O presente trabalho discute como uma mudança de paradigma econômico pode contribuir para uma economia ecologicamente responsável. Em linha com esse propósito num primeiro momento são apresentados os sinais da necessidade dessa mudança. Nessa primeira parte são apresentadas algumas das insuficiências das ferramentas econômicas tradicionais para uma harmonização com o meio ambiente. Num segundo momento são discutidas ideias alternativas para a abordagem da relação entre crescimento econômico e meio ambiente: economia e entropia, estado estacionário e prosperidade sem crescimento. Nessas discussões foi dada ênfase aos estudos dos economistas Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, Herman Daly e Timothy Jackson. Na parte seguinte são discutidas as implicações éticas para o desenvolvimento de um modelo econômico ecologicamente responsável. Por fim, por meio do estudo da Comissão Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi, do Índice de Progresso Social e de Índices de Felicidade argumenta-se como novas medidas de desenvolvimento econômico, social e ambiental podem contribuir para um paradigma econômico ecologicamente responsável. / This study discuss how a change of economic paradigm could contribute to an environmentally responsible economy. In order to do this, at first, the signs of the need for this paradigm shift are presented. On this matter the shortcomings of traditional economic tools for harmonization with the environment are analysed. Secondly, alternative ideias to address the relationship between economic growth and the environment, such as economy and entropy, steady state, and prosperity without growth are discussed. In these discussions the studies of economists like Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, Herman Daly and Timothy Jackson, are emphasized. In the next part of this study the ethical implications for the development of an environmentally responsible economic model are approached. Finally, through the study of the Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi Comssion, the Social Progress Index and Happiness Index, it is shown how new measures of economic, social and environmental development could contribute to an environmentally responsible economic paradigm.

A importância do investimento em capital humano para o crescimento econômico de um país foi o que motivou esta dissertação. Procuramos explicá-lo analisando a eficácia na utilização da verba do Programa Nacional de Assistência Estudantil (PNAES), através do desempenho acadêmico dos estudantes. Inicialmente, apresentamos uma revisão de alguns modelos desenvolvidos para explicar o crescimento econômico e após, incluímos a visão dos economistas Adam Smith e Alfred Marshall sobre a relação entre crescimento econômico e educação. A Teoria do Capital Humano nas visões de Theodore Schultz, Gary Becker e Jacob Mincer foi apresentada e comentamos a influência do nível de educação no crescimento econômico e as externalidades positivas da educação. Através de uma perspectiva histórica, mostramos como a educação superior foi expandindo ao longo dos anos e, através de pesquisa documental, apresentamos as mais recentes políticas públicas educacionais para o ensino superior no Brasil. Abordamos amplamente o PNAES e sua aplicação na Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). Foi realizada a análise dos dados da pesquisa, através do teste t-Student para duas amostras independentes, com o propósito de verificar se as ações motivadas pelo PNAES têm garantido igualdade de condições entre os estudantes em vulnerabilidade socioeconômica e que são beneficiários do PNAES e os demais estudantes. Optamos por utilizar a Taxa de Integralização Média (TIM) do curso e a do estudante para avaliar o desempenho acadêmico. Concluímos que o PNAES foi parcialmente eficaz quando comparamos o desempenho acadêmico dos estudantes de graduação da UFRGS: beneficiados e não beneficiados, cujas médias das TIMs percentuais não são iguais, mas os dois grupos apresentaram uma média da TIM percentual superior a 50% da média da TIM dos respectivos cursos, evidenciando que os estudantes vão conseguir concluir o seu curso no tempo máximo permitido pela Universidade. No grupo de estudantes que ingressaram na modalidade baixa renda, os dados evidenciaram que o PNAES está sendo eficaz porque não existe igualdade entre as médias das taxas percentuais e, também, observamos que os estudantes que solicitaram os benefícios apresentam, na média, taxas maiores do que os demais. Recomendamos a realização de estudos detalhados do desempenho acadêmico por curso, o acompanhamento pedagógico aos estudantes beneficiados, a manutenção de banco de dados atualizado e a avaliação permanente do PNAES por meio de indicadores de monitoramento. / The importance of investment in human capital for the economic growth of a country was the motivation for this thesis. We attempt to explain this by analyzing the efficacy in the use of the National Program of Student Assistance (PNAES) through the analysis of the academic performance of students. We begin by showing a review of some models developed to explain the economic growth. Then, we introduce the views of the economists Adam Smith and Alfred Marshall on the relation between economic growth and education. We then present the Human Capital Theory from the viewpoints of Theodore Schultz, Gary Becker and Jacob Mincer and comment on the influence of the level of education on the economic growth and the positive externalities of education. Next, we use a historical perspective to demonstrate how higher education has expanded over the years, and we use documentary research to present the most recent affirmative actions in higher education in Brazil. We approach in detail the application of PNAES at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). We used Student's t-test for the data analysis of two independent samples in order to verify if the actions encouraged by PNAES have been assuring equal conditions among regular students and students who face social economic vulnerability and are beneficiaries of PNAES. We use the course and the student's Average Completion Rates (TIM) to evaluate academic performance. Based on the comparison between students of higher education at UFRGS who are beneficiaries of PNAES and students who are not beneficiaries of PNAES, we concluded that PNAES was partially effective. The percentage TIMs are not the same for the two groups, but both have percentage TIM above 50% in regards to the average TIM of the respective courses. This shows both groups of students will be able to conclude their courses within the time allowed by the university. Considering only the group of students who joined the university through the low-income modality, data show that PNAES has been effective because there is no equality between the average percentage rates. We have also noted that students who applied for the grant have, on average, higher rates than the remaining students do. We recommend the conduction of detailed studies on academic performance per course, pedagogic supervision of beneficiaries, maintenance of updated database, and permanent evaluation of PNAES with monitoring indicators.

In light of the global climate crisis and the worldwide focus on ecological economy policies, this study aims to analyze what role the economy has in the quest for a sustainable future in Uppsala. How do urban planning documents as well as regional and municipality employees interpret and value economic sustainability in relation to ecological sustainability? The methodology includes two different types of document analysis as well as qualitative interviews. Finally, an ideal type analysis has been used to place the urban planning policies of Uppsala on a scale between ecological modernization theory and degrowth theory. The thesis shows a view of an economic sustainability in terms of economic growth as being the prerequisite for a sustainable development. Furthermore, the analysis shows an ambiguous portrayal of the relationship between the ecological and economic dimensions of sustainable development. The documents and employees depict the urban planning policies of Uppsala as being ecologically modernized. Despite relatively advanced climate policies, Uppsala has yet to articulate more bold views of a sustainable future.

Thesis (M.Com (Economics)) -- University of Limpopo, 2018 / This study investigates the impact of capital flight and investment on economic growth in South Africa using time series data from 1986 to 2016. It employs the Auto Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds testing procedure and the Granger causality test as a method of analysis. The empirical findings reveal that the variables are cointegrated which is an indication of the existence of a long run relationship among them. It was further discovered that capital flight had a negative long run relationship with economic growth while investment showed a positive long run relationship with economic growth. The terms of trade and inflation which were added to the model as control variable were also found to have a significantly positive influence on economic growth. The Granger causality indicated a bidirectional relationship between inflation and economic growth, while the terms of trade is found to have a unidirectional relationship with economic growth and capital investment respectively. The results are in line with the neo-classical growth model and the accelerator theory of investment.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Lebanon are at risk of failure because of the geoeconomic crisis. The purpose of this single case study was to explore strategies that successful leaders of SMEs use to sustain their businesses during tenuous economic conditions. The target population for the research comprised 6 business leaders of SMEs in Beirut, Lebanon: 3 in the civil security field and 3 in the facilities management field. Kotter's change model theory provided the conceptual framework for this research. Data were gathered from company documents and interviews with SMEs leaders in Beirut. Data were analyzed using Yin's data analysis method, which included compiling the data, disassembling the data, reassembling the data, interpreting the meaning of the data, and concluding the data. Member checking and methodological triangulation were used to add consistency and rigor to the findings. Four themes emerged from the data analysis: (a) leaders of SMEs embedded change management in their organizations to sustain their businesses, (b) leaders of SMEs increased awareness in their organizations, (c) leaders of SMEs succeeded in creating solid organizational and financial structures to ensure a sustainable cash flow, and (d) leaders of SMEs formed niche markets to grow. Leaders of SMEs achieved their strategies by (a) establishing a sense of urgency, (b) forming a powerful guiding coalition by creating awareness in leaders' organizations, (c) empowering others to communicate both organizational and financial visions, and (d) generating short-term wins. The implications for positive social change include the potential to reduce unemployment rates and create new job opportunities by sustaining businesses of SMEs during tenuous economic conditions.

Considering 91 countries with seaports, this study conducted an empirical inquiry into the broader economic contribution of seaborne trade, from a port infrastructure quality and logistics performance perspective. Investment in quality improvement of port infrastructure and its contribution to economy are often questioned by politicians, investors and general public. A structural equation model (SEM) is used to provide empirical evidence of significant economic impacts of port infrastructure quality and logistics performance. Furthermore, analysis of a multi-group SEM is performed by dividing countries into developed and developing economy groups. The results reveal that it is vital for developing countries to continuously improve the quality of port infrastructure as it contributes to better logistics performance, leading to higher seaborne trade, yielding higher economic growth. However, this association weakens as the developing countries become richer.

Agricultural system in Ghana underperformed because of limited financing, which constrained some small-scale maize and cassava farmers. The purpose of this case study design was to explore the methods that some small-scale maize and cassava farmers in Amankwakrom Subdistrict used in obtaining farm financing. Two themes from the literature review were a lack of collateral for small-scale farm financing and the small-scale farmers cooperative associations' role in farm financing. Regional-scale management sustainability index formed the conceptual framework for this study. Data collection included semistructured face-to-face interviews with 8 fluent English speaking small-scale maize and cassava farmers who have obtained farm financing in the previous years. Using the Microsoft Excel and Non-numerical unstructured data indexing and theorizing software program for data analysis method, 3 major themes emerged: the farmer's membership benefits of working in cooperative associations; farmer's ability to provide the collateral requirements for the financial institutions; and farmer's good loan repayment history. The study findings indicated that some small-scale maize and cassava farmers obtained farm loans because they used the cooperative associations as their collateral assets in order to satisfy for the requirements of the financial institutions. Social implications include the potential to guide the small-scale maize and cassava farmers to access farm credits to use in expanding their farm sizes. Expansion in farm sizes may result in more maize and cassava production that can help eliminate hunger and reduce poverty in the Amankwakrom Subdistrict of Ghana.

This dissertation examines three distinctive issues that concern the regulators and policy makers in the development of financial markets. It contains three stand-alone research projects within the context of law, finance and economic growth. Chapter 2 examines the dynamic relationship between banks and economic growth from the points of view of market efficiency and asset pricing theory. Publicly traded banks are broadly representative of a country???s banking sector, so that banking industry stock prices will broadly reflect the performance of a country???s banking sector. Because previous research has established that the institutional framework, as well as the aggregate size, of the banking sector can significantly affect economic growth, this chapter investigates whether the stock returns on a country???s banking sector contain information about future economic growth, and whether the specific country and institutional characteristics that affect the functioning of the banking system and market efficiency also influence this relationship. Using the data from 18 developed and 18 emerging markets, the chapter finds a significant and positive relationship between bank excess return and future economic growth in both the time-series and panel analyses. The chapter also finds that this positive relationship is significantly strengthened by the enforcement of insider trading law, by banking crises, by bank disclosure regulations and financial development, but is weakened by government ownership of banks. Chapter 3 investigates the role of bank idiosyncratic volatility in economic growth and systemic banking crises. Using the same dataset from Chapter 2, this chapter finds an ambiguous relationship between bank volatility and economic growth in the time-series studies, which suggests that the effect of bank volatility on economic growth is more country-specific. In the panel analyses, the chapter finds a negative but very weak relationship between bank volatility and future economic growth. This negative relationship is magnified by banking crises and bank disclosure standards, but is alleviated by the government ownership of banks, the enforcement of insider trading law and financial development. The chapter goes further to examine whether bank volatility leads to the occurrence of systemic banking crises, and finds that the marginal effect of bank volatility on the probability of banking crises is very weak for the sample of all markets, and this result is mainly driven by the data from the emerging markets. However, bank volatility is a significant predictor of banking crises even after being controlled for macroeconomic indicators, which implies that market forces are more powerful in promoting the soundness of the banking system in developed markets. We also find that those macroeconomic and banking risk management indicators have different impacts on the probability of banking crises for the emerging and developed markets. Therefore, caution needs to be taken in interpreting the cross-country results of the studies on banking crises. Chapter 4 studies the corporate governance issues in China, a significant developing country that has been neglected by the current law and finance literature. Incorporated with the legal environment and ownership structure of China???s listed companies, the chapter develops a simple game model to study a neglected aspect of current corporate governance literature: the expropriation arising from the mixture of weak investor protection, ownership concentration coexisting with ownership dispersion, and the absence of a controlling shareholder. The last two chapters find that government ownership undermines the positive link between bank excess return and economic growth, but alleviates the negative impact of bank volatility on growth as well. This chapter shows that government ownership is also a two-edged sword in corporate governance in China: it leads to a double-agency problem; however, the strong legal protection of State assets also increases the cost of expropriation. Using the data from 1996 to 2003, the chapter finds the empirical evidence consistent with the model. By analysing the puzzles in China???s stock market, the chapter suggests that improving the legal protection of investors is the key issue in the future development of the financial market.

股市發展是否影響長期經濟成長？本研究以Levine(1991)的內生成長模型作為實證分析之理論依據，股票市場的出現可以消弭流動性風險與生產性風險對個人投資決策的負面影響，進而促進經濟體的成長。我們採取一般成長文獻所最常使用之跨國橫斷面迴歸方式，分析52國1985-1997的平均股市與社會經濟資料，以法系與法律環境做為工具變數，來捕捉股市發展之外生部分對經濟成長的影響。實證結果如下：1.整體而言股市發展的確顯著促進了一國的經濟成長，而影響成長的主要管道則為資本成長。2.對於先進工業化國家而言，我們無法證明其股票市場對於經濟成長具有影響力。3.相反的，對開發中國家而言，股票市場則扮演著重要的角色，不僅促進經濟的成長，對於資本成長與要素生產力成長也有顯著的提升。4.股市與私人儲蓄之間的關係則較為模糊，雖然實證結果隱約透露，對開發中國家而言，發展股市有助於提升私人儲蓄，但我們無法找到統計上顯著強固的證據來加以支持。5.法律因子對於各國股市發展差異所具有的顯著解釋能力給予我們一個啟示：倘若一國的法律對於股東權益的保障越好，執行法律的品質與效率越高，那麼一國將會擁有一個功能完善與發展良好的股票市場，進而對其經濟成長有所助益。 / Do well-developed stock markets promote long-run economic growth? This study evaluates the empirical relationship between the level of stock market development and (i) economic growth, (ii) physical capital accumulation, (iii) total factor productivity, and (iv) private saving rate. By using a pure cross-country instrumental variable estimator to extract the exogenous component of stock market development, we find that (1) stock market development (measured by liquidity) is positively associated with economic growth and physical capital growth; (2) the links between stock market development and both productivity growth and private saving rates are tenuous; (3) for the developing sub-sample, the growth-promoting effect is as strong as with the full sample; for the developed sub-sample, however, this effect is at best very weak; and (4) legal reforms that strengthen shareholder rights and contract enforcement can boost stock market development and therefore accelerate economic growth.

<p>“Armaments and Economic Performance”. The literature on military expenditure (milex) is scrutinized with respect to five areas. <i>Investment</i> is reduced when milex increases. Most studies have found <i>economic growth </i>hindered by higher milex. No clear association between milex and <i>employment</i> is found. However, the same amount of other public expenditure creates more jobs. There is some evidence for milex as <i>counter-cyclical instrument</i> in the US. The result for studies if milex is used in <i>electoral cycles</i> in the US is contradictory. Disaggregated data are emphasized as a possible solution to get more definite results.</p><p>“The Economic Costs of Civil Wars”. The empirical studies of the economic costs of internal armed conflicts are divided into <i>accounting</i> and <i>modelling</i> methods. Cost is seen as the difference between the counterfactual production without conflict and the actual production. The average economic cost of internal armed conflict is a 3.7% yearly reduction of GDP. There are large differences between the estimates. One of the reasons for pursuing such studies is to give improved basis for more cost-effective post-conflict reconstruction, which is better achieved with an accounting method.</p><p>“War and Economic Performance – Different Data, Different Conclusions?” This article studies the importance of armed conflict for economic growth by replicating an earlier analysis with new data on conflicts. The basic model investigates how conflicts in 1960-1974 affect economic growth in 1975-1989. Koubi finds that “wars are conducive to higher growth”. Koubi’s finding is confirmed when different conflict data is used in a similar research design.</p><p>“The Role of External Factors in Economic Growth: A Comparative Analysis of Thailand and the Philippines 1950-1990”. Can differences in economic performance be explained by external factors? Both historical and regression analyses are utilised to answer the question. Three external factors are analysed: <i>International trade, foreign direct investment</i>, and <i>external debt</i>. In the regression analysis none of the external factors qualify as statistically significant. The historical analysis finds two external factors discriminating between the two countries. Thus, they might explain the differing growth rates of Thailand and the Philippines: Manufactured exports and external debt.</p>