In this study, I examine the transmissions of volatility spillovers during the subprime crisis in the U.S between Vietnam and other Asian financial markets (Japan, Korea, China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan). I attempt to explore the level and magnitude of volatility spillover effects of other Asian markets on the Vietnam stock market by applying a multivariate generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (MGARCH) model. It is found that the level of the volatility effect of the selected financial markets on the Vietnamese stock market’s return from 2006 to August - 2009 increases over time. Particularly, the level of volatility transmissions and spillover effect of two developed markets, Hong Kong and Japan onto the Vietnamese market are relatively higher and more consistent than other markets during the 2006-2009 period. Also, the Vietnamese financial market seems to perform better than other markets during my 2006-2009 sample, including the financial crisis period in 2007.

Many communities around the country had already been dealing with the problems of increasing and concentrated foreclosures for several years. Thus, the evidence of the social costs of foreclosures will guide policy makers in deciding what policies should be put in many communities that foreclosures have plagued. The objective of this research is to quantify the price-depressing foreclosure effects on existing home sale prices as one of the major social costs for communities. The first methodological goal is to simultaneously quantify the magnitude of the direct and the spillover effects of foreclosures on existing home prices. The second methodological goal is to provide usefulness concerning spatial econometric models in measuring the impact of foreclosures on housing prices. This study was estimated with traditional hedonic and spatial hedonic models specified during two different housing cycles in Phoenix, Arizona, during a strong housing market when prices were up (2005) and a down housing market with falling prices (2008). It has been shown that foreclosures have negative effects on existing home prices in the neighborhood, depending on housing types and cycles. However, the OLS models do not correct for spatial autocorrelation problems and endogeneity that exist in a cross section of house prices and would overestimate absolute values of the coefficients. As alternatives, the maximum likelihood spatial lag or error model controls for spatial autocorrelation but still causes computation obstacles for large data sets and problems of heteroskedasticity in error terms. Thus, the preferred specification is a generalized method of moments (GMM) approach which requires weaker assumptions than the maximum likelihood application and has flexible form to large datasets. As a joint analysis, the most appropriate specification is the general spatial two-stage least-squares (GMM_2SLS) method with HAC (the spatial heteroskedasticity and autocorrelation consistent) variance estimator. These findings provide further evidence that OLS estimates of a coefficient on a foreclosure indicator tend to overstate the direct or indirect foreclosure discount, ignoring spatial effects such as spatial dependence and endogeneity. With regard to the spillover effect of nearby foreclosures on home prices, both foreclosures of single family homes and condos are statistically significant and negatively impact each type of home sale prices. However, the cumulative effects of neighborhood foreclosures are much greater with nonlinear effects in a housing bust year than a housing boom year. Therefore, this study on price-depressing effects of foreclosures emphasizes the importance of the pre-foreclosure step as the beginning of following foreclosure processes, depending on housing types and housing market cycles.

Legalizing marijuana for recreational use has been a hot political topic in recent years. Different conclusions have been drawn from the literature on this subject, but one conclusion is that the tactic is an effective instrument in combating the black market. On the other side, it has also been demonstrated that it has a negative effect on neighbouring regions that still view marijuana as an illicit drug.  This study examines the evidence of any causal link between the legalization of marijuana for recreational use and its consequences on neighbouring regions. The legalization of marijuana in Washington state in 2012 and spillover effects on drug-related crime rates in British Columbia served as the foundation for this study. With the help of nine Canadian provinces, a synthetic British Columbia has been created that attempts to simulate how crime rates may have developed had Washington not legalized marijuana.  The legalization of marijuana has had both positive and negative spillover impacts on the neighbouring territory, according to empirical data. As a "gateway" substance, marijuana possession rates rose after the implementation of the policy. Results on the supply side show that because of increased competition and legal supply from the neighbouring region, marijuana suppliers are switching to other drugs. This essay also addresses other potential social effects of marijuana legalization, such as a decline in the prevalence of sexual assault and marijuana possession among young people. Based on the empirical data, the study offers improvements in aiding neighbouring regions who are considering the implementation of RML in creating preventative measures against illicit usage of marijuana.

Cette thèse étudie si les villes stimulent le développement économique des zones rurales voisines en Chine. Dans un premier temps, la thèse retrace l'évolution des relations entre zones urbaines et rurales depuis la période maoïste (Chapitre 1). Alors que durant des décennies entières les zones rurales ont été sacrifiées au profit des villes, depuis le début des années 2000 est apparue l'idée que les villes devaient à leur tour « soutenir les zones rurales ». A l'heure actuelle, de nombreux investissements visant à renforcer les liens entre villes et campagnes sont réalisés dans le but de favoriser la croissance rurale. Cependant, l'effet des villes sur le développement rural en Chine demeure profondément méconnu. L'objectif de cette thèse est ainsi de fournir une analyse détaillée de l'effet des villes sur le développement rural afin de comprendre si renforcer les liens urbains-ruraux peut constituer une stratégie de développement rural efficace. Après avoir défini ce que l'on entend par zones urbaines et rurales en Chine (Chapitre 2), nous passons en revue la littérature sur l'effet des villes sur le développement rural (Chapitre 3). Les trois chapitres suivants fournissent des analyses empiriques. La première analyse empirique s'attache à l'effet des villes sur le secteur agricole des zones rurales avoisinantes (Chapitre 4). Ensuite, nous étudions l'effet des villes sur le secteur rural non-agricole (Chapitre 5). Enfin, alors que les deux premières analyses empiriques se concentrent sur l'effet des villes sur la performance économique rurale, la dernière étude analyse l'effet des villes sur le développement rural, en estimant l'impact de la proximité urbaine sur la pollution rurale (Chapitre 6). A la lumière des résultats obtenus, nous nous interrogeons sur l'efficacité d'une politique visant à renforcer les liens villes-campagnes en Chine (Chapitre 7). / This dissertation studies whether cities enhance development in nearby rural areas in China. First, we recount the evolution of urban-rural relations since the Maoist period (Chapter 1). While rural areas were sacrificed in favor of cities for decades, since the early 2000s the government has indicated that cities should “support the countryside". Nowadays, a high number of investments have been realized to strengthen linkages between urban and rural areas with the aim of enabling cities to promote rural development. However, very little is known about the effective impact of cities on nearby rural areas in the specific Chinese context. The present dissertation aims at providing a detailed analysis of the role of cities on rural areas in order to assess whether strengthening urban-rural linkages is an effective rural development strategy. After having defined what we mean by urban and rural areas in China (Chapter 2), we provide a review of the literature on the role of cities in rural development (Chapter 3). The following three chapters present empirical investigations. The first empirical test focuses on the effect of cities on the agricultural sector of nearby rural areas (Chapter 4). We then study the impact of cities on the rural non-agricultural sector (Chapter 5). Finally, after having focused on the economic impact of cities, we investigate the effect of cities on rural development by testing whether urban proximity significantly increases rural pollution in China (Chapter 6). In the light of the results obtained, we consider whether relying on cities to enhance rural development could be an effective strategy (Chapter 7).

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-28T20:12:55Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2008 - Hilbernon Fernandes Coelho.pdf: 2519283 bytes, checksum: 972a4d031a678a36839deb493a920e25 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-09-17 / The objective of this thesis is to verify whether the economic growth generated in two productive systems, in Petrolina/Juazeiro, Brazil, and the one in the Sixth Region, in Chile, from 1990 to 2005, was sufficiently able to generate overflowing effects in order to promote local development. It is postulated in this paper that the economic growth will render benefits to the population only with the intervention and regulation on the part of the State, which will make investments in other areas feasible. For example, investments in areas as education and the health system, as a mean to diminish social conflicts or tensions within the fruit export sector of the two mentioned productive systems. In order that such objective is fulfilled, with a view to confirm or not the postulate, this work was divided into five chapters, introduction and the conclusion paragraphs not included. In the first chapter, literature on the subject is revised, which aims to verify the state of the art of studies about enterprise clusterings and their interaction with the environment they are established in. The second chapter presents a qualitative analysis about the competitiveness of the global fruit chain market, emphasizing the importance of ties and local impact with global actors. The third chapter compares the Brazilian and the Chilean fruit production, taking into account each country s history and trajectory. The fourth, comprehends the empirical phase of the thesis, based on the application of the research tools, which is contained in the economical-productive characterization of the two productive systems with a competitiveness point of view. A brief analysis about work relationship in the two productive clusters has also been done. In the fifth chapter, the idea of development as a socioeconomic process is defended, which will fully verify whether the wellbeing of the local population has been met. The economical aspects were analyzed by means of two indicators: a) physical productivity of work and b) level of openness to foreign affairs. The IDH/PNUD premises were used in order to verify whether economic growth has provoked sufficient overflowing to promote human development in the studied areas. At last, it is concluded that even in other, distant lands, there are similarities between the productive processes of the two systems, mainly in what accounts for the availability of resources and the role that the State plays, bestowing privileges to some social segments to the detriment of other segments. In respect to the kind of insertion in the national and global fresh fruit markets, the two localities have different styles as to institutional, social and historical characteristics in each of their regions. This study made it possible to confirm the hypothesis that it is possible to verify the spillover effect under the current entrepreneurial view in respect to the productive system studied. With a view to the remarkable actuation of large national and foreign companies in the global fruit supply chain, and if there is no direct intervention of the State as the main driver of development, through efficient public policies, this discussion about clustering of enterprises and people development may remain empty, considering that the market has not been sufficiently able to promote human development. / O objetivo principal da tese ? verificar se o crescimento econ?mico gerado nos dois sistemas produtivos, em Petrolina/Juazeiro, no Brasil e na Sexta Regi?o, no Chile, no per?odo compreendido entre 1990 e 2005, foi suficiente para gerar efeitos de transbordamentos para promover o desenvolvimento das localidades. Parte-se do pressuposto que o crescimento econ?mico s? se traduzir? em benef?cios para a popula??o se houver interven??o e regula??o do Estado, viabilizando investimentos em outras ?reas como, por exemplo, educa??o e sa?de, como forma de diminuir as tens?es sociais no setor exportador de frutas dos dois agrupamentos produtivos em quest?o. A metodologia aborda uma revis?o na literatura, objetivando verificar o estado da arte dos estudos sobre a aglomera??o de empresas e a sua intera??o com o local; uma an?lise qualitativa sobre a competitividade da cadeia global da fruta, enfatizando a import?ncia dos v?nculos e impactos locais com os atores globais; compara??o da fruticultura brasileira com a chilena, observando-se a historiografia de cada pa?s e suas respectivas trajet?rias; caracteriza??o econ?mico-produtiva dos dois sistemas produtivos, sob o ponto de vista da competitividade, atrav?s de entrevistas e aplica??o de question?rio; ? feita tamb?m uma breve an?lise sobre as rela??es de trabalho nos dois agrupamentos produtivos. Os aspectos econ?micos foram analisados por meio de dois indicadores: a) produtividade f?sica do trabalho e b) grau de abertura para o exterior. Para verificar se o crescimento econ?mico gerou transbordamentos suficientes para promover o desenvolvimento humano nas ?reas de estudo, utilizaram-se as premissas do IDH/PNUD. Os resultados mostram que, mesmo em lugares distantes, h? similaridades nos processos produtivos dos dois sistemas, principalmente, no que se refere ? disponibilidade de recursos e ao papel do Estado, privilegiando alguns segmentos sociais em detrimento de outros. Quanto ? inser??o nos mercados nacionais e globais de frutas frescas, as duas localidades se inserem de forma diferenciada conforme as caracter?sticas institucionais, sociais e hist?ricas de cada regi?o. O estudo permitiu confirmar a hip?tese de que ? imposs?vel verificar efeito de transbordamento com a mentalidade empresarial vigente nos sistemas produtivos estudados. Tendo em vista a atua??o marcante de grandes empresas nacionais e estrangeiras, voltadas para o suprimento da cadeia global de frutas, se n?o houver a interven??o direta do Estado como o principal indutor do desenvolvimento, por meio de pol?ticas p?blicas eficazes, a discuss?o sobre agrupamentos de empresas e desenvolvimento das pessoas ser? vazia, visto que, comprovadamente, o mercado n?o ? suficiente para promover o desenvolvimento humano.

This thesis is the first study that provides comprehensive empirical evidence on both the impacts of the target interest rate news from the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) on the Australian financial markets, and the spillover effects of the target interest rate news from the US Federal Reserves (Fed) and the European Central Bank (ECB) on the Asia Pacific's equity and currency markets. This thesis contributes to the current literature in several ways. First, while there is ample evidence in the literature suggesting that the markets would not react to what is already expected but will react to the news, the current literature on the RBA's target rate effects is still limited to the investigation of the overall announcement impact on the first moment of the Australian market return only. Therefore, this thesis firstly comprehensively investigates the impacts of the unexpected components of the RBA's target rate announcements (or news) on the first two moments of various segments of the Australian financial markets including interest rate changes, the Australian dollar and stock market returns. In so doing, this thesis contributes to the current literature on the impacts of domestic target interest rate news. Second, while the established literature seems to be missing a thorough investigation of the spillover effects of the Fed's and the ECB's news on the Asia Pacific markets, this thesis provides comprehensive evidence on the spillover effects of the Fed's and the ECB's target rate news on both the mean and volatility of the Asia Pacific's stock and currency returns. Furthermore, we not only document the presence of the news spillover effects but also highlight the incremental explanatory power of the target interest rate news in the presence of the indirect effects from the US's and euro area's markets to the Asia-Pacific markets. To this end, this thesis contributes to the literature on spillover effects of foreign target interest rate news. Third, while the literature is silent on how quickly the target interest rate news is absorbed in foreign markets, this thesis takes a step forward and breaks down the daily horizon into the overnight and the intraday horizons. In so doing, the thesis examines the absorption speed of target rate news in the Asia-Pacific markets. This is an important issue because there might be potential for a diverse array of response dynamics across countries due to heterogeneous market developments, nature of monetary policy synchronization, and financial and real integration with the U.S. and the euro area. Specifically, this thesis presents three independent empirical inquiries that contribute to the literature on domestic and spillover effects of the target interest rate news. Chapter 4 provides comprehensive empirical evidence for the impacts of the RBA's target rate news on various segments of the Australian financial markets during the period from 1998 to 2006. We also investigate the spillover effects of the US Fed's news on the Australian financial markets. We show that the RBA's and the Fed's news significantly affect the Australian financial markets in line with a priori expectations. However, while the RBA's news raises volatility in the Australian financial markets, the volatility was significantly lower in all market segments following the Fed's news. The spillover effects of the US Fed's and the ECB's target interest rate news on the mean and the volatility of twelve Asia Pacific's stock markets' returns are examined in Chapter 5, and seven Asia Pacific exchange rates against the US dollar and the euro over the period 1999-2006 are carried out in Chapter 6. The spillover effects on the conditional mean are generally consistent with the literature where a majority of Asia Pacific stock markets shows significant negative returns and a majority of currencies depreciates against the US dollar and the euro in response to the Fed's and the ECB's unexpected rate rises. Furthermore, in response to the two target rate news, the conditional volatility of the Asia Pacific stock markets was higher while the market calming effects have been observed for the currency markets and both the Fed and the ECB news elicit persisting volatility responses. We conjecture that as the ECB's news tends to confirm the Fed's earlier decision, this relationship might help reduce uncertainties in the Asia Pacific currency markets upon the future path of target interest rates from both the Central Banks, which ultimately results in into a lower volatility level. These findings are important not only to the Asia Pacific’s policy makers to help them improve the conduct of monetary policy but also to market participants in designing trading mechanisms as well as risk management strategies in response to both domestic and external interest rate shocks. Furthermore, these findings also shed light on the lead-lag relationship between the Fed and the ECB in making policy decisions. The notion that the ECB follows the Fed in setting its policy is so strong amongst market participants that empirical evidence seems to be crucial. Despite the fact that the ECB's news arrives after the Fed's news, this study provides evidence that the ECB's news has its own merits in the Asia Pacific markets and helps resolve differences in beliefs among market participants.

abstract: The phenomenon of global warming and climate change has increasingly attracted attention by researchers in the field of supply chain and operations management. Firms have developed efficient plans and intervention measures to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. While a majority of research in supply chain management has adopted a firm-centric view to study environmental management, this dissertation focuses on the context of GHG emissions reduction by considering a firm’s vertical and horizontal relationships with other parties, and the associated spillover effects. A theoretical framework is first proposed to facilitate the field's understanding of the possible spillover effects in GHG emissions reduction via vertical and horizontal interactions. Two empirical studies are then presented to test the spillover effect in GHG emissions reduction, focusing on the vertical interactions - when firms interact with their supply chain members. Drawing data from Bloomberg Environmental Social and Governance, and Bloomberg SPLC, this study conducts econometric analyses using various models. The results suggest that first, a higher level of supply chain GHG emissions is associated with the adoption of emissions reduction programs by a firm, and that this supply chain leakage contributes to the firm’s financial performance. Second, a firm's supply base innovativeness can contribute to its internal GHG emissions reduction, and this effect is contingent on a firm's supply base structure. As such, this dissertation answers the recent call in the field of supply chain and operations management for more empirical research in socially and environmentally responsible value chains. Further, this study contributes to the literature by providing a better understanding of the externalities that value chain members can impose on one another when pursuing sustainability goals. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Business Administration 2018

This thesis aims to see how individual and partner’s unemployment affect self-rated depressive symptoms, both for individuals separately, and for individuals in a relationship within Europe. The research questions were examined by using European Social Survey (ESS) data from 2014. An index was created in order to capture the phenomena of depressive symptoms. To investigate the effect of unemployment in relation to self-rated depression, multiple regressions analysis were used. The results show that there is a relationship between unemployment and depressive symptoms, for both men and women. However, men tend to be affected by their own unemployment only, whereas evidence was found supporting that having an unemployed partner affect depressive symptoms in a negative way for women. Hence, women are a more vulnerable group on the labour market, because they are not only affected by their own labour market status, but also by the labour market status of their partners.

During the last decade there has been an increase in renewable energy companies. At the same time, propositions have been put forward worldwide in order to restrict the possibilities for expansion for energy companies with their focus on oil and gas. This study aims to analyse the potential spillover effects between oil and renewable energy stocks on the Nordic Stock markets in order to explain how these events might affect investors abilities to predict potential gains in the markets. Spillover effects are characterized by seemingly unrelated events in one market having an impact on another. Similar studies have been conducted in countries that have a large dependency on oil as their means of energy. However, with the Nordic region being on the forefront when it comes to renewable energy globally, the aim was to see if there would be similar effects between the different sectors between different countries. The study utilized Market Capitalization based indexes for both types of stocks and examined the correlations between them during different time periods. This in order to find trends related to different time periods that could open up for different investment opportunities depending on the user. As the study showed, there were significantly negative correlations between the indexes in favour of the renewable market. However, these correlations were not true for all time periods within the study and could therefore not be confirmed as a definite result.

This research examines the relationship between online and offline sales in an omnichannel sales environment centered around the selling of parking spaces. This dissertation consists of a pilot study followed by an expanded study. The studies delved into the effects of e-commerce additions upon traditional brick and mortar revenue channels. The parking industry was selected as the backdrop, given the high degree of current relevant concerns in this space around internet sales-related cannibalization concerns against physical stores, and given the author’s substantial access to relevant research data. Data was collected for an intervention group and a control group from a leading parking management firm with thousands of parking garages located across North America. In the pilot study, and using panel data gathered from the firm, we sought to examine the effects of an online intervention to existing aggregate revenues through the implementation of a new 3rd party e-commerce sales channel (Parkwhiz.com). Under the intervention group, data was collected on 1.7 million revenue transactions over an approximately two-year period, from 2016 through 2018 across 15 parking properties in New York City. The control group consisted of 493,950 revenue transaction entries, also spanning a roughly two-year period from 2016 through 2018, and across 28 different parking properties throughout the City of New York. A fixed-effect model was used for analyzing the data, which came with unforeseen challenges of balance, outlier concerns, and sample size. Ultimately, insignificant results were observed, but these were attributed mainly to difficulties in data structure and sample size (N = 386) of daily revenue observations. Despite those challenges, individual summary statistics showed potential strength in the primary hypothesis, and this motivated further examination. In the expanded study, an adapted approach from the pilot was used to correct for a majority of its shortcomings in the data structure, sample size, balance, and modeling. Further, several moderating components were incorporated to test practice relevant relationships between revenue, the competitive landscape, and online search sessions. Using the same primary hypothesis from the pilot study, the expanded work provided for 15 intervention group properties and 15 control group properties in New York City, with a balanced dataset of 90 days pre-intervention and 90 days post-intervention for each property examined in the year 2018 or 2019. The original hypothesis (H1A) evaluates whether or not an online intervention increases total revenue at a given location. Additional hypotheses (H1B) evaluating whether offline revenue sources are affected by the online intervention, (H2) moderation of revenue by the volume of competition using the same online channel, (H3) moderation of revenue by the volume of parking locations in the marketplace (zip code area) regardless of selling online or offline, and (H4) revenue predicted by the volume of online searches for parking occurring in the marketplace. Sample sizes ranged from N = 3,491 to 5,098 across our various regression models. Our overall H1 outcomes (across four different regression models) showed strong statistical significance with p-values less than 0.001, and moderate R^2 scores between 37%-47% for the online ParkWhiz intervention. Online intervention increases revenue per parking space in the range of $1.171 to $1.196 in the experiment. The results provide support for the proposition that adding an online sales channel to an existing body of physical parking facilities is additive, non-cannibalistic and overall productive for the business. Our H2 and H3 study outcomes were inconclusive, as the moderators were not significant. The tests of the moderating effects in H2 and H3 provided no practical results, other than perhaps anecdotal perception to supplement the other findings. The testing of H4 did show significance in the importance of the assessment of online search demand in a given zip code as an amplifier of the effect of online intervention on parking revenue. Search volume is positively related to a change in the net new revenues. Overall, the analysis generated learnings valuable for future researchers to expand upon through better data gathering, statistical models, and analysis. In totality, the desired contribution of this body of research is to provide today’s brick and mortar business manager with strategic insights into the conditions needed to make healthy e-commerce decisions, based on observable market conditions, in an omnichannel environment that combines online and offline models for maximum aggregate revenue growth. Avoidance or minimization of cannibalization between existing channels and new channels can ensure success. Our work demonstrates several critical aspects of the phenomena of successful online and offline channel cohabitation with practical conclusions for the strategic decision-maker to use in reaching that equilibrium, and leaves a discernible path for future researchers to supplement our efforts with additional moderating variables. Keywords: Omnichannel, cannibalization; externality; brick and mortar; platform; two-sided marketplace; e-commerce; parking; retail; online/offline; distribution; multi-channel; cross-channel; offline-to-online service platform, channel addition, mobile apps. / Business Administration/Strategic Management