D.Com. (Econometrics) / The main aim with the thesis was to outline the use of regional econometric modelling as a technique for the modelling of the interdependency in the development regions of South Africa. In particular, an regional econometric model of Region H was constructed. There is no doubt that modelling is here to stay - as part of the analytical process used in scholarly studies and in applications, especially for making policy in both the public and privatedomain. Although macro-econometric modelling has been withus for sometime, the art of building large-scale· regional economic models is relatively new, especially in South Africa where such models have never been in use. The problem of forecasting regional economic activity has become an important component of regional research. The most frequently used forecasting techniques have been input-output model. A regional econometric model can be defined as a set of equations, sometimes highly simultaneous, describing the economic structure of a regional economy. The parameters of the equations are estimated economically largely by regression equations.

In this study we look at the effects on economic growth of the continuous introduction of intermediate goods. Our theoretical framework enhances the endogenous growth theory, by allowing for participation in international trade. Furthermore, we test the behavior of the proposed theoretical model with data provided from the Penn World Tables. The theoretical part describes an economy in two different stages: first, we develop a model for a closed economy, and study the effects of the continuous introduction of durable goods. We show that the continuous introduction of durables causes sustained economic growth. We demonstrate that a more educated labor force contributes more to the growth of the economy. Second, we assume that trade takes place among similar countries. Both final and intermediate goods are traded, and we show that participation in international trade enhances the economic growth of this economy. We prove that with no restrictions to trade, countries continue to grow. Because we assumed that the countries were identical, we found that those countries that pursue the introduction of new durables will grow faster. In the empirical part, we test the proposed theoretical model. We want to test how the economic growth of this economy, is affected by the measures of exports and imports. We define the econometric method, and demonstrate empirically that there is a positive relation between the growth rate of an economy and the measures of exports and imports. Furthermore, the accumulation of physical capital has a positive effects on economic growth. We show that a positive relation exists between the available level of human capital and the growth rate of the economy. In our theoretical model, human capital is introduced indirectly through the efficiency of the labor force. We show that an educated labor force is preferred by the producers of final goods. We conclude that, other things being equal, poor countries that start with a relatively high level of human capital will grow faster. We also test our statistical model against the assumptions of normality, linearity, homoskedasticity, and homogeneity. We demonstrate that our statistical specification does not violate any of these assumptions. Thus, we can call our model a well-specified Statistical model. / Ph. D.

香港自1983年10月實施聯繫匯率制度開始，財政政策便成為香港政府唯一穩定經濟的措施。為了善用有限的財政儲備，本文嘗試建立一個計量模型，以作評估財政政策對香港經濟的影響。Jha et al. (2010)曾指出香港政府增加財政支出會對經濟有顯著的負面影響，而利用Ravn et al. (2007)的結構向量自回歸（SVAR）模型亦得出相類似的結果。以上的研究結果與一般學者對財政政策的觀點有所出入，而其中一個可能性是它們所使用的計量模型中遺漏了控制變數。當加入摩根士丹利亞太區指數－MSCI AC (All countries) Pacific Index作為對外貿易環境的控制變數後，擴張性財政政策的預測結果則與之前的研究相同。在更換經修改後模型中的投資變數後，模型則預測增加財政支出並不會對投資產生擠擁效應。而經分解後的財政支出分析更顯示政策支出類型是影響財政政策效應乘數的關鍵因素。模型亦估算政府增加經常性開支會對經濟有着顯著的正面作用。若香港政府需於在短期內推行擴張性財政政策，本文建議政府應集中資源於基礎建設上，以達至財政政策效用最大化的經濟效果。 / Given the adoption of the linked exchange rate since October 1983, fiscal policy becomes the only measurement for stabilizing the Hong Kong economy. This paper attempts to establish a framework for evaluating the fiscal effect to prevent the abuse of fiscal measures. The empirical study of Jha et al. (2010) revealed the significant negative impact of fiscal effect in Hong Kong, which violates the classical view of fiscal policy. A similar result has been found by adopting another structural vector autoregression (SVAR) model proposed by Ravn et al. (2007). An omission of control variables in the quantitative model is possible. The MSCI AC (All countries) Pacific Index has been introduced as an international block in the SVAR model proposed by Ravn et al. (2007). The fiscal effect becomes positive and standardizes with the previous fiscal studies. The replacement of investment variable in the modified model suggests that positive fiscal innovation does not encounter with the crowding out effect on investment. The estimations for the decomposition policy expenditures indicate that compositional effect exists, and it undermines the fiscal multiplier. The estimations also reveal that the innovation in recurrent expenditure contributes mainly to the fiscal effect. With the persistence and significant impact on output, concentrating on infrastructure expenditure is the recommendation on Hong Kong fiscal policy to maximize the expansionary effect in the short run. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Wong, Chi Shing. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2012. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 32-33). / Abstracts also in Chinese. / Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 2 --- Literature Review --- p.4 / Chapter 2.1 --- Literature Review on Hong Kong Fiscal Policy --- p.5 / Chapter 2.2 --- Literature Review on the SVAR Model of Fiscal Policy --- p.5 / Chapter 3 --- Identification of the Structural VAR Model / Chapter 3.1 --- Original Model / Chapter 3.1.1 --- Identification --- p.8 / Chapter 3.1.2 --- Data --- p.10 / Chapter 3.1.3 --- Estimation --- p.10 / Chapter 3.2 --- Modified Model / Chapter 3.2.1 --- Introduction of International Block --- p.11 / Chapter 3.2.2 --- Estimation --- p.13 / Chapter 3.2.3 --- Robustness Testing --- p.16 / Chapter 3.2.4 --- Crowding Out Effect --- p.17 / Chapter 4 --- Fiscal Effects by Policy Category / Chapter 4.1 --- Decomposition of Government Expenditure --- p.19 / Chapter 4.2 --- Estimation of Fiscal Impulse by Policy Category / Chapter 4.2.1 --- Total Expenditure by Policy --- p.21 / Chapter 4.2.2 --- Recurrent Expenditure by Policy --- p.22 / Chapter 4.2.3 --- Non-Recurrent Expenditure by Policy --- p.25 / Chapter 5 --- Comparison of the Fiscal Effects between “Asian Dragons“ --- p.26 / Chapter 6 --- Concluding Remarks --- p.29 / References --- p.32 / Appendixes / Chapter Appendix A: --- Classification of Expenditure by Policy Area Group --- p.34 / Chapter Appendix B: --- Estimations and Figures --- p.35

This dissertation is motivated by the study of economic development and inequality within and across nations. Spanning topics in labor and public economics, this collection of papers speaks to two overarching themes: (i) how the distribution of power affects economic outcomes, and (ii) how governments can mobilize resources and spend them effectively. In Chapter 1, I study how the allocation of ownership and control rights within firms affect responses to economic shocks. To shed light on this issue, I study the heterogeneous effects of a pro-competitive reform on cooperative manufacturing firms and their non-cooperative counterparts in India. The reform removed firm-size restrictions on the production of “reserved” items, increasing competition for incumbents in “de-reserved” product markets. Using a difference-in-differences approach, I find that supplier cooperatives (SCs), owned and controlled by producer-members who supply material inputs, are resilient to the shock in terms of total revenue and move away from the production of de-reserved items. SCs increase their share of income spent on materials relative to similarly sized non-cooperatives in the same industry and location, with some evidence of downward adjustments in labor spending. These cooperatives are able to withstand competitive pressure from entrants while broadly catering to the interests of their membership. On the other hand, worker cooperatives (WCs), owned and controlled by worker-members employed at the firm, face a sharp decline in revenue due to de-reservation, unlike their non-cooperative counterparts. A potential channel behind these results is that WCs are less likely to respond by picking up items that are not directly affected by the reform. Spending on labor does not fall as much as revenue for WCs, which is in line with the immediate interests of membership, but adjustments to labor inputs vary sigificantly across employment categories. In the following chapter, my co-author, Utkarsh Kumar, and I study the equilibrium effects of subsidizing public services in the presence of vertically differentiated public and private suppliers. We evaluate one of India’s largest welfare schemes, Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY), which subsidized childbirth at public health institutions. JSY did not improve health outcomes despite a substantial increase in take-up of institutional care. We document three equilibrium responses that explain this policy failure. First, JSY led to a mismatch in patient risk across health facilities. High-risk mothers sorted out of the highest-quality care at private facilities and into lower-quality public facilities. Second, in response to congestion and deterioration of care at public hospitals, only mothers with high socio-economic status sorted out of congested public facilities into more expensive private facilities. Third, private hospitals increased prices without improvements in healthcare quality in a specific subset of states, further crowding out high-risk and poor mothers. These findings point to the need for complementary public policies in addition to JSY. In Chapter 3, I, along with my co-authors, Alexander Klemm and Li Liu, explore the increasingly prominent position of services in international trade and their potential to facilitate tax-driven reporting and reallocation of economic activity. Given their potential in countering this form of base erosion, withholding taxes (WHTs) on payments for services have featured extensively in ongoing reforms of the international tax architecture. The rationale behind WHTs is to preserve some taxation rights in the source country given their straightforward application, which is particularly important for low-income countries in the absence of more effective rules. We build a simple model of reporting decisions when firms have economic activities in one country and affiliates in others. We then test the predictions of this model using newly compiled data on treaty and non-treaty rates for 120+ countries over 2009-2021. Our findings indicate that while there is no significant relationship between WHTs and services trade in general, these taxes do have a strong negative impact on services imports from known low-tax jurisdictions, when base erosion is a particular concern.

Using 1980 - 2012 annual data, the study empirically investigates the dynamic relationship between financial development and economic growth in three developing countries (South Africa, Brazil and Kenya) and three developed countries (United States of America, United Kingdom and Australia). The study was motivated by the current debate regarding the role of financial development in the economic growth process, and their causal relationship. The debate centres on whether financial development impacts positively or negatively on economic growth and whether it Granger-causes economic growth or vice versa. To this end, two models have been used. In Model 1 the impact of bank- and market-based financial development on economic growth is examined, while in Model 2 it is the causality between the two that is explored. Using the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach to cointegration and error-correction based causality test, the results were found to differ from country to country and over time. These results were also found to be sensitive to the financial development proxy used. Based on Model 1, the study found that the impact of bank-based financial development on economic growth is positive in South Africa and the USA, but negative in the U.K – and neither positive nor negative in Kenya. Elsewhere the results were inconclusive. Market-based financial development was found to impact positively in Kenya, USA and the UK but not in the remaining countries. Based on Model 2, the study found that bank-based financial development Granger-causes economic growth in the UK, while in Brazil they Granger-cause each other. However, in South Africa, Kenya and USA no causal relationship was found. In Australia the results were inconclusive. The study also found that in the short run, market-based financial development Granger-causes economic growth in the USA but that in South Africa and Brazil, the reverse applies. On the other hand bidirectional causality was found to prevail in Kenya in the same period. / Economics / DCOM (Economics)

Using 1980 - 2012 annual data, the study empirically investigates the dynamic relationship between financial development and economic growth in three developing countries (South Africa, Brazil and Kenya) and three developed countries (United States of America, United Kingdom and Australia). The study was motivated by the current debate regarding the role of financial development in the economic growth process, and their causal relationship. The debate centres on whether financial development impacts positively or negatively on economic growth and whether it Granger-causes economic growth or vice versa. To this end, two models have been used. In Model 1 the impact of bank- and market-based financial development on economic growth is examined, while in Model 2 it is the causality between the two that is explored. Using the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach to cointegration and error-correction based causality test, the results were found to differ from country to country and over time. These results were also found to be sensitive to the financial development proxy used. Based on Model 1, the study found that the impact of bank-based financial development on economic growth is positive in South Africa and the USA, but negative in the U.K – and neither positive nor negative in Kenya. Elsewhere the results were inconclusive. Market-based financial development was found to impact positively in Kenya, USA and the UK but not in the remaining countries. Based on Model 2, the study found that bank-based financial development Granger-causes economic growth in the UK, while in Brazil they Granger-cause each other. However, in South Africa, Kenya and USA no causal relationship was found. In Australia the results were inconclusive. The study also found that in the short run, market-based financial development Granger-causes economic growth in the USA but that in South Africa and Brazil, the reverse applies. On the other hand bidirectional causality was found to prevail in Kenya in the same period. / Economics / D. Com. (Economics)