The German Central Bank, or Bundesbank, has since its founding in postwar West Germany been committed to the maintenance of a stable, conservative monetary policy to control the German economy. During moments key in the process of European integration, the bank has worked to delay and reframe the integration process in order to best benefit the German economy. This study examines four such moments, beginning with the collapse of the Bretton Woods system and ending with the Greek bailouts of 2010, to examine the Bundesbank’s influence, both domestically and internationally, in determining the framework of the current European Union and its monetary policy.

La tesi si compone di tre saggi. nel primo saggio si sviluppa un modello teorico che analizza i possibili effetti macroeconomici, controintuitivi e redistributivi, di politiche di deregolamentazione nel mercato dei prodotti in un contesto di eterogeneità tra le imprese produttrici, nel breve e nel lungo periodo. Il secondo saggio presenta la struttura, la metodologia, e alcuni fatti stilizzati relativi al nuovo indice di regulation nei mercati dei prodotti; nel terzo saggio si usa l'indice di regulation nei mercati agricoli, per esplorare econometricamente le cause sottostanti al processo di riforma in tali mercati, in un'ottica di political economy. / The dissertation includes three papers. The first paper develops a theoretical model of deregulation in product market with heterogeneous firms. The second paper presents the methodology and the construction of the new index of regulation in product market; also, some stylized facts are presented. The third paper uses the new index to econometrically explore drivers and phases of market reforms in the agricultural sector.

This dissertation traces the historical transformation of the Canada-UK commodity chain for wheat-bread as a lens on processes of local and global change in agrofood relations. During the 1990s, the Canadian Wheat Board (Canada’s monopoly wheat seller) and Warburtons, a British bakery, pioneered an innovative identity-preserved sourcing relationship that ties contracted prairie farmers to consumers of premium bread in the UK. Emblematic of the increasing importance of quality claims, traceability, and private standards in the reorganization of agrifood supply chains, I argue that the changes of the 1990s cannot be understood outside of historical legacies giving shape to unique institutions for regulating agrofood relations on the Canadian prairies and in the UK food sector. I trace the rise, fall, and re-invention of the Canada-UK commodity chain across successive food regimes, examining the changing significance of wheat- bread, inter-state relations between Canada, the UK, and the US, and public and private forms of agrofood regulation over time. In particular, I focus on the way in which changing food regime relations transformed the CWB, understood as the nexus of institutions tying prairie farmers into global circuits of accumulation. When in the 1990s, the CWB and Warburtons responded to structural crises in their respective industries by re-inventing the Canada-UK wheat trade, the result was significant organizational and industry change. On the prairies, the CWB has shown how – contrary to expectations -- centralized marketing and quality control may help prairie farmers adapt to the demands of end-users in the emerging ‘economy of qualities’. In the UK, Warburtons has led the ‘premiumisation’ of the bread sector, traditionally defined by consumer taste for cheap bread, over the last 15 years. The significance of the shift towards quality chains in the wheat-bread sector is analyzed in light of conflicts over the proposed introduction of genetically engineered (GE) wheat to the Canadian prairies.

Globalization now receives as much or more attention as any concept in the academic lexicon. While scholars and pundits struggle to grasp its complex and varied worldwide manifestations, few researchers have yet focused on the South Korean media and its relationships with state and civil society, situated as it is within a complex political economic terrain. The role of agencies and institutions, especially state involvement in the media sector and in culture more broadly, has been controversial for communication scholars. In the last two decades a dramatic upsurge of neoliberal thinking has glorified the virtues of unregulated markets, and so-called ¡°end-of-history¡± discourse has ideologically championed incessant deregulation and economic and cultural privatization. Many neoliberalist scholars have argued that human nature and the structure of modern political, economic and cultural activities are such that the more constrained is the state, the better will be the quality and competitiveness of the more autonomous realms of enterprise and civil society. By contrast, my aim is to provide a fuller understanding of the political economy of a national/regional, as well as global mediascape, and to offer a more nuanced analysis of the role of the state and civil society in global and local cultural transformations, by careful attention to the case study of South Korea. Specifically, I examine interventions by the state and civil society in transforming the scene of national and global mediascapes, focusing on their various policies, regulations, movements and other initiatives. While it would be absurd to deny the pressures on semi-periphery by powerful international organizations (e.g., the IMF or WTO), these global constraints and pressures do not wholly dictate policy outcomes, whether economic or cultural, and globalization is not an inevitable nor omnipotent force that utterly deprives societies of their ability to maneuver when they must decide on policy. Hence development or social changes are negotiated in a manner more complex than typically acknowledged by globalization scholars (from the left or right), and in ways that aim to open up closed and inefficient institutions and reflect local social conditions and its needs, and sometimes succeed in doing so.

A fundamental question in politics that has no conclusive answer to this day is whether or not campaign expenditures are pointless. Determining the role of campaign contributions and spending in elections is important for formulating campaign finance reform policy and also for understanding the public choice economics behind elections. Politicians seem convinced that money is an important component in any successful election as illustrated by numerous fundraisers and lofty goals of raising $1 billion for presidential campaigns, yet the empirical research on money’s role in elections has not reached a consensus. This project seeks to further explore the relationship between money and a candidate’s probability of winning an election using panel data econometric techniques and high frequency data from the 2008 U.S. Senate elections.

The natural resource curse paradox has given rise to a wide range of explanations, which look at the economic, social and political characteristics of resource-rich countries. This paper focuses on the political economy of natural resources and finds that controlling for sociopolitical factors eliminates the natural resource curse. The analysis then turns to these sociopolitical factors and examines the significant, complex and varied effects of democratization on economic growth in general, as well as in resource-rich countries in particular. I conclude that the type of institutions needed for economic development in resource-rich countries are not specific to either democratic or autocratic systems, but are equally likely to be adopted by either regime, so that no one ideology is more suitable than the other. A corollary to this, however, is the case of weak democracies or low democratization levels. Such states are unable to adopt the necessary strategies and institutions and, thus, pose the greatest threat to economic growth in resource-rich countries. On the other hand, highly autocratic systems in resource-rich countries, such as those in Bahrain and UAE, or perfectly democratic systems, such as those in Norway and Iceland, utilize resources more efficiently for economic development.

Despite some recent economic progress, there is still widespread poverty and severe inequality in developing countries. According to the World Bank there are over 925 million hungry or undernourished people worldwide. More than 80 percent of people in the world live in countries whose income inequality is rising. Over 2.1 billion people globally live on less than two dollars a day, with over 880 million people facing absolute poverty and living on less than one dollar a day. Three out of four people living on less than $1 a day live in rural areas. These impacts have been magnified by the recent global recession, as rising food prices and a decrease in remittances have pushed between 130 and 155 million people back into poverty. 1 Particularly in lower income countries, the impoverished are faced with poor and insufficiently funded health care systems, restricted access to adequate nutrition and potable water, low agricultural yields, and poor soil quality. Not only are the services in short supply for the poor, but the predicament of the poor often limits their capacity to avail themselves of these services. Parents may opt for keeping their children out of school, either to employ their labor or to avoid the costs of transportation and school fees. Healthcare may also entail costs that parents are reluctant to bear. Thus, people are often in poor health which decreases their productivity and learning capacity. These issues combined, along with inadequate education systems, poor school attendance, and teacher absenteeism, all retard human capital accumulation.

The Primary purpose of this paper is to examine the role and importance of Senior Senators in the US Senate. Many states rely on Senators to bring in federal spending in the form of pork. When states lose their Senior Senator and the power they accumulated through increased tenure, they risk losing certain benefits in terms of pork. We use federal expenditures per dollar of tax and analyze how it is affected by Seniority in the Senate. Population, Income, and unemployment rates in each state were controlled for in our regression analysis. It is concluded that increased tenure significantly increases federal spending to Senators’ states. Though this is statistically significant, we find the effects of losing a Senior Senator to be insignificant in the overall welfare of a state.

In the last quarter century, California state governance has been popularly perceived as gridlocked, misguided, and overrun by interest groups opposed to both population and economic growth. By contrast, the Texas government has consistently reaffirmed its commitment to low taxes, minimal regulation, and a business-friendly climate. This divergence crystallized in the wake up the 2008-09 global financial crisis, where California’s growth rate fell sharply while Texas felt the recession’s impact more mildly and recovered quickly. Because of their similarities in size, power, and demographics, comparing the two states is well-covered ground. Nevertheless, most comparisons employ a “scorecard” method where components of public policy--state finance, taxation, and regulation--are held in isolation and a “winner” is selected. Such studies are generally not informed by academic research that evaluates the actual correlation between these elements of public policy and economic growth. Concurrently, economic research is usually conducted in the abstract and neglects to evaluate individual states with regard to their policies. This paper seeks to integrate a detailed accounting of economic literature on subnational economic growth with a holistic comparison of Texas and California. I find that while California suffers from a variety of challenges, empirical support for “Texas-style” policies as necessary for state-level economic growth is relatively weak. Thus, I conclude that California’s return to prosperity is not dependent on adopting such policies.

For-profit postsecondary education rapidly expanded in the decade preceding the 2008 financial crisis. For-profit institutions enrolled 9% of undergraduate students in 2009, up from 3% in 2000. This growth that was promising is now troubling. Significant enrollment declines in 2010-2012, in light of regulatory risk, recent GAO reports, and public scrutiny of recruiting and lending practices, suggest the foundations are not stable. This paper will analyze recent strategic decisions in the for-profit postsecondary education market using the framework developed by Brewer, Gates, and Goldman (2002) and make predictions about firm strategies and the future of the industry.