The dissertation consists of three papers presenting applications of meta-analysis in international economics. The first paper examines the effect of common currency on international trade, while the remaining two papers address the relationship between foreign investment and the productivity of domestic firms. An introductory chapter puts these applications into perspective. In the first application I present a meta-analysis of the effect of currency unions on trade, focusing on the euro area. I find strong publication bias in the literature. The estimated trade- promoting effect of currency unions other than the euro reaches more than 60%. In contrast, the euro's trade-promoting effect is insignificant when I correct for publication bias. The empirical literature on this topic shows signs of the so-called economics research cycle: the relation between the reported t-statistics and publication years has an inverse U-shaped form. During the last decade more than 100 researchers have examined productivity spillovers from foreign affiliates to local firms in upstream or downstream sectors. Yet results vary broadly across methods and countries. To examine these vertical spillovers in a systematic way, in the second application I collect 3,626 estimates of spillovers and review the literature quantitatively....

The implementation of the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Royalty Act was anticipated to have a significant impact on the South African economy and mining industry. The mineral royalty is an effective instrument in the collection of compensation for extraction of mineral resources that cannot be renewed. An overview of the development, evolution and application of the mineral royalty indicated that the newly enacted Mineral and Petroleum Resources Royalty Act has constituted a more formal regulative system in determining the royalty amount payable. Various fundamental principles have been established in the act, such as distinguishing between refined and unrefined mineral resources, different royalty formulae to be applied to each of mineral resources and circumstances resulting in a mineral royalty obligation. The South African mining industry has been a cornerstone in forming the economy for many years. The industry has on average contributed approximately 8.8% directly to the country’s gross domestic product during 2011. The potential impact by the new royalty reform was predicted by researchers to impact mining operations’ profitability between 2% and 5%, whilst the sector’s contribution to total taxes was expected to rise by 8%. The actual impact of the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Royalty Act on the country’s fiscal and mining industry was reviewed to determine just how many circumstances have changed in South African mining, if any. The research study has found that although there has been an impact it was not as significant as anticipated. Die implementering van die Minerale en Petroleum Reserwes Tantieme Wet sou na verwagting ‘n groot impak op die Suid-Afrikaanse ekonomie en die mynbedryf hê. Minerale tantieme is ‘n doeltreffende instrument in die invordering van vergoeding vir die ontginning van minerale hulpbronne wat nie hernu kan word nie. ‘n Ondersoek oor die ontwikkeling, evolusie en toepassing van minerale tantieme het aangedui dat die onlangse Wet op Minerale en Petroleum Reserwes Tantieme ‘n meer formele regulerende stelsel teweeggebring het in die bepaling van tantieme betaalbaar. Verskeie fundamentele beginsels word onderskryf deur die Wet, soos die onderskeid tussen verwerkte en onverwerkte minerale hulpbronne, verskillende tantieme formules toepaslik op elk van die minerale hulpbronne en omstandighede wat lei tot ‘n mineraal tantiem verpligting. Die Suid-Afrikaanse mynbedryf was ‘n hoeksteen in die ontwikkeling van die ekonomie vir baie jare. Die bedryf het gemiddeld ongeveer 8.8% direk bygedra tot die land se bruto binnelandse produk gedurende 2011. Navorsers het voorspel dat die potensiële impak van die nuwe mineraalhervorming mynbou se winsgewendheid met tussen 2% en 5% sou beïnvloed, terwyl die sektor se bydrae tot die totale belasting na verwagting sou styg met 8%. Die werklike impak van die Mineraal en Petroleum Reserwes Tantieme Wet op die land se ekonomie en mynbedryf was hersien om vas te stel presies hoeveel omstandighede verander het in Suid-Afrikaanse mynbou, indien enige. Die studie het bevind dat selfs al het die nuwe tantieme stelsel ‘n impak gemaak op Suid-Afrika, dit nie so wesenlik was soos verwag nie. / Dissertation (MCom)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / am2014 / Taxation / unrestricted

This thesis is, in its theoretical part, focused on the concepts describing questions of normative theories of the press, public sphere and current journalist's position within the media organizations. Research part examines the factors influencing editors and their normative ideals about journalist profession. Through qualitative research we found the conclusions which represent personal, organizational and external factors influencing their work.

The aim of this work is to answer questions of effectiveness in controlling inflation, changes in unemployment rate, reduce government spendings, deregulation and decentralization in both countries, confirm or refute theoretical assumptions of Laffer´s curve on the example of consequence of tax cuts in United States of America, privatization and the implications of the fight with the unions in Great Britain and the overall effect of the implementation of neoliberal concepts in both countries. This work compares the implementation and impact of neoliberal concepts of economic policy in the UK and in the United States and it provides insight into the effectiveness of the chosen means.

This thesis deals with current discourse whether methods of neuroscience generate useful tools for standard economics to understand, predict and ideally guide behavior of humans, social groups and the whole economies. An initial methodological analysis concluded that the usefulness of neuroeconomics is still only potential, since this approach is not able to answer substantial questions of economics in better way than tools existing. Following sections of thesis summarized representative research in the field of decision neuroscience in the areas of intertemporal decisions, decision-making under risk and uncertainty and the strategic interactions, and social preferences respectively. It has been demonstrated that many findings of decision neuroscience offer a partial confirmation of specific economic models already or provide inspiration for creating new ones.

The main objective of this diploma thesis is to compare the cost effectiveness of an imprisonment and a fine. Firstly, the thesis explores the theoretical view of economics, economic calculation, and the view of criminology and penology. Further, the thesis quantifies costs of the most important factors: the cost of realization of punishment, the cost of limitation of economic activity of individuals, the cost of change of health, and a cost of effect on prevention and protection. Lastly, the thesis gives suggestion on convinience of various types of punishment for different types of offences.

The goal is to describe the evolution of welfare economics from its beginnings to the present, to draw attention to the pitfalls of the various views and orientations, to evaluate the applicability of new welfare economics in terms of real economy and the example of the Republic or other countries (or EU) to indicate the possibilities of welfare economics or its part in practice, including positive and negative impacts on the economy and society. In the first part, which is part of the theoretical problems described welfare economics, and is also outlined the development of welfare economics. In the second part of the problem is applied to housing issues. Outlined here are the current problems associated with this phenomenon. The problem is under consideration from the perspective of welfare economics and its possible applications.

This thesis deals with historical and socio-cultural context of Korean political economy and its relationships with important aspects of Korean business environment. The work dedicates significant space to chaebols as specific business organizational structures and the application of Korean paradigm of rationality to the reform following 1997 International Monetary and Financial Crisis. The main part of the thesis focuses on the analysis of Korean political economy from the viewpoint of its institutional comparative advantage, through which Korean cultural characteristics influence commodity structure of Korean international trade and Korea's patent specialisation profile. The main contribution of the thesis lies in its effort to document mutual relationships and links among various aspects of Korean political economy. The findings of the thesis show that Korea's socio-cultural characteristics still represent an important factor influencing Korean business environment and local form of capitalism. The continuing existence and success of chaebols in current economy implies that the socio-cultural and economic sources of their existence still prevail despite the increasing number of conglomerates of non-chaebol types operating in Korea since post-crisis reform. The application of "Eastern paradigm" to the post-crisis reform reveals that the reform was based on "Western paradigm" of highly liberal Anglo-American form of capitalism and crisis management was thus ethnocentrically biased. Regarding the institutional comparative advantage, the thesis concludes Korea can be regarded as a group coordinated market economy where mutual links among various agents of its political economy are of outmost importance, with some aspects of liberal market economies. The main coordination mechanism of Korean political economy can be characterised as thick networks of highly particularistic socio-economic relationships based on Korean socio-cultural characteristics. This institutional and socio-cultural set up provides Korean companies with capacities that favour companies'preference of incremental innovation production strategies. However, Korean "mobilizational culture" along with other specific organizational principles and socio-cultural features of Korean corporate culture also provide Korean firms with advantages in some radical innovation fields.

The work aims to explain the character and success/failure of pension reforms with help of political explanatory variables. The constitution of given political system is considered, as well as the actual political alignment and the role of electorate, in explaining the processes underlying the pension scheme reforms - a major topic of today's aging societies. The case study approach is used, utilising the recent experience of Great Britain and Sweden in reforming the pensions. The findings are compared with the results and conclusions suggested by a dynamic economic model of pension scheme switch, demonstrating eventually what factors and conditions are favorable for pension reforms, both from the political and the economic point of view.

Participation in sport activities brings various benefits to the individuals involved as well as to the society as a whole. One of these benefits is a higher labour productivity following from a lower disease-induced absence rate and from the improved personal work characteristics. This thesis investigates the influence of public money spent in support of sport on labour productivity. The study is based on the data about these expenditures on the level of the Czech municipalities, whereas the expenditures on sport are aggregated over the municipalities belonging to each of the fourteen regions composing the Czech Republic. The performed regression analysis traces the influence of these expenditures on the disease-induced work incapacity rate in the respective region, which constitutes a proxy for labour productivity. The results of the analysis show that municipal expenditures on sport significantly decrease the disease-induced work incapacity: if municipalities in a region spend extra one hundred CZK per person on sport, the disease-induced work incapacity in the following year lowers by 0.064 to 0.083%.