This thesis centers its scope on the macroeconomic implications of two contemporary issues affecting welfare: the arrival of smart technologies and global control policies as sanctions. The key element that integrates these topics into the thesis is the intergenerational perspective. The thesis employs overlapping generations (OLG) models to study how smart technologies could modify long-term economic conditions and how fiscal policies are to be thought as a global matter rather than isolated decisions. The first chapter addresses the circumstances under which smart technologies may drive people out of well-compensated work. The Chapter uses a two-period OLG model comprising two type of workers, high and low-tech, and two goods –a capital intensive one and a labor intensive one. Automation, characterized as legacy code, combines with capital to give birth to a smart machine: a robot. In turn, as automation capacity grows these robots leave future workers– both high and low-tech– worse off. The lower code relative to capital increases the high-tech worker’s compensation, savings, and capital formation. However, as code accumulates, demand for high-tech labor falls, limiting younger generations’ savings and investments. Similarly, the second chapter seeks to answer whether robots raise or lower economic well-being. The setup is once again a two-period OLG. However, in this economy two goods are produced and consumed, but only one is fully automatable. Robots may be harmful except when robotic productivity is high enough that induces a virtuous circle of rising wages, savings, and output, producing the open-ended constant growth of an AK model. Additionally, a government transfer can turn an increase in robotic productivity into a long-term welfare improvement for future generations. Finally, the third chapter develops a large-scale multi-country OLG model to address the fiscal implications of global sanctions to a country –namely Russia. The model is uniquely suited to understanding the long-term effect of different trade and fiscal regimes. The sanctioned country responds either by seizing foreign assets, or imposing capital controls, policies that might hurt the sanctioning countries. In all scenarios, except for the most benign, all generations alive at the time are made worse off in the sanctioned country.

Dans cette thèse, nous proposons une méthode pour la visualisation d'ensembles chevauchant et de basé sur les diagrammes d'Euler. Les diagrammes d'Euler sont probablement les plus intuitifs pour représenter de manière schématique les ensembles qui partagent des éléments. Cette métaphore visuelle est ainsi un outil puissant en termes de visualisation d'information. Cependant, la génération automatique de ces diagrammes présente encore de nombreux problèmes difficiles. Premièrement, tous les clustering chevauchants ne peuvent pas être dessinées avec les diagrammes d'Euler classiques. Deuxièmement, la plupart des algorithmes existants permettent uniquement de représenter les diagrammes de dimensions modestes. Troisièmement, les besoins des applications réelles requièrent un processus plus fiable et plus rapide. Dans cette thèse, nous décrivons une version étendue des diagrammes d'Euler. Cette extension permet de modéliser l'ensemble des instances de la classe des clustering chevauchants. Nous proposons ensuite un algorithme automatique de génération de cette extension des diagrammes d'Euler. Enfin, nous présentons une implémentation logicielle et des expérimentations de ce nouvel algorithme.

Chapter 1 Low-skilled Migration and Altruism: Population ageing has become a common concern among welfare states, including Canada and most of the OECD countries. Immigration has been identified as a solution to help sustain labour-force growth in industrialized countries, and as the factor most able to mitigate dire predictions of future fiscal imbalances. This chapter examines the impact of low-skilled immigration in a host country where households are altruists with a pay-as-you-go pension system to support the elderly. It demonstrates that low-skilled immigration does not harm the welfare of the domestic population. We use an overlapping-generations model similar to the work of Razin and Sadka (2000) but introduce paternalistic altruism into the life-cycle framework. Within this context of inter-generational altruism and pay-as-you-go pension systems, the initial negative fiscal impact of low-skilled migrants is compensated, thus, all income groups (high and low) and all age groups (young and old) benefit from migration. // Chapter 2 Growth and Sustainability: In light of the major environmental issues experienced by several countries in the last decades, several papers have advocated the rethinking of the role of governments in environmental preservation. This chapter develops an overlapping-generations model of environmental quality and production and investigates the potential role of governmental participation in the preservation of the quality of the environment so as to achieve both economic growth and environmental sustainability. The analysis suggests that long term economic growth and environment sustainability can be maintained with tax-funded environmental programs in a context of a negative production externality on the quality of the environment. // Chapter 3 The Incidence of Geography on Canada’s Services Trade: We estimate geographic barriers to export trade in nine service categories for Canada's provinces from 1997 to 2007 using the structural gravity model. Constructed Home, Domestic and Foreign Bias indexes capture the direct plus indirect effect of services trade costs on intra-provincial, inter-provincial and international trade relative to their frictionless benchmarks. Barriers to services international trade are huge relative to inter-provincial trade and large relative to goods international trade. A novel test confirms the fit of structural gravity with services trade data.

One of the most important practical problems in conducting sample surveys is the list that can be used for selecting the sample is generally incomplete or out of date. Therefore, sample surveys can produce seriously biased estimates of the population parameters. On the other hand updating a list is a difficult and very expensive operation. Multiple-frame sampling refers to surveys where two or more frames are used and independent samples are taken respectively from each of the frames. It is assumed that the union of the different frames covers the whole population. There are two major reasons for the use of multiple-frame sampling method. One is that, using two or more frames can cover most of the target population and therefore reduces biases due to coverage error. The second is that multipleframe sampling design may result in considerable cost savings over a single frame design.

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ITC/USA 2013 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Ninth Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 21-24, 2013 / Bally's Hotel & Convention Center, Las Vegas, NV / Third generation LIDAR full-waveform (FW) based systems collect 1D FW signals of the echoes generated by laser pulses of wide bandwidth reflected at the intercepted objects to construct depth profiles along each pulse path. By emitting a series of pulses towards a scene using a predefined scanning patter, a 3D image containing spatial-depth information can be constructed. Unfortunately, acquisition of a high number of wide bandwidth pulses is necessary to achieve high depth and spatial resolutions of the scene. This implies the collection of massive amounts of data which generate problems for the storage, processing and transmission of the FW signal set. In this research, we explore the recovery of individual continuous-time FW signals at sub-Nyquist rates. The key step to achieve this is to exploit the sparsity in FW signals. Doing this allows one to sub-sample and recover FW signals at rates much lower than that implied by Shannon's theorem. Here, we describe the theoretical framework supporting recovery and present the reader with examples using real LIDAR data.

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Chapter 1 Low-skilled Migration and Altruism: Population ageing has become a common concern among welfare states, including Canada and most of the OECD countries. Immigration has been identified as a solution to help sustain labour-force growth in industrialized countries, and as the factor most able to mitigate dire predictions of future fiscal imbalances. This chapter examines the impact of low-skilled immigration in a host country where households are altruists with a pay-as-you-go pension system to support the elderly. It demonstrates that low-skilled immigration does not harm the welfare of the domestic population. We use an overlapping-generations model similar to the work of Razin and Sadka (2000) but introduce paternalistic altruism into the life-cycle framework. Within this context of inter-generational altruism and pay-as-you-go pension systems, the initial negative fiscal impact of low-skilled migrants is compensated, thus, all income groups (high and low) and all age groups (young and old) benefit from migration. // Chapter 2 Growth and Sustainability: In light of the major environmental issues experienced by several countries in the last decades, several papers have advocated the rethinking of the role of governments in environmental preservation. This chapter develops an overlapping-generations model of environmental quality and production and investigates the potential role of governmental participation in the preservation of the quality of the environment so as to achieve both economic growth and environmental sustainability. The analysis suggests that long term economic growth and environment sustainability can be maintained with tax-funded environmental programs in a context of a negative production externality on the quality of the environment. // Chapter 3 The Incidence of Geography on Canada’s Services Trade: We estimate geographic barriers to export trade in nine service categories for Canada's provinces from 1997 to 2007 using the structural gravity model. Constructed Home, Domestic and Foreign Bias indexes capture the direct plus indirect effect of services trade costs on intra-provincial, inter-provincial and international trade relative to their frictionless benchmarks. Barriers to services international trade are huge relative to inter-provincial trade and large relative to goods international trade. A novel test confirms the fit of structural gravity with services trade data.

Neste trabalho é elaborada uma solução analítica do campo de temperatura em um material opaco, contendo dois cilindros subsuperficiais paralelos e acoplados, iluminado por um feixe de luz modulado. O método é baseado na expansão de ondas térmicas planas e cilíndricas em série de funções de Bessel e Hankel. Primeiramente, o trabalho mostra o modelo da propagação de ondas térmicas planas em um material homogêneo, infinito, opaco e termicamente isotrópico. Então, para um melhor entendimento da abordagem matemática, iniciamos com o modelo mais simples, que é um material contendo apenas um cilindro. Após, ampliamos o modelo colocando dois cilindros separados neste material, onde aparecem os efeitos de múltiplos espalhamentos. Em seguida, tratamos os modelos descritos em meios semi-infinitos, no qual levamos em consideração a condição adiabática na fronteira da amostra com o ar, ou seja, o meio não perde calor para o ambiente. Esta condição é representada pelo método das imagens. A heterogeneidade do meio é alcançada com a generalização do modelo para um meio com N cilindros separados. Finalmente, incluimos as modificações dos modelos prévios devido ao acoplamento de dois cilindros. Este modelo é geral, no sentido que não existem restrições com respeito aos diâmetros e posições dos cilindros dentro do material, nem com relação às propriedades térmicas dos cilindros e matriz. Além disso, serve para calcular a temperatura em qualquer ponto da amostra. As ondas térmicas levam informações sobre a estrutura interna e propriedades térmicas do material compósito que, na prática, podem ser obtidas através das medidas da temperatura na superfície da amostra através de técnicas fototérmicas. Com isto, somos capazes de caracterizar estruturalmente um material compósito reforçado por fibras. Também podemos caracterizá-los termicamente obtendo suas propriedades térmicas efetivas. Medidas experimentais com amostras calibradas usando a técnica de termografia infravermelho lock-in (radiometria fototérmica), com frequência fixa, confirmam a validade do modelo. Além disso, um estudo da distribuição de ondas térmicas em materiais contendo esferas também estão discutidos teoricamente aqui. / In this work we elaborate an analytical solution of the temperature field of an opaque material containing two overlapping and parallel subsurface cylinders, illuminated by a modulated light beam. The method is based on the expansion of plane and cylindrical thermal waves, in series of Bessel and Hankel functions. Firstly, the work shows the model of propagation of plane thermal waves in homogeneous, infinite, opaque and thermally isotropic materials. Then, for a clearer mathematical study, we initiate with a simpler method, which is a material containing only one cylinder. After that, we expanded the model by placing two separated cylinders inside of this material where the multiple scattering effects appeared. In the sequence we will treat the described model in semi-infinite materials, in which we take into consideration the adiabatic condition at the border of the sample with the air, that is, the material does not loose heat to the environment. This condition is represented through method of images. The heterogeneity of the medium is achieved with the generalization of the model for a medium with N separated cylinders. Finally, we include the modifications to the previous model due to the overlapping of these cylinders. This model is general, in the sense that there are no restrictions when considering the diameters and positions of the cylinders inside the material nor with respect to the thermal properties of the cylinders and matrix. Besides, it can be used to calculate the temperature at any point of the sample. The thermal waves carry informations about the composite materials internal structure and thermal properties that, in practice, can be obtained with the measurement of the temperature in the surface of the sample, through photothermal techniques. Considering this, we are able to structurally characterize a composite material of fibers. We are also capable of characterizings them thermally, obtaining their effective thermal properties. We have performed measurements on calibrated samples using lock-in infrared thermografy (photothermal radiometry) with a fixed frequency which confirms the validity of the model. Furthermore, a study of thermal waves distributions on materials containing spheres are also discussed theoretically here.