Voting in an election is the most basic and fundamental form of political participation in a democracy. Citizens are given the opportunity to elect legislators that take political decisions on their behalf. As immigration is increasing globally, many immigrants find themselves with this opportunity for the very first time immigrating from authoritarian regimes. Are immigrants from authoritarian regime able to adapt to their new political setting, or is there an observable difference in voter turnout based on the regime-type of the immigrant’s native country? There exist three branches of theories within the theoretical framework of political resocializa-tion: the theory of exposure, the theory of transferability and the theory of resistance. Previous research on the adaptability of immigrants from authoritarian regimes is often single case stud-ies that only analyse one of the three branches or analyse different forms of political participa-tion and have produced somewhat contradicting results. With empirical evidence remaining the relationship between voter turnout and regime-type is yet to be fully comprehended. By using data from the European Value Survey, this study tests all three theories of political resocializa-tion in 34 countries, to further generate insight into this matter. The results show that immigrants from authoritarian regimes are not less likely to vote in the national election of their new host country. The amount of exposure to the new host country, or whether the immigrant spent his “formative years” in the authoritarian regime are not statisti-cally significant to voting. Age, marital status, education and income are shown to be more statistically significant predictors to voter turnout, compared to regime-type.

This paper examines the relationship between financial development and poverty fora sample of SSA countries while taking into account an interaction effect between thefinancial sector and the institutional framework, which is thought to be causing someomitted variable bias in previous studies. The study covers the period 2000–2019.These relationships are investigated using fixed effects. The results show thatfinancial development had a statistically significant and positive impact on povertyreduction. Also, the estimates reveal that institutional quality has a significant andpositive impact on poverty reduction. However, it was discovered that whereinstitutions perform better, the pro-poor impact of financial development is alsobetter. These findings support the theory that finance, and institutions have acomplementary effect. The study recommends, amongst others, that a judiciousallocation of resources between financial development and strengthening the qualityof institutions will be critical to reducing poverty and boosting economic growth inthe region.

Fifteen or so years into what is said to be the game changer of our time there are many fields of science  focusing  their  attention  towards  the  online  market  in  attempts  to  describe  its implications for the traditional, offline markets. Where most of the literature on economics of ecommerce focus on pricing mechanisms and growth little attention has been directed towards more general market structure effects. This thesis adopts techniques, empirical and theoretical models  from  the  search  cost  and  market  structure  literature  in  order  to  examine  the relationships between ecommerce and offline market structures in the retail industry through regional employment and establishment data. The literature reviewed and used focus only on the US market whereas this thesis shifts the attention to the European regions. The results are convincing and in general corresponding to previous research results. As ecommerce usage increase and the consumer search costs thereby gets lower inefficient firms drop out of the market resulting in a decline in local establishment counts. The opposite effect is seen for pure online retailing establishments that thrive in the presence of local ecommerce usage. The effect of   ecommerce  on  traditional  offline  establishments  seems  to  be  aggregated  phenomena whereas  the  effect  on  pure  online  firms  seems  to  be  of  a  more  local  nature.  Focus  of policymakers and company management therefore might consider looking at the two effects in their respective aggregation level to best sort out how to react in the presence of increased competition from ecommerce usage.

During the last 20 years there has been a rapid increase of Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) in Africa. Through examination of published research, we discover that Chinese FDI does not appear to clearly follow traditional assumptions of FDI. Especially in relation to economic freedom. This uncertainty, combined with lacking empirical research and limited available data in the region, led us to the aim of this work. We have set out to examine whether economic freedom is a determinant of Chinese FDI in Africa. For this purpose, a biennial panel data study for the years 2009 to 2019 was constructed. Fixed effects models using indices for economic freedom and relevant control variables are employed. The results show that economic freedom as defined by the Fraser Institute has a negative effect on Chinese FDI. Further, high levels of regulation reduces Chinese FDI. These findings stand in contrast to traditional theory on FDI determinants.

Deteriorating air quality has attracted the interest of policymakers in most parts of the world. Poor air quality is behind many severe health problems on both a global and a local scale. While decarbonization is the primary driver behind the push for broader adoption of electric cars, we hypothesize the presence of significant co-benefits from adopting electric cars, such that electrifying the mode of transportation might reduce air pollution. To test this hypothesis, we evaluated panel data for the stock of electric cars and emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOX) from Swedish municipalities between 2010-2019 using OLS models with fixed effects. The analysis suggests a significant negative correlation between the stock of electric cars and emissions of NOX. The presence of co-benefits suggests a stronger case for subsidizing the adoption of electric cars, beyond the level climate considerations warrant.

Odds ratios and risk ratios are useful measures of effect size in 2-group studies in which the response variable is dichotomous. Confidence interval methods are proposed for combining and comparing odds ratios and risk ratios in multistudy designs. Unlike the traditional fixed-effect meta-analysis methods, the proposed varying coefficient methods do not require effect-size homogeneity, and unlike the randomeffects meta-analysis methods, the proposed varying coefficient methods do not assume that the effect sizes from the selected studies represent a random sample from a normally distributed superpopulation of effect sizes. The results of extensive simulation studies suggest that the proposed varying coefficient methods have excellent performance characteristics under realistic conditions and should provide useful alternatives to the currently used meta-analysis methods.

Denna studie har syftat till att undersöka om ekonomisk tillväxt kan sägas leda till minskade koldioxidutsläpp och därmed vara en lösning på miljöproblematiken. Genom att jämföra produktionsbaserade och konsumtionsbaserade koldioxidutsläpp ger studien en uppfattning om ekonomisk tillväxt leder till minskade utsläpp eller endast en omställning i ekonomin. Studiens resultat har estimerats med en fixed effects-modell och baserats på utsläpps-och inkomstdata för 105 länder under åren 1990 till 2016. Undersökningen har visat att ekonomisk tillväxt kan leda till minskade produktionsbaserade koldioxidutsläpp men att ett liknande samband för konsumtionsbaserade utsläpp inte kan konstateras. Resultaten implicerar att minskade produktionsbaserade utsläpp reflekterar en omställning i ekonomin, snarare än minskade totala utsläpp. Utifrån resultaten dras slutsatsen att ekonomisk tillväxt inte kan sägas leda till minskade totala koldioxidutsläpp.

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(経済学) / 甲第18037号 / 経博第490号 / 新制||経||268(附属図書館) / 30895 / 京都大学大学院経済学研究科経済学専攻 / (主査)教授 西山 慶彦, 准教授 奥井 亮, 講師 末石 直也 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Economics / Kyoto University / DGAM

This paper addresses the pressing problem of the surge in crime in Sweden, which has led to substantial uncertainty about its underlying causes. By investigating the correlation between socio-economic factors and crime on a municipality level from 2015 to 2020, we aim to provide valuable insights into understanding and effectively tackling this issue. Specifically, we examine the role of male immigrants, income, education level, and population density, contributing to the field of economics by shedding light on potential economic policies that can effectively reduce overall crime rates. Additionally, we focus on gun violence, considering Sweden's notorious reputation in recent years, to comprehensively analyze the relationship between these factors and crime. Our empirical analysis, employing the Fixed Effects Model and Pearson Correlation Matrix, explores these connections, revealing both inconclusive evidence regarding the link between immigration and crime and ambiguous conclusions for the remaining independent variables. These findings have important implications for policymakers striving to address the urgent problem of rising crime in Sweden.

In the relatively sparse field of economics of prostitution, studies have in recent years investigated the relationship between prostitution legislation and the presence of sex trafficking. This study investigates the issue further by using both a cross country model with time fixed effects and a country fixed effect model to estimate the effect on the amount of sex trafficking of changing legislation to the so-called Nordic Model, something no other known study has managed to do. In contrast to what previous research has estimated, this thesis finds no significant effect on sex trafficking from changing legislation to the Nordic Model. The obvious difficulties of presenting reliable data on an illegal activity such as sex trafficking and the fact that few countries have changed their legislation to the Nordic Model are likely reasons to the insignificant results and cautions against a causal interpretation.