Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in International Relations to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand Johannesburg, 2016 / Natural resources can be a solution to the capital deficit in sub Saharan Africa. As such, resource rich countries have to avoid plundering and wastage of the resource rents. However, the nature of politics in the region points to the fact that plundering of resource rents is inevitable because most resource rich sub Saharan African countries have been prone to elite capture and bad governance. This entails that national resources are “privatised” in the sense that they are directed towards enrichment of a few. In addition, governments in resource rich countries tend to allocate resource rents inefficiently. Thus, resources do not contribute towards sustainable and long-term development. To avoid plundering and wastage, a set of institutions can be put in place that can assist in managing resource rents. These are institutions that can restrain ruling elites from capturing the resource rents for private use and the state from inefficiently allocating rents through policies. Most scholars argue that a democratic system, through frequent elections and its attendant institutions such as the rule of law, accountability and transparency allows effective and efficient management resource rents and the economy in general. This is a good starting point in conceptualising institutions of restraint. However, this study seeks to broaden our understanding of institutions of restraint by providing an alternative approach. Using Botswana and Namibia as case studies this study seeks to reconceptualise institutions of restraint without rejecting the importance of democratic institutions. The study considers the hypothesis that the success in management of resource rents, particularly in Botswana, can be explained by a combination of democratic institutions and what can be termed centralised development planning institutions. The premise of this proposition is that democratic institutions are inadequate in restraining elites or the state. Therefore, they need to be complemented by centralised development planning institutions. Working in tandem, democratic institutions and centralised development planning institutions have the capacity to adequately provide the necessary restraints in resource driven economies. In line with this, the study argues that the degree or level of restraints in a political system is essential for successful management of resource rents. / MT2017

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in International Relations Johannesburg, 2014 / This study set out to interrogate the impact of the U.S. - S.A. trade relationship on Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland (BLNS). A qualitative method of study was chosen and the literature review method was used. South Africa’s foreign policy making was analysed and it was found that in 1994, the country, sought international standing and economic growth. As such, it chose foreign policy that met the stringent criteria of Brenton Woods institutions and liberalised markets, privatised and had a stringent tax regime. The country also carved out a niche as an agent for peace on the African continent and a champion of the global South. South Africa’s post-democratic relationship with the United States was analysed and found to have been negatively impacted by the hangover of Cold War politics and the U.S.’s relationship with the apartheid government. The new government also considered Russia and other American enemies like Cuba, Iran and Lybia allies. The South African government never fully trusted the U.S.’s intentions and was wary of agreeing too often with the country for fear of being called a puppet of the U.S. However, the two countries managed to find common ground and continue to trade with each other successfully. The relationship between BLNS and S.A. in SACU was found to be unequal with BLNS still economically and geographically dependent on S.A. This is in spite numerous changes meant to bring about equality in SACU. The study concluded that there was no real impact on BLNS as a result of the relationship between U.S. and S.A.BLNS suffered a negative impact when the European Union and S.A. signed an agreement but they ensured they were not victims of the U.S. – S.A. trade relationship.

Orientador: Marcos Cordeiro Pires / Banca: Luis Antonio Paulino / Banca: Mauri da Silva / Banca: Marcos Fábio Martins de Oliveira / Banca: Hermes Moreira Júnior / Resumo: Os processos de integração regional têm ao mesmo tempo características do liberalismo e do protecionismo. Buscam a liberalização das transações entre os países membros e estabelecem barreiras de entrada aos demais, objetivando a proteção e ampliação das atividades econômicas existentes em seus territórios. A regionalização, dessa forma, deve ser acompanhada de instituições e normas que reduzam a insegurança jurídica para que os investimentos possam ser realizados, devendo-se evitar medidas que possam atravancar o processo de integração. No caso do MERCOSUL, que se propõe a ser um instrumento de reposicionamento dos países no cenário internacional e mecanismo de desenvolvimento por meio da ampliação dos mercados e modernização das economias, nota-se que ainda existem diversas medidas adotadas pelos governos de seus países membros que restringem a livre circulação de bens e serviços entre seus territórios, fazendo com que o projeto de integração seja "bloqueado" em diversos momentos. O propósito desta pesquisa é verificar, durante os governos de Lula no Brasil e Néstor Kirchner na Argentina, dois Presidentes que defenderam a integração sul-americana, como as medidas protecionistas adotadas dentro do bloco têm impedido a plena realização do projeto de integração do MERCOSUL, ao mesmo tempo em que abrem espaço para a concorrência (muitas vezes desleal) de produtos ou serviços vindos de outros países, especialmente da China. / Abstract: The regional integration process has at the same time characteristics of liberalism and protectionism. Its target is to make free transactions between the countries that maintain partnership and establish restrictions to the others, trying the protection and making great the economic activities inside its boundaries. The regionalization, so, should come with institutions and rules that reduce the juridical insecurity to make the investments possible, avoiding acts that can restrict the integration process. The MERCOSUL target is to be an instrument of the country repositioning in international area. It could also be a mechanism to develop the partners widening the market and modernizing the economies, but there are many decisions adopted by the partners that restrict the free market of goods and services inside their territories, making the integration project "blocked" in many moments. The proposal of this research is to verify, during Lula's government in Brazil and Néstor Kirchner's government in Argentina, two Presidents that used to defend the South-America integration, how restrictive decisions have blocked the MERCOSUL integration process and make possible the competition (sometimes unfair) from goods and services coming from other countries, especially China. / Doutor

Orientador: Eduardo Strachman / Banca: José Ricardo Fucidji / Banca: Maryse Farhi / Resumo: Esta dissertação examina a crise grega de endividamento desencadeada a partir da chamada crise do subprime de 2008. A primeira parte do estudo se concentra na herança dos regimes autoritários que governaram a Grécia, entre 1930 e 1970. A seguir, são apresentadas duas visões distintas a respeito das causas do grande endividamento público grego, com grande contraste entre a visão oficial da troika (Comissão Europeia, Banco Central Europeu e FMI), responsável pelo plano de ajuste econômico imposto ao país; e a visão de economistas ligados ao Levy Institute of Economics. A partir disso, o estudo se volta para possíveis medidas que reduziriam o endividamento do país e esmiúça os detalhes do plano de reescalonamento da dívida grega, que envolveu medidas de austeridade e a maior operação de troca de títulos de dívida já feita. Conclui-se que as medidas adotadas foram suficientes para superar o problema do endividamento; no entanto, ao analisarmos detalhadamente a economia do país, notamos que os desequilíbrios e assimetrias de origem estrutural, produtiva, financeira e política, que levaram o país ao grande endividamento, ainda persistem / Abstract: This dissertation examines the Greek debt crisis that followed the subprime crisis of 2008. The first part of this study focuses on the legacy left by the authoritarian regimes that ruled Greece between 1930 and 1970. Then, two different visions explaining the causes of the great public debt are presented, stressing the contrast between the official vision represented by the troika (European Commission, European Central Bank and IMF), responsible for the adjustment plan imposed on the country, and the vision of economists from the Levy Institute of Economics. Following that, the study examines possible alternatives to reduce the debt burden and the details of the debt write-off coordinated by the IMF that consisted in the enforcement of austerity measures and the biggest bond swap in history. The study concludes that the measures taken were enough to overcome the main problem - the excessive indebtedness - although the analysis of the economy shows that the structural, political, productive and financial imbalances and asymmetries that led the country to the debt still remain / Mestre

by Li Hang-tsang, Steven. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 133-138). / Abstract also in Chinese. / List of Tables --- p.i / List of Charts --- p.iii / List of Diagrams --- p.iii / Chapter Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- Global Interaction and Economic Development --- p.1 / Chapter 1.2 --- Sociological Perspectives of Economic Development --- p.3 / Chapter 1.3 --- Network Perspective of Global Interaction --- p.7 / Chapter 1.4 --- Objectives and research Design --- p.9 / Chapter Chapter 2 --- Literature Review --- p.11 / Chapter 2.1 --- World System Perspective and Global Interaction --- p.11 / Chapter 2.1.1 --- Classification Scheme of World System Perspective --- p.12 / Chapter 2.1.2 --- Global Interaction and the Operation of Capitalism --- p.13 / Chapter 2.2 --- Global Interaction and Economic Development --- p.19 / Chapter 2.2.1 --- Economic Business Cycle and Economic Development --- p.20 / Chapter 2.2.2 --- Global Factors and Economic Development --- p.22 / Chapter 2.2.3 --- Local Factors and Economic Development --- p.24 / Chapter 2.3 --- Critiques and Limitations of World System Perspective --- p.25 / Chapter 2.3.1 --- The Limitation of Theory Testing --- p.26 / Chapter 2.3.2 --- Insufficient Study of Global Interaction --- p.27 / Chapter (1) --- Interaction Among Core Countries --- p.29 / Chapter (2) --- Interaction Between Core Country and Semi-Peripheral Country --- p.30 / Chapter (3) --- Interaction Among Peripheral Countries --- p.31 / Chapter (4) --- Other Unspecified Interaction --- p.31 / Chapter 2.3.3 --- The Ignored Facets of Global Interaction --- p.32 / Chapter (1) --- Interaction Partner --- p.32 / Chapter (2) --- Interaction Intensity --- p.32 / Chapter (3) --- The Combined Effect of Interaction Partner and Interaction Intensity --- p.33 / Chapter 2.4 --- The Network Perspective and New Conception to Global Interaction --- p.35 / Chapter Chapter 3 --- Conceptual Framework and Hypotheses --- p.39 / Chapter 3.1 --- The Causal Explanation of World System Perspective --- p.39 / Chapter 3.2 --- Causal Sequencing and Explanation of Network Perspective --- p.41 / Chapter 3.3 --- An Integrated Conceptual Framework --- p.42 / Chapter 3.4 --- The Hypotheses of Emergent Properties of Global Interaction --- p.44 / Chapter (1) --- The Interaction Position Effect --- p.44 / Chapter (2) --- The Interaction Intensity Effect --- p.45 / Chapter (3) --- The Interaction partner Effect --- p.46 / Chapter Chapter 4 --- Data and Methodology --- p.49 / Chapter 4.1 --- Data --- p.49 / Chapter 4.1.1 --- Longitudinal Data and Sampling of Countries --- p.49 / Chapter 4.1.2 --- Data Diagnosis --- p.51 / Chapter 4.1.3 --- The Timing of Causality --- p.51 / Chapter 4.2 --- Variables and Regression Models --- p.52 / Chapter 4.2.1 --- Classification of Country and the Model of Interaction Position Effect --- p.52 / Chapter 4.2.2 --- Interaction Intensity Effect and Economic Development --- p.55 / Chapter 4.2.3 --- Interaction Partner Effect and Economic Development --- p.57 / Chapter Chapter 5 --- Structure and Dynamics of Global Interaction --- p.60 / Chapter 5.1 --- Classification of Countries --- p.60 / Chapter 5.2 --- Characteristics of Three Country Types --- p.62 / Chapter 5.2.1 --- World Total Export and Total Export From Each Country Type --- p.62 / Chapter 5.2.2 --- Gross National Product Per Capita of Different Country Types --- p.65 / Chapter 5.3 --- Patterns of Global Interaction --- p.66 / Chapter 5.3.1 --- Pattern of Interaction Intensity --- p.66 / Chapter (1) --- Intra-Group Interaction --- p.66 / Chapter (2) --- Inter-Group Interaction --- p.67 / Chapter (3) --- The Changing of Interaction Intensity --- p.69 / Chapter 5.3.2 --- Pattern of Interaction partner --- p.71 / Chapter (1) --- Pattern of Interaction Partner in terms of Total Export to All Countries --- p.71 / Chapter (2) --- Pattern of Interaction Partner in terms of Intra-Group Interaction --- p.74 / Chapter (3) --- Pattern of Interaction Partner in terms of Inter-Group Interaction --- p.77 / Chapter (a) --- Interaction Between Core Country and Semi-Peripheral Country --- p.77 / Chapter (b) --- Interaction Between Core Country and Peripheral Country --- p.79 / Chapter (c) --- Interaction Between Semi-Peripheral Country and Peripheral Country --- p.81 / Chapter (d) --- Comparing the Linkages among Three Country Types --- p.84 / Chapter Chapter 6 --- Regression Analysis --- p.87 / Chapter 6.1 --- Interaction Position Effect --- p.87 / Chapter 6.2 --- Interaction Intensity Effect --- p.88 / Chapter 6.3 --- Interaction Partner Effect --- p.94 / Chapter Chapter 7 --- Discussion and Conclusion --- p.100 / Chapter 7.1 --- Emergent Properties and Economic Development --- p.100 / Chapter 7.2 --- Network perspective and World System Perspective --- p.104 / Chapter 7.3 --- Limitation of This Research --- p.105 / Chapter 7.4 --- Future Possibilities --- p.106 / Appendix A Classification of Countries --- p.109 / Appendix B Centrality Score and Ranking of Countries --- p.117 / Chapter B.1 --- Centrality Score of Countries from 1975 to1990 --- p.117 / Chapter B.2 --- Centrality Score of Countries in their Respective Country Types from 1975 to1990 --- p.125 / Bibliography --- p.133

The key underlying question of this dissertation is how individuals develop informed views about the open international economy and make informed decisions as consumers, workers and voters. Globalization has generated competing interest groups that are highly informed about its effects. Each of these groups can exploit its informational advantage and strategically provide information to less informed individuals in order to shape their policy preferences and economic and political behavior. Focusing on this informational discrepancy among domestic actors, this dissertation investigates the mechanisms and the effects of information dissemination from three different angles. The first chapter examines the role of product-related information provided by the news media, biased in favor of domestic firms, in shaping consumer behavior. In the second chapter, I examine the role of trade-related information provided by interest groups in altering the trade preferences of workers. In the third chapter, I examine the role of trade-related information provided by political elites in shaping their constituents' attitudes toward trade. These essays contribute to the extant international political economy literature by introducing an actor that has been largely neglected, illuminating new causal mechanisms with information at the center, and clarifying the causal effect of certain economic groups in trade policy preference formation.

This dissertation studies the implications of financial intermediaries on international financial markets and bank lending. Chapter 1 explores the relevance of financial intermediaries for the pricing of foreign exchange. Recent theoretical work has highlighted the importance of financial intermediaries in rationalizing exchange rate movements and I empirically assess whether the theoretical predictions hold true in the data. I show that financial intermediary capital, a proxy for their health and/or risk-bearing capacity, provides an economic source of risk that helps explain both the carry trade and the cross-section of currency returns across a variety of strategies. Currencies that more positively co-move with intermediary capital provide high excess returns as intermediaries must be compensated for currency depreciation and losses at times when their capital erodes and their marginal utility is high. I demonstrate the dominance of intermediary-based asset pricing theories over consumption-based asset pricing theories, thus rationalizing theoretical models with a central role for financial intermediaries in asset markets. I then show that intermediary capital provides one economic source of risk embedded within the more dominant carry factor and serves as an orthogonal source of risk to the global risk embedded within the dollar factor. This paper thus serves as motivation for the further development of open economy models with financial intermediaries and a deeper understanding of the underlying economic sources of risks that underlie the factor structure of exchange rates. Chapter 2 studies the impact of US monetary policy shocks on international bank lending at the aggregate level. I ask whether country-banking systems that are more exposed to dollar funding decrease their cross-border lending by more than less exposed countries following contractionary US monetary policy announcements. For a given country borrower, I show that this is indeed the case as a 25 basis point increase in the previous quarter decreases cross-border lending supply growth by 4% more from a country-banking system that is 10% more reliant on dollar funding. This is mainly driven by decreases in cross-border lending to banks and the non-bank private sector, highlighting potential channels for the international transmission of US monetary policy. Chapter 3 assesses the effects of the US money market fund reform of October 2016 on syndicated bank lending and more broadly examines the relevance of dollar funding from US money market funds. I exploit the heterogeneity in foreign banks' reliance on US money market funds to uncover whether the decline in dollar funding attributed to the reform affected their lending. I find that although larger exposure to US money market dollar funding is attributed with larger declines following the reform, this did not pass through to dollar denominated lending, contrary to conventional wisdom. I find that banks substituted for some of the loss in dollar funding by increasing borrowing from US government money market funds, but this was not sufficient to offset the loss in funding. My results thus suggest that global banks have access to substitute sources of dollar funding that smoothed the loss in dollar funding on lending.

No description available.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 280-293). Also available in electronic version.

Master's thesis. / Format: PDF. Bibl.