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The present study sought to extend goal-setting research by examining the nature of individuals' self-regulation with respect to performance goals while pursuing multiple, simultaneous goals. It was proposed that goal revision and effort allocation would be influenced by goal-performance discrepancies (GPD), causal attributions for factors affecting performance, self-efficacy, and rate of progress toward task goals. Results indicated that GPDs predicted goal revision direction and magnitude, and that controllability attributions moderated the GPD – revision relation. GPD size determined prioritization between tasks, as did self-efficacy. Mixed results were found for self-efficacy moderating the relation between GPD size and task prioritization. Rate of progress toward a task goal generally predicted prioritization between tasks and the amount of exerted effort within a single task. Although many results were not in the anticipated form, they still fit with modern theoretical frameworks associated with work motivation. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed. / Master of Science

This paper examines the effect of governance on inequality, specifically if improvements in the World Bank’s Worldwide Governance Indicators affect inequality as measured by two Gini coefficients: Market Gini, before taxes and redistribution, and Net Gini, after taxes and redistribution. The data for the Gini measurements was taken from the Standardized World Income Inequality Database (SWIID) and the data for the Worldwide Governance Indicators was taken from the World Bank. Data for fifteen (15) years, from the start of the Worldwide Governance Indicators until 2013, was combined with data from SWIID for the same years. In all, data from one hundred fifty-six (156) countries with a full set of six (6) indicators for the years that had at least one corresponding Gini measurements were used in this study: in total one thousand seven hundred and forty-seven (1747) observations. In a pooled OLS regression, controlling for growth with the variable GDP per Capita expressed as a per cent (%) change on an annual basis, the individual indicators gave the following results, where a positive sign indicates increased inequality and vice versa: Control of Corruption and Regulatory Quality showed a positive sign for both Gini measurements. Rule of Law, Government Effectiveness, Political Stability and the Absence of Violence/Terrorism, gave a negative sign for both Gini measurements. Voice and Accountability showed a positive sign for Market Gini and a negative sign for Net Gini. The fact that an improvement in Control of Corruption increased inequality both before and after taxes and redistribution was unexpected and should be further researched.

Schizophrenia demonstrates high heritability in part accounted for by common simple nucleotide variants (SNV), rare copy number variants (CNV) and, most recently, rare SNVs Although heritability explained by rare SNVs and CNVs is small compared to that explained by common SNVs, rare SNVs in functional sequences may identify specific disease mechanisms. However, current exome methods do not capture a large proportion of potentially functional bases where rare variation may impact disease risk: as much as two-thirds of conserved sequences lie outside the exome in non-coding regions of cross-species evolutionary constraint. We reasoned that the candidate loci from the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium Phase 1 (PGC-1) schizophrenia study represent good target loci to test for the impact of rare SNVs in non-coding constrained regions. We developed custom reagents to capture mammalian constrained non-coding regions, exons, and 5’- and 3’-untranslated regions (UTRs) in the 12 PGC-1 loci for pooled sequencing in 912 cases and 936 controls. Compared to our coding targets, our noncoding targets contain substantially more highly conserved bases (46,412 vs. 31,609) and variants (390 vs. 193). Using C-alpha to detect excess variance due to aggregate risk increasing or decreasing rare SNV effects, we identified signals attributable to alleles with MAF < 0.1% in both coding sequences and in functional non-coding sequences, including variants within ENCODE transcription factor binding sites, DNase hypersensitive regions, and histone modification sites in neuronal cell lines. We also observed significant excess risk-altering variation in the CUB domain of CSMD1, a gene expressed in the developing central nervous system. These results support the hypothesis that common and rare variants in the same loci contribute to schizophrenia risk, but highlight the need to expand capture strategies in order to detect trait-relevant sequence variation in a broader set of functional sequences.

This thesis examines the exchange rate pass-through into consumer prices in Central and Eastern Europe. The study is based on quarterly data of 12 countries from 2003 to 2013. Estimations are conducted using heterogeneous panel cointegration methods, namely the mean group and the pooled mean group estimators. Fixed effects are used as a reference. The thesis provides short- run and long-run estimates of the exchange rate pass-through for the individual countries and for the region as a whole. Based on the results, we conclude that the exchange rate pass-through is highly variable across Central and Eastern Europe. We find that there is no clear distinction between the pass-through rates in euro area countries, EU countries not using the euro and non- EU countries. Further, we find that the generally accepted concept of higher exchange rate pass- though in developing countries does not hold in this region. JEL Classification C23, E31, E52, F31 Keywords exchange rate pass-through, pooled mean group, mean group, heterogeneous panel cointegration Author's e-mail bara.mirkova@centrum.cz Supervisor's e-mail roman.horvath@gmail.com

This dissertation comprises two topics. In Chapter 1, I explore the short- and long-run relation between insurance development and economic growth for 40 countries between 1981 and 2010. Applying a pooled mean group estimation, I find that life and nonlife insurance have different short- and long-run effects on the growth. On a full sample analysis, life insurance exerts a significantly positive long-run effect on the growth, while its short-run effect is not significant. Nonlife insurance, in contrast, has a significantly positive short-run growth effect but no long-run effect. On a reduced sample analysis, the observation on life insurance is qualitatively similar, but the growth effect of nonlife insurance is no longer significant both in short and long run, suggesting that specific countries drive the overall effect in the full sample. The results pass a battery of robustness tests. The analysis on individual countries reveals that the short-run effect and adjustment speed toward the long-run equilibrium varies across countries. I also analyze if the level of income and insurance development makes any difference on the growth effect of insurance. The results show that the growth effect of life insurance is significant in non-high income countries and countries with low level of life insurance development, while the effect is not significant both for life and nonlife insurance in high income countries. In Chapter 2, I employ the dynamic panel threshold model to investigate how institutional environments shape the impact of insurance development on economic growth. I conduct four hypotheses for possible intermediate effects of institutional environments on insurance-growth nexus: quasi-institution positivity, quasi-institution negativity, quasi-institution duality, and quasi-institution neutrality. I use multiple measures related to political, economic, and legal environments to evaluate the soundness of institutional environments. Empirical results show that the quasi-institution negativity hypothesis is supported for life insurance because the observation is consistent across all institution-related measures. The results in nonlife insurance are not as uniform as those in life insurance. The quasi-institution positivity, negativity, and neutrality are respectively supported in different institutional measures, and the coefficients in most cases are significant only at a marginal significance level. The overall findings suggest that a sound institutional environment does not necessarily benefit the growth effect of life insurance, but an unhealthy one does deter it and that the effect depends on specific measure in the case of nonlife insurance. In Chapter 3 I briefly introduce some directions for further research.

A recent advancement in statistical methodology, Integrative Data Analyses (IDA Curran & Hussong, 2009) has led researchers to employ a calibration technique as to not violate an independence assumption. This technique uses a randomly selected, simplified correlational structured subset, or calibration, of a whole data set in a preliminary stage of analysis. However, a single calibration estimator suffers from instability, low precision and loss of power. To overcome this limitation, a multiple calibration (MC; Greenbaum et al., 2013; Wang et al., 2013) approach has been developed to produce better estimators, while still removing a level of dependency in the data as to not violate independence assumption. The MC method is conceptually similar to multiple imputation (MI; Rubin, 1987; Schafer, 1997), so MI estimators were borrowed for comparison. A simulation study was conducted to compare the MC and MI estimators, as well as to evaluate the performance of the operating characteristics of the methods in a cross classified data characteristic design. The estimators were tested in the context of assessing change over time in a longitudinal data set. Multiple calibrations consisting of a single measurement occasion per subject were drawn from a repeated measures data set, analyzed separately, and then combined by the rules set forth by each method to produce the final results. The data characteristics investigated were effect size, sample size, and the number of repeated measures per subject. Additionally, a real data application of an MC approach in an IDA framework was conducted on data from three completed, randomized controlled trials studying the treatment effects of Multidimensional Family Therapy (MDFT; Liddle et al., 2002) on substance use trajectories for adolescents at a one year follow-up. The simulation study provided empirical evidence of how the MC method preforms, as well as how it compares to the MI method in a total of 27 hypothetical scenarios. There were strong asymptotic tendencies observed for the bias, standard error, mean square error and relative efficiency of an MC estimator to approach the whole set estimators as the number of calibrations approached 100. The MI combination rules proved not appropriate to borrow for the MC case because the standard error formulas were too conservative and performance with respect to power was not robust. As a general suggestion, 5 calibrations are sufficient to produce an estimator with about half the bias of a single calibration estimator and at least some indication of significance, while 20 calibrations are ideal. After 20 calibrations, the contribution of an additional calibration to the combined estimator greatly diminished. The MDFT application demonstrated a successful implementation of 5 calibration approach in an IDA on real data, as well as the risk of missing treatment effects when analysis is limited to a single calibration's results. Additionally, results from the application provided evidence that MDFT interventions reduced the trajectories of substance use involvement at a 1-year follow-up to a greater extent than any of the active control treatment groups, overall and across all gender and ethnicity subgroups. This paper will aid researchers interested in employing a MC approach in an IDA framework or whenever a level of dependency in a data set needs to be removed for an independence assumption to hold.

La presente investigación, ganadora del Concurso Anual de Investigación CIES 2018, cuenta con el auspicio de Global Affairs Canada (GAC), el Centro Internacional de Investigaciones para el Desarrollo (IDRC, por sus siglas en inglés), la Fundación Manuel J. Bustamante De la Fuente y la Superintendencia Nacional de Aduanas y de Administración Tributaria (SUNAT). / Este documento examina el impacto de la membresía cooperativa agropecuaria sobre los rendimientos financiero y productivo en los años 2015 y 2016. Empleamos los modelos Propensity Score Matching y Pooled OLS sobre los datos del Censo de Cooperativas y de la Encuesta Nacional Agropecuaria. Nuestro análisis revela que la membresía cooperativa afecta positivamente los rendimientos en los sectores agrario y agropecuario, pero no en el sector pecuario. Dicho impacto supera los impactos estimados para otras formas de asociatividad. Asimismo, se encuentra un efecto spillover positivo de una localidad con alta presencia cooperativa sobre localidades aledañas. Finalmente, se descubre que la participación femenina en directorios cooperativos agropecuarios también influye positivamente sobre los rendimientos de los productores agropecuarios. / This research examines the impact of agricultural cooperative membership on financial and productive performance in 2015 and 2016. We use the Propensity Score Matching and Pooled OLS models on the data from the Cooperative Census and the National Agricultural Survey. Our analysis reveals that cooperative membership positively affects yields in the agrarian and agricultural sectors, but not in the livestock sector. This impact exceeds the estimated impacts for other types of associativity. Likewise, there is a positive spillover effect of a locality with high cooperative presence over nearby localities yields. Finally, it is discovered that the participation of women in agricultural cooperative directories also positively influences the yields of agricultural producers.

In this thesis I capture the effect of oil prices on the economic growth of net oil exporters and net oil importers of the world. The existing literature on this topic only covers some parts of the world, major oil exporters and oil importers and some covers only a single country. So, in this work I take a larger set of countries and enlarge the time period. This work covers the time period 1972-2021. The effect is examined by using the pooled OLS and two way fixed effect. I get significant results for both the net oil exporters and net oil importers. The results of both net oil exporters and net oil importers are significantly different from zero. But these results are opposite from the existing literature. I found that an increase in oil price has a negative impact on the economic growth of net oil exporters, but it has a positive effect on the economic growth of net oil importers. So, these results also do not support the theoretical and empirical literature.

Sharing automated vehicles (AVs) is a possible future, where shared automated vehicles (SAVs) and pooled automated vehicles (PooledAVs) are prospective on-demand AV configurations. While SAVs and PooledAVs can contribute to the sustainability of transport systems, the success of on-demand AVs depends on whether and how the public adopts them as regular travel modes. As such, this dissertation investigates five objectives: (1) to scrutinize the essential steps of designing a future mobility survey , while the primary focus of the survey is on respondents’ intentions to adopt various AV configurations (2) to propose and validate a theoretical model for on-demand AV adoption by extending the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), (3) to identify the prospective use cases of SAVs as the potential precursor of on-demand AVs, (4) to identify individual characteristics that may trigger different behavioral intentions among the on-demand AV service types, and finally (5) to investigate Canadians’ intentions to adopt on-demand AVs. A nationwide Canadian survey was designed and administered in fall 2021 (n = 5002) among adults (18 to 75 years old) residing in six major Canadian metropolitan areas: Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa-Gatineau, Montréal, Calgary, and Hamilton. The findings of this dissertation paint a complex picture of on-demand AV adoption in the Canadian context with respect to the application of constructs from common technology adoption models and will help researchers investigating the characteristics of prospective consumers of on-demand AVs to identify the importance of affective motivations regarding adopting such emerging travel modes. The results reveal that many Canadians are yet either uncertain or reluctant to adopt AV technology in shared mobility services. In this light, policymakers and planners should adjust and moderate their expectations regarding the future market for on-demand AVs and be prepared for potential changes in travel behavior by examining incremental changes in existing on-demand ride-hailing services. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This dissertation assesses the conditions under which Canadians are willing to use fully automated vehicles (AVs) and investigates public perceptions and intentions to use “automated ride-hailing services,” which function as a taxi or Uber/Lyft service without a driver, and “pooled automated ride-hailing services,” which are a form of ride-hailing services, where passengers share a ride with someone they do not know to save on the cost of travel. To this end, an online survey (n = 5002) was designed and administered in October and November 2021 across six major Canadian metropolitan areas: Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa-Gatineau, Montreal, Calgary, and Hamilton. Overall, results suggest that expectations towards AVs suddenly transforming the entire transportation sector, should be moderated and “automated ride-hailing services” and “pooled automated ride-hailing services” (when they are available in the entire Canadian market) are likely to be adopted as a supplementary mobility tool rather than a substitution for current travel modes.