A década de 1990 foi marcada por importantes transformações de caráter estrutural ocorridas no ambiente econômico e institucional brasileiro que estiveram ligadas tanto ao novo conjunto de políticas macroeconômicas adotado, quanto à implementação de reformas de cunho liberalizante. O objetivo das medidas adotadas era de estabelecer condições para a retomada do crescimento da economia, de forma a que a crise da década anterior fosse superada. Apesar de um grande salto no crescimento não ter sido observado, houve uma relativa recuperação das taxas de crescimento na década de 1990 e no início dos anos posteriores. Com foco nas reformas liberalizantes que foram implementadas, esta dissertação procura investigar a maneira e os meios pelos quais as mudanças verificadas nas principais áreas reformadas geraram impacto sobre o desempenho econômico do país. Para tanto, utiliza-se dois referenciais teóricos: (i) a nova economia institucional, que fornece o substrato para a interpretação do caráter institucional das reformas; e (ii) a teoria de crescimento econômico com base nos modelos de crescimento neoclássicos, que permitem a investigação empírica acerca dos efeitos das reformas sobre a taxa de crescimento da economia. A análise empreendida verificou, primeiramente, que, de acordo com o exercício de decomposição da taxa de crescimento realizado para o período considerado de 1960 a 2005, o elemento cuja variação mais contribuiu para a variação da taxa de crescimento dos anos em questão foi a produtividade total dos fatores descontada da fronteira tecnológica (PTFD). Com base neste resultado, realizou-se a aplicação de um modelo econométrico em que a PTFD foi a variável dependente e os índices de reforma construídos as variáveis explicativas. O resultado final a que se chegou mostrou que apenas a abertura comercial e a reforma do setor financeiro nacional, dentre as quatro áreas reformadas aqui consideradas, estiveram associadas ao comportamento da PTFD no período analisado, especialmente na década de 1990, indicando que um meio pelo qual essas duas reformas geraram impactos sobre a taxa de crescimento da economia parece ter sido a PTFD. / The 1990's were characterized by important structural changes in the economic and institutional Brazilian environment, and these changes were associated to a new macroeconomic policy regime and to the implementation of economic reforms based on a liberal set of rules. The main objective behind the measures that were taken was to establish basic conditions to foster economic growth rate recovery. Although a great increase in the growth rate had not been verified, there was a relative recovery of the economic performance in the 1990's and in the beginning of following years. This thesis focus on the analysis of liberalization reforms implemented in the 1990's, and investigates the ways through which they had affected economic growth in Brazil. In this way, the study was build upon two theoretical bases: (i) the new institutional economics, which gives us the substratum to the interpretation of the institutional nature of reforms; and (ii) the economic growth theory on the bases of neoclassical growth models, which allows the empirical inquiry concerning the impact of the reforms on the rate of economic growth. The undertaken analysis in this research has shown, first of all, that, in accordance to the growth rate decomposition exercise, carried out through the years of 1960's to 2005, the element whose variation rate had most significant contribution to the variation of growth rate was the total factor productivity discounted by the technological frontier (TFPD). Based on this preliminary result, the econometric analysis took into account a model in which TFPD was the dependent variable, and the structural reforms indicators the independent variables. The final result showed that only opening trade and financial reforms, amongst the four reformed areas considered in this study, had been associated to the behavior of TFPD in the analyzed period, especially in the 1990's, indicating that the way through which these two reforms had affected the economic performance seems to have been the TFPD.

A agropecuária brasileira tem crescido nas últimas décadas e os ganhos de produtividade tem sido importante neste bom desempenho do setor. O presente trabalho tem dois objetivos principais. O primeiro deles foi mensurar o crescimento desta produtividade total dos fatores na agropecuária brasileira estadual, decompondo o crescimento da PTF em progresso tecnológico e eficiência técnica. O segundo objetivo foi analisar o efeito do crescimento da PTF da agropecuária brasileira sobre os preços agrícolas, no Brasil, de 1970 a 2006. O crescimento desta produtividade foi mensurado a partir dos insumos terra, trabalho e capital na função de produção translog sob orientação do produto, a partir do método de Fronteira Estocástica de Produção e do índice de produtividade de Malmquist. Para avaliar o efeito do crescimento da PTF sobre os preços agrícolas foi construído o índice de preços agrícolas utilizando-se o Índice de preços de Laspeyres para estimar o vetor autoregressivo em painel (panel- VAR), acrescentando as variáveis produtividade total dos fatores (PTF), salário rural, financiamento agrícola e renda per capita domiciliar. Além disso, foi aplicado o teste de causalidade, no sentido de Granger, e estimada a função impulso resposta. A base de dados utilizada foi, obtida do Censo Agropecuário, a nível estadual, para os anos de 1970, 1975, 1980, 1985, 1995 e 2006. Os resultados indicaram que a taxa de crescimento da PTF foi crescente no Brasil e nos estados, sendo que, na maior parte das vezes, é explicada pelo progresso tecnológico, positivo e crescente para todos os estados. A eficiência técnica variou ao longo dos anos, apresentado taxas de crescimento médias positivas para a maioria dos estados. Em média, os estados estiveram situados abaixo da fronteira de produção da agropecuária brasileira. São Paulo foi o estado com maior nível de eficiência técnica. Embora a taxa de crescimento médio anual tenha sido positiva ao longo do período analisado, a eficiência reduziu para todos os estados analisados em 2006. Da análise dos efeitos do crescimento da PTF sobre os preços agrícolas, a PTF tem causalidade, no sentido de Granger, sobre os preços agrícolas. Na função impulso resposta, o choque inicial na variável PTF reduziu os preços nos primeiros anos. Assim, o crescimento da PTF do setor agropecuário contribuiu para o aumento da oferta de produtos, reduzindo os preços agrícolas. A maior disponibilidade de alimentos e, com a redução dos preços dos alimentos, os consumidores, principalmente os de renda mais baixa puderam ter maior acesso aos alimentos. / The Brazilian agriculture has grown in recent decades and productivity gains have been important in this good performance of the sector. This work had two main objectives. The first one was measure the growth of this total factor productivity in agriculture by the Brazilian\'s states, decomposing TFP growth by technological progress, technical efficiency and economies of scale. The second objective was to analyze the effect of TFP growth of Brazilian agriculture on agricultural prices. The growth in productivity was measured from the inputs like labor, gross and capital in the translog production function, from the Stochastic Frontier Analysis and of the outputoriented Malmquist productivity index. To analyze the effect of TFP growth on agricultural prices was constructed an index of agricultural prices through the Laspeyres price index to estimate the vector autoregressive panel (panel-VAR) and establish the relationships between TFP, rural wages, agricultural finance and income per capita household. The Granger causality test and the impulse response function were used to the data panel. The database used obtained from the Agricultural Census, at the state level for the years 1970, 1975, 1980, 1985, 1995 and 2006. The results showed that the growth rate of TFP has been growing in Brazil and in the states, and technological progress explained most of the growth being positive and growing for all states. Technical efficiency varied over the years, presented positive average growth rates for most states. The states were located below the production frontier of Brazilian agriculture and São Paulo was the state with the highest level of technical efficiency. Although the average annual growth rate has been increasing over the period analyzed, the efficiency decreased to all state analyzed in 2006. The results also showed that TFP growth has causality in the sense of Granger, on agricultural prices. In the impulse response function, the initial shock in TFP decreased prices in the early years. Thus, TFP growth of the agricultural sector contributed to the increased supply of agricultural products, reducing agricultural prices. The greater availability of food and with reducing food prices, consumers, especially those from lower income might had greater access to food.

A partir des années quatre-vingt, la manière d’appréhender les investissements directs étrangers (IDE) a basculé. Les firmes multinationales (FMN) sont perçues progressivement comme les acteurs centraux du processus de globalisation. Une littérature abondante commence à émerger et décrit le rôle des IDE comme composante non négligeable dans la stratégie de développement industriel d’un pays. Comprendre par quels mécanismes les IDE interviennent dans la dynamique industrielle d’une économie signifie qu’ils sont susceptibles de générer des retombées positives, autrement dit des spillovers sur celle-ci. Etudier l’impact des IDE sur la dynamique industrielle d’une économie en transition, telle que la République tchèque devient donc une question pertinente. L’objectif de notre travail est de comprendre l’impact des IDE sur les économies en transition à travers l’étude de la productivité totale des facteurs (PTF) et des spillovers (autrement dit des externalités positives). Les questions sous-jacentes sont les suivantes : les IDE induisent-ils un effet d’entraînement ou un effet d’éviction de l’investissement local? Quel est l’impact des IDE sur la productivité du pays d’accueil ? Observe-t-on des spillovers en matière de transfert de technologie vers les entreprises locales ? Précisons toutefois que la littérature théorique et empirique est très riche. Se concentrer uniquement sur la PTF et sur les spillovers comme nous le faisons ne permet pas de conclure précisément sur l’impact des IDE ; il existe, en effet un grand nombre d’impacts que nous ne traitons pas. Nous arrivons toutefois à étudier l’impact des IDE sur la structure industrielle de la République tchèque à travers l’analyse de la PTF et des spillovers. Nos résultats nous permettent aussi de réfléchir aux implications en termes de politiques incitatives à l’égard des IDE ainsi qu’en termes de déterminants incitant les FMN à investir. Nous essayons enfin de comprendre de quelle manière la République tchèque peut décider de politiques publiques visant à rendre ses entreprises plus compétitives face aux FMN. / Since the 1980s, the approach to foreign direct investment (FDI) has changed. Multinational companies (MNCs) are viewed incrementally as the central actors of the globalization process. Extensive literature is emerging, which describes FDI as a significant component of a country’s industrial development strategy. The understanding of the mechanisms by which FDI intervene in industrial dynamics of an economy has shown that they are likely to generate benefits, in other words, spillovers. Studying the impact of FDI on industrial dynamics of a transition economy, such as the Czech Republic, thus becomes a relevant issue. The aim of our work is to understand the impact of FDI on transition economies through investigating total factor productivity (TFP) and spillovers (i.e. positive externalities). The underlying questions are: Do FDI cause a knock-on effect or crowding out of local investment? What is the impact of FDI on the productivity of the host country? Are spillovers observed in terms of technology transfer to local businesses? Herein we carefully investigated the impacts of FDI on the industrial structure of the Czech Republic through the analysis of TFP and spillovers. Although extensive theoretical and empirical literature exists; focusing exclusively on TFP and spillovers does not allow direct conclusion on the impact of FDY, since different other factors were not examined. Nevertheless, our results also enable to deliberate on the implications of incentive policies towards FDI and determinants encouraging MNCs to invest. Eventually, we evaluate how the Czech Republic may set public policies to make its companies more competitive against FMN.

This thesis consists of two self-contained empirical essays. Essay I investigates the impact of labor subsidies on TFP, and profit per employee is included as a second outcome. Coarsened exact matching (CEM) is performed on the key variables. After matching, a difference-in-difference (DID) model is applied. The study shows that firms employing workers with wage subsidies experience negative and significant effects on both TFP and profit per employee. Heterogeneity is, however, observed; the only sector to show a deficit in both TFP and profit per employee is wholesale. During the second year with a subsidy, a negative impact can be observed on the profit per employee but not on TFP. The policy conclusion from the analysis is that subsidizing individuals from particular groups is necessary to induce firms to hire workers from these groups. However, the time period for which a single firm is subsidized should be considered. Essay II (with Jonas Månsson from Linnaeus University and the Swedish National Audit Office (SNAO), Christian Andersson from SNAO and Fredrik Bonander from SNAO) measures TFP of the Swedish district courts by applying data envelopment analysis (DEA) to calculate the Malmquist productivity index for 48 Swedish district courts from 2012 to 2015. This study uses a fully decomposed Malmquist index. A bootstrapping approach is further applied to compute confidence intervals for each decomposed factor of TFP as well as for TFP. The study shows an average annual of TFP by 0.7%. However, a substantial variation between years is observed both with regards to the number of statistically significant courts below and above unity. The negative impact is mainly driven by pure technical regress. Large variations are also observed over time where the small courts have the largest volatility. The TFP change is positively correlated with the rate of change in the caseload. Two recommendations are: 1) that district courts with negative TFP growth could learn from those with positive TFP growth and 2) that a back-up force could be developed to enhance flexibility.

This thesis consists of three essays in applied microeconomics: First, heat and school absence: evidence from a survey of Indian children. Second, heatwaves and short-term morbidity in India. Third, intra-family marriage and pregnancy outcomes. Chapter 1. India is the second most populous country on earth with young people representing a significant number of the population resulting in data that indicates such figures at 38 per cent. With such high numbers, major consideration must be given into developing informed and targeted policies to ensure positive educational outcomes for young people. This paper contributes to existing literature by investigating the impact of high temperatures on students’ rates of absenteeism, relying on the short-term exogenous variation in daily maximum temperatures. The paper highlights the heterogeneity of the effect of temperature by climate zone. To create data, we link information on children’s school absences from the India Human Development Survey (IHDS-II) in combination with meteorological data from the ERA-Interim archive taken from a thirty day period prior to individual interview dates. Our findings suggest that high temperatures have a substantial negative impact on students’ attendance in rural areas. However, limited evidence of such an effect is found in urban areas. Our results therefore indicate a need to implement future in-depth studies. Chapter 2. Within this chapter, we investigate the impact of prolonged heat exposure on individuals short-term morbidity rates over a thirty day period prior to the interview date. We work with a broad dataset and use an econometric model that utilizes plausibly exogenous variation in high weather temperatures. We implement the percentile-based approach and three different heatwave metrics as a innovative way of defining and capturing the impact of heatwaves on health outcomes. Our results show that heatwave intensity of the eighty-fifth percentile over the duration of three consecutive days of extensive heat has a significant adverse effect on individuals short-term morbidity. More so, our findings indicate a disparity between genders in relation to the impact of heatwaves. Finally, it can be suggested that individuals having to travel an extensive distance in order to access water are most affected by high temperatures. Chapter 3. Millions of people worldwide are married to their blood relatives, yet the resulting impact on offspring health continues to be debated. Within this paper, we provide evidence around this debate by studying the birth outcomes from a large, representative sample of Indian women in varying marital circumstances. We explore the impact of intra-family marriage on negative pregnancy outcomes including stillbirth, miscarriage, and child death after birth. We utilize an ordinary least squares model (OLS), which controls for a wide range of financial and family factors. The results show that being a woman related to her husband by blood increases the probability of experiencing negative pregnancy outcomes by 2.8 percentage points. Our finding is robust using the instrumental variable approach (IV). The instrumental variable represents the ambient level of violence against women, which positively affects the probability of consanguineous marriage. The IV approach leads to a slightly smaller adverse impact of 2.2 percentage points. In addition, the OLS results provide suggestive evidence that intra-family marriage has no heterogeneous impact across religion types.

La crisi finanziaria esplosa nel 2008 è degenerata in un’aspra e duratura ondata recessiva, che ha colpito l’economia reale a livello internazionale. La presente tesi si propone di contribuire alla letteratura econometrica sull’ultima crisi focalizzandosi su due temi ampiamente dibattuti: vincoli finanziari e produttività totale dei fattori. Il manifatturiero italiano si presenta come scenario preferenziale per condurre l’analisi, tenuto conto della struttura produttiva frammentata e della dipendenza delle imprese dal debito bancario. Si cercherà dapprima di analizzare l’impatto dei vincoli finanziari sulle dinamiche manifatturiere durante la crisi, per poi passare a trattare i temi della rigidità finanziaria e degli effetti di contagio che si sono verificati tra le imprese attraverso il canale del credito commerciale, quali determinanti della probabilità di insolvenza. Infine, il tema delle agglomerazioni tra imprese, di tipo geografico e settoriale, sarà analizzato quale fattore cruciale per la formazione di spillover di produttività, insieme alla capacità innovativa del territorio. I risultati confermano il carattere di pervasività dell’ultima recessione, che alterando le dinamiche manifatturiere ha contribuito ad esacerbare gli episodi di insolvenza. Il possedere una base produttiva clusterizzata ed eterogenea può tuttavia rappresentare ancora un punto di forza, persino all’interno di un contesto operativo plasmato dalla crisi. / The financial crisis that erupted in 2008 translated into harsh recessionary effects at an international level, that were passed on to the real economy. A solid recovery is still lagging behind. The dissertation contributes to the econometric literature on the great recession by focusing attention on two debated topics: financing constraints and total factor productivity (TFP). The fragmented and strongly bank-dependent Italian production base is a preferred environment to conduct the analysis. The role played by financing constraints as amplifiers of manufacturing dynamics is firstly investigated. As a second step, financial rigidity of firms and contagion effects that occurred via trade credit interconnections are considered, and jointly modelled as core determinants of distress likelihoods by resorting to spatial econometric techniques. In the last section, geographical and sectoral clustering phenomena are spatially analyzed in order to investigate knowledge spillovers at the micro level. Results highlight the pervasive nature of the last crisis. The harshness of the recessionary effects fostered a change in manufacturing equilibria and caused the proliferation of distress episodes. Nevertheless, a clustered production base still represents a driver for the formation of positive externalities.

各國視生技產業為未來發展的關鍵產業，並積極推動各項政策，使生技產業能快速成長，而生技醫藥市場是促成全球生技產業成長的主要動力，為了增加我國的競爭力，希望藉由與鄰近國家醫藥產業的比較，能更了解台灣生技醫藥產業經營績效。 本研究採用Battese and Coelli (1995)隨機成本邊界法，針對2002-2007年間，日本、南韓、中國、印度與台灣等五個國家，共61家生技醫藥廠商進行實證分析，研究結果如下：(1)研發密集度增加使成本效率降低，五個國家裡，日本最具成本效率。(2)產業平均成本效率值為0.855，且有逐年惡化的趨勢。(3)整體產業平均處於遞增規模報酬階段。(4)整體而言，總要素生產力(TFP)的提升主要是因為規模成分的貢獻，其次為技術的進步，而技術效率變動率對TFP成長率為負影響。(5)各國間雖然TFP變動率不存在顯著性差異，但在規模成分、技術變動率與技術效率變動率等方面存在著顯著的差異。 / Many countries regard biotechnology as a key industry for the future development. Governments often implement a variety of policies to help it grow rapidly. The biotech pharmaceutical industry is the main momentum for the growth of the global biotech industry. The objective of this paper is to measure the productivity and efficiency of the industry among Asian countries, and investigates the sources of the performance changes, and then hope to give some insight into the enhancement of the industry’s productivity. To pursue our goal, we adopt Battese and Coelli’s (1995) stochastic frontier approach to assess 61 biotech pharmaceutical firms during 2002-2007. The main empirical results can be summarized as follows: (1) The R&D intensity is negatively related to cost efficiency; in five countries, Japan has the highest cost efficiency. (2) On average, the cost efficiency is about 0.86, and has become worsen year after year. (3)Most of time, the industry is characterized with the increasing returns to scale. (4) The growth of total factor productivity (TFP) is mainly attributed to the scale efficiency change, and technical progress accounts for a minor source. However, technical efficiency deteriorates over time. (5) Among countries, the TFP growth rates have no significant differences, but the components show apparent differences.

Les trois essais dans cette thèse étudient les implications des frictions financières, telles que les contraintes de collatérale ou de crédit, pour les décisions économiques des agents et leur impact sur les variables macro-économiques agrégées. Dans le premier chapitre "Financial Contracts and the Political Economy of Investor Protection" nous proposons une théorie du niveau de protection des investisseurs. Une faible protection des investisseurs implique un coût de financement externe plus élevé à cause des problèmes d'agence plus aigus entre les investisseurs et les entrepreneurs. À l'équilibre, ceci exclut les agents plus dépendants sur le financement externe de l'entrepreneuriat, ce qui augmente les profits des entrepreneurs qui restent actifs. Quand le niveau de la protection des investisseurs est choisi par un vote majoritaire, la théorie génère (i) une protection des investisseurs plus faible dans les économies avec plus grande inégalité dans les besoins de financement externe parmi les entrepreneurs, (ii) une dynamique non-monotone de l'output, (iii) améliorations (détériorations) de la protection des investisseurs suite à des ralentissements (accélérations) de l'output agrégé. L'évidence empirique donne un support à ces prédictions de la théorie. Dans le deuxième chapitre "Financial Frictions, Internal Capital Markets, and the Organization of Production", nous examinons comment la présence des frictions financières peut mener à la formation des conglomérats et des "business groups" diversifiées. Particulièrement, nous construisons un modèle d'équilibre général d'entrepreneuriat dans lequel les conglomérats émergent de façon endogène et substituent partiellement le marché du crédit imparfait. Nous montrons que ce modèle est capable d'expliquer quantitativement plusieurs faits stylisés concernant l'organisation de la production, les différences de productivité entre les firmes et les différences en présence des conglomérats entre les pays. Le troisième chapitre "Size and Productivity of Single-segment and Diversified Firms: Evidence from Canadian Manufacturing" étudie empiriquement la relation entre la taille, la productivité, et la structure organisationnelle d'une firme. Utilisant les micro-données sur les établissements manufacturiers canadiens, nous documentons plusieurs faits stylisés concernant la taille et la productivité totale des facteurs des établissements dans les conglomérats et dans les firmes non-diversifiées. Nous trouvons que les établissements dans les conglomérats sont en moyenne plus larges que leurs contreparties dans les firmes non-diversifiées, les petits établissements dans les conglomérats sont moins productifs que les établissements de taille similaire dans les firmes non-diversifiées, mais les larges établissements dans les conglomérats sont plus productifs que ceux de taille similaire dans les firmes non-diversifiées. Cette évidence est consistante avec réallocation interne efficiente des ressources au sein des conglomérats. / The three essays in this thesis study the implications of financial frictions, such as collateral and credit constraints, for economic decisions of agents and their impact on aggregate macroeconomic variables. In the first chapter "Financial Contracts and the Political Economy of Investor Protection", we propose a theory of the level of investor protection. Lower investor protection implies higher cost of external financing due to more severe agency problems between outside investors and entrepreneurs. In equilibrium, this excludes more financially dependent agents from entrepreneurship, increasing the profits of the remaining entrepreneurs. When the level of investor protection is chosen by majority voting, the theory generates (i) lower investor protection in economies with higher inequality in financial dependence across entrepreneurs, (ii) non-monotone output dynamics, (iii) improvements (worsening) of investor protection following output slowdowns (accelerations). The empirical evidence provides some support to these predictions. In the second chapter "Financial Frictions, Internal Capital Markets, and the Organization of Production", we investigate how the presence of financial frictions may lead to formation of diversified conglomerates or business groups. Specifically, we build a general equilibrium model of entrepreneurship in which business groups arise endogenously and partially substitute for imperfect credit market. We show that the model is able to quantitatively explain several key stylized facts on the way production is organized, on cross-firm productivity differences, and on cross-country differences in the degree of conglomeration. The third chapter "Size and Productivity of Single-segment and Diversified Firms: Evidence from Canadian Manufacturing" studies empirically the relation between size, productivity, and the organizational structure of a firm. Using micro-data on Canadian manufacturing plants, we document several stylized facts about size and total factor productivity of establishments in conglomerates and single-segment firms. We find that establishments in conglomerates are on average larger than their counterparts in single-segment firms, small plants in conglomerates are less productive than plants of similar size in single-segment firms, but large plants in conglomerates are more productive than those of similar size in single-segment firms. This evidence is consistent with efficient internal reallocation of resources in conglomerates.

A l’issue de la transition économique et dans le contexte de rattrapage au sein de l’Union Européenne, cette thèse étudie le transfert de technologie associé aux investissements directs étrangers (IDE) en Europe Centrale et Orientale. Les externalités technologiques sont considérées comme la contribution principale des IDE au développement économique des pays d’accueil. La première partie de ce travail analyse le mécanisme microéconomique du transfert de technologie. Après avoir évalué le potentiel de transfert à travers l’excédent de productivité et l’intensité des échanges intersectoriels, nous analysons l’effet des externalités sur la productivité des entreprises locales. Nous construisons ainsi plusieurs mesures d’externalités horizontales et verticales, en accordant une toute attention particulière à la position des entreprises dans la filière. Enfin, nous nous intéressons au rôle de la capacité d'absorption locale et du décalage technologique dans la capture de ces externalités. Dans la deuxième partie de la thèse nous menons une analyse macroéconomique centrée autour de deux directions : la relation entre les IDE et l’investissement local, ainsi que l’impact agrégé des IDE sur la croissance. Tout d’abord, nous partons de l’hypothèse de destruction créatrice entre les IDE et l’investissement local, puis nous analysons cette problématique dans la perspective des différents types d’IDE. Nous séparons également le mécanisme d’interaction entre les filiales et les entreprises locales selon le marché réel et le marché financier. Ensuite, nous évaluons la contribution des externalités agrégées au progrès technique, ce qui nous permet d’illustrer l’impact global des IDE sur la croissance économique. Enfin, nous considérons la relation IDE-croissance dans une double perspective, afin de montrer l’existence d’un cercle vertueux. / At the end of the economic transition and in the context of catching up within the European Union, this thesis studies the technology transfer associated with foreign direct investment (FDI) in Central and Eastern Europe. Technological externalities are considered the main contribution of FDI to the economic development of host countries. The first part of this work analyzes the microeconomic mechanism of technology transfer. After having evaluated the potential for spillovers through the productivity gap and the intensity of intersectoral linkages, we identify the impact of technological spillovers on the productivity of domestic firms. We construct several measures of horizontal and vertical externalities, while giving particular attention to local firm’s status throughout the supply chain. Finally, we tested the role of local absorptive capacity and technological gap in the capture of spillovers. In the second part we conduct a macroeconomic analysis oriented on two directions: the relationship between FDI and local investment and the aggregate impact of FDI on growth. We start from the assumption of destructive creation between FDI and local investment and analyze this issue from the perspective of different types of FDI. We also separate the interaction mechanism between the affiliates and the domestic firms according to the real market and the financial market. We then evaluate the contribution of aggregate externalities to technical progress, which allows us to illustrate the overall impact of FDI on economic growth. Finally, we consider the FDI-growth relationship from a double perspective, in order to show the existence of a virtuous circle

Following Toyota's dramatic rise to prominence within the automotive industry in the late 1980's, firms around the globe have widely sought to adopt Lean Six Sigma (LSS) as a means of reducing costs, improving quality, and gaining an overall competitive advantage. While the operational benefits of LSS are largely undisputed, there are criticisms of the movement with regards to its effect on firm innovation capability. Prior academic studies investigating the relationship between LSS and innovation are largely conceptual in nature, rely heavily on qualitative data, and display a high degree of variability in results. The objective of this work was to empirically confirm whether LSS adoption had a positive, negative, or neutral impact on firm innovation performance.Financial data was collected for 151 publicly traded firms over the period from 1985 to 2018. The year of company-wide adoption of LSS was identified for each sample firm. Firms were paired with industry rivals using Coarsened Exact Matching (CEM), and statistical regressions were performed to show correlations between LSS implementation (as measured by inventory turns) and innovation performance (as measured by Total Factor Productivity, Research Quotient, and Tobin's Quotient). Regression results indicated that LSS implementation had a positive correlation with firm process innovation performance and the overall market perception of firm innovation and value, and a negative-to-neutral correlation with firm product innovation performance. Additional regressions performed at the industry-sector level revealed that the LSS-innovation relationship varies greatly by industry environment and is subject to unique industry effects and management implementation decisions.