The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) issued on 27 March 1997 a recommendation concerning cryptography policy guidelines in an attempt to foster international co-operation and harmonization. Information is becoming increasingly valuable in society. Globalization of markets, improvements in information and communication technology and the shift to a knowledge-based economy has, furthermore, created an enormous potential for electronic commerce. Conservative estimates predict electronic commerce will have a turnover of more than US $400 billion by 2002. The increasing importance of information and communications has, however, made the information society vulnerable. Cryptography plays an important part in securing transactions in electronic commerce and moreover, in establishing a secure electronic environment in the information society. Fear of privacy infringements and lack of secure methods for electronic transactions has until now been holding electronic commerce back. Cryptographic methods are an essential part in securing electronic commerce. Law enforcement agencies and national security organizations fear, however, that widespread use of strong encryption will impede their work substantially. This thesis analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of strong encryption and how the balance of the conflicting interests has been dealt with in the OECD Cryptography Policy Guidelines. Moreover, shows the thesis how the OECD Cryptography Policy Guidelines have been implemented and makes suggestions on how the guidelines should be implemented.

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This thesis combines the gravity model with Dunning’s four motivations and three control variables for Chinese outward Foreign Direct Investment (OFDI), and provides an empirical country level analysis on the determinants of Chinese OFDI in 34 OECD countries from 2003 to 2010. I find that resource-seeking motivation is a determinant of Chinese OFDI; the market-seeking motive is shown insignificant influence on Chinese OFDI; the strategic asset-seeking motivation of Chinese OFDI is not supported due to its unexpected negative sign. Moreover, the efficiency seeking motivation was not considered in previous studies due to low labor cost in China. In this thesis, by using real labor cost as a proxy, I prove that Chinese OFDI is not driven by efficiency seeking motive.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 504-522). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (M.Com.)(Agricultural Economics)--University of Pretoria, 2004. / Includes summary. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 100-107).

This dissertation consists of three essays studying the occupational wages, skills, and gender wage gap in U.S. and other OECD countries. The analysis especially focuses on how the gender differences in skill levels and skill returns could explain the gender wage gaps and changes. The first chapter outlines the dissertation by briefly discussing the motivations, methods, and main findings in each of the following chapters. Chapter 2 focuses on the well-documented wage and employment polarizations in the U.S.. The occupations moving into the lower tail ("in" occupations) have more immigrant workers, more part-time workers, and less female workers. In addition, the wage gaps between domestic/immigrant, full-time/part-time, and male/female workers are also larger in "in" occupations. The opposite facts hold true in the occupations moving out of the lower tail ("out" occupations). Utilizing the regional differences, we also find stronger spillover effect from high-wage occupations to the "out" occupations than the effect to the "in" occupations. Chapter 3 investigates how gender differences in skills beyond education and experience can account for the observed gender wage gap and its changes between 1980 and 2015 by using data from the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) and the Occupational Information Network (O*NET). The main empirical finding is that female workers possess much higher level of caring skills, and the returns to caring skills are significantly negative but have increased over time, accounting for a major part of the persistent gender wage gap and the narrowing gender wage gap from 1980 to 2015. Another significant portion of the narrowed gender wage gap can be attributed to the faster growth in female workers' average directness skills and the fact that the returns to directness skills are significantly positive and stable over time. In the last chapter, we document significant cross-country variation in gender wage gaps among OECD countries by using the data from Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC). We find significant cross-country variation in the gender differences in returns. The gender differences in returns to basic labor and experience are the most important factors in explaining the gender wage gap. In addition, gender differences in returns to cognitive and directness skills are playing milder but substantial roles in explaining the wage gap. We also find the social institutions and attitudes indicators are related to the cross-country variation in gender differences. / Ph. D.

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This thesis sets out to explain the relationship between fiscal spending and economic growth. The relationship is established using a panel vector autoregression model estimated by GMM, using GDP growth and government spending on a panel of 30 OECD countries. The model used is tested with slight variations in specification which are concluded to be important in the finalized results. By altering the specification used in the model this thesis produces relatively different sizes on the multiplier effect both in the short run and in the long run effect. The size of the multiplier effect produced by this thesis is varying between 0.437 on the low side and 2.224 on the high side depending on a few alterations in model specification. Similarly, the long run multiplier effect is measured as 1.873 on the low side and 8.263 on the high side. The mean duration of the multiplier effect is estimated to be approximately 3 years.