<p>I have conducted a survey of journal articles that have examined the relationship between free trade and economic growth. In particular, I have carefully selected six empirical studies that were published over a ten-year period and critically reviewed, and evaluated these studies in depth. I have also extensively presented and discussed the issues as well as the controversies that are related to the various measures of openness. In a number of the trade-growth empirical studies researchers have made major attempt to identify the relationship between free trade and economic growth. Most of the trade-growth studies show that there is a positive relationship between free trade and economic growth. However, some of these influential studies have been subject to strong criticism, mainly due to a number of methodological shortcomings. As for the million-dollar question: Does free trade advance economic growth? My conclusion is that this question is not yet resolved, because although researchers have devoted considerable efforts to show a positive trade-growth relationship, nevertheless, the methodologies and the measurements applied in these studies have been fragile to the scrutiny of critics.</p>

<p>This paper addresses the question if income security can enhance economic growth in developing countries? It takes its starting point in the income security problems of a developing country and summarizes evidence from published empirical research on formal income security mechanisms. We conclude that the findings on incomes security efficiency effects are ambiguous. A limited econometric study based on data from Chile is carried out with a regression showing that social securities total effect on economic growth is negative but more econometric research on total effect on growth are needed to give a definite answer.</p>

Thesis (Ph.D. (Economics))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.

Structural change in a two-sector model of the climate and the economy introduces issues concerning substitutability among goods in a two-sector economic growth model where emissions from fossil fuels give rise to a climate externality. Substitution is modeled using a CES-production function where the intermediate inputs differ only in their technologies and the way they are affected by the climate externality. I derive a simple formula for optimal taxes and resource allocation over time and highlight model sensitivity w.r.t the elasticity of substitution and distribution parameters. Energy Balance Climate Models and General Equilibrium Optimal Mitigation Policies  develops a one-dimensional energy balance climate model with heat diffusion and anthropogenic forcing across latitudes driven by global fossil fuel use coupled to an economic growth model. Our results suggest that if the implementation of international transfers across latitudes are not possible or costly, then optimal taxes are in general spatially non-uniform and may be lower at poorer latitudes. Energy Balance Climate Models, Damage Reservoirs and the Time Profile of Climate Change Policy explores optimal mitigation policies through the lens of a latitude dependent energy balance climate model coupled to an economic growth model. We associate the movement of an endogenous polar ice cap with the idea of a damage reservoir being a finite source of climate related damages affecting the economy. The analysis shows that the introduction of damage reservoirs  can generate multiple steady states and Skiba points. Assessing Sustainable Development in a DICE World investigates a method for assessing sustainable development under climate change in the Dynamic Integrated model of Climate and the Economy (DICE-2007 model). The analysis shows that the sustainability measure is highly sensitive to the calibration of the inter-temporal elasticity parameter and discount rate of the social welfare function.

This paper examines the relationship between housing investments and economic growth. Through a literature review five different hypotheses are analysed to examine the effects of housing investments on economic growth. The studied effects include; direct effects, counter-cyclical effects, price effects and productivity effects through reduced mismatch between housing and labour markets, and finally effects on the productivity of workers. The conclusion is that the direct effects are only short term and the existence of counter-cyclical effects is doubtful. For the price effects and the effects on productivity there are less empirical evidence, but the effects are still considered significant. Keywords: housing investments, new construction, economic growth, effects 2

The overall aim of this thesis is to explore the theoretical and empirical relationship between entrepreneurship and bureaucracy, and to examine the cause and effect of entrepreneurship. From this overall aim, four specific questions are investigated. The first question deals with the issue of combining agency and structural explanations of entrepreneurship. Traditional one-sided explanations are discussed, and a two-sided explanatory model of the entrepreneurial choice is presented and tested empirically. In relation to this, the issue of causal heterogeneity is discussed and tested. The empirical results indicate that several country-level variables, including bureaucracy, influence the entrepreneurial choice at the individual level, and that the effect of some individual variables on the entrepreneurial choice varies according to structural context. The following two questions deal with the relationship between the entrepreneur and bureaucracy. The first one describes how the entrepreneurial process is regulated by bureaucracy, and how entrepreneurs solve regulatory problems. From this study it is clear that the smaller entrepreneurs comply with 'good' law in order to enjoy the benefits of formality, and avoid 'bad' law to reduce the costs of formality. The larger entrepreneurs comply with all regulations and are very frustrated over delays and inefficiency. The smaller entrepreneurs have a more understanding attitude towards bureaucratic inefficiency and have less trouble solving regulative problems. Both groups have strategies for solving regulative problems; most frequently this involves social ties with public officials and bribes. The second of the relationship questions investigates the extent to which entrepreneurs are obstructed by or dissatisfied with the regulatory authorities, and whether this varies over different types of entrepreneurs. Based on Schumpeter’s distinction between entrepreneurs and other, less creative, business owners, the overall results indicate that creative companies have larger problems with regulatory authorities. The conclusion is that bureaucracy tends to be a problem with regard to new ideas, but not for new companies. The fourth question raised deals with the economic effects of entrepreneurship and bureaucracy. Can entrepreneurship and bureaucracy explain variation in economic development across countries? The results indicate that entrepreneurship combined with bureaucracy offer high explanatory values and that a large part of the variance in economic development, left unexplained by agency behaviour, is explained by the regulation of that behaviour. In terms of policy implications the results indicate that the removal of bureaucratic barriers to entrepreneurs could have large potential payoffs in terms of economic growth.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether foreign direct investment, FDI, has any impact on economic growth in Mexico. In order to find a possible connection I use a multiple regression analysis with GDP per capita as dependent variable. Furthermore, I critically examine previous studies of FDI and its effect on GDP per capita in Mexico as well as other studies with several developed and developing countries. The difference between this paper and previous studies is that the data is more up-to-date here. My results, like most of the previous studies, do not indicate on any statistical significance that FDI has a positive effect on economic growth. FDI do however seem to produce positive spillover effects on the domestic economy, mainly through knowledge and technological spillovers.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate whether economic growth in the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) can be explained by changes in the oil price, with a focus on selected macroeconomic variables. We will also investigate if there are any differences in oil price effects on economic growth between the BRIC countries and the western world (G7). The model used is a Koyck transformation model developed by Leendert Marinus Koyck in 1954, which converts a distributed lag model into an autoregressive model. The data used in this thesis covers 11 countries and their quarterly data for the variables: real interest rate, oil price, US dollar exchange rates and current account (exports-imports), which are all economically and theoretical linked to the dependent variable, real GDP. Our distributed lag model will include past values of real GDP as well as oil price. These explanatory variables will be lagged up to 4 periods, where one period is equal to one quarter of a year.   The findings showed a relationship between oil price changes and economic growth. However there are no consistent results for how the oil price affects GDP, neither for the BRIC countries nor the western countries. Furthermore, in the case of the BRIC countries, the cluster generated divided results: A possible reason for these differences were oil exports/imports. For the western world, oil price changes and economic growth is positively correlated and the reason is probably the already existing oil-dependency. In our model both positive and negative results were found, but also an unknown variable affecting some of the countries. Whether it is consistent in each case needs to be analyzed further. From the findings and previous research one can conclude that there are no certain results of how oil price changes affect economic growth.

Abstract This paper examines the contribution of telecommunication private investment to economic growth in Africa and CEE countries using graphical and regression analysis. Data for fourteen African countries and thirteen CEE countries were used for the empirical analysis. The time series data is from 1999-2005. The contribution of telecommunication private investment to economic growth was estimated to be positive but insignificant in the pooled regression analysis. After con-trolling for country specific effects and causality, the effect of telecommunication private investment on GDP was found to be positive and significant. However, the positive impact on GDP was not substantial. When a cross-sectional test was carried out, the contribution of telecommunication private investment to economic growth was discovered to be positive except in 2005, and was also seen to be statistically significant up to 2002. The contribution of the mobile subscribers to economic growth was revealed to be positive and significant both in the pooled and cross-sectional regression analysis.

Financial Institutions have been regarded to be the core area of economic development. However, Nepal could not achieve satisfactory level of economic development and growth due to Maoists war (1996-2006) and the political instability. The increase in size and number of commercial banks are limited only in the urban areas so that banking services are not accessible to the general public. This paper examines interaction between financial development and economic growth in Nepal employing correlation analysis, regression analysis, financial ratios and other related theories. As we found that financial institutions have grown rapidly which has implication in overall economy of the nation. The economic indicators such as GDP, GDP per capita, loan assets of commercial banks, investment, deposit, number of commercial banks, and inflation rate from fiscal year 2001 to 2007 are used for the analysis of this study. The relevant ratios of commercial banks such as deposit, investment, and profitability are found to be in increasing trend. The growth rate of GDP/capita is however volatile in the study period, the regression result of Deposit/GDP is weakly significant under the study period {(0,06)*}. The investment growth rate is not significant at all possibly due to the time lag of the effect of investment on the economic development. Furthermore, correlation between Growth rate of GDP and deposit/GDP (ρ=0.49). The Growth rate of GDP and investment over GDP is positive related with a correlation coefficient of 0.82. This has confirmed our beliefs in the set out of the thesis.