La première rédaction enquête sur la politique de dividende récemment établie sur le marché boursier vietnamien et expérimente les périodes condensées de forte croissance et chute brutale avec une approche en deux étapes. Les résultats de la recherche montrent : (1) Les investisseurs sont d’avantage expropriés dans les entreprises dont la part de détention d’actions des initiés est plus élevée ; (2) Les investisseurs tendent à percevoir le versement de plus faibles dividendes comme un signal relatif à la rentabilité espérée dès lors que l’asymétrie d’information est réduite ; (3) Les investisseurs dans les entreprises contrôlées par l’Etat sont plus enclins à recevoir des dividendes que celles qui ne le sont pas. La seconde rédaction pose que le marché vietnamien des actions est un laboratoire prometteur pour enquêter sur le comportement des cours de marché le jour du Exdividende. Les résultats des recherches suggèrent que les investisseurs du marché boursiervietnamien sont indifférents à l’écart dans l’application de taxe sur les revenus des dividendes. Ils cherchent à capter des dividendes s’ils trouvent des opportunités de profit. Par conséquent, les investisseurs achètent des actions le jour du Cum-dividende et les vendent le Ex-dividende pour exploiter les opportunités de profit générées par le paiement de dividendes. La dernière rédaction examine les effets des droits des actionnaires et des créanciers sur la politique de dividende lorsqueles frais de représentation des actionnaires et des créances tendent à augmenter. Ses découvertes indiquent que les actionnaires et les créanciers sont plus souvent expropriés et l’augmentation des expropriations des créanciers (actionnaires) est plus élevée si les actionnaires (créanciers) sont fortement protégées par la réglementation. / The first essay investigates dividend policy in Vietnamese stock market which is newly established and experiences short booming and crashing periods with a two-step approach. The research findings show: (1) investors are expropriated more in firms with higher insider ownership; (2) Investors tend to receive smaller dividends paid as a signal of expected profitability when information asymmetry is lower; (3) investors in state-controlled firms are more likely to receive dividends than those in non-state-controlled firms. The second essay posits that Vietnamese stock market is a promising laboratory to investigate stock price behavior on ex-dividend day. The research results imply that investors in Vietnamese stock market is indifferent to the difference in tax treatment of capital gains to dividends, they try to capture dividends if they find profit opportunities. Therefore, investors buy stocks on the cum-dividend day and sell them on the exdividend to exploit profit opportunities created by dividend payment. The third essay examines the effects of shareholder rights and creditor rights on dividend policy when agency costs of shareholders and creditors tend to increase. Its findings indicate that are more expropriated and theincrease in the expropriation of creditors (shareholders) is higher if shareholders (creditors) are protected strongly by law.

在國際貿易中具有文化特性之產品，因國家文化不同可能造成價值減損，因此為了解文化在貿易中所造成之影響，本研究將討論文化如何影響好萊塢電影出口與國際票房。資料採用2013-2015年IMDb與Box Office Mojo網站上所提供票房與電影相關資料，並以Schwartz文化變數作為各國文化特質衡量，最後使用Heckman二階段模型進行估計。實證結果顯示，與美國文化差距越大的國家，則出口以及國際票房表現越差。更於全球化指標中，發現文化相似與資訊傳遞指數值越大時，則對出口與國際票房表現佳。整體來說，文化確實具有影響力。

Scholars often address the process of enlargement as one-sided argument. This work provides a general theory of organizational expansion by including strategies and actions of both, applicant states and members of international organizations. It is argued that dependent on the domestic characteristics of states an organization strategically implement a set of conditions to avoid the application and admission of states, which are either not able to conform with the rules or not willing to pay the costs of membership. This process incorporates two stages. I test this theory by utilizing a Heckman-Probit-Selection Model, which accounts for this two-stage procedure. The results confirm that conditions are important to avoid costs in the process of expansion.

The paper decomposes average income differentials between Roma and non-Roma in South East Europe into the component that can be explained by group differences in income-related characteristics (characteristics effect), and the component which is due to differing returns to these characteristics (coefficients or discrimination effect). The decomposition analysis is based on Blinder (1973) and Oaxaca (1973) and uses three weighting matrices, reflecting the different assumptions about income structures that would prevail in the absence of discrimination. Heckman (1979) estimators control for selectivity bias. Using microdata from the 2004 UNDP household survey on Roma minorities, the paper finds that a large share of the average income differential between Roma and non-Roma is explained by human capital differences. Nevertheless, significant labour market discrimination is found in Kosovo for all weight specifications and in Bulgaria and Serbia for two weight specifications. (author's abstract)

The relationship between politicians and firms has attracted a considerable amount of research, especially in developing countries, where firms' political links are a widespread phenomenon. However, existing literature offers contradicting views about this relationship, espicially regarding the impact of firms' political connections on firms' market-performance. Furthermore, there is limited evidence on the impact of firms' political connections on some of the important corporate decisions, including firms' investment- and dividend-policies. Therefore, this thesis seeks to fill these gaps by offering three empirical essays with Jordan as a case study. The first essay examines the impact of firms' political links on their values by controlling for macroeconomic conditions. Also, in the extended models, by specifying three major events which occurred after 2008, namely, the establishment of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), the Global Financial Crisis, and the Arab Uprisings, we investigate the effects of these events on the relationship between firms' political ties and their value. The findings of this essay indicate that politically-connected firms have higher values compared to their non-connected counterparts in Jordan. Moreover, it is found that firms with stronger political-ties have higher values than firms with weaker ties. Furthermore, the positive effect of political connections continues, even after controlling for the macroeconomic conditions, though the latter are considered to be more important than political connections for firm valuation due to their impact on the share price. Interestingly, findings show that the events occurring after 2008 do not seem to have affected the relationship between political connections and firm value since the significant positive impact of political-ties on firm value persists during the post-event period. The second empirical essay studies the role of political connections in mitigating firms' financing-constraints. Moreover, it investigates the effect of the strength of political connections in alleviating these constraints. Finally, it looks at the impact of the above-mentioned three events which occurred after 2008, notwithstanding the new banking Corporate Governance Code issued in 2007. Findings of this essay reveal that firms' political connections are important in mitigating their financing-constraints. Furthermore, the results show that stronger political connections seem to reduce financing-constraints more than weaker connections. Finally, findings show that the impact of firms' political connections has diminished during the post-event period (2008 - 2014). The third essay examines how a firm's political connections can affect its dividend-policy. It also considers the impact of the strength of political connections on dividend-policy. Finally, we extend the empirical analysis by investigating any shift in the relationship between political connections and dividends due to the events of the Global Financial Crisis, the Arab Uprisings, and the adoption of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). Results of this essay reveal that a firm's political connections have a significant positive impact on both the propensity to pay dividends and the dividend-payout ratio. Regarding the impact of the strength of political connections on dividends, it is found that firms with weaker political connections pay out more in dividends than firms with stronger connections. In terms of the impact of the events which occurred after 2008 on the relationship between political connections and dividends, the findings show that the impact of these connections on dividends is eliminated.

O presente trabalho tem como objetivo examinar a formação do senso de justiça das pessoas sob a perspectiva da teoria de justiça da escolha social e de rankings incompletos, de Amartya Sen (2009). Pretende também investigar algumas formas de educar o cidadão para a justiça a fim de se pensar políticas públicas nas escolas que estimulem o florescimento do sentido de justiça nas pessoas. Para tanto, a teoria de justiça de Sen (2009) é apresentada e relacionada a teorias sobre a formação do indivíduo e fases críticas de seu desenvolvimento, em específico a formação de aspectos cognitivos e não cognitivos e sua interação. Ao fim, são indicados caminhos para a educação voltada para a justiça. / This study aims to examine the development of the sense of justice following Amartya Sen’s (2009) social choice and incomplete rank justice theory. Alongside this, in order to present some alternatives about public policies in schools that could encourage the flourishing of a sense of justice, a reflection about ways to educate citizens towards justice is made. To do so, Sen’s Idea of Justice is introduced and related to theories about individual development, combined with an analysis of sensitive stages of human development. Particular attention is given on the interaction of cognitive and non-cognitive abilities. At the end, some thoughts about public policies and the education system are made.

Univ., Diss.--Genève, 2007.

The objective of this study was to verify how is the relationship between the level of education and salary in the state of Alagoas. Based on the income equation Mincer (1974), but they were also considered contributions from other pioneering works such as Schultz (1961; 1972), Senna (1976), Becker (1993) and other more recent. To achieve the proposed objective, it used the Census data (2010) for the state of Alagoas, considering only individuals with the age group 26-60 years by relying on the fact that this would be the range of productive age. The sample was analyzed from three econometrics techniques: (I) OLS: although it is a widely used method has some disadvantage for the analysis of these data, because it is common to be considered only individuals who have income, leading to selection bias and, furthermore, referring to income data are widely dispersed and how the OLS cannot capture this dispersion, it generates unreliable estimates; (II) Procedure Heckman: this method can correct the selection bias, based on the choice of instrumental variables that may influence the entry or not the agent in the labor market; and (III) Quantile regression: to analyze the sample in each quartile of income, can generate estimates eliminating the problem of the dispersion of the data. The results show that the return of education on income of Alagoas is considerable, independent of the method used, since Least Squares, this return is 12,29% which, after being corrected by Procedure Heckman reaches 18,88%; and quantile regression, the variation of wages due to education ranged from quantile 10,86% to 13,17%. Also noted is that there are wage disparities due to gender, race and place of residence, both between meso and between urban and rural. / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / O objetivo deste trabalho foi verificar como ocorre a relação entre o nível de escolaridade e de salário no Estado de Alagoas. Teve como base a equação de rendimento de Mincer (1974), mas também foram consideradas as contribuições de outros trabalhos pioneiros como Schultz (1961; 1972), Senna (1976), Becker (1993) e outros mais recentes. Para alcançar o objetivo proposto, recorreu-se aos dados do Censo de 2010 para o Estado de Alagoas, considerando apenas indivíduos com faixa etária de 26 a 60 anos. A amostra foi analisada a partir de três técnicas econométricas: (I) MQO: embora seja um método muito utilizado, oferece algumas desvantagens para a análise destes dados, pois é comum que só sejam considerados os indivíduos que possuam renda, levando a um viés de seleção e, além disso, os dados são muito dispersos e como o MQO não consegue captar essa dispersão, acaba gerando estimativas não confiáveis; (II) Procedimento de Heckman: este método consegue corrigir o viés de seleção, baseando-se na escolha de variáveis instrumentais que podem influenciar na entrada ou não do agente no mercado de trabalho; e (III) Regressão Quantílica: ao analisar a amostra em cada quantil de renda, consegue gerar estimativas eliminando o problema da dispersão dos dados. Os resultados apontaram que o retorno da escolaridade sobre os rendimentos dos alagoanos é considerável, independentemente do método utilizado, visto que, por Mínimos Quadrados, este retorno é de 12,29% que, depois de ser corrigido pelo procedimento de Heckaman chega a 18,88%; e por Regressão Quantílica, a variação dos salários devido à escolaridade oscilou entre os quantis de 10,86% a 13,17%. Observou-se também que há disparidade de salário devido a sexo, raça e local de moradia, tanto entre Mesorregiões quanto entre urbano e rural.

O presente trabalho tem como objetivo examinar a formação do senso de justiça das pessoas sob a perspectiva da teoria de justiça da escolha social e de rankings incompletos, de Amartya Sen (2009). Pretende também investigar algumas formas de educar o cidadão para a justiça a fim de se pensar políticas públicas nas escolas que estimulem o florescimento do sentido de justiça nas pessoas. Para tanto, a teoria de justiça de Sen (2009) é apresentada e relacionada a teorias sobre a formação do indivíduo e fases críticas de seu desenvolvimento, em específico a formação de aspectos cognitivos e não cognitivos e sua interação. Ao fim, são indicados caminhos para a educação voltada para a justiça. / This study aims to examine the development of the sense of justice following Amartya Sen’s (2009) social choice and incomplete rank justice theory. Alongside this, in order to present some alternatives about public policies in schools that could encourage the flourishing of a sense of justice, a reflection about ways to educate citizens towards justice is made. To do so, Sen’s Idea of Justice is introduced and related to theories about individual development, combined with an analysis of sensitive stages of human development. Particular attention is given on the interaction of cognitive and non-cognitive abilities. At the end, some thoughts about public policies and the education system are made.

This thesis examines the effect of foreign nationality on the outcomes of criminal process in the Czech Republic. Foreign citizens are overrepresented by 2% compared to their share in population in all stages of the criminal process, suggesting possible discrimination by domestic authorities. Using rich case level datasets from 2005 to 2015 observed gaps are decomposed to part explained by a difference in the objective characteristics of the cases and unexplained part, suggesting possible inequality of treatment. Foreigner gaps in probability of charge, probability of conviction, probability of imprisonment, length of the sentence and probability of release from prison on parole are decomposed. Majority of observed disparities in the outcomes can be attributed to higher involvement of foreigners in more serious crimes compared to nationals. Unexplained disparities remain in probability of imprisonment and probability of release on parole, suggesting possible unequal treatment in these two outcomes.