The study describes and assesses the mathematical-statistical methodology of the contemporary Soviet Family Budget Survey, both in regard to the sample design and in regard to the processing and analysis of the survey data. A wide range of methodological deficiencies are identified, accounting for the widely recognised unreliability of the data produced. The problems of using the survey data in various fields of policy-making, planning and research are explored. It is shown that Soviet data-users where possible avoid relying on data from this survey. The historical and social factors influencing the methodology of the Family Budget Survey are discussed. The most important causes of the deficient methodology are found to be the neglect of mathematical statistics and sampling theory in Soviet socio-economic statistics, originating in the Stalin period, and the bureaucratic inertia of the Central Statistical Administration.

This thesis examines the development and effects of industrialisation on the landscape and people of Oldbury, a nineteenth-century Black Country town. During the Industrial Revolution, the Black Country made a significant contribution to the British economy through its extractive, metal-working and chemical industries. Oldbury has received virtually no attention from historians, yet its experience of industrialisation was distinctive since it industrialised rapidly during a thirty-year period, compared to the much longer time span of the region’s other towns. The thesis provides an in-depth study of the economic and social experiences of a Black Country town before 1900. In particular, it enables investigation of the experience of public health, Nonconformity, local élites and other themes which have received limited attention, such as pollution and occupational illnesses. This micro-history is based on extensive archival research in local and national repositories. It applies various methodologies to examine this information, including the creation of databases, GIS analysis of mapping and demographics, and prosopography. The research draws upon a number of disciplinary approaches for the study of archaeology, geology, geography and environmental studies, public health, religion, sociology and mental health.

This thesis aims to examine the channels of monetary policy transmission relating to the banking sector (mainly the bank lending channel, firm balance sheet channel and the interest rate channel), and also to investigate the effect of financial development on these channels in Thailand. We first examine the bank lending channel by introducing the micro-data based study (bank panel data) and using the panel data estimation (fix effect, 2SLS, and GMM estimation). Our result confirms the theoretical aspect of the bank lending channel and we also found that the higher the banks’ size, liquidity, and capitalization will weaken the bank lending channel. The second study will investigate the firm balance sheet channel by examining the effect of firms’ financial condition on firms’ investment and using the GMM estimation. We also found that the less financial constraint firms will have a weaker effect of monetary policy via the firm balance sheet channel than the more financial constraint ones. The third study will examine the interest rate channel by focusing on the interest rate pass-through and using the VECM cointegration technique. We found the pass-through in both long-run and short-run with a relatively high degree in long-run than short-run. For the effect of financial development, we found that banking sector development, capital market development, financial liberalization, financial innovation, and financial competition will cause a weaker effect of the policy interest rate via the bank lending channel and the firm balance sheet channel. However, all of these different aspects of financial development (except the banking sector development) shown a stronger effect on the interest rate pass-through and hence strengthen the interest channel.

The emergence of FinTech has important implications for regulation and risk management both for FinTech providers and regulators. FinTech denotes the development of innovative financial services or products that are delivered via information communication technologies (ICT) and technological/computerised platforms. In recent years, the emergence of FinTech services and firms have reshaped the financial services and developed new processes and routines in a range of financial services, such as payment, banking, insurance and deposit, by using latest information communication technologies. Particularly in Guangdong province of China, FinTech firms have become an alternative funding source to the mainstream financial service providers. The demand of local SMEs drove the FinTech sector growing, not only nationwide but globally, and overtook developed regions such as the California or London. In order to understand the reason, mechanism, process and evolution of FinTech firms in Guangdong, this thesis was carried out and developed a conceptual framework from analysing 98 grounded interview data. This thesis aims to explore access and use of external sources of loan finance by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with a focus on understanding alternative forms of debt and loan finance provision by FinTech lenders using new business models and related routines. The focus on debt and loan finance is designed to generate understanding of the exclusion of many Chinese SMEs from mainstream finance but inclusion into FinTech platforms. This thesis will identify and analyse the different business routines, processes, products and embeddedness that have been developed by FinTech firms in Guangdong.

This thesis presents three empirical chapters on local labour markets, mineral booms, beliefs, conflict and uncertainty. All the analysis was conducted using Peruvian data and context. The first chapter finds that Peruvian individuals exposed to violent events during their impressionable years trust less government institutions, and feel less identified with their neighbours, while more identified with religious groups. The estimated effect is small and heterogeneous depending on the identity of the perpetrator. The effect on identification with groups of population is also heterogeneous by the indigenous origin of the individuals. Owners of an agricultural plot embedded in a cooperative setting at the local level exhibit even smaller levels of identification with their locals while higher levels of identification with their ethnic group. In line with recent literature, these findings suggest that conflict has a small but persistent effect on the formation of trust and identity, which is a central feature to understand the interaction between culture and institutions, and ultimately to understand the persistent consequences of wars. The second chapter studies the relationship between democratic beliefs and economic uncertainty. I explored whether uncertainty experienced during the impressionable years of the individuals is a key factor behind the formation of the democratic beliefs. Results showed that this type of uncertainty had no effect on the determination of democratic beliefs. Combining uncertainty with the exposure to authoritarian regimes did not change the result. This result is robust to different definition of rural individuals, the interaction of uncertainty and degree of experienced authoritarianism, and different formative periods. Current uncertainty, on the other hand, was unable to fully explain the formation of democratic beliefs. The final chapter investigated the local labour effects of mining booms. Using two rounds of population census for 1043 districts in Peru I documented that large-scale mining activity had a positive effect on local employment over 14 years. The effect was differentiated by industry, skill and migration status. Employment grew by 4% faster by one standard deviation increase in the mineral prices. Both high and low skilled workers enjoyed similar employment increase, however only low skilled workers experienced a decline in unemployment. Using data from 10 annual household surveys I found that, consistent with a model of heterogeneous firms and labour, wages for low skilled workers in districts close to the mining activity was 5% higher by every standard deviation increase in the index of mineral prices. Additional evidence with the census data suggested that to a large extent locals working in the mining or the agricultural sector filled the new employment opportunities. Together these findings suggest that large-scale mining activity increases the demand for mining and agricultural local employment, and the wages in the local economy.

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This thesis deals with the optimal design of pensions systems in the face of demographic changes. Though the chapters differ in terms of the key questions addressed, the unifying theme remains which pensions system yields the highest welfare under differing economic conditions. We use a standard overlapping generations model with heterogeneous agents to address the various questions. The role of the pensions system varies between consumption smoothing and redistribution, or a combination of both. The provision of pensions, whether universal or targeted, has a signficant impact on capital formation and by extension on a host of economic aggregates and welfare. Capital is always higher under a fully-funded scheme. Under certain conditions, it is optimal to have no pay-as-you-go pensions in place and a fully-funded scheme is thus optimal. With a redistributive pensions system, the welfare gain of the poor exceeds the fall in the welfare of the rich thereby resulting in an increase in aggregate welfare. This thesis thus brings together the issues involved in pensions design in a theoretical framework and aims to provide an insight into the various channels at work.

This thesis analyses inflation dynamics in eight Asian countries. The second chapter analyses inflation persistence and exchange rate pass through (ERPT). The findings on inflation persistence show that for most countries this declines after the Asian financial crisis. The findings for ERPT are more mixed and vary by country. The role of Inflation Targeting Framework (ITF) on inflation persistence and ERPT is also examined. The estimation results suggest it is too early to generalize that ITF exerts a consistently discernible influence on inflation dynamics across this group of Asian ITF countries. The third and fourth chapters focus on the impact that world oil and world food price shocks have on domestic prices. On average, the pass-through of the world oil price is higher than for world food prices. Another finding is that the domestic food supply capacity of a country succeeds in dampening the effect of world food price shocks. The fifth chapter employs disaggregated data on prices to examine inflation dynamics in Indonesia. The main finding is that price behaviour exhibits heterogeneity. Disaggregated prices are more flexible in response to sector specific shocks and are more sluggish in response to macroeconomic shocks. In response to deposit rate shocks, the price puzzle becomes weaker after the full implementation of ITF.

This thesis explores the premise that during the late Victorian and Edwardian eras there existed a significant and influential division within the working class of England's industrial towns and cities. This division, based largely on economic factors to do with the size and regularity of earnings, manifested itself first in the type and locality of residence, which in turn emphasised and reinforced the division of the working class into an upper section of better-paid usually more skilled and regularly-employed and a lower, poorer section of the low-waged and casually employed. Whilst it is not suggested that this produced "working classes" rather than "a working class", it did, nevertheless, result in two sections among the wage-earning class whose members pursued in many significant ways quite different ways of life. Economic differences allied to residential segregation meant that each section: developed different notions of such concepts as "rough" and "respectable" and did not by any means share beliefs as to what constituted acceptable or "deviant" behaviour. These and other questions are pursued by an examination of the years from 1871 to 1914 in the Birmingham neighbourhood of West Sparkbrook. The chronology has been set to make possible the use of census material and oral evidence, and the neighbourhood was chosen because, although it was in these years mainly an area of middle and upper working class housing, it had within it clearly differentiated pockets of lower working class housing, and so makes significant comparisons possible. After an examination of the growth of West Sparkbrook as a residential district, an analysis has been made of the institutions, habits and behaviour of the people of the district. Documentary, archival and oral evidence has been called on to examine the cultural schism in a number of exemplary areas. Differences in housing, schooling, working and shopping have been considered, and attitudes towards drinking, gambling and fighting. The differing roles and responsibilities within the family of men, women and children have been shown in the different groups, as well as leisure behaviour and the role of religion and of religious and charitable institutions in the lives of the community. From this picture emerges a clearer idea of the limits imposed on behaviour by the notions of "rough" and "respectable", and the extent to which these notions were developed by each group within its specific social, economic and cultural environment.

This thesis provides an empirical analysis on how Foreign Direct Investment could affect economic growth. The analysis focuses on China and two East Asian countries, South Korea and Taiwan, for the period from 1980 to 2006. A VAR system is applied to China and the other two countries, while innovation analysis, including variance decomposition and impulse response, is then undertaken to evaluate the influence of shocks on each variable. Cointegration analysis is introduced to capture the long-run equilibrium relationships. The results suggest a small negative effect of FDI on economic growth in China and Taiwan, and no significant influence on economic growth in South Korea. But we find that FDI could be attracted by rapid economic growth of all these countries. The traditional elements for growth, such as capital and labour are demonstrated to play important roles in stimulating economic growth, while the sustainable elements suggested by new endogenous theory, such as technology development and human capital, are found playing different roles across countries with respect to their strategies of development. In addition, a simultaneous equation model is estimated to capture the effects of policy instruments on output, FDI and other endogenous variables in China. Both direct coefficient effects and multiplier effects are calculated. The results indicate that the changes in capital formation, employment and human capital could decelerate the economic growth, while the changes in technology transfer and saving could have III accelerating effects on the change in output directly. FDI could affect the change in economic growth indirectly through an accelerating effect on capital formation and human capital. For the impacts of policy instruments, It draws a conclusion that the monetary policies, fiscal policies and commercial policies committed by the government are indeed appreciative for accelerating economic development in China. Together with the specific empirical results for China and other two East Asian countries, this thesis provides a more comprehensive framework to study the relationships between economic growth and FDI, with the VAR system focusing on the general overview and the simultaneous equation model targeting on the intermediates.