This thesis empirically investigates two important aspects of the benefits of currency (monetary) union - the beneficial impact of eliminating exchange rate volatility on trade and the possibility of consequent economic growth - in the context of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Researchers on the GCC monetary union have mostly been busy in analyzing the viability of the proposed GCC monetary union and they focus on convergence criteria. In contrast to those studies, empirical estimates obtained in this study would provide valuable information to the policy makers who have been working towards the realization of the GCC monetary union. As such this study provides significant contribution to the literature of the GCC monetary union. Chapter 2 thoroughly reviews the optimum currency areas (OCA) literature (both theoretical and empirical) starting with the theories advocated by the pioneers of the OCA. Literature on the European Monetary Union (EMU), monetary unions and integration from African, Latin America, Asian and the prospects from the GCC countries are also reviewed. Chapter 3 empirically investigates convergence criteria and shock synchronization of the GCC countries. Results show positive correlation of the structural shocks (synchronized shocks) among the countries except Qatar. Chapter 4 estimates the impact of exchange rate volatility on bilateral trade between the GCC countries. Results obtained using the panel Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimator indicates that the bilateral trade among the GCC countries will increase about 6.2 - 8.7 percent (depending on the volatility measure used) with the elimination of the exchange rate volatility. In the second part of the chapter 4 discusses the role of trade on economic growth (income) of a country and estimates the impact of trade on per capita growth rates of the GCC countries. Results based on the preferred sample period and using the panel GMM estimator indicate that a one-standard deviation increase in the trade (or openness) ratio would increase the growth rate per capita on impact by 2 - 3%. Based on these results we may conclude that the monetary union of the GCC countries would enhance trade which in turn would promote economic growth of the region.

This thesis is motivated by the over-arching question “what economic contribution do immigrants make to the UK”? The question invites several perspectives from which to answer and the thesis offers a survey of the literature relevant to these, with particular emphasis on empirical studies focussed on the UK economy. There is also a brief historical summary of the contemporary UK experience and policies regarding immigration. Comparative profiles of the UK immigrant and native populations are constructed from primary source data, namely various issues of the Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS). From this contextualising foundation, the thesis moves to examine two particular aspects of immigrants’ economic activity in the UK, using QLFS data as an evidence base. These aspects are a) the change in the average real wages of low-skilled immigrant workers, with native workers as a comparator and b) factors influencing the rate of immigrant entrepreneurship. The empirical investigation of changes in average real wages amongst low-skilled immigrants discovers a noticeable decline relative to the native peer group, particularly for males; proximate causes are identified. The investigation of entrepreneurial activity confirms a number of influential factors noted within the literature and adds to these some significant drivers that have not previously been identified.

This doctoral thesis examines the association between social capital and local economic success at the level of the District Council Area in Northern Ireland. A number of challenges have had to be addressed to progress this analysis. "Economic success" has had to be defined as a series of outcomes. These outcomes have each been shown to be sufficiently distinctive to justify their being synthesised into an Economic Success Index which can provide a more comprehensive measure of economic success. "Local' has been defined as the District Council Area in Northern Ireland. That spatial parameter has constrained the data available for analysis. Cross-sectional and time-series data has had to be combined in one analytical framework. "Social capital" has been defined as one of a series of potential economic success inputs. A set of social capital indicators has been identified. In order to put the association between social capital and local economic success into context, clusters of other potential inputs have been identified. Their association with economic success has also been measured. The subsequent analysis of economic success outcomes, social capital and other potential economic success inputs, has revealed how internally complex Northern Ireland is. The region's heterogeneity has been proposed as an explanation for the relatively small number of inputs whose association with local economic success prevailed across enough of Northern Ireland's local economies to be statistically significant. Notably, social capital has been found not to have been associated with local economic success across Northern Ireland as a whole. This is in line with studies of social capital and economic performance at the level of large intra-national regions in the UK, Europe and the US which had found either no association or contradictory and inconclusive sets of statistical relationships. This thesis has analysed social capital and local economic success outcomes at the intra-regional district level. This has revealed that at a sub-regional level in Northern Ireland there was in 2001 a high level of co-terminosity in some areas between the presence of social capital and the attainment of local economic success. In particular, a sub-region of contiguous Catholic District Council Areas has been identified which was economically successful and in which social capital was also highly developed. Other conclusions drawn from this analysis are that: social capital in Northern Ireland was a distinctively Catholic phenomenon; by 2001 the West/East, Catholic/Protestant intra-regional differential in economic success no longer seems to have prevailed; a new geographical disparity appears to have emerged between an economically less successful northern coastal arc and the rest of the region; Catholics overall were more likely to have been living in economically successful areas, a significant improvement in their historic position of relative economic disadvantage; self-employment, which in 2001 was positively associated with economic success, was much higher in Catholic areas than in Protestant areas. The thesis has also generated two potentially important findings in respect of women: The presence of female small business employers was not associated with economic success, whereas women leaving the home to become economically active was. Cause and effect remains an open question in respect of these and other findings. However, at the very least this thesis suggests that the relationship between females becoming employers, females becoming economically active, social capital and economic success is a complex one which needs more research. This thesis unravels some of the complexity of economic success and of the functioning of social capital in a complex region.

The aim of this thesis is to explore and study the interaction between the size of government and economic growth in Iran over the 1971-2008 periods. To achieve this aim, the thesis is designed to examine three models. In the first model which is based on Barro’s endogenous growth theory, we investigate the interaction between economic growth and government expenditures simultaneously by using Three Stage Least Squares (3SLS). In the second model, we investigate the impacts of government expenditures and the sources of finance of government expenditures on economic growth. This analysis is based on Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model. In model three, we investigate the effect of the government budget deficit, liquidity (M2) and official exchange rate on price level in Iran. Over all, the major contribution of this thesis is to show that total government expenditures and current expenditures have a negative and significant impact on economic growth, but that investment expenditures have a positive and insignificant impact on economic growth. In the short run current expenditure have a negative and significant impact but, investment expenditures have positive and significant effect on economic growth. In the long run, investment expenditures have a positive and significant effect but the current expenditures have a negative and insignificant effect on economic growth. In the short run the interaction term for financing government spending through oil revenues is positive and significant. The impact of tax revenues is positive but insignificant and the impact of borrowing from central bank on economic growth is negative. In the long run the interaction term for financing government spending through oil revenues is positive and significant. The impact of tax revenues is positive and significant and the impact of borrowing from central bank on economic growth is negative. There is a stable long-run relation between inflation, budget deficit, money supply and exchange rate. Increase in budget deficit has a positive effect on the inflation rate in long run, but in short run increase in budget deficit does not have a positive effect on the inflation rate. Increase in liquidity (M2) has a positive effect on the inflation rate in long run and increase in official exchange rate has a positive effect on the inflation rate in long run.

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Being originally from the Dominican Republic, I am unfortunate to have experienced three economic crises and more than seven stabilisation attempts. I am also wiser, however, because of those experiences, and became fascinated by the recurring elements accompanying the crises: what economists dealing with stabilisation call stylized facts. I have also developed frustration by the way in which markets and institutions poorly coordinated in achieving stabilisation and preventing future failures. Even though we have learned systematically to deal with such devastating episodes, there is still much to discover about the way society and governments manoeuvre through crisis. How to design and implement credible and sustainable policies to lower inflation is at the heart of the literature. The essays in this dissertation will hopefully improve our understanding of, and ability to cope with, crises and the related stylized facts of stabilisation.

The thesis is an evaluative case study in the interpretive paradigm of five-years of collaboration between three universities; one Belarusian, one British and one French. The collaboration, funded by the European Union's 'TEMPUS' programme, was intended to strengthen institutional mangement at the Belarusian host university following its foundation in 1992. The research proceeded responsively, adapting to circumstances and conditions as it sought to remain relevant and use appropriate research tools to progress with the enquiry. Eventually four phases were completed including the production of a thick description Case Record which was referred (0 constantly in dialogue with informants in the phases of the research. The analysis of the case considers the relevance of the standard project cycle management blueprint by examining the formal project cycle in the light of rich contextual information and reflecting upon the project's outcomes (planned and achieved) and the activities performed. Insight into the social psychology of intemational cooperation is also offered by the case study, drawing from and building upon theories of project management across cultures. The study shows that many of the by-products of the collaboration planned in the original project description were of doubtful relevance and were transitory or superficial although some changes tumed out to have long-term sustainability. The findings challenge perceptions of good practice at project. institution and programme level, which others may relate to their own experience. Of particular importance, the research established that the project cycle itself introduced operational weaknesses and imposed limitations which prejudiced team and individual effectiveness. The Tempus project began better to fulfil its potential when personal and cullurally based objectives were taken on board as well as the official ones.

he chief undertaking of this study is to investigate consumer debt decisions and identify the factors that may lead to credit card delinquency. We base the analysis on the UK and present a synthesis of these findings with respect to education and policy making. The thesis: summarises relevant academic literature and key policy debates; explores new approaches to decision making under uncertainty; makes a case for measures to imprOve financial literacy; employs the recently accessible UK Wealth and Assets survey (WAS) that is not yet the basis for published research findings in the area of consumer debt;1 uses appropriate empirical methods to discover the factors that increase risk of credit card delinquency amongst the 16-35 age group. With respect to credit card delinquency, the study concludes that personal demographic and socio-economic characteristics which have been found to be relevant predictors of fragile personal finances in previous research are relevant also in the case of credit card delinquency amongst young persons in the UK. Gender, ethnicity and education are discovered to be important determinants of the risk of delinquency and there is some evidence that personal attitudes to financial risk may also be relevant. With respect to financial literacy and policy making, the study concludes that there is a need for the Government and the policy makers to promote financial education across the population with emphasis on young adults, particularly males without Higher Education and ethnic minorities. Moreover, policy makers should acknowledge the presence of uncertainty in consumer debt decisions and incorporate seminars on risk awareness in the educational system and labour market.

This thesis investigates which factors drove the spectacular accumulation of household liabilities prior to the financial crisis of 2007/2008 in the United States and 12 other OECD countries. Two mechanisms are of particular interest. The first is the polarization in the distribution of income which can be observed since the 1980s in the United States and European OECD countries (Atkinson et al. 2011). The second mechanism is the increase in asset prices and in particular residential real estate prices, which is considered by some authors as a major explanation of household debt accumulation (Mian & Sufi 2011). Based on two different data sources, the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) and a macro panel of 13 OECD countries, an extremely robust result emerges: The residential housing market is the key driver of household debt accumulation. This finding strongly supports an asset-focused view of household sector debt and discourages explanations which rely on a direct link from the distribution of income to household indebtedness. There is some evidence that the income polarization contributed to higher debt-levels in the US but this positive relationship is conditional on homeownership. The interpretation of these findings is that real estate purchases represent the single most important reason for households to take on debt and even if households take on debt for other reasons, real estate collateral is often a binding requirement to be granted a loan. The thesis contributes to the existing literature in three ways. First, it is the first attempt to investigate the inequality as well as the asset mechanism in a unified framework whereas previous studies analysed them in isolation. Second, by constructing a borrowing measure from SCF data the unmatched coverage of the top tail of the wealth distribution of this dataset can be exploited. Third, the thesis provides some methodological insights when using survey data to analyse household borrowing behaviour: increased model fit by the separation of borrowing and non-borrowing households; necessity to separately control for asset purchases; disadvantages of growth rates and logarithmic differences.

This thesis investigates, theoretically and empirically, the impact of financial (FL) and trade liberalisation (TL) on the rate of economic growth in Bangladesh using annual data from 1975-1995. This thesis also explores the determinants of unofficial market (UM) exchange rates in Bangladesh using quarterly data from 1976q2-1995q2. The literature survey in chapter two argues that both FL and TL raise the rate of economic growth. After reviewing financial and trade policies in Bangladesh in chapter three, a theoretical model has been developed and applied to Bangladesh in chapter four in order to examine the effect of FL on the rate of economic growth. This model incorporates per capita real income, investment in both physical and human capital, financial deepening and real interest rates. The theoretical and empirical models reveal that investment in human capital, financial deepening and interest rate liberalisation positively affect the rate of economic growth. However, the impact of interest rates is very low. The simultaneous impact of financial development and TL on the rate of economic growth in Bangladesh is also explored theoretically and empirically in chapter six. Results reveal that both FL and TL jointly raise the rate of economic growth. Finally, the determinants of UM exchange rates are identified in chapter eight in order to examine the causes of distortions in the foreign exchange markets and to explore the roles of both FL and TL policies in removing these distortions. It is observed that trade restrictions with overvalued exchange rates and an increase in money supply generate UMs for foreign exchange in Bangladesh.