Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

This study examines the economic effects of capital account liberalization on economic growth. The format of this study is in three essays. The first essay examines the macroeconomic effects of liberalization on economic growth, using cross-country growth regressions and developing a new measure for capital account openness. We find no evidence that capital account liberalization encourages long-term growth in cross-country regressions, even under typically prescribed preconditions. Capital controls, however, do have a positive effect on growth in countries with more institutional development, more ethnic homogeneity and a higher corporate debt ratio. Panel data estimations report ambiguous results, except in fixed effects models, in which the short-term benefits of liberalization are clearer. The second essay studies whether financial opening and foreign capital inflows ease financing constraints and make investment more responsive to ‘fundamentals’. There is no strong evidence of such microeconomic benefits from capital account liberalization in Korea for the decade of the 1990s. Non-chaebol firms are more financially constrained compared to chaebol firms and this disparity became more pronounced following the crisis. Higher foreign ownership made investment more responsive to profitability for chaebol firms, but at the same time, has a negative impact on the level of investment. Industry-level regressions show the same results. In the last essay, the political economy of capital controls, liberalization and crisis in Korea is examined from institutional and historical perspectives. The experience with capital controls in Korea points to the importance of the developmental state for success. The myriad changes in the institutional framework and following liberalization led to the serious economic vulnerability faced by Korea and to the financial crisis. Following the crisis, the government further opened the financial market, which has led to concerns of foreign dominance, lower investment and higher instability. This study critically evaluates the mainstream support for capital account liberalization and emphasizes the possibility of an alternative development framework.

With growing liberalization of economies across the globe over the past few decades, there has been an increased sense among financial market participants that international financial markets have become more integrated. Yet there is very little consensus among the existing studies on the presence and level of integration. Most of the existing studies on integration have come under criticism due to the models employed to measure integration. In this dissertation, we extend the works of Chen and Knez (1995, 1996) and Farnsworth, Ferson, Todd and Yomotov (2002) to measure international financial integration through stochastic discount factors (SDF). SDF based methodology does not suffer from the model assumptions made in most of the earlier studies. In the first part of the dissertation, we study the properties of the SDF based integration measure through simulated markets. The aim of the simulation analysis is study how this measure behaves under different market returns' structures and to establish benchmarks for estimates obtained from the actual market data. Our analysis shows that the SDF based integration measure has the desired characteristics implied by the theory of integration and is non-zero even for perfectly integrated markets. In the second part of this dissertation, we apply this measure to study equity market integration among ten developed countries from January 1990 to December 2002. The analysis shows that the equity markets of these countries are highly integrated. The level of integration changes over time but the markets appear to be converging to a higher level of integration starting from the later half of the sample period. In the last part of this dissertation, we use an SDF based measure to study international integration through international mutual funds' performance. Our analysis shows that the international mutual funds do not make any abnormal returns when measured against a naïve buy and hold strategy of an investor invested primarily in either the US equity market or the local equity markets of the respective region.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Economics, 2009. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Feb. 8, 2010). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-05, Section: A, page: 1743. Adviser: Eric M. Leeper.

<p> This dissertation introduces a panel data method to estimate country-specific steady state levels of output in an augmented Solow growth model. The use of panel data permits the estimation of a country-specific effect which can explain the surprising result that many developing economies are above their steady states. These empirical results also confirm that the augmented Solow model can explain the present cross-country income <i> divergence</i> of developed and developing economies. Another application finds evidence that the post-Soviet economies began their transition toward markets with initial conditions of overcapitalization. Finally, when the results are sufficient, there is also the possibility of describing an entire period of growth and gaining insights into future periods. This is shown with the OECD economies. </p><p> In Islam (1995), panel data is first used to estimate the parameters of the Solow growth model. The following year, Cho and Graham (1996) published a small paper which illustrates a simple way to compute steady state levels of per capita income by using the results of cross-sectional convergence tests. This dissertation simply combines these two methods with the result that the interpretations are more satisfying. In sum, we find that countries can begin a period of development above or below their steady states and that countries converging from above should be considered to be overcapitalized. This implies that development through investment can only succeed when there is convergence from below the steady state. Above the steady state, total factor productivity is too low to sustain the relatively high levels of capital. </p><p> The organization of the dissertation is linear with an introduction preceding the second chapter's literature review and the development of a theoretical and empirical model in the third chapter. The applications of the method then follow. Chapter 4 uses a worldwide sample to compare the result to other work and to show that this fundamental model of growth theory can explain the observed increasing levels of international inequality. Chapter 5 takes a look at the transition economies. In addition to finding evidence of overcapitalization, this dissertation finds a positive correlation between growth and the privatization of small business under transition. Additionally, there is a negative impact of price liberalization under the conditions of repressed inflation experienced by many Soviet-era planned economies. Chapter 6 uses a sample of OECD economies to obtain a significant deterministic, technological growth rate. This is possible because the countries are similar enough to make the assumption that they have the same growth rate more realistic. This enables an understanding of steady states after the initial period and leading into the most contemporaneous period of the sample.</p><p> <b>Keywords:</b> macroeconomic analyses of economic development; institutions and growth; measurement of economic growth; cross-country output convergence; models with panel data; government policy; socialist systems and transitional economies: political economy, property rights; socialist institutions and their transitions</p>

<p> <b>Employee Ownership and Corporate Governance:</b> I find that firms that actively promote employee ownership through profit sharing and equity ownership plans pay their executives less and adopt more provisions favorable to shareholders. Furthermore, my empirical evidence shows that the shareholders in firms with higher employee ownership tend to be more active in corporate governance through the execution of proxy voting. The corporate boards in firms with higher employee ownership are younger, more diverse, and more representative of employees. My findings suggest that in the shareholder-manager conflict, employee ownership tends to shift power in the direction of shareholders and could significantly mitigate existing agency problems in the firm. </p><p> <b>Leadership and Corporate Culture:</b> Evidence from Executive Migrations across Firms This paper examines the importance of leadership for corporate culture by studying changes in firm environmental policy around executive successions. I find that firms improve significantly their environmental performance following the arrival of executives from firms with strong pro-environmental culture and firms tend to decrease their environmental standards following the arrival of executives with poor environmental record. However, the economic impact is much weaker for an executive with poor environmental record. The findings provide insight into the formation of organizational culture and the diffusion of cultural norms in the economy.</p>

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Thesis (Ph.D.)--New York University, Graduate School of Business Administration, 2006. / (UMI)AAI3248822. Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-01, Section: A, page: 0291. Advisers: Stephen J. Brown; Edwin J. Elton.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Economics, 2008. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on May 11, 2009). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-08, Section: A, page: 3258. Advisers: Craig Holden; Konstantin Tyurin.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2007. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-11, Section: A, page: 4809. Adviser: Michael S. Weisbach. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 154-159) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.