Several studies suggest that population health improves during recessions and deteriorates during economic expansions. However, the majority of these studies only focus on the short-term or contemporaneous effects of economic fluctuations on health. As a result, very little evidence exists on potential long-term health effects of exposure to booms or recessions. This can be regarded as a major gap in knowledge, given the fact that most diseases are the results of exposure or behaviours during a longer period of time. Furthermore, a large body of research also suggests that many risks associated with recessions may accumulate over the course of life and lead to a gradual deterioration in health. By focusing only on the short-term effects, most studies thus ignore potential longrun health effects of economic fluctuations. This thesis aims to bridge the gap between studies on the population level assessing the short-term effects of economic fluctuations on health, and studies on the individual level, which have analysed the health-effects of risks associated with a declining economy including unemployment, job loss and job insecurity. In order to assess potential longterm effects of business cycles on health, I linked historical information on macroeconomic fluctuations during the 20th century to individual-level data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) as well as the U.S. Health and Retirement Study (HRS). This approach makes it possible to identify the state of the economy during different life-course periods for every respondent and relate it to health outcomes measured in later life. Regarding the macroeconomic conditions at any given age as largely exogenous, the four empirical papers included in this thesis thereby assess the relationship between business cycles and health during three different life-course periods: the time around graduation from full-time education, middle and late adulthood as well as the years nearing retirement. Overall, the results suggest that individuals who experienced less favourable economic conditions during these life-course periods have a higher risk of having additional limitations in physical functioning, lower levels of cognitive functioning, as well as higher risks of cardiovascular disease in later life. In contrast to studies showing that population health improves during recessions, these findings suggest that potential short-term improvements in health may be outweighed by deteriorations in health in the long run. They also raise important questions about the role of potential mechanisms linking differential exposure to the business cycle to health in later life.

This thesis addresses issues of debt and the twin deficits - two serious ‘economic ills’. The central issue in this thesis (Part II) is on macromodelling of the twin deficits in an attempt to identify their determinants. This involves an investigation of the underlying theory and empirical evidence to show the workings of the links between debt and the twin deficits and between the twin deficits themselves. The usual practice in both theory and in empirical work, is to take the accounting identity and one or two other variables that are hypothesised to have effects on the twin deficits and posit causal linkages. We try to avoid this by building on the stylized facts on each of the macroeconomic aggregates and linking them to debt issues in building a full structural model of debt and the twin deficits. We arrive at a system of simultaneous equations, which none of the previous theory or empirical work has derived. We rename the deficit system of simultaneous equations which incorporates a debt identity and an output equation the `new twin deficits' model – signifying a departure from the conventional wisdom discussed in the literature survey. With the macromodel, we address three issues simultaneously, which are: (1) the linkages between twin deficits and increased indebtedness. (2) the details of internal policies that have effects on the twin-deficits and increased indebtedness. (3) the linkages between debt, twin-deficits and output. The first issue involves the broader mechanism that explains the link between the government, the private and the external sector balances, and their links to changes in debt. Previous studies on the twin deficits covers the first part of this issue and gives evidence for the U. S. that the government sector caused the unprecedented level of external deficits in the mid 1980s and early 1990s. In our case, we argue that the change in debt equals the external deficits because according to our findings in Part I debt and deficits seem to co-move. Our macromodel also focus on the second issue, that is, the details of the internal policies that affect each of the three sector deficits and eventually increased indebtedness. The variables involved are numerous such as tax policies (rates, revenue elasticities, etc. ), financial policies (interest rates, investment versus savings behaviour, etc. ), trade policies (import liberalisation/control, exports strategies, exchange rates, prices, etc. ), debt policies, etc. as shown in the system of simultaneous equations in Chapter 5. Although the variables are numerous, there are some common ones appearing together in either two or all three of the system of equations which are expected to cause co-movements in the system. Obviously, consideration has to be made on their significance, magnitude and signs. The third issue involves recognising the supply side in response to debt and deficits which are demand-side management. The model thus ensures not only equilibrium in the internal and external sectors but also equilibrium in aggregate supply and the aggregate demand. The former equilibrium always holds because the identity serves as a constraint. For the latter equilibrium to hold, either one or a combination of the price variables found in the system adjust to maintain equilibrium in the short-run, while output adjusts to maintain equilibrium in the long-run. Having outlined the core of the thesis, it is appropriate to comment on the other parts. Part I presents the roots of debt and deficits; how developing countries accumulated debt and how it became a crisis in the 1980s. The debt and deficits situation in ASEAN in the 1980s is a particular focus. The essence of debt problem seems to be the adverse economic situation of the 1980s, against the background of mounting accumulation of debt. Exogenous shocks such as the second oil shock, terms of trade shocks, interest rates hikes, dollar exchange rate appreciation, are among the factors that are associated with debt problems. Debt and deficits co-move in the representative Latin American and ASEAN countries. Differences among regional experiences are highlighted. For example the African countries went into debt problem not because of debt accumulation. The main crux of their problem is non-performance export sector. Excessive lending by creditors are associated with the Latin American countries, apart from loans contracted on floating rates which are associated with valuation changes and capital flight. The ASEAN region moved towards yen credit in the mid 1980s, presumably insulating their economy with further spill-overs from other NICs' recycling of surpluses. The differences in experiences necessitates different treatment, or case by case approach to debt problems. In Part III, we present some empirical work on aspects of debt management. Debt servicing capacity or creditworthiness is examined using the logit approach. We builtin the marginal and elasticity analysis into the logit model so as to identify which variables are the most significant determinants. The exercise combines variables taken from the balance of payments and financial variables from the balance sheet to detect which variables cause debt servicing breakdown. The breakdown of debt servicing capacity is proxied by reschedulings, taken in terms of probabilities because it is not known a priori that a debtor will become illiquid and unable to repay interest payments falling due. We postulate that it is the foreign exchange scarcity, measured by their net borrowing requirements which comprise of the current account deficits including interest repayments and the principal due, that drive a country to demand for rescheduling. We investigate the determinants of rescheduling for each region separately to capture the differences in their experiences with indebtedness. The most important determinants of rescheduling are; the ratio of the current account deficits to export, the reserves to import ratio and the total debt to exports. In the African sample, the current account deficits to exports, the total debt to exports and the use of IMF credits are the most important determinants for rescheduling. As in the case of the Latin American countries, The current account deficits to exports, the debt service ratio and the use of IMF credit are most important. In ASEAN, the debt service ratio appears to be the single most significant ratio. Thus, the differences in experiences among regions, a cross section for all developing countries will ignore the uniqueness of each region in running into debt servicing difficulties. In the last part of the thesis, the exchange rate management is discussed in Chapter 7, relating exchange rate to import and export demand function to eventually determine the contribution of foreign exchange, through the elasticity approach, towards foreign exchange earnings and reducing debt service. Debt service seems to have links with exchange rates movements. We suggest that devaluation does have positive effects in the ASEAN countries to increase its foreign exchange earnings. Finally, we conclude and suggest some policy implications, especially pertaining to our twin deficit model. It is hoped that ASEAN would turn the already huge debt accumulation to more profitable investments so that not only timely repayment of loans is possible, the growth of output is ensured and the sustained industrialisation is possible!

This thesis examines the political economy of exchange rate policy-making from a theoretical and an empirical perspective. It argues that conventional means of understanding this subject are problematic, and it develops an alternative framework for analysis based on a Marxist methodology. From this perspective exchange rate policymaking is understood to be a component part of a wider governing strategy that is made by the core executive with a view to regulating class struggle, to providing favourable conditions for capital expansion, and for ensuring a sufficient degree of freedom for the pursuit of high political goals. This theoretical framework is applied empirically through an examination of Britain’s return to the gold standard in 1925. In contrast to conventional explanations for this policy decision it is argued that the return to gold was the central component of a governing strategy designed to address long-term economic and political difficulties in the British state through the imposition of financial discipline and the ‘depoliticisation’ of economic policy-making. Furthermore, in contrast to conventional assessments of the policy as having been a disaster, it is also argued that the return to gold was a relative success. Though failing to resolve Britain’s economic difficulties, the policy was generally successful in containing class unrest and in enabling the core executive to displace pressures over economic conditions and policy-making away from the state. The substantiation given to the alternative theoretical view of exchange rate policymaking by these empirical claims is also supported by an examination of the policy regime developed after the collapse of the gold standard, and by a brief examination of Britain’s membership of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism from 1990-1992, which is shown to have direct parallels with the return to gold. On this basis, the thesis offers a firm foundation for drawing wider generalisations about the political economy of exchange rate policy-making in terms of an alternative Marxist perspective.

The thesis focuses on policy measures between 196A and 1978 to improve performance and growth in U.K.'s private industry. Underlying structural weaknesses and institutional constraints characteristic to U.K.'s company sector are identified and analysed in Part One. This exercise provides the basis for both a definition of the concept of "industrial policy" and a critical assessment in Part Two of its relevance and effectiveness to tackle industry's main difficulties. In discussing policy initiatives to assist companies with public funds for investment finance, industrial reorganisation and the application of new technology, a variety of problems associated with state intervention in private industry are highlighted. The various attempts by policy-makers to overcome shortcomings in the coordination of policy, communication with firms, public monitoring and exercise of control as a result of experience with existing measures and by means of new, more powerful instruments are examined in detail. Industry's growing difficulties and pressure on policy-makers to expand or at least improve public assistance meant that industry policy evolved, despite controversy and policy shifts, with a certain degree of continuity. In the three case-studies which follow, shipbuilding, computers and the NEB, these dynamics are explored in depth. One useful contribution of this thesis is to explain industrial decline in the U.K. economy in terms of supply-side constraints in the private sector. This approach avoids the methodological shortcomings of currently popular theories which instead concentrate on factors outside private industry, such as the public sector or international trade. The analysis of overall industrial policy since 1$6A and the attempt to develop criteria for assessing its effectiveness contribute to a better understanding of this subject. The case studies cover new areas of research. By linking the analysis of policy-making with theoretical hypotheses concerning industry's main problems the effects of policy measures in private industry can be evaluated to determine both the limitations and the potential of state intervention in private industry.

Increased competition in the modern economy has driven firms to search for increased efficiency, as well as an increased access to information. This, in conjunction with the continual advancement in information and communication technologies (ICTs), and coupled with falling prices, has inspired firms to adopt different types of ICTs in order to be competitive. This has heightened and provoked research interest in the effectiveness of ICT at the firm level. However, most studies on the use and effectiveness of ICTs in firm development have focused on developed economies, with mainly anecdotal evidence on many developing countries. Using data collected on 3,996 small and medium enterprises (SMEs) across 14 Sub-Saharan African countries, the thesis examines the factors that motivates the adoption, usage and the contribution of ICTs to turnover of firms. The thesis uses a seemingly unrelated bivariate probit model and meta-analysis technique to determine the factor that influence SMEs decision to adopt ICT. We also employ two different production function specifications to ascertain the effect of ICT adoption on turnover of SMEs, as well as on technical efficiency. The effect of ICT on turnover is thoroughly examined also employing quantile regression technique to ascertain the productivity effect of ICT along the entire distribution. The thesis assesses the contribution of ICT adoption to turnover differential among various types of SMEs using a recently proposed decomposition technique. The factors influencing adoption decisions of firm vary significantly across the countries. Nonetheless, the meta-analysis identifies common determinants of ICT adoption among SMEs in these countries. The findings indicate that the ratio of users of computer and the Internet in an industry and perceived national competition influences adoption decisions of firms. Our findings also indicate that ICT capital have a positive and significant effect on firm’s output, suggesting that there is no ICT productivity paradox among SMEs in Africa. We also find that ICT adoption positively influences technical efficiency of firms. Further, the results show that the contribution of returns to ICT adoption to turnover differential varies considerable across income groupings of countries as well as various types of firms.

Environmental accounting literature reminds us that prosperity can be ephemeral if it is built on depletion of natural resources. Traditional national accounting practice ignores the loss of natural resources. According to standard environmental accounting, this produces exaggerated income, encourages unsustainable levels of consumption and is misleading when assessing the economic prospects of resource extracting countries. While the historiography of oil-extracting countries departs from entirely different concepts and methods, it contains plenty of arguments that resemble those of the environmental accountants. This thesis shows how Mexican and Venezuelan scholars have discussed the concept of national wealth, the ephemeral prosperity delivered by oil depletion and the biases that oil cash introduced in the perceptions of their countries' economic performance. Nonetheless the arguments in the historiography lack quantitative support for the most part. The dissertation connects these previously disparate literatures and explores the resulting synergies. A priori, it seems that environmental accounting provides the tools for quantifying the hitherto qualitative observations of the historiography of two countries with very different strategies regarding the depletion of their natural resources. While Mexico approximates very closely the theoretical case of a closed economy, Venezuela has been considered the textbook example of a resource-export-driven economy. In the end, history proves to be an excellent laboratory for an ex-post analysis of the concepts, models and methods of environmental accounting. This study contributes to the surprisingly small amount of comparative historical studies of the oil industries and the economic histories of Venezuela and Mexico. The most important conclusion derived from the comparative analysis of the theoretical models of environmental accounting is that the competing methods available in the literature seem to apply to different scenarios. Furthermore, the results of the thesis show that the role of technological change in sustaining the historical levels of consumption is substantial since the terms of trade did not improve in the continuous way needed to rescue economies from declining levels of consumption. This is an important finding because gains from trade have now been included in some environmental accounting models but technological change is left out. Overall, the thesis is an examination of the tractability and usefulness of environmental accounting as a tool of economic analysis over the long run.

This thesis consists of three chapters that study public service delivery, nutrition and agricultural productivity in developing countries. The first chapter investigates whether imposing price-caps on frontline service delivery agents enhances welfare. I implement a field experiment in which I randomize whether public extension agents are subject to a price-cap or not. I find that while price-caps are effective in enhancing the affordability of extension services and increasing recipients’ surplus, they also reduce the geographic coverage of services. This suggests that price-cap regulation creates a tension between making services affordable and providing incentives for agents to serve remote recipients. I then show that the marginal welfare effect of reducing discretion over prices can be expressed as a function of two sufficient statistics: the elasticity of geographic service coverage with respect to the price-cap and the price elasticity of demand. Calculating the welfare effects, I find that any reduction of agents’ discretion reduces social welfare. The second chapter is concerned with contract design in public service delivery when delivery agents are boundedly rational. A theoretically efficient contract that minimizes moral hazard costs and avoids behavioural distortions charges agents a fixed fee for the usage of public assets and makes them residual claimants on its returns. I investigate whether such contracts are indeed efficient in practice by investigating whether imposing lump-sum fees on livestock extension agents distorts their choices. Using a field experiment, I first show that, contrary to classic economic theory, levying a fixed fee on agents leads them to increase user fees for a livestock vaccine and induces demand effects that reduce quantities. To understand the mechanisms underlying this result, I implement a series of lab-in-the-field experiments with a subset of the field-experimental participants. The results suggest that instead of setting prices for user fees as mark-ups over marginal costs agents use simplified rules-of-thumb that anchor pricing decisions on aggregate profits. The results highlight that boundedly rational behavior can reduce the effectiveness of adopting fixed fee contracts. The third chapter investigates whether improvements to agricultural production technology, a common response to undernutrition, can enhance food security and improve nutrition. In India, groundwater irrigation using tube wells has long been promoted as a means to reduce rainfall-dependence and enhance food security. The merits of adopting tube wells have, however, been debated widely, with opponents fearing a deprivation of smaller farmers and impoverishment of rural laborers. To evaluate the causal effects of tube well adoption on nutrition, I employ an instrumental variable framework that exploits variation in land suitability for deep groundwater irrigation caused by differences in hydrogeological structures. I find that groundwater irrigation significantly improves nutrition across the income spectrum: a one standard deviation increase in the proportion of cropped area irrigated with tube wells increases calorie intake by 770 to 915 calories per day. In addition, groundwater irrigation generates positive spillovers on the calorie intake of urban populations and households not employed in agriculture. I present additional evidence which suggests that these effects are driven by increases in agricultural productivity that reduce staple prices and raise wage rates. The findings thus highlight the value of groundwater irrigation in fighting undernutrition and promoting agricultural development.

Multi-stakeholder Initiatives (MSIs) bring multiple stakeholders (usually government, business, and civil society) to a common platform to dialogue, design, and implement sustainable solutions to identified governance issues. However, what factors are likely to determine the effectiveness of MSIs? The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) is a global MSI, established in 2003, that seeks to improve the management of natural resource wealth in implementing countries through increased transparency. This study examines the Nigerian EITI to explore the factors that influence the organisation and effectiveness of MSIs. We find that the Nigerian EITI (NEITI) falls short of a truly multi-stakeholder initiative and hence is limited in its impact and effectiveness in improving resource wealth management in Nigeria. Four factors deduced from a combination of agency and collective action theories appear to be strong in explaining the shortcomings of the NEITI. These factors are the Nigerian structural environment, the characteristics of the stakeholders to the Nigerian extractives industry, the emergent governance structure of NEITI, and the nature of external influence on NEITI. Evidence gathered from the implementation of NEITI, demonstrates that a combination of these factors has contributed to the difficulty in achieving a truly multi-stakeholder structure and hence the limited impact of the initiative on improving resource wealth management in Nigeria.

Firstly, we employ a three-state hidden semi-Markov model (HSMM) to explain the time-varying distribution of the Chinese stock market returns. Our results indicate that the time-varying distribution depends on the hidden states, represented by three market conditions, namely the bear, sidewalk, and bull markets. Secondly, we further employ the three-state HSMM to the daily returns of the Chinese stock market and seven developed markets. Through the comparison, three unique characteristics of the Chinese stock market are found, namely “Crazy Bull”, “Frequent and Quick Bear”, and “No Buffer Zone”. Thirdly, we propose a new diffusion process referred to as the ``camel process'' to model the cumulative return of a financial asset. Its steady state probability density function could be unimodal or bimodal, depending on the sign of the market condition parameter. The overreaction correction is realised through the non-linear drift term. Lastly, we take the tools in functional data analysis to understand the term structure of Chinese commodity futures and forecast their log returns at both short and long horizons. The FANOVA has been applied to examine the calendar effect of the term structure. An h-step functional autoregressive model is employed to forecast the log return of the term structure.

This thesis investigates the transmission mechanism of monetary policy in Egypt in the last four decades. To achieve this, five empirical studies are included in this thesis. The consumer‟s expenditure is estimated in Chapter 3, while the investment expenditure under uncertainty is estimated in Chapters 4. Furthermore, the results of these two chapters paved the way to the next chapters, the interest rate channel, chapter 5, and the bank lending channel, Chapter 6. Moreover, Chapter 7 devoted to estimate the exchange rate channel under the regime shift. However, Chapter 2 provides all the required discussion about the economic policies and developments in the Egyptian economy for the purpose of this thesis. The time series econometrics is used in all of these chapters. The unit root tests, the Engle-Ganger two-step cointegration approach, the bounds tests, and GARCH models are used in Chapters 3 and 4. However, unit root tests, the VAR models, Granger-causality, the impulse response function, variance decomposition, the Johansen‟s cointegration, and the VECM are used in Chapters 5, 6, and 7. The results of these chapters assert the existence of the channels of monetary transmission mechanism in Egypt between 1975 and 2010.