Innovation and technological improvements are essential components in generating growth. While this topic is well studied, limited research exists on the effectiveness of innovation and how it drives firm value. The 2008 Financial Crisis serves as a major historical event that significantly changed the economic environment in the US. Centering my analysis around this event, my study empirically examines the efficiency of innovation investments and industry-level stock returns. By taking patents issued as a percentage of R&D outlays, I measure Efficient Innovation—how effective a firm’s R&D is in generating significant innovative change.

This study investigates whether different acquisition strategies provide dissimilar abnormal returns forthe bidders’ investors before, during and after the financial crisis. The study focuses on acquisitionsconducted by banks between 2004 and 2012. The data is split in a pre-, mid-, and post-crisis sample.The dataset consists out of 950 completed acquisitions conducted by 378 unique banks. Crosssectionalresults point out that investors are generally indifferent to which acquisition strategy is usedby banks, both at announcement and at completion. Moreover, it seems that investors do not reactfiercer to the announcement compared to the completion of a deal. The results are robust whensplitting the sample in acquirers originating from common- and code law countries. However, the studyfinds that opposed to what is suggested by prior research, shareholders from code law countries earnhigher returns than shareholders from common law countries.

The thesis elaborates on the potential impact of the financial crisis on the European value system. At root of this work lies the debate on the prospectively changed perception of human nature, freedom and economic progress, taking into consideration European humanist inheritance and contribution of contemporary economic and political thinkers.

This study performs a stress testing exercise on the Italian banking system in view of the 2007 financial crisis which was triggered by the crash of subprime mortgages. At the base of the global financial crisis was a failure of finan- cial regulators to quantify the accumulation of endogenous risks. Following the crisis, stress testing has acquired particular emphasis in the field of risk measurement under the Basel II supervisory framework. An econometric rela- tionship between the probability of default and the macroeconomic indicators is modeled according to the Merton approach for structural analysis using data on the Italian banking system. A latent factor model is employed to under- stand the dependence of the credit risk on the changes in the macroeconomic environment. The resulting relationship is exploited to compute the capital requirement under stressed conditions in order to draw inference about the resilience of the Italian banking system. JEL Classification G0, G01, G17, G10, C50, C22 Keywords Financial crisis, macroeconomic stress testing, credit risk, latent-factor model Author's e-mail jacomessi@yahoo.it Supervisor's e-mail petr.gapko@seznam.cz Abstrakt Klasifikace JEL G0, G01, G17, G10, C50, C22 Klíčová slova Financial crisis, macroeconomic stress test- ing, credit risk,...

M.Comm. (Economics) / The recent global financial and economic crisis has brought about renewed interest in the nexus between credit markets and monetary policy. This research aims to contribute to the understanding of the factors that drive the demand for credit on an aggregate level, and the household and corporate sectors for the South African economy. The study assessed the equilibrium determinants of the aggregate and sectoral demand for credit in South Africa by making use of a cointegrated vector autoregression (CVAR) methodology. In addition, the periods of debt overhang and short-falls, at aggregate and sectoral levels in the credit market, are derived from these equilibrium levels. The estimated models indicate the existence of long-run relationships for the aggregate credit demand equation, a classic demand-type relationship linking aggregate credit with gross domestic product (GDP) and the lending rate is established. For credit extended to the corporate sector, the results indicate that in the long-run it is determined by investment expenditure, operating surpluses and the lending rate. Whereas for credit extension to the household sector, it was found that the lending rate, disposable income and household debt were its important long-run determinants. All the results of the estimated equations are in line with a demand-type relationship and the traditional hypothesis that credit is demanded to finance real economic transactions, namely for liquidity purposes and to finance working capital. The results of the short-term dynamics indicate that credit extension variables are the equilibrium variables, although the speed of adjustment parameter is found to be sluggish, which shows that the slow adjustment to equilibrium from shocks to the credit markets is attributable to the existence of stronger frictions and transaction costs in credit markets. These findings justify the persistent periods of credit overhang and short-falls in South Africa that this study derives from the equilibrium coefficient terms. The study shows that periods of credit overhang and short-falls are linked to the business cycle phases in South Africa.

The subject of this thesis is to provide theoretical and knowledge basis needed for creation of communication campaign and to analyze preparation of specific communication campaign created by Vodafone Czech Republic a.s. in a time of financial crisis together with analysis of market environment and company's position at that time. The thesis depicts in detail subsequent steps of campaign preparation, from goals definition, choice of right benefits to execution of the campaign. It also evaluates the impacts of the campaign on the position of the company from the market and customer perspective.

The diploma thesis concentrates on the financial and economic crisis on Iceland, analyses its triggers, describes its consequences and assumes possible future development of the country. The crisis on Iceland was caused by some imperfections of the economy and too big expansion of the bank activities abroad. Global recession sharpened the situation so much that the former successful economy was not able to fulfil its financial obligations. Economic growth fell and debts grew. This work shows the situation, where even the economically developed country can due to wrongly set economic parameters occur near to its bankruptcy. As a conclusion, there is shown the way out of crisis, which Iceland chose and began with the help of international organisations and also other countries. The thesis also analyses positive development of the situation due to the implemented regulations and restrictions and describes its future perspectives.

The dissertation considers the situation of Iceland in the global economic system in context of worldwide financial crisis that affected their economy in 2008. The beginning of the thesis describes the theory of financial crises "by emphasis on the systemic model". The second part of the diploma concerns the Icelandic financial crisis and its cause and behaviour. The third section is about the effect and impact to Icelandic economy and describes stabilization measures of the government, financial help from International Monetary Fund, potential entry into the European Union and Icesave affair between Iceland, Great Britain and the Netherlands. In conclusion the Icelandic economy is compared with Irish economy during financial crisis.

77 Abstract Economic and Legal Aspects of Corporate Governance with regard to the Impacts of the Financial Crisis in 2007 - 2009 This thesis deals with the impact of the financial crisis that occured from 2007 to 2009 on corporate governance of the United States, the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, the OECD and the European Union. Even before the financial crisis, companies like Enron or WorldCom has already shown the need to regulate corporate governance but the responses to those bancrupts have not been sufficient because they could not prevent the financial crisis a few years later. The financial crisis is regarded as well as a crisis of corporate governance and the aim of this work is to analyze this crisis and its solution. The thesis is divided into 8 chapters, where the first chapter briefly gives definitions introduces the issues of corporate governance and the second chapter briefly describes the causes and course of the financial crisis. The next chapters deal with the impact of the crisis on corporate governance where the main topics addressed are compensation, risk management, practices and responsibilities of the board and the role of shareholders. The last chapter is devoted to description of corporate governance and its shift since the financial crisis. Finally, the conclusion summarizes...

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Humanities at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg in fulfilment of the conditions for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. April 2016. / The global financial crisis of 2007–2008 changed the way the world thinks about economics as a discipline and brought about awareness of how economics is taught at universities. In view of an on-going global debate about the economics curriculum and its teaching, this doctoral study places the South African context within the global higher education sphere and explores how introductory economics is taught in first-year at a South African university. This study explored the teaching of Economics 1 at a mainstream, globally-ranked public university in South Africa with very similar content and structure to the Economics 1 curriculum in the West. The main aim of the doctoral study was to investigate the qualitatively different ways in which university teachers (lecturers and tutors) teaching Economics 1 at a South African university conceive of, experience and understand their teaching and tutoring roles. On the basis of this, three research questions were asked: (I) What are the qualitatively different ways in which lecturers at ‘the University’ understand teaching Economics 1?; (II) What are the qualitatively different ways tutors at ‘the University’ understand teaching Economics 1?; and (III) What is/are the implication(s) for students’ learning of teaching Economics 1 within the current setting at ‘the University’ through the lenses of relevant conceptual frameworks and the outcome of the empirical study? Teaching in higher education, the disciplinary context of economics’ undergraduate teaching and its implications for students’ learning underpinned the choice of the literature, the three conceptual frameworks and the research methodology. By asking the three research questions above to guide the research process, the empirical study used a qualitative methodology – phenomenography – that aims to explore the qualitatively different ways in which a group of people experience a specific phenomenon, in this case teaching Economics 1 in higher education. On the basis of phenomenography as a conceptual framework in itself, this doctoral study further analysed the empirical data using two conceptual frameworks - a four-context framework for teaching in higher education and the concept of semantic gravity, relating to segmented and cumulative learning, as conceptual lenses. Two sets of conceptions of teaching emerged on the basis of answering the first two research questions. A careful, comparative analysis of these two sets (lecturers’ and tutors’ sets of conceptions of teaching) led to six conceptions of teaching Economics 1 in higher education as follows: (I) team collaboration to implement the economics curriculum; (II) having a thorough knowledge of the content; (III) implementing the curriculum in order for students to pass assessment; (IV) helping students learn key economics concepts and representations to facilitate learning; (V) engaging students through their real-life economics context to acquire economic knowledge; and (VI) helping students think like economists. The first three are characterised as being teacher-centred and the later three as student-centred. Applying the concept of semantic gravity (Maton, 2009), I argue that the latter two more complete conceptions of teaching imply cumulative learning in which students are able to acquire higher-order principles whereby they are able to apply the knowledge acquired through the teaching of Economics 1 in new contexts. The first four conceptions are seen as favouring segmented learning. According to this analysis, the fourth conception, although characterized as student oriented, should be regarded as favouring segmented learning which is not in line with the aims of higher education. As for the four-context model of teaching in higher education, the analysis from the empirical data showed that there is a very strong connection between the pedagogical and disciplinary contexts in relation to the six conceptions of teaching emerging from the analysis, though the disciplinary context is stronger than the pedagogical context. In summary, three implications can be drawn from this doctoral study on the basis of the empirical data, literature and conceptual frameworks as the basis for improving undergraduate economics education. These are as follows: (1) the need to make the economics curriculum aligned with real-life contexts of undergraduate students; (2) the need to rethink the economics curriculum in light of the current global debates within the discipline of economics; and (3) the need to bring pedagogical development into the team. Key words/phrases: Conceptions of Teaching; Teaching in Higher Education; Higher Education Research; Undergraduate Economics Education; and Phenomenography