La présente thèse offre une nouvelle explication des variations du taux de propriété de différents pays en mobilisant de larges parts de la littérature existante en histoire urbaine et des données portant sur les villes. La littérature existante a souvent son origine dans l’opposition des pays germanophones et des pays anglophones, les derniers montrant un taux de propriété systématiquement plus élevé que les premiers. Par une étude historique comparative des cas américain et allemand, considérés comme exemplaire pour les types de pays, la thèse essaie de répondre à la question que pose l’écart persistant entre les taux de propriété allemand et américain. La présente thèse argue que c’étaient des différences en organisations urbaines au 19e siècle et de différentes institutions de financement de logement et de construction qui ont mis les pays sur des trajectoires différentes. Elle maintient que le laissez-faire de certaines municipalités faibles a plutôt privilégie des villes périurbanisées sous formes de maisons individuelles aux États-Unis, alors que les municipalités corporatistes allemandes tendaient à mener aux villes compactes d’immeubles de rapport ; que le développement de sociétés d’épargne-logement américaines favorisait le financement de maisons en propriété individuelle, alors que les banques hypothécaires allemandes et les associations de logement privilégiaient les immeubles de location ; que l’émergence d’une production Fordiste des pavillons standardisés facilitait la vulgarisation de la propriété, alors que la production artisanale allemande la limitait. Une fois ces structures établie – ainsi va l’argument faisant allusion à la dépendance au sentier – elles furent perpétuées par des mécanismes de pouvoir de groupes d’intérêt, de fonctionnalité économique, alors que des processus de conversion du locatif en propriété ainsi que de la périurbanisation pouvaient contrecarrer cette inertie structurelle. / The thesis gives an answer to the question of why different countries ended up with different rates of homeowners and tenants in the 20th-century. The literature identifies Germanspeaking countries of low homeownership rates around 40% and English-speaking countries of high homeownership rates of more than 60%, with France falling in between the two groups. Moreover, most of these differences have persisted through the second half of the 20th-century and can be shown to reach back to different urban homeownership rates around 1900. The homeownership-question is of importance beyond the mere question of tenure as studies have associated homeownership questions with stability in financial crises, with embourgeoisement of the working-class in life-style, attitudes and voting behavior or with different unemployment rates. Existing explanations have used post-1980 international, regional or individual data to explain homeownership differences through socio-demographic, economic or urbanization differences, through a public-welfare/homeownership trade-off or else through cultural preferences. These explanations fail to account, however, for the persistent country differences that existed already prior to the 1980s and prior to government intervention in housing. The thesis, by contrast, goes back to 19th-century differences of urban organization, housing finance and the construction sector to claim that countries were historically set on different housing trajectories establishing differences hard to reverse in later periods. The US and Germany are chosen for historic case studies of the often opposed country groups. France is included to use the variables found for explaining why a country of similar welfare type as Germany kept a persistently higher urban homeownership rate. The thesis claims that different complementary institutions in city organization, the housing finance and construction industry locked countries into inert physical and institutional structures of either the compact tenement city-form in Germany or the suburbanized form of a city of homes like in the United States. More concretely, functional complementarities of public welfare cities, housing cooperatives, mortgage banks and a raftsmanship production of solid single-unit homes led to the German tenant-dominance, whereas private cities, savings and loans (SLAs) and a Fordist mass production of single-family homes created the American production regime in favor of more accessible homeownership. Though the thesis establishes the argument for Germany and the US in historic case studies, it tries to make plausible that it can be extended to other German- and English-speaking countries. The innovation of the thesis concerning the particular explanatory puzzle lies in its reference to relevant historical prior causes, its inclusion of the urban level of analysis and the combination of three institutional factors – urban organization, housing finance, construction – that even singly have not been put forward yet in comparative explanations. The thesis contributes to the literature on path dependencies that identifies distant occurrences as longterm causes for hard-to-reverse historical trajectories. On a theoretical level, the study contributes to research in a yet little noticed type of market, i.e. markets for durable goods whose use stretches over time, and which therefore requires history-directed explanations.

Despite being comparatively similar countries, the United States and Canada have taken very different historical tracks to developing their respective health care systems. While Canada incrementally developed a system of universal coverage through national public insurance, the United States repeatedly failed to achieve universal healthcare reform and infamously maintains its hybrid public-private system to this day. Scholars of comparative politics have produced numerous competing accounts of the conditions under which health care policy change occurs and explanations for the major factors that shaped policy divergence. However, there are few studies dedicated to explaining mechanisms for continued policy divergence and its impacts on public opinion. In this thesis, I comparatively examine the passage of Medicare in the United States in 1965 with the Canadian Medical Care Act of 1966 and present the results of a nationally representative U.S. public opinion survey. I find that a mechanism of path dependence, whereby interest groups and constituencies that participate in policy battles are strengthened or curtailed by their outcomes, weighed disproportionately on the power of the former in the United States. In Canada, path dependence created a stalemate in which early forms of policy entrepreneurship made healthcare expansion and reduction equally difficult to achieve. The contemporary survey reveals that U.S. public opinion largely favors healthcare reform on matters of principle rather than policy.

The Covid-19 pandemic has generated a serious stress test for welfare states and welfare state institutions. This challenge has been met by unprecedented responses from governments, most notably countrywide shutdowns of substantial sections of economies to facilitate social distancing. Consequently, the health crisis was followed closely by an economic crisis. This situation has created a possibility study a process that predates the pandemic, namely liberalization. The thesis applies the theories of Thelen (2014), who claims that while there is an ongoing liberalization in welfare states, there are varieties of liberalization. She refers to the three trajectories of change deregulatory liberalization, dualizing liberalization and embedded flexibilization. The aim of the thesis is to enhance our understanding of how these varieties of liberalization are affected when countries are faced by massive external change. In pursuing this goal, I construct an analytical framework that illustrates the expected labour market policy responses for two of the three trajectory of change. I then conduct a comparative case study of labour market policy responses in Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany, and Sweden. I compare the expected responses with the actual labour market policy responses to the crisis to detect how their responses relate to the trajectories of change towards liberalization. The findings suggest that while the countries have implemented rather similar responses to the crises, some countries’ path towards liberalization has been strengthened by their labour market policy responses, while other countries have diverted from their path towards liberalization during the Covid-19 crisis. The bigger take-aways from these findings are that the process of liberalization will be affected differently due to countries differing paths towards liberalization, as well as their inherent institutional structures. The findings thus highlight the significance of both path dependence and differing trajectories of change concerning the effects of the Covid-19 crisis on the process of liberalization.

This study aims to look at the processes used when creating wellbeing economic projects to further understand what key themes there are. It applies Path-Dependency theory, consisting of Path-Dependence and Path-Creation to see if the chosen aspects are relevant to creating wellbeing projects and altering the path from the Anthropocene. Analysis is conducted on 45 implemented wellbeing economic projects from the Wellbeing Economy Alliance. After formulating questions based on this, interviews are carried out with ten experienced wellbeing leaders to gain a deeper understanding of what could be learned from their experiences of success and failure within wellbeing projects. The main findings of the study show that to effectively alter the path, power should be dispersed between as many people as possible, people are driven by a larger vision than specifics and it is essential for governments and the private sector to communicate with people to understand what they value in regards to wellbeing.

This master’s thesis addresses how strategic development takes shape, when ideas connected to an organization’s historical heritage meet contemporary expectations of organizational development. The Church of Sweden Diaconia sets the example and in a qualitative case study this meeting has been examined. With new institutional theory as starting point the interpretation is made that the meeting between tradition and develop­ment can be under­stood as a meeting between a value based and a scientifically based logic. From the con­tradicting logics, the deacon and the social worker appear as institu­tional myths and as a double work identity. To maintain legitimacy, both logics need to be encom­passed. I introduce the idea of a space for intentional reflection, open for negotiation between the identities.

Affordability of products and services is an economic benefit that should accrue to consumers, whether they are corporations, government agencies or individuals. This concept of affordability goes beyond conventional wisdom that considers affordability as the ability to pay the price of a product or service. This dissertation defines and explores a broader concept of affordability – one of fitness to perform at the level of quality required by the consumer, to perform at that level whenever the product or service is used, and to do so with minimum consumption of resources. This concept of affordability is applied to technological systems by using the complexity sciences concept of fitness as the metaphor for technological systems' fitness. During a system design evolution, the specific design outcome is determined by that set of design search paths followed – it is path dependent. Dynamic mechanisms create, dictate and maintain path dependence. Initial conditions define the start and direction of a path. During subsequent design steps, positive feedback influences the designer to continue on that path. This dissertation describes underlying mechanisms that create, dictate and maintain path dependence; discusses the effects of path dependence on system design and system affordability; models these effects using system dynamics modeling; and suggests actions to address its effects. This dissertation also addresses several types of fitness landscapes, and suggests that the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) solution space is a form of fitness landscape suitable for evaluating the efficiency, and thus the fitness, of research and development (R&D) projects. It describes the use of DEA to evaluate and select Department of Defense (D0D) R&D projects as a new application of DEA. / Ph. D.

Las ICC desempeñan un papel fundamental en la planificación estratégica de las ciudades, contribuyendo a su desarrollo económico, social y cultural. Las ciudades con un sector creativo dinámico y diversificado son más atractivas para sus habitantes, residentes y visitantes, lo que se traduce en mayores oportunidades de empleo y negocio. Las ICC también contribuyen a la cohesión social, la tolerancia y la sostenibilidad, y mejoran la imagen general de la ciudad y los centros históricos. El estudio introduce el emprendimiento como factor a ser estudiado en la revitalización de los centros históricos y analiza los agentes del ecosistema emprendedor en diferentes niveles de intervención. Se centra en actividades urbanas con especial simbolismo local, como las industrias culturales y creativas. Comprender el contexto y los factores del ecosistema que impulsan la transformación urbana es esencial para identificar, medir y comparar estos factores. El estudio se centra en responder a preguntas de investigación que relacionan la actividad de las industrias culturales y creativas (ICC) con los centros históricos, y el rol de las ICC en la revitalización de estas zonas urbanas. Su papel en el desarrollo urbano sostenible reconocido por la inclusión de la cultura y el sector creativo en los ODS de la ONU y la estrategia de la Comisión Europea promueven la creación de herramientas de medición para supervisar los indicadores de los ODS e informar la toma de decisiones y la formulación de políticas alineadas con las necesidades de cada área. La investigación justifica la necesidad de desarrollar índices de medida de referencia y explica el proceso de diseño y selección de los factores para los índices compuestos propuestos, a saber, el Índice de Desarrollo Creativo de los Centros Históricos (ICCeH) y el Índice Urbano de Emprendimiento Creativo (IUEC). El estudio confirma finalmente que el ecosistema urbano de emprendimiento puede promover la creación de "clusters" creativos en las ciudades. Se centra en fomentar el emprendimiento y la innovación a través de acciones que ofrezcan oportunidades a artistas, diseñadores y creativos para desarrollar su talento. Las concentraciones creativas atraen y retienen el talento, impulsando a su vez, el crecimiento económico de las zonas urbanas donde se establecen.

Este trabalho busca revisitar as teorias existentes sobre reformas econômicas e democratização, em especial no que concerne às reformas financeiras liberalizantes. De acordo com o saber convencional, normalmente essas reformas afetam de modo negativo as democracias, colocando em perigo a construção de boas instituições para a sua consolidação. Ao analisar de forma mais detida a relação entre as reformas financeiras levadas a cabo pelo Banco Central do Brasil, a partir de uma conjuntura crítica ocorrida no início de 1999, e a padronização de instituições para o incremento da Supervisão Bancária, oriunda do BIS ? Banco para Compensações Internacionais, resolvemos questionar a validade universal dessa literatura ao argumentar que a construção de redes de proteção para o sistema financeiro brasileiro, num contexto de crise e oportunidades, foi possibilitado por uma maior cooperação entre esse organismo financeiro internacional e a autoridade monetária local. A contrapartida para o reforço de autoridade do Banco Central e a conseqüente implementação de instituições para a reforma financeira, no Brasil, foi um aumento da transparência das ações da autoridade monetária, concomitante a uma melhoria em seu processo de prestação de contas e responsabilização pública. A reconstrução das trajetórias que levaram a essa convergência entre um organismo internacional e uma autoridade local, numa democracia emergente de mercado, parece ser a chave para o entendimento das peculiaridades que redundaram nas falhas dos modelos unificadores de institucionalização, como aqueles preconizados pelo Consenso de Washington e adotados por outras organizações financeiras, por exemplo, o Fundo Monetário Internacional (FMI) / This thesis aims to review the well-established theories of economic reforms and democratization. The object will focus especially on the so called \"liberal financial reforms\". According to conventional wisdom, these reforms normally affect democracies deeply and jeopardize the building of sound institutions towards their consolidation. We decided to debate the universal validity of this conventional literature using the argument that the institutional building of safety nets for the Brazilian financial system - in a context of crisis and opportunities - was possible as a result of the cooperative game between an international financial organization (BIS) and the local monetary authority (BACEN). We will do that by analyzing the relation between these financial reforms led by Brazilian Central Bank more accurately, arising from a critical juncture occurred at the beginning of 1999, and the standardization of institutions for the improvement of banking supervision originated from BIS -Bank for International Settlements. The counterbalance to the reinforcement of central bank authority and the consequent implementation of institutions for the financial reform in Brazil was the increased monetary authority acts transparency and the simultaneous improvement of its mechanisms of political accountability. The study of path sequence that led to the convergence of the intentions of an international organization and a local political authority, in a emerging market democracy, seems to be the key to the comprehension of the peculiarities that resulted in the failure of the remedies that recommended a \"single model\" for the success of these reforms in new democracies, like the ones prescribed by the Washington Consensus, which were adopted by several organizations, including the International Monetary Fund - IMF

Este trabalho busca revisitar as teorias existentes sobre reformas econômicas e democratização, em especial no que concerne às reformas financeiras liberalizantes. De acordo com o saber convencional, normalmente essas reformas afetam de modo negativo as democracias, colocando em perigo a construção de boas instituições para a sua consolidação. Ao analisar de forma mais detida a relação entre as reformas financeiras levadas a cabo pelo Banco Central do Brasil, a partir de uma conjuntura crítica ocorrida no início de 1999, e a padronização de instituições para o incremento da Supervisão Bancária, oriunda do BIS ? Banco para Compensações Internacionais, resolvemos questionar a validade universal dessa literatura ao argumentar que a construção de redes de proteção para o sistema financeiro brasileiro, num contexto de crise e oportunidades, foi possibilitado por uma maior cooperação entre esse organismo financeiro internacional e a autoridade monetária local. A contrapartida para o reforço de autoridade do Banco Central e a conseqüente implementação de instituições para a reforma financeira, no Brasil, foi um aumento da transparência das ações da autoridade monetária, concomitante a uma melhoria em seu processo de prestação de contas e responsabilização pública. A reconstrução das trajetórias que levaram a essa convergência entre um organismo internacional e uma autoridade local, numa democracia emergente de mercado, parece ser a chave para o entendimento das peculiaridades que redundaram nas falhas dos modelos unificadores de institucionalização, como aqueles preconizados pelo Consenso de Washington e adotados por outras organizações financeiras, por exemplo, o Fundo Monetário Internacional (FMI) / This thesis aims to review the well-established theories of economic reforms and democratization. The object will focus especially on the so called \"liberal financial reforms\". According to conventional wisdom, these reforms normally affect democracies deeply and jeopardize the building of sound institutions towards their consolidation. We decided to debate the universal validity of this conventional literature using the argument that the institutional building of safety nets for the Brazilian financial system - in a context of crisis and opportunities - was possible as a result of the cooperative game between an international financial organization (BIS) and the local monetary authority (BACEN). We will do that by analyzing the relation between these financial reforms led by Brazilian Central Bank more accurately, arising from a critical juncture occurred at the beginning of 1999, and the standardization of institutions for the improvement of banking supervision originated from BIS -Bank for International Settlements. The counterbalance to the reinforcement of central bank authority and the consequent implementation of institutions for the financial reform in Brazil was the increased monetary authority acts transparency and the simultaneous improvement of its mechanisms of political accountability. The study of path sequence that led to the convergence of the intentions of an international organization and a local political authority, in a emerging market democracy, seems to be the key to the comprehension of the peculiarities that resulted in the failure of the remedies that recommended a \"single model\" for the success of these reforms in new democracies, like the ones prescribed by the Washington Consensus, which were adopted by several organizations, including the International Monetary Fund - IMF

Currently, China is facing a challenge of sustainable development. The worsening air quality and increasing haze days in Beijing and many other cities in China have exerted serious health impacts and an economic toll. Pollution control and emission reduction have become an urgent issue that Chinese governments need to tackle. Hence, stricter Environmental laws and Clean Air Plans have been published and implemented in recent years in China. The developed countries had experienced the similar industrial development accompanying by air pollution problem during the middle of last century. Environmental legislating against helped many developed countries solve the pollution and achieved positive EKC trend – air quality improvements along with continuous economic growth. The thesis tries to study the previous lessons and experiences on pollution abatement from some developed countries and find what lesson’s China can draw from them on pollution control and changing towards a sustainable development. The thesis adopts a multi-scientific study method including case studies, economic, technological, legal and institutional analysis. The pollution abatement cases are from the US and UK, because historically the serious air smog episodes due to industrialization had happened in many cities of the two countries, which are like what is happening in China now. Case studies compare the pollution problem in Beijing, Los Angeles and London, and focus on how environmental laws work for emission reduction. The study results show that the economic phase in China now is close to the EKC turning point and is at similar phase comparing to the historical pollution treatment stages during the middle of last century in the US and UK. However, the positive EKC trend does not inevitably come without strong environmental legislation, technological development and economic-social institution sustainability transformation. The implication for China is that the current pollution control laws and its implementation in China at the crucial moment would most likely decide the future environmental, economic, and social situation in China. Loose environmental laws might cause environmental indulgence, while implementation of scientific environmental laws and standards can work effectively on emission reduction and enhancing technology and economic development at the same time. And the scientific based legislation skills from developed countries provide a good lesson to be drawn for China on how to make the laws and standards.