Thesis advisor: Philip E. Strahan / In the first essay of this dissertation, I study the information synergies between deposit-taking and lending activities of large banks. I use the influx of Chinese international students into US universities to identify a local deposit shock. I find that banks that are more exposed to this shock increase their local credit supply in small business loans, but not mortgages. The results support the notion that deposit can be informative: it conveys signals about local economic activities. Such information affects banks expectation about future local demand and thus banks’ lending decisions. The second essay investigates the relationship between banks geographic concentration and liquidity risk management. I find that geographic concentrations measured on different sides of banks’ balance sheet have opposite effects on banks’ liquidity risk management behaviors during the 2007-2009 liquidity crisis. The overall results are consistent with the view in the literature that geographic concentrated banks invest more in soft information production. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2018. / Submitted to: Boston College. Carroll School of Management. / Discipline: Finance.

No description available.

As a post-Soviet economy, Ukraine has inherited substantial production assets and qualified personnel. However, the economy was dominated by large-scale enterprises designed for much bigger markets. After the collapse of the Soviet Union Ukrainian firms faced lack of planning, breaks in contacts with their former suppliers and customers, and distortion of prices. There was a clear need in restructuring of the entire economy. Restructuring included splitting firms into smaller parts and privatization. The first phase of transition was completed by 2000 when the output grew for the first time after a long recession in nineties, and most firms became private property. In this work I explore trends in geographic and industrial concentration of Ukrainian manufacturing firms over the period of 2001 to 2005. I found that this period was characterized by relocation of firms between sectors and between regions, as well as by an increase in economic concentration of industries. The speed of adjustment was different for various sectors and even for different industries within manufacturing. Even though the economy is still dominated by large firms, the average firm size decreases due to a rapid growth in the number of new firms. Geographically, manufacturing tends to increasingly concentrate mostly around a few big cities, apparently at the expense of other regions. I also estimate the external scale effects and compare them with Western studies. In particular I focus on machinery and high tech. I found strong localization and urbanization effects in both industry groups. An important contribution of this work is the analysis of the effect of ownership structure on agglomeration economies. I found that private firms tend to enjoy external scale effects to a greater extent than state owned, and foreign owned firms appear to be the most efficient in extracting benefits form agglomeration. Aggregation of the data may distort the estimates of agglomeration effects. I show that most effects take place at the nearest neighborhoods. When the physical distance between firms increases agglomeration effects attenuate quickly. However, localization effects reveal themselves at different level of industrial aggregation for various industries. This may reflect more complicated relationships within sectors and requires further analysis.

Studies from developing countries disagree on whether mobility is a risk factor or a protective factor for HIV risk. The difference is often determined by gender. Few studies exist, however, examining the relationship among high risk populations in developed nations. This study seeks to examine that relationship in 10 high risk ZIP codes of Atlanta, Georgia using data gathered from the Geography Project by Rothenberg and colleagues. Logistic regression was used to examine the relationship between HIV risk and five independent variables of mobility. Results were stratified by gender. After controlling for demographic and behavioral variables, use of public transportation by men was significantly protective of HIV risk. Significant associations were also observed with ever injection drug use and recent condom use, indicating that high risk behaviors may be the real driver of the epidemic in these neighborhoods.

This study focuses on the determinants of agglomerations, natural advantages, spillovers, and transaction costs respectively, and intends to form a location choice model with those agglomerative factors. Besides, we examine the geographic concentration scope overall and by region with the data set of manufacturing industries in Taiwan in 2003. We also explore some interesting empirical results. First, the overall geographic concentration level is slightly decreasing through 1996 to 2003. Second, the plants in the South and Middle regions of Taiwan are more concentrated than those in the North region. And each region has its own specific characteristic that draws different types of industries to locate. Third, with OLS regression we find that outsourcing dependence variable applied to proximate transaction costs effect is the most significant of all and represents that transaction costs have large influence to agglomeration scope. Finally this model can be improved from some aspects of involving distance into consideration and extending to entrepreneur across countries.

This study examines the determinants of economic growth at sub-national level in South Africa, and investigates cross-locality medium-term (five-year) growth rate differentials between 354 magisterial districts. The period in question is 1998 to 2002. A dynamic panel data regression model is used that includes measures of geography (distance and natural resources) as well as recent estimates of physical and human capital. It is found that the significant determinants of local economic growth are distance from internal markets, human capital, export propensity, and the capital stock of municipalities (reflecting institutional quality and governance on local government level). Distance from international harbours, as a measure of transport costs, and urban agglomeration (or density) affects growth indirectly through its significant effect on the ability of a region to export. Overall, these results indicate that geography is important for economic growth, independent of its effects in institutions. Bearing in mind the medium-term focus of the work, no evidence of absolute convergence could be found over a five-year period, rather the tentative evidence suggests slow beta convergence. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Economics))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2005.

This study examines the determinants of economic growth at sub-national level in South Africa, and investigates cross-locality medium-term (five-year) growth rate differentials between 354 magisterial districts. The period in question is 1998 to 2002. A dynamic panel data regression model is used that includes measures of geography (distance and natural resources) as well as recent estimates of physical and human capital. It is found that the significant determinants of local economic growth are distance from internal markets, human capital, export propensity, and the capital stock of municipalities (reflecting institutional quality and governance on local government level). Distance from international harbours, as a measure of transport costs, and urban agglomeration (or density) affects growth indirectly through its significant effect on the ability of a region to export. Overall, these results indicate that geography is important for economic growth, independent of its effects in institutions. Bearing in mind the medium-term focus of the work, no evidence of absolute convergence could be found over a five-year period, rather the tentative evidence suggests slow beta convergence. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Economics))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2005.

Submitted by Renata Lopes (renatasil82@gmail.com) on 2016-05-16T11:46:18Z No. of bitstreams: 1 pedrohenriqueporteladeandrade.pdf: 2209093 bytes, checksum: 7cd7cd139ee9a2c165241e3f9c1a5e84 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Oliveira (adriana.oliveira@ufjf.edu.br) on 2016-06-27T21:27:06Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 pedrohenriqueporteladeandrade.pdf: 2209093 bytes, checksum: 7cd7cd139ee9a2c165241e3f9c1a5e84 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-27T21:27:07Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 pedrohenriqueporteladeandrade.pdf: 2209093 bytes, checksum: 7cd7cd139ee9a2c165241e3f9c1a5e84 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-03-27 / CAPES - Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / O objetivo da dissertação é analisar os determinantes da concentração geográfica ocupacional no Brasil, com destaque para o papel do conteúdo tecnológico neste contexto. A característica marcante da geografia econômica atual é a concentração dos agentes econômicos em regiões específicas dentro dos espaços nacionais. Desta forma, tendo em vista a disparidade na concentração dos agentes econômicos, o avanço das mudanças territoriais, a complexidade de novos processos de produção e reestruturação do espaço econômico-geográfico, estudar estes padrões de concentração ocupacional torna-se relevante do ponto de vista do crescimento, planejamento, gestão pública e desenvolvimento das regiões. A concentração geográfica das atividades econômicas pela ótica das ocupações fornece uma maneira diferente dentro da literatura de se olhar para o fenômeno. Sendo assim, a identificação e análise dos determinantes da concentração geográfica das ocupações em regiões metropolitanas são feitas tendo como base o amplo painel de dados provenientes da Relatório Anual de Informações Sociais (RAIS). Estes dados são disponibilizados pelo Ministério do Trabalho e Emprego (MTE) e permitem identificar entre os indivíduos, sua ocupação, sua região metropolitana, o setor industrial em que está empregado e tamanho da empresa que o emprega. Adicionalmente, incorpora-se ao painel os dados relativos à intensidade de conhecimento tecnológico de cada ocupação, oriundos do trabalho de Rodrigues (2006). A metodologia envolve estimações considerando efeitos não observados para o painel de 2003 a 2008. Os resultados das estimações confirmaram a importância da distribuição das indústrias nas regiões metropolitanas assim como do nível tecnológico ocupacional para a concentração geográfica das ocupações. / The goal of this dissertation is to analyze the determinants of Brazil's geographic occupational concentration, with emphasis on the role of technological content in this context. The most remarkable characteristic in the current economic geography is the concentration of economic agents in specific regions within national spaces. In view of the disparity in terms of concentration between economic agents, advance of territorial changes, complexity of new processes of production and restructuration of geographic-economic space, studying these patterns of occupational concentration becomes relevant from the point of view of these regions’ growth, planning, public management and development. The geographic concentration of economic activities from an occupational perspective gives us a different way inside the literature to understand this phenomenon. Thus, the identification and analysis of the determinants of geographic concentration in metropolitan regions’ occupations are made while taking a large panel data from the Annual Social Information’s Report (RAIS) as basis. This data is made available by the Ministry of Labor and Employment (MTE) and allows the identification between individuals, their occupations, metropolitan region, industrial sector in which they’re employed and the size of firms which hired them. Furthermore, it embodies in the panel the data relative to the intensity of technological knowledge of each occupation using data from Rodrigues (2006). The methodology employed considers in its estimations the presence of non-observable effects for a panel from 2003 to 2008. The results of these estimations confirm the importance of indust ries’ distribution in metropolitan regions as well as the technological occupational level for the occupation’s geographic concentration.

This dissertation focuses on the sub-national impact of foreign aid on civil conflicts by asking the question: How does foreign aid committed to contested areas affect the intensity of violence in those areas? The main theoretical contribution is to focus on how aid influences warring parties’ decisions to engage in contests over territorial control and how that in turn influences violence intensity. The study introduces two concepts: funding concentration and barriers to exploiting aid. A contested area has greater concentration of funding if warring parties expect a high value of aid to be distributed to only a few locations. Funding is instead diffused if the parties expect aid to be spread over many locations. A low barrier to exploiting aid is present if it is of a type that both state and non-state actors could potentially misuse. There is a high barrier if territorial control is required in order to exploit funding channels. The theory introduces three testable implications: First, greater funding concentration encourages conventional contests over territorial control, which increases military fatalities. The second proposal is that if there is a low barrier to exploiting aid (e.g. humanitarian and food aid) then there will be increased competition between warring parties and civilians, and hence more civilian fatalities. Third, high barrier funding (e.g. education aid) will motivate contests over territorial control and increase military fatalities. This dissertation uses geo-coded aid commitments data and introduces data of warring parties’ battleground control in sub-Saharan Africa, 1989–2008. The research design relies on propensity score matching where pairs of observations are matched based on a range of covariates. The results concerning barriers to exploitation are partially supported. High barrier aid increases military fatalities whereas low barrier aid has little impact on violence. Greater funding concentration increases military fatalities substantially compared to if there is low or no funding concentration. In line with theory, greater funding concentration does not increase civilian fatalities.