Šiame darbe aš apibendrinau informaciją apie pasirinkimo tarp tiesinio prognozavimo mikro ir makro-modelių problemą. Agregavimas suprantamas kaip sektorinis agregavomas, o modeliai yra iš vienmatės tiesinės regresijos klasės. Aš išvedžiau kriterijų pasirinkimui tarp makro ir mikro-modelių ir idealaus agregavimo testą tiesinio agregavimo su fiksuotais ir atsitiktiniais svoriais atvejais. Paskutiniu atveju idealų agregavimą rekomenduoju tikrinti permutaciniu testu. Rezultatai iliustruoju ekonominiu pavyzdžiu. Modeliuoju Lietuvos vidutinį darbo užmokestį agreguotu modeliu ir atskirose ekonominės veiklos sektoriuose. Analizės rezultatas parodo, kad modeliai yra ekvivalentūs. / This paper focuses on the choice between macro and micro models. I suggest a hypothesis testing procedure for in-sample model selection for such variables as average wage. Empirical results show that Lithuanian average wage should be predict by using aggregate model.

This thesis uses a macroeconomic approach to study labour adjustments following sector-specific shocks. I develop a general model, investigate its dynamic adjustment process and apply it to study the Canadian economy in 2002–2006. This episode is an interesting case study because it features a significant labour reallocation to the resource sector and away from manufacturing, precipitated by an increase in global commodity prices and an associated exchange rate appreciation. The results establish that impediments to the adjustment process are economically significant in the aggregate for this episode, imposing costs of up to three percent of output during the transition. These findings augment several studies that suggest individual workers can face large and persistent earnings losses during job turnover. However, unlike previous research, I use the search and matching approach — which incorporates explicit labour market frictions — to uncover the sources of these costs for the macroeconomy. The findings emphasize that job loss itself is not particularly important quantitatively, but rather the non-transferability of skills during job turnover is a key concern. Finally, I investigate how labour market policy impacts the economy’s response to sector-specific shocks by analyzing a counterfactual policy change in unemployment benefits and improved skill acquisition through faster learning and training subsidies. The results reveal interesting policy trade-offs. First, I find that increasing unemployment benefits prolongs the economy’s adjustment, reduces employment, output and welfare and increases unemployment incidence and duration. However, because this policy impacts high-productivity and low-productivity sectors differently, it shifts the composition of the remaining jobs towards high-productivity sectors, thereby raising aggregate productivity and also reduces wage inequality. Second, I find that faster skill acquisition has the potential to deliver large economic gains in the long-run, but requires up-front investment costs which entail reduced economic performance in the short-run. / Thesis (Ph.D, Economics) -- Queen's University, 2008-08-05 23:44:39.827

No description available.

Empirical studies have shown that while global per capita freshwater availability is declining, competition among production sectors for the withdrawal of this resource is rapidly increasing. This situation is exacerbated by the rapid population growth especially in developing countries, urbanization, industrialization, externality problems, environmental sustainability and the need to increase food production. At country specific levels, policies have been designed to institute water use efficiency, equity and sustainability. The need to promote sectoral water use efficiency from the demand-side management requires a study to investigate the responsiveness of different production sectors and sub-sectors to variations in water prices. In most instances however, efficient water allocation compromises social equity, especially in a country where there is widespread poverty and where the gap between the rich and the poor is so wide that policies aimed at promoting economic growth should be carefully investigated to find whether efficient water allocation can also address the issue of equity among the different population groups. Review of empirical literature on the econometric approaches to sectoral water demand analysis shows that the agriculture sector has the least marginal value of water compared with the manufacturing, mining and services sectors. Based on this evidence it can be hypothesized that water reallocation from the agriculture to the non-agriculture sectors in South Africa can lead to growth in sectoral output. However, in a country where there is a wide gap between the rich and the poor, equity issues are high on the development agenda. Therefore, the benefits derived from efficient water reallocation should be equitably distributed to improve the standard of living of the critical population. Hence, the second hypothesis is that water reallocation from the agriculture to the non-agriculture sector can lead to an increase in the income of the critical population. To investigate these hypotheses the study: <ol><li>estimated the sectoral water demand functions and marginal values,</li> <li>used both social accounting matrix multiplier and computable general equilibrium analysis to investigate the impact of water reallocation from the agriculture to the non-agriculture sectors on output, factor payments on households’ welfare and </li> <li>analyzed the households’ welfare of the impact of global change on water resources in South Africa.</li></ol> The study used the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) and United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) data, and adopted the marginal productivity approach, and the two-stage model to estimate the global sectoral water demand functions and marginal values for thirteen sectors. This model is extended to the sectoral water demand analysis in South Africa. Thus, to validate the results of the global model, the study estimated sectoral water demand functions in South Africa by extracting data from STATSSA’s census of manufacturing and agricultural and services activities, published for each of the nine provinces in South Africa and the 2002 water supply and use accounts published by the same institution. The study tests the policy relevance of the computed marginal values for South Africa by using these values to investigate the impact of reallocating water from the agriculture to the non-agriculture sectors on output growth, value added, employment and households’ income generation.. To accomplish this objective, the study updates the 1999 social accounting matrix (SAM) for South Africa to reflect 2003 entries, computes the required multipliers and uses these to find how water reallocation on the basis of efficiency impacts sectoral output, households income generation and distribution. However, SAM multiplier analyses assume linearity, factor immobility and constant prices. The study therefore uses the computable general equilibrium analysis to investigate the households’ welfare implications of sectoral water reallocation and reduction due to global change. The SAM multiplier analysis shows that reallocation of water from the agriculture to the non-agriculture sectors leads to decrease in the output of the agriculture and the highly inter-dependent sectors. Specifically, output declines in the agriculture, food, beverages and tobacco and the services sectors, while it increases in the other sectors. However, if more than ten percent of the agriculture sector’s water is reallocated to the non-agriculture sector, net output declines, implying that the decline in output in the agriculture, food, beverages and tobacco and services sectors is more than the increase in output in the other sectors. This has consequences for factor remuneration, employment and households’ income. The above decline in the agriculture sector’s output leads to net job losses. Specifically the jobs lost in the agriculture sector are not countered by jobs created in the other sectors that benefit from the water reallocation. This is due to the fact that there are differences in skills requirements by the sectors. While the agriculture sector employs most of the unskilled workers, the other sectors require more medium and highly skilled individuals. This is reflected by changes in the wages paid to labourers. While the wages of unskilled labourers decline, there is an increase in the wages of medium and highly skilled labourers. The simulation results of the computable general equilibrium analysis show that sectoral water reallocation and reduction adversely impact the least and low-income households’ welfare, while improving the welfare of the high-income households. The interpretation is that with water reallocation or reduction, capital is substituted for water in the non-agriculture sectors and this increases the interest paid on capital, which goes to high-income households who are the owners of the capital. The adverse consequence can be reduced if food consumption by the poor households is maintained. To do this, some welfare measures are necessary. One such measure is the distribution of food stamps to the poor households. / Thesis (PhD (Environmental Economics))--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural Development / unrestricted

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The introduction of the single currency (Euro) in Europe has been referred to as the ‘world’s largest economic experiment’ and has led to major research on the effects of the adoption of a common currency on economic activity with considerable emphasis on its effect on trade flows at the macroeconomic level. However, the investigation of the euro effect on individual sectors has received very little attention and this provides the motivation for the research. The main contribution of this thesis is to the sectoral analysis of the single currency’s effect on bi-lateral trade flows, specifically the effects on the transport equipment manufacturing sector. In order to achieve this, a comparison of the different estimation methods applied in the gravity model literature will be employed to investigate this effect and to identify the factors affecting trade in this sector. This study uses a panel data set which comprises the most recent information on bilateral trade for the EU15 countries from 1990 to 2008. This research aims to build on the results obtained in previous studies by employing a more refined empirical methodology and associated tests. The purpose of the tests is to ensure that the euro’s effect on trade is isolated from the other pro- trade policies of the European integration processes, particularly the introduction of the Single Market. The desirable feature of this approach is that, while other studies limit their attention to a particular issue (zero trade flow, time trend, sectoral analysis, cross-correlation, etc.), very few, if any, apply a selection of techniques. Overall, the results demonstrate that the single currency’s effect on trade in this sector is limited with only the fixed effects formulation with year dummy variables showing a significant positive effect of the euro. An obvious policy implication for countries looking to adopt a single currency is that they should be cautious regarding the potential for growth in intra-bloc trade in a particular sector, although they will benefit from the on-going process of integration.

According to conventional wisdom, the petroleum industry is classified as a ‘resource based’ and ‘mature’ industry. It is subject to the ‘resource curse’ thesis, exhausted of ‘technological opportunities’ with limited capacity for knowledge based economic growth. This study questions the adequacy of this line of reasoning. Exploring the technological complexity of the sector, a complementary argument is presented. We show that the sector has recently experienced a surge in ‘technological opportunities’. However the ‘systemic complexity of the knowledge base’ has constrained many oil producing countries’ enjoyment of these opportunities. This view highlights the role of dynamics of knowledge base complexity as an important ‘cognitive’ barrier for building innovation capabilities in endowed countries. This study is based on the extension of a ‘Sectoral Innovation Systems’ approach, highlighting the role of technological regimes in catch-up possibilities and strategies. Knowledge base complexity is explored as an under-researched element of technological regimes. The research contributes in three ways. First, it introduces a dynamic and three-dimensional view of knowledge base complexity at the conceptual level, and hypothesizes its implication for patterns of innovation and catch-up processes. Second, a quantitative methodology is developed to examine the proposed hypotheses. Third, the conceptual and methodological suggestions are empirically examined in the context of upstream petroleum industry. The findings propose that the sector has gone through phases of transformation and reconfiguration. The sector’s technological regime over the most recent period experienced high opportunities combined with rising systemic complexity of the knowledge base. We show that this trend in technological regimes is associated with shift of the sector from Schumpeter Mark I to II and with the emergence of major Integrated Service Companies as new system integrators coping with rising systemic complexity. We also observe that rising systemic complexity is associated with slow down and halt of geographical dispersion of innovation. The sector-wide cumulativeness stemming from systemic complexity creates high cognitive barriers to entry for latecomers. The very scarce examples of catch-up in a few advanced oil producing countries suggest that high innovation opportunities in complex industries are open mostly to countries with both advanced national innovation systems and accumulated production experience. For latecomer countries to benefit, their industrial policy needs to cope with increasing systemic complexity, mitigating its coordination costs and facilitating the integration of distributed catch-up processes. This highlights the key role of ‘late comer systems integrators’ for successful catch-up.

Institutional logics create order and stability. They organize interaction and prescribe how we should behave towards each other. Such logics have generally been regarded as exclusive, in the sense that an organizational field is always guided by a single institutional logic. If there are two or more institutional logics in one setting at the same time this will create conflicting demands and contradictions. So how do organizations and individuals that act in these settings, where different institutional logics do meet, cope with the conflicting demands?    This question is researched by studying actors who organize partnerships between corporations and non-profit organizations. Institutional logics have typically been studied at field level. My study follows a more recent literature strand focusing on individuals and their way of coping with conflicting institutional logics. In this thesis, interviews, text analysis and observations are used. The interviews were conducted with CSR managers of corporations, managers of corporate partners at non-profit organizations, CSR consultants, and project managers of intermediary organizations. These actors are working in an environment where conflicting institutional logics are played out. Using a narrative approach it is shown how these actors are aware of their institutional environment and its conflicts which requires them to constantly act as translators. The study shows that the actors organize an interplay between a market-logic and a social-welfare logic by bringing together the logics and establishing limits to what extent logics can be mixed. Thus, the actors can be understood as bilingual, rather than hybrids. Furthermore, it is argued that a narrative approach provides the possibility to understand institutional logics in empirical contexts as more present and visible than they are usually considered to be. The study concludes that bilingual actors balance conflicting demands and negotiate requirements set by institutional logics in their day-to-day work.  Settings where institutional logics meet can hence be understood as both a contradiction and an ongoing interplay.

In this thesis, I argue for a move from the preoccupation with the obvious (crude and quantifiable impacts), towards critically examining the subtle (less than obvious impacts), which will allow us to deal with adversities (the likes of HIV and AIDS) in the most effective ways. The thesis adopts the summative governance framework to demonstrate how our preoccupation with the quantifiable impacts shrouds our intellectual and practical ability to deal with the subtle impacts of AIDS. Governance is hypothesised to emerge amidst turbulent, unpredictable, messy, complex and dynamic path conditions predicated upon certain orders of criticality, including but not limited to the process of knowledge formation, retention and transfer. The thesis suggests that the evolution of governance from nascent to fully institutionalised mechanisms of control is in itself a product of the evolution of knowledge. Notwithstanding, HIV and AIDS constrain the emergence of governance through impacting the process of knowledge formation, retention and transfer. Resultantly, these impacts are not merely additive and isolated to the sectoral governances, but are summative, intergenerational and structured, and potentially endanger the fundamental systems of governance. The pre and post independence induced vulnerabilities of Namibia are presented to demonstrate that the country is an engrossing, but yet a perilous mix of the past and the present. Whilst Namibia aspires for a democratic, non-racial, progressive society, the thesis demonstrates that due to constraints engendered by HIV and AIDS this proceeds on terms and conditions that by no means guarantee a happy outcome.

Thesis advisor: Paul Gray / This thesis is a study of inter-sectoral collaboration and the impact of crises and social learning and cooperation initiatives on corporate change. The main purpose is to demonstrate how governments, corporations, and non-governmental organizations can most effectively work together to solve some of the world's most pressing development problems. Using case studies of extractive multinational corporations operating in Colombia, Papua New Guinea, and Nigeria, this paper presents support for the fact that crises are essential catalysts for corporate change. Moreover, analysis of these cases reinforces the critical role social learning and cooperation initiatives play in driving longterm improvements in corporate practice. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2008. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Sociology. / Discipline: College Honors Program. / Discipline: International Studies Honors Program.