Este trabalho estima a resposta de um conjunto de variáveis macroeconômicas e financeiras brasileiras a um choque na política monetária dos EUA, identificando os canais pelos quais a política monetária externa afeta as variáveis domésticas do Brasil. Para tanto, são identificadas séries de choques monetários para a economia norte-americana, posteriormente incluídos em um modelo BVAR com um conjunto de variáveis brasileiras, seguindo Miranda-Agrippino e Rey (2015). A robustez dos resultados é testada pela estimação modelos contendo distintas medidas da mudanças na política monetária norte-americana, e pela utilização de duas estratégias de identificação de modelos VAR. Os resultados sugerem que em sequência a uma contração monetária de 100 b.p. na economia norte-americana, observa-se uma queda 2% no quantum de exportação e importação e uma queda de quase US$800 milhões sobre o fluxo de crédito externo bancário e de portfólio para a economia brasileira. Contudo, os impactos desses efeitos sobre a produção e sobre as taxas de juros domésticas é não significante. Os canais de transmissão convencionais baseados no câmbio e no comércio externo são mais significativos que o crédito externo para a transmissão dos efeitos dos choques monetários norte-americanos. / This study estimates the response of a set of Brazilian macroeconomic and financial variables to a US monetary policy shock, identifying the channels through which the external monetary policy affects Brazilian domestic variables. For that purpose, a number of series of monetary policy shocks for American economy are identified, and afterwards included in a BVAR model along with a set of Brazilian variables, following -Agrippino e Rey (2015). The robustness of the results is tested by estimating models containing different measures of American monetary policy changes, and by using two different identification strategies. The results suggest that following a monetary policy contraction of 100 b.p. in the US, a fall of aproximately a fall of 2% in the quantum of exports and imports is observerd, as well as a fall of almost US$800 million at the external bank and portfolio inflow of credit in the Brazilian economy. However, the impact of these effects at the domestic output and interest rates is not significant. Conventional transmission channels based on exchange rates and external trade are more significant than the one based on external credit for the transmission of American monetary policy effects.

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Despite the abundance of theoretical literature on and qualitative analyses of relocating manufacturing production, consequences of offshoring on labor markets, and foreign trade policy, very little empirical analysis has been conducted in order to examine the trends and patterns in economic variables that led to the rise in manufacturing offshoring in the first place. Focusing on the U.S. manufacturing offshoring to China, this thesis uses a comprehensive dataset of labor compensation costs and labor productivity for 20 manufacturing industries across 27 years for China and the United States to investigate the relationship between U.S. offshoring and productivity per wage for a unit of labor (α) in China vis-a-vis the U.S. I find that the effect of α on growth in offshoring across industries is not only positive but also statistically significant. Further, this thesis also attempts to combine empirical findings with a qualitative analysis of the prominent trends in the data that might help understand the S-shape of the offshoring curve over three periods (or states of the curve): rise (1990-1999), rule (2000-2008), and graduation (2009-2016).

This paper examines the potential impact of the Section 232 Tariffs on Steel and Aluminum on employment using county-level data. This study finds that although employment has increased in steel and aluminum related manufacturing industries, it has decreased in a significant downstream industry of manufacturers of steel products. Furthermore, I analyzed the difference in employment trends between counties that voted majority Trump in the 2016 presidential election and counties that voted majority Clinton, and between counties that experienced marginal victories and counties that voted solidly Democrat or Republican. I find that Trump counties have experienced the impact of the tariffs more strongly than Clinton counties, whether positive or negative. Similarly, swing counties have seen a much larger positive trend in employment in the primary metal refinement and processing industries, and a much larger negative trend in steel product manufacturing from purchased steel compared to non-swing counties.

Limited access to financial services is known as a major constraint to agricultural development (FAO, 2002). Farmers need liquidity to face agricultural expenses throughout the production cycle but mainly at the beginning. Mainstream financial institutions are reluctant to serve the agricultural sector for several reasons. First, they consider the sector to be highly risky with low performance. Also, agricultural activities depend on the weather, they take place in remote rural areas, and commodities prices are volatile. All these aspects make it hard for standard banks to reach their profit goals when lending to farmers. Since microfinance was conceived, it has generated a lot of hope for alleviating poverty in low-income countries. Microfinance provides the poor with access to affordable capital by granting low-income individuals with loans they would not otherwise have access to, because of economic and geographic constraints. The goal of the dissertation is to examine the role and the importance of microfinance in the agricultural sector of developing countries. A survey took place in October 2017, in both rural and urban areas of Benin and involved 750 agricultural households. Three different agricultural zones were selected: the North-East (cotton zone); the Center (tubers and cashew nut zone) and the South (a region with special crops such as vegetables, pineapple, palm tree, exotic plants). The study focuses on agricultural loans. It includes clients of the major microfinance institution in Benin: FECECAM - Faîtière des Caisses d’Epargne et de Crédit Agricole Mutuel. This research contributes to the literature in several ways. The study allows shedding light on the effects of agricultural loans, specifically, on households’ efficiency and labor employment, which are mostly overlooked in the microfinance literature. To overcome selection bias in microcredit evaluation, the research employs a pipeline design. Control and treatment groups consist of individuals who have chosen to participate in the microfinance program. The loan treatment considered is the experience with loans which includes program entry timing, loan take-up frequency, and the average amount of loan obtained over the 2012-2017 period. The study employs a cluster analysis technique to create reliable comparable groups. Multiple variables and indicators are analyzed. A descriptive analysis of loan impact on farmers’ labor input choices shows that past loans have residual effects on both hired and family labor use. Farm loans, especially those obtained for farm machinery significantly reduce expenditure on hired labor but more family labor is employed using machine loans while other loan categories reduced the use of family labor. The evaluation of the whole-farm efficiency of borrowers in the presence of agricultural loans reveals significant technical and allocative errors leading to profit loss in all studied regions. However, experience with loans significantly increases farmers’ whole-farm efficiency, particularly in the North. Finally, the assessment of well-being indicators suggests that those farm loans have a significant positive impact on sampled recipients’ net farm income, food security and food quality statuses. Agricultural loans also have a positive impact on women’s empowerment. The monitoring and implementation mechanism of FECECAM played a crucial role in the success of its loan programs.

Chapter 1 shows that there is a negative relationship observed between sanctions and civil liberties in the target country, which is driven by how exposed the target country's trade was to the sanctioning countries. Using a fixed panel regression covering 160 countries from 1972-2005, it is found that import exposure to the sanctioning countries drives this negative relationship, with every percentage point of import exposure reducing the inverted FHI freedom score by 0.165 points. This implies that restricting imports to a country that promotes an oppressive response by the targeted government. Chapter 2 examines whether countries change their trade patterns in response to economic sanction threats in addition to imposed sanctions. Using a bilateral gravity panel dataset covering 180 countries from 1950-2005 I find that imposed sanctions cause a very significant 55.43% increase in purchases from third party suppliers or a smaller 49.78% increase in sales to third party buyers during sanction events. Sanction threats cause a 42.05% increase in purchases from third party suppliers, and a 42.76% increase in sales to third party buyers, all significant at the 1% level. I conclude that both imposed sanctions and sanction threats lead to a significant increase in trade with third party countries, preempting and subverting sanction regimes. Chapter 3 studies whether there is evidence of cheating during sanction events by examining the difference in reporting for exports in the selling country versus imports in the buying country. A systematic change in reporting behavior is detected, with the log difference of reported exports minus reported imports increasing 7.46% in the case of exporter imposed sanctions, and decreasing 9.86% in the case importer imposed sanctions. This is consistent with the theory that firms in the sanctioning countries face harsher penalties for being caught compared to the targeted countries.

This dissertation is composed of three chapters regarding international trade and environmental regulation. The first chapter focuses on the relationship between port ownership and the port R\&D investment. I investigate whether a larger degree of private involvement in the port sector makes for a higher level of welfare, as well as an improvement in port performance. I establish the stage games to analyze the reciprocal international trade. The theoretical findings indicate that the endowment of population plays an essential role in choosing the optimal port ownership. In the second chapter, I investigate the effect of port pollution regulation on port ownership. I incorporate the regulation tax on emissions from port cargo handling into the international duopoly trade model. The results of the stage games suggest the same ownership of the ports in both countries. I also extend the categories of port structures to include the transfer of port ownership to the other country. The policy implication is to have the small country own both ports, which is opposite to the port governance in reality. In the third chapter, I explore the equilibrium port ownership structures without other policy issues or regulation on the port sector being considered. The influence of country size per se suggests that a small country should privatize its port in the context of a privatized port in the large country. For a large country, it is better to choose a type of ownership different from the small country's. In addition, it is the country whose population is greater than a third of the scale in the other country that should own both ports.

In the United States, the past twenty years has witnessed a growing academic interest in understanding 'globalization,' i.e., a series of interconnected social, cultural, and political processes occurring under integrated economies. Management scholars have tried to understand globalization in terms of its potential consequences for companies conducting business in various countries and regions. However, globalization involves more than this, for as new relationships between people and places occur, new ideas about who they/ us are in those relationships also emerge. How can international management scholars thus understand these complex relationships occurring under globalization? How can they theorize and study such relationships?Although there are multiple ways to address these questions, the approach to globalization within U.S.-based international business and management research has been insufficient. First, meta-theoretical assumptions supporting U.S.-based management theories and practices have seldom been questioned in regards to their deployment in non-Western contexts. Second, the emphasis of this research on "cultural differences" implies "separation" and may conceal social and cultural formations established through global relationships. Thus, alternative approaches to understanding business practices in the context of globalization are needed.To this effect, I first develop the notion of identity formation , based on poststructuralist and postcolonial theories, as a conceptual framework, in contrast with the modernist views of identity informing the extant international management literature. I suggest this notion as an appropriate focus of analysis for understanding contemporary relationships between people in the world. To demonstrate these arguments, I conduct fieldwork focused on the international entrepreneur, specifically the Turkish entrepreneur. Relying on an extended case study design and a multi-method approach, I examine how Turkish entrepreneurs in high-technology sectors in the U.S. and in Turkey engage in identity formation processes.The identity formation framework allows me to demonstrate how globalization processes occur relationally through embedded discourses of hybridity, gender, subalternity, and nation articulated by international entrepreneurs. I further address how postcolonial lenses allow for conceptualizing encounters between West and non-West occurring under globalization as a series of interdependent events at the locus of identity formation. As such, my dissertation offers a theoretically distinct conceptualization for globalization research in international management.

This paper employs an augmented gravity model for a sample of 96 host countries to examine the impact of host country rule of law on direct investment from the United States. This paper further investigates the gap between property rights and freedom from corruption, the two primary components of a country’s rule of law. Property rights and freedom from corruption are both shown to have a significant positive effect on U.S. outward foreign direct investment. This thesis argues that freedom from corruption is a more powerful measure than property rights for determining the location of U.S. direct investment. This suggests that for host countries, reducing the level of corruption may be more effective at stimulating direct capital investment from U.S. investors than expanding property rights.

This paper analyzes macroeconomic factors and their effect on 2-year government bonds of 11 countries in the European Monetary Union. I specifically looked at how a simultaneous budget and trade surplus effect a country's bond yield spread relative to Germany's bond yield. My model showed that double surplus countries have a larger yield spread than countries that do not have a double surplus.