This study has analysed the misalignment of the real exchange rates of the eleven original euro members at the introduction of the euro, and their consequences for inflation in the first five and ten years of the monetary union. Using four separate models of real equilibrium exchange rates, the largest overvaluations are found for Portugal and Germany, and the largest undervaluations are found for Ireland and Finland. In accordance with theory, adjustment towards equilibrium through inflation rate differentials seems to have occurred: the effect being clear with regard to two of the models, and ambiguous according to the two remaining. The study sheds light on the appropriateness of the conversion rates at the introduction of the euro in 1999, and the macroeconomic consequences of real exchange rate misalignment.

Yes / The global economy has experienced considerable turbulence since 2007. The financial crisis has been viewed as the trigger for a prolonged period of economic decline. This decline remains an issue for all member states of the European Union, the eurozone and beyond. We argue genesis of this crisis lies in the integration negotiations of 1991, ratified in 1992. These produced a flawed economic model within the eurozone. Given the seeds of decay were planted at origin; we argue the solution can be found through a reconstructed eurozone via looser integration, where countries less equipped to deal with the realities of closer integration will be economically independent.

This diploma thesis focuses on the process of euro adoption in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Regarding the time frame, it mainly covers a period of 2004-2014. Nevertheless in order to maximise plausibility of results, this thesis focuses on relevant moments beyond the above mentioned period as well. The main aim of this thesis is to analyse a variation in the relationship of both examined countries towards the process of European monetary integration. Whereas Slovakia joined the Eurozone in 2009, the Czech Republic has not fulfilled its obligation stemming from the EU membership yet. The secondary aim of this thesis is to verify the power of IR theories dealing with transfer of sovereignty on the supranational level. Thus, this paper strives to identify whether the constructivist or rationalist (for the purposes of this thesis represented by ideational liberalism and commercial liberalism / liberal intergovernmentalism) theoretic paradigm is more accurate in its attempt to explain the examined variation. In order to fulfil this aim, methods of difference and congruence are applied. However, each of these methods shows different results. According to the method of difference, an explanation based on commercial liberal / liberal intergovernmentalist logic of economic-materialistic consequences may...

This essay examines how young Muslims, with connection to the coalition Sveriges Unga Muslimer, handle their Muslim identity. The essay examines strategies the young Muslims use in the meeting with the Swedish society and how they construct a functioning and secure identity. Six Muslim youths, who were members of two local associations connected to SUM, were interviewed. The results of this essay showed that democratic rights and liberties, a Muslim community and a self-constructed identity, freed from the stereotype media picture, are important in the development of a functioning and secure Swedish Muslim identity. The young Muslims in the study did not handle their identity in a conservative way, by way of isolation. Neither did they use a secular strategy, where they completely adapt to Swedish society. Instead these young Muslims have succeeded in finding a path between isolation and assimilation, a path where they consider themselves faithful to Islam and at the same time interact in a functioning way with their Swedish surroundings and actively participate in the society as self-assured Swedish citizens. Thus the young Muslims used a third type of strategy in their meeting with a western society. They also seemed to have constructed a sort of new European interpretation of Islam, a so-called euro-Islam.

Seminario para optar al grado de Ingeniero Comercial, Mención Economía / Se ha generalizado la opinión que el derrumbe económico de la Zona Euro, específicamente en los países periféricos, está vinculado a una crisis fiscal consecuencia de la deuda soberana excesiva. En esta investigación se limpian estos argumentos aplicando un estudio heurístico, contable y objetivo, involucrando el uso de métodos contemporáneos de la Teoría Económica Heterodoxa Post Keynesiana: el modelo de Consistencia Stock-Flow. A paso de explorar la institucional monetaria de la Unión Europea y la Zona Euro y el proceso de liberalización de los capitales inter-europeos, esta metodología da una explicación coherente de una “Crisis por Déficit Sectoriales” en el sector corporativo y externo, diferente a la “Crisis de la Deuda Soberana” que brinda el paradigma económico dominante, a saber, neo-clásico.

In June 2008 one of the biggest and most popular sports tournaments took place in Austria and Switzerland, the European football championship 2008 (UEFA EURO 2008). Before the tournament started millions of football supporters throughout the world were asking themselves, just as we did: "Who is going to win the EURO 2008?". We investigate a method for forecasting the tournament outcome, that is not based on historical data (such as scores in previous matches) but on quoted winning odds for each of the 16 teams as provided by 45 international bookmakers. By using a mixed-effects model with a team-specific random effect and fixed effects for the bookmaker and the preliminary group we model the unknown "true" log-odds for winning the championship. The final of the EURO 2008 was played by the teams Germany and Spain. This was exactly the fixture that our method forecasted with a probability of about 20.2%. Furthermore, estimated winning probabilities can be derived from our model, where team Germany, the runner-up of the final had the highest probability (17.6%) to win the title and team Spain the winner of the tournament had the second best chance to win the championship (12.3%). To adjust for effects of the tournament schedule including the group draw, we recovered the latent team strength (underlying the bookmakers' expectations) to answer the question: Will the "best" team win? An ex post analysis of the tournament showed that our method yields good predictions of the tournament outcome and outperforms the FIFA/Coca Cola World rating and the Elo rating. / Series: Research Report Series / Department of Statistics and Mathematics

This June one of the biggest and most popular sports tournaments will take place in Austria and Switzerland, the European soccer championship 2008 (UEFA EURO 2008). Therefore millions of soccer fans in Europe and throughout the world are asking themselves: "Who is going to win the EURO 2008?" Many people, including sports experts and former players, give their guesses and expectations in the media, but there is also a group with financial incentives, like some economists who expect economical increases for the country of the winning team and bookmakers and their customers who directly make money with their beliefs. Some predictions are only guesses, but other predictions are based on quantitative methods, such as the studies of UBS Wealth Management Research Switzerland and the Raiffeisen Zentralbank. In this report we will introduce a new method for predicting the winner. Whereas other prediction methods are based on historical data, e.g., the Elo rating, or the FIFA/Coca Cola World rating, our method is based on current expectations, the bookmakers odds for winning the championship. In particular we use the odds for winning the championship for each of the 16 teams of 45 international bookmakers. By interpreting these odds as rating of the expected strength of the teams by the bookmakers, we derive a consensus rating by modelling the log-odds using a random-effects model with a team-specific random effect and a bookmaker-specific fixed effect. The consensus rating of a team can be used as an estimator for the unknown "true" strength of a team. Our method predicts team Germany with a probability of about 18.7% as the EURO 2008 winner. We predict also that the teams playing the final will be Germany and Spain with a probability of 13.9%, where Germany will win with a probability of 55%. In our study, Italy, the favorite according to the current FIFA/Coca Cola World ranking and Elo ranking, has a much lower probability than these teams to win the tournament: only 10.6%. The defending champion Greece has low chances to win the title again: about 3.4%. Furthermore, the expected performance of the host countries, Austria and Switzerland, is much better in the bookmakers consensus than in the retrospective Elo and FIFA/Coca Cola World ratings, i.e., indicating an (expected) home court advantage. Despite the associated increase in the winning probabilities, both teams have rather poor chances to win the tournament with probabilities of 1.3% and 4.0%, respectively. In a group effect study we investigate how much the classification into the four groups (A-D) affects the chance for a team to win the championship. / Series: Research Report Series / Department of Statistics and Mathematics

The aim of this thesis is to analyse if the euro has had any significant effect on the inflow of foreign direct investments. Our purpose is answered by developing an econometric model with inflow of foreign direct investments as the dependent variable. The model is estimated with the ordinary least squares method and panel data from ten different countries, five which have adopted the euro as their currency and five which have not. The data collected concerns the timeframe from 1994 to 2007. The theoretical background is retrieved mainly from journal articles that have conducted similar research of how a common currency has affected foreign direct investments. We use these studies as a base for developing our regression model and also as a foundation for our analysis. The results from this thesis show that the euro has had a large significant effect on foreign direct investments which we see by analysing the interaction variable in our regression. Furthermore, the results show that trade openness and GDP have the largest significant effect on FDI, meanwhile unit labour cost and exchange rate volatility had no significant effect at all. We conclude that the euro has a positive significant effect on inward foreign direct investment. Although the model suggests that having adopted the euro in 1999 would yield a 58.4 per cent increase in inward FDI compared to countries that kept their own currency, we are uncertain of the effect’s actual magnitude due to concern that we read some effects from the single market in the variable we use to estimate the euro’s effect.

Le secteur des transports est fondamental pour le développement économique d'un pays et pour assurer la communication et une bonne qualité de vie. Cependant, le transport routier conduit à une grave dégradation de la qualité de l'air et contribue au réchauffement de la planète. Parmi tous les polluants, les particules fines et ultrafines, émises par les véhicules mais également formées dans l'atmosphère sont considérées toxiques. De nombreuses études montrent que l’exposition chronique aux particules fines favorise le développement de pathologies respiratoires et cardiovasculaires. Les précurseurs gazeux, les principaux mécanismes réactionnels ainsi que les transformations physiques que les Aérosol Organiques Secondaires (AOS) subit dans l'atmosphère restent encore incertains. La présente étude porte principalement sur la caractérisation des polluants primaires émis par les échappements automobiles et les transformations photochimiques des COV / COVI. Les émissions des voitures ont été évaluées à l’aide d’un banc à rouleau au laboratoire de l’IFSTTAR. Les mesures du nombre de particules ont été effectuées directement au niveau de l’échappement. Pour les véhicules GDI, PN0.23 (<23 nm) représentait en moyenne 20- 30% du nombre total de particules émises, alors que pour les voitures diesel, cette fraction était bien inférieure (≈10-15%). Lors des régimes à grande vitesse (autoroutier Artemis) des véhicules diesel, une régénération passive de Filtre à Particules (FAP) a été observée. Les particules émises étaient principalement constituées de suie, de bisulfate et de matière organique. Les particules émises par les voitures essence à injection directe étaient principalement composées de Black Carbon (BC) et de gouttelettes organiques contenant des éléments. Pendant le démarrage à froid, les voitures GDI émettent des concentrations importantes de BC et de matière organique. Les émissions d'hydrocarbures ont également été étudiées. Les véhicules GDI ont émis des concentrations importantes de THC lors du démarrage à froid. Parmi les composés aliphatiques, des composés jusqu’à la C15 ont été identifiés, confirmant l’émission d'hydrocarbures plus lourds par les voitures diesel. La deuxième partie de ce travail consistait à étudier la transformation atmosphérique de certains COV (toluène, naphtalène, cyclohexane, nonane) émis par les véhicules Euro 5 et Euro 6 et à déterminer le potentiel de formation d’AOS de ces composés. Les composés choisis ont été photo-oxydés (seuls et en mélange) dans un réacteur à tube à flux d'aérosol afin de simuler leur vieillissement atmosphérique. Les résultats majeurs suggèrent: (1) des composés aromatiques et des HAP représentent les composés avec le plus fort potentiel de formation d'AOS ; (2) la température a un impact important sur la formation et le rendement d'AOS ; (3) la présence de particules préexistantes a un effet positif sur la formation d'AOS; (4) il a été constaté que la présence des NOx affectaient négativement la formation d'AOS ; (5) la formation d'AOS de mélanges de COV est fortement influencée par la fraction de composé aromatique. Certains des produits identifiés dans la phase particulaire n’ont jamais été signalés auparavant. La dégradation des composés aromatiques en régime de NOx moyen a produit des composés nitro-aromatiques identifiés à la fois en phase gazeuse et en phase particulaire. Cette thèse contribue à enrichir la base de données d’émissions des voitures, encore limitée aux véhicules Euro 5 et Euro 6. La spéciation des composés non réglementés aidera à mieux comprendre le budget atmosphérique d’AOS et les impacts des voitures sur la qualité de l’air. Enfin, l’étude de photoxydation de COV primaires (seuls, mélange et émissions complètes) conduira à une meilleure compréhension de la formation d’AOS / The transport sector is fundamental to the economic development of a country and to ensure communication and a good quality of life. However, road transport contributes significantly to global warming and leads to serious degradation of the air quality. Among all pollutants, fine and ultrafine particles, emitted by vehicles but also formed in the atmosphere are considered as potentially toxic. Many studies show that chronic exposure to fine particles promotes the development of respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. The main gaseous precursors, the atmospheric chemical pathways as well as the chemical composition and the physical transformations that secondary organic aerosol (SOA) undergo in the atmosphere, remain poorly understood. The main aim of this work was on one side to improve the knowledge about primary pollutants emitted from Euro 5 and Euro 6 diesel and gasoline passenger cars and on the other side to investigate the photochemical transformations of the VOCs/IVOCs emitted from these cars. Passenger car emissions have been evaluated on a chassis dynamometer test bench at the IFSTTAR laboratory. Particle number measurements were carried out directly at the tailpipe. For GDI vehicles PN0.23 (< 23 nm) represented on average 20 -30 % of total particle number emitted, while for diesel cars, this fraction was considerably lower (≈10-15%). During high speed regimes (Artemis motorway) of diesel passenger cars Diesel Particulate Filter (DPF) passive regeneration was observed. These periods were characterized by a high particle number concentration; their composition was mainly soot, bisulfate and some organic material. PM emitted from gasoline DI passenger cars was mainly composed by BC and some organic droplets containing traces of other elements. During cold start GDI cars do emit important concentrations of BC and organic material. Emission of hydrocarbons has also been investigated. Gasoline DI emitted important concentration of THCs during cold start. Among the aliphatic compounds, families until C15 have been identified, confirming emission of heavier HCs from diesel cars. The second aim of this work was the study of atmospheric degradation of selected VOCs (toluene, naphthalene, cyclohexane, nonane) emitted from Euro 5 and Euro 6 vehicles and to determine the SOA formation potential of these compounds under different environmental conditions. The chosen compounds have been photoxidized (alone and in mixture) in an Aerosol Flow Tube (AFT) reactor in order to simulate VOCs atmospheric aging. The results suggest: (1) aromatic and PAHs compounds, own highest potential to form SOA; (2) the temperature has an important impact on SOA formation and yield; (3) the presence of pre-existing seed particles has, in general, a positive effect on SOA formation and (4) NOx has been found to negatively affect SOA formation; (5) SOA potential formation of VOC mixtures is highly influenced by the fraction of aromatics. Some of the products identified in the particle phase have never been previously reported. Degradation of aromatic compounds under medium NOx regime produced nitro-aromatic compounds identified both in the gas and particle phase. This PhD contributes to enrich vehicle emissions database, still limited for Euro 5 and Euro 6 cars. Speciation of non-regulated compound will help to better understand atmospheric SOA budget and car emissions air quality impacts. By last, the photoxidation study of primary VOCs (alone, mixture and full emissions) will lead to a better comprehension of SOA formation from vehicles

Thesis advisor: Matteo Iacoviello / Since its launch, the euro has successfully achieved the status of an international currency, and the prospect of its ability to challenge the dollar is increasingly credible. This paper supplements the ongoing academic discussion by reevaluating the characteristics necessary for such a position in light of the most recent information available on the euro area, and then providing econometric evidence as support. I regress the lags of shares of dollar and euro reserves on the current shares and predict steady state values for each currency. I then regress the same lags, as well as the exchange rate lag, on the change in the euro/dollar exchange rate. I find, first, that the share of euro reserves, while still not as high as the share of dollars, is nonetheless significant: about 26%. Second, the euro/dollar exchange rate is only slightly affected by changes in the share of either currency's reserves. I conclude that confidence in the euro as an alternative international currency is growing, and that the euro has become a real challenge to the dollar. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2007. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics. / Discipline: College Honors Program.