la nécessité d’une révision des modes de gouvernance horizontale et verticale afin de favoriser le processus de territorialisation et d’améliorer la qualité des institutions économiques et politiques. / At the exact opposite intuitions according to which regional disparity is an unavoidable consequence of the dilemma of winners and losers, construction of inequalities in Tunisia is attributed to real forces. The first force echoes the economic development model at work since structural adjustment. Indeed, the forced march towards liberalism and globalization zeal and speed in the field has significantly contributed to the widening gap between the coastal and deep Tunisia. The polarization of economic activity which falls within the logic of productivity growth, has not exercised the desired ripple effect which helped to dig the groove separating the rest of the coastal territory. The second source of inequality raised by the thesis is the institutional environment. Indeed, the quality of regulation, political stability and the low participation of the local population in the implementation of development policies and in political life have significantly contributed in the construction of regional inequalities in Tunisia. However, economic growth is pro-poor generally. She contributed in reducing inequalities.In terms of economic policy recommendation, it seems imperative to correct if not reduce to a minimum inequality, to review the liberal flight of the Tunisian economy and its integration into the global economy pushed by a state interventionism (rethink investment incentives in the deeper regions, direct public investment in infrastructure to deeper areas ...). The second recommendation refers to the need for a shift towards a territorial development approach that gives pride of place to local stakeholders in the design and implementation of development policies. The third recommendation is the need for a revision of the horizontal and vertical modes of governance to promote the regionalization process and improve the quality of economic and political institutions

The current and projected low fertility levels for Europe and the continuous increases in life expectancy imply that the region will go through an unprecedented process of population aging, leading to sizeable changes in the age structure of European societies. After reviewing the existing literature on the role played by demographic change as a determinant of economic growth and income convergence, with a focus on the European experience, we analyze the quantitative impact of the projected changes in the age and education composition of the labor force. Using newly available demographic projections, we show that the current demographic trends are expected to cause a slowdown in the speed of income convergence across European countries. Our projection exercise suggests that policies aimed exclusively at improving labor force participation do not appear to be sufficient to counteract the negative effects of aging on income convergence. Instead, we show that reducing the educational attainment gap between Central and Eastern European member states and the rest of the European Union in addition to increasing labor force participation leads to an accelerated pace of income convergence.

Over the past number of decades, Canadian governments (both federal and provincial) have made commitments to preserving and protecting the natural environment and to using its components efficiently in order to benefit both current and future generations. These commitments, this thesis argues, translate into duties to strive for sustainable economic growth and intergenerational equity. One of the key challenges is to figure out which are the best policy tools and legal instruments that are capable of leading Canada towards these goals. Unfortunately, the economic measures typically employed by decision makers (GDP, GNP, productivity) tend to exclude or under represent natural capital, which may lead to decisions which actually degrade and deplete the natural environment and therefore violate the aforementioned legal commitments. One clear strategy to help Canada meet its commitments to sustainable economic growth and intergenerational equity is to ensure it uses its natural capital as efficiently as possible. This thesis proposes that green productivity is a useful tool for improving decision making because it considers the efficiency of use of natural capital a criteria important to helping achieve both sustainable economic growth and intergenerational equity. Green productivity is presented in this thesis as an umbrella term for productivity measures which include or account for, in some way, the (mis)use of natural capital. Specifically, the dissertation discuses three measures of green productivity used within economics: natural resource productivity, environmentally adjusted productivity, and natural capital and the residual. In addition to exploring the differences between these three measures of green productivity, the dissertation shows that they can be used to improve decision making in a number of ways, including as a broader public policy agenda item used by the government to target sustainability objectives. Additionally, measures of green productivity can be used to identify more specific policy and legal instrument goals, in designing and evaluating legal instruments, and in stakeholder consultation. For example, natural resource productivity can help identify leaders and laggards, thereby allowing decision makers to target certain industries or areas which are lagging. It can also help decision makers learn from leading jurisdictions which may ultimately lead to the implementation of new ideas in legal instrument design. The dissertation concludes with a case study of one type of green productivity measure (water productivity) in order to illustrate how the information it produces could be applied by decision makers.

The first chapter talks about the events that took place in the French Western Africa in the second half of the 20th century. The second chapter describes all the economics at the beginning of the 21st century. Economics are described with the basic indicators and economic activities. The third chapter is about the obstacles to the economic development and the purpose of the last chapter is to show the progress achieved in case of the obstacles.

A main objective of my diploma paper is analysis of different growth strategies of economic policy in two africain countries in the time of their independency. The focus of this paper will be devoted to comparison of growth factors from the point of institucional economics. These factors will be investigated together with both economics -- Senegal and Kenya in 1960s and 1970s in connection with different colonial policies of Great Britain and France. In the final part, I 'd like to make some perspective strategies of both economic policies from the point of institutional economics.

The aim of the master thesis is to evaluate the competitiveness of the individual countries of the European Union, to specify which member countries art most competitive and on the other hand to determine which countries are among the other EU states dropping behind. The subject of this thesis is at first defining the concept of competitiveness, evaluation of different methods used for its measurement and description of tools, which are used by EU in order to increase the competitiveness of EU countries. In the second part is defined the competitiveness of the EU countries using the analysis of relevant data based on stated of criteria.

Thesis evaluates sustainability of economic growth in current conditions from three main points of view: impacts of mankind to enviroment especially in form of global warming, growth of human population and availability of energy sources. Thesis offers possible scenario of solving the situation and analyses, how had situation been solved till now and tries to find reasons why were these solutions succesfull or not, and proposes possibilities to solve the situation.

This diploma thesis is concerned with the analysis of economic growth in the Czech Republic since its origin in 1993 till 2009, aimed at the determination of strengths and weaknesses of the economic growth. According to the findings, the diploma thesis will afford several recommendations for the economic policy. The diploma thesis is divided into the theoretical and analytical part. The theory brings some economist's view of the economic growth questions. It mentions the transformation period of the Czechoslovakia centrally planned economy into the market economy. The analysis sets up the data in order to determine the Czech economic growth strengths and weaknesses with the help of demand, supply and resource analysis, the prognosis made by significant institutions and the international comparison for which the Slovak and European Union economics are used. At the end of the diploma thesis there are these findings used to conceive the economic policies arrangements.

This paper investigates the effects of the composition of public spending together with the impact of fiscal decentralization on growth for a set of four Central European countries over the period from 1995 to 2010. The main contribution to the current literature arises from the fact that for the first time, this paper examines a possible common trend of the variables which may lead to misleading results if left untreated. Indeed, most variables suffered from this problem. The interpretation of obtained results must therefore take this issue into account. We found that expenditure on education and defence seems to have positive and significant impact on economic growth. On the contrary, economic affairs consistently exhibit a negative and significant impact on the growth rate. In addition, fiscal decentralization seems to be beneficial for economic growth of the concerned countries. Furthermore, the implication of a strong negative impact of economic affairs is robust regarding different specifications, and especially with respect to the common trend issue.