This thesis is dedicated to the issue of economic relations between European Union and Canada. It deals with the development of their relations and concentrates on the analysis of the reciprocal trade flows of goods. It characterizes economies and international trade of the partners and sets the trends of their future cooperation based on the analysis of their bilateral trade. Thesis is divided into four chapters. The first chapter defines the economy and the development of macroeconomic indicators and international trade of the EU. The second chapter is dedicated to Canada and has the same structure as the first one. The development of the bilateral relations of EU and Canada and their legal basis are described in the third chapter. It also analyses the development of their reciprocal flows of trade in goods until the year 2001. The analysis of their bilateral trade in the last decade continues in the fourth chapter, in which also the trends of the development of EU-Canada economic relations in the future are set.

This bachelor thesis examines the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between Mexico and the countries that resembles the European Union(EU) prior to the expansion in 2004, hereafter(EU15). The purpose is to analyze the effects of the FTA between the trading parties and investigate whether the FTA has resulted in positive effects on export volumes. The model includes 16 countries and is estimated with panel data between the years 1997-2016. We apply a gravity model as econometric framework and perform two regressions, one with fixed effects and one with random effects. Our results suggest that export volumes from Mexico to the EU on an aggregated level have increased for Mexico and the EU has increased. However, in contrast to previous estimates, our results show that the FTA have generated negative effects on trade creation between the trading parties.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate if the trade flows within the European Union are affected by the environmental policies within the union. An environmental sensitivity index (IESP) is used as explanatory variable, with export and import shares respectively as dependent variables. The trade flow data is collected from the OECD database for the years 1995 to 1998, and is used in a regression analysis together with IESP data from the same years. The analysis covers 15 European Union member countries. The result from the regression analysis shows a positive relationship between IESP and trade flows. However, our values did not turn out to be significant, much due to the low number of observations and too few explanatory variables. / Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka om handelsflödena inom den Europeiska Unionen påverkas av miljöpolitiken inom unionen. Ett index som mäter miljökänslighet (IESP) används som förklarande variabel, med export respektive import som beroende variabler. Data om handelsflöden är hämtade från OECDs databas och täcker åren 1995-1998. Dessa data används i en regressionsanalys tillsammans med IESP data från samma period. Analysen täcker 15 medlemsländer från den Europeiska Unionen. Resultaten från regressionsanalysen pekar på ett positivt samband mellan handelsflöden och IESP. Tyvärr blev våra värden ej signifikanta, mycket beroende på för få observationer och förklarande variabler.

<p>The purpose of this thesis is to investigate if the trade flows within the European Union are affected by the environmental policies within the union. An environmental sensitivity index (IESP) is used as explanatory variable, with export and import shares respectively as dependent variables. The trade flow data is collected from the OECD database for the years 1995 to 1998, and is used in a regression analysis together with IESP data from the same years. The analysis covers 15 European Union member countries. The result from the regression analysis shows a positive relationship between IESP and trade flows. However, our values did not turn out to be significant, much due to the low number of observations and too few explanatory variables.</p> / <p>Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka om handelsflödena inom den Europeiska Unionen påverkas av miljöpolitiken inom unionen. Ett index som mäter miljökänslighet (IESP) används som förklarande variabel, med export respektive import som beroende variabler. Data om handelsflöden är hämtade från OECDs databas och täcker åren 1995-1998. Dessa data används i en regressionsanalys tillsammans med IESP data från samma period. Analysen täcker 15 medlemsländer från den Europeiska Unionen. Resultaten från regressionsanalysen pekar på ett positivt samband mellan handelsflöden och IESP. Tyvärr blev våra värden ej signifikanta, mycket beroende på för få observationer och förklarande variabler.</p>

The world we live in is increasingly integrated. For the work of economists, increasing international integration bears a significant importance. The present thesis is essentially a work on International Economics. As such it is no exception in that it consists of different chapters, all of which address different issues in the field. The first two chapters are theoretical in nature, whereas the third is empirical. The last chapter provides a technical reference to mathematical problems encountered in the first chapter. The first chapter is concerned with one of the negative effect of international trade: terms-of-trade uncertainty. It asks (and answers) the question why economic agents in practice fail to (completely) hedge away foreign price uncertainty in the presence of well-developed forward markets, even though theoretically they should obtain a full-hedge. The second chapter explores some of the effects international capital flows bring to a country that opens up its capital account. The third chapter describes the evolution of international capital flows and trade flows over that last decade. The last chapter is concerned with the existence of explicit demand schedules under expected utility maximization when the random variable is nonlinearly transformed. / Die Welt in der wir leben ist durch zunehmende Integration in fast allen Bereichen des Lebens gekennzeichnet. In der ökonomischen Sphäre wird diese zunehmende Integration auch oft mit dem Begriff Globalisierung beschrieben. Zwei Hauptmerkmale der Globalisierung sind dabei zunehmende internationale Kapital- und Handelsströme. Die vorliegende Dissertation beschäftigt sich mit ausgesuchten Teilaspekten dieser Phänomene. &amp;quot;Warum sichern sich die Wirtschaftssubjekte in der Praxis nur unvollständig gegenüber Wechselkursrisiken ab, obwohl sie theoretisch eine vollständige Absicherung wählen sollten?&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;Welchen Einfluß hat die Herkunft von Kapital auf die Ökonomie?&amp;quot; sowie &amp;quot;Wie ist der empirische Befund zur Entwicklung von Handels- und Kapitalströmen in der letzten Dekade?&amp;quot; sind Fragen denen die vorliegende Arbeit nachgeht. Ein Kapitel mit Ergebnissen zur Existenz von expliziten Nachfragefunktionen unter Erwartungsnutzenmaximierung bei zugrundeliegender nichtlinearer Transformation der Zufallsvariablen (eine Fragestellung die im Rahmen der Bearbeitung von Kapitel 1 auftaucht) beschliesst die Arbeit.

One of the main reasons to why a membership in the European Union (EU) is so attractive for prospect countries are the free trade agreements the membership entails. The free trade agreements mean that the whole EU opens up as one big market, where tariffs and tolls are no longer an obstacle to trade for its members. Therefore, this thesis analyses whether EU membership actually yields a positive effect on member’s trade. The time series analysis is based on a three-country sample consisting of Poland, Romania, and Croatia during the time period from 2001 to 2018. By applying multiple and Chow’s breakpoint tests, and country-wise and a pooled cross-section analysis model, we examine if the accession to EU impacts each country’s trade volumes. The results indicate that becoming a member of the European Union does not necessarily have a significant effect on Poland’s, Romania’s, or Croatia’s trade even if it is positive.

The global photovoltaic (PV) market is growing, contributing to reduced climate emissions from electricity production. Historically, PV deployment mainly occurred in developed and electrified countries with a high level of certainty over their electrical system. Recently, this trend has started to change, contributing to a more globally distributed PV market. In primarily two of the emerging markets, Africa and the Middle East, the statistical situation is weak or non-existent, making it hard to monitor and track the PV development. PV devices can be grid-connected or off-grid, installed in PV parks or in smaller household applications, which further complicates the monitoring. As a result, the best available statistics on these markets, provided by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), are to a major part based on estimations not built on any official data.  In a pilot study a instrument prototype, Njord, for converting monetary trade data of PV devices into installed PV capacities was initiated, with the aim to provide more accurate estimates for these markets. Njord is in this study further developed, by increasing its resolution and adjusting assumptions. Further, an additional conversion factor, namely PV module weight, is implemented to improve the accuracy of the predictions. The time frame of Njord is enlarged enabling estimates of accumulated capacities, in contrast to previously only annual installations. The instrument methodology is based on a bottom-up approach of processing import and export customs data, and converting the data to installed capacities using the price and weight of a PV module per wattage. In addition to the further development of Njord, the trade data is used to map and analyse monetary trade flows and thereby market values. Identified improvements concerned, among others, to adjust the percentage of PV modules in the customs code for countries without specific codes, and to fill data gaps with additional mirror data. The weight conversion factor was initially implemented as a parallel instrument to the price based. The two conversion factors were then combined into an instrument choosing the most suitable conversion factor with regards to a number of constraints. The instrument performance was validated against reference countries with well documented PV markets, qualitatively customs data, and small domestic PV manufacturing. For the reference countries and the comparative period of 2016 – 2018, the total deviations were improved from spanning 11.1 % – 17.0 % to 0.5 – 22.6 %. The best performance is seen for the most recent years of 2018 and 2019, with total deviations of 0.5 % and 4.1 % respectively. Njord shows high performance for estimating accumulated capacity, with a deviation of 4.3 % in the end of 2019. When applying Njord to the markets of interest, Africa and the Middle East, the results are significantly higher than the IRENA estimates, with a result of 118 % higher for Africa and 127 % higher for the Middle East. This indicates that the PV deployment in these emerging markets could be underestimated in today's statistical situation.  In combination with the instrument results, mapping trade flows has shown to give comprehensive information about the PV markets of interest and shows the potential of using trade data for this type of analysis. China distinguishes as the dominant trade partner for both Africa and the Middle East, in line with the global PV market. Although these markets are small relative the global PV context, there was in 2019 still a net import of PV modules of in total 879 million US$ for Africa and 728 million US$ for the Middle East, and the markets are growing fast. Further, mapping trade flows has shown to identify manufacturing countries on the markets of interest, which there also is a lack of information on. The trade patterns and its inherent monetary values could be used to for example identify market development and business opportunities.

This thesis examines whether there is an effect of the Mercosur free trade agreement on export and import between member countries. The study uses an extended gravity model framework on a panel data between the years 1975 to 2017 for 34 countries, including the member countries. Two different regressions were run using OLS and country fixed effect. A Linder effect was also added to the regressions to further understand the impact on trade. The results show a significantly positive effect of the FTA on imports. The FTA yielded insignificant and significantly negative result for OLS and FEM respectively on exports.

The thesis concentrates on measuring the benefits and losses of implementing regional trade agreements. In particular, the thesis analyses trade flow changes, foreign direct investment inflow changes, industrial total factor productivity changes and specific commodity trade flow changes in Australia and China. Four empirical studies are undertaken. Firstly, the thesis introduces the gravity model to estimate the effect of regional trade agreements on trade flow changes, focusing on thirty-nine countries and areas from seven regional trade agreements during 1980-2004. The results show that there are trade creation and trade diversion effects for various memberships. The results further show that China experiences an export creation effect for its APEC membership while Australia has an import diversion effect for its CER membership. When trade between Australia and China is considered, Australia's CER membership impedes its trade with China. However, both Australia and China benefit from attending APEC jointly to enlarge their bilateral trade. Secondly, a modified gravity model is undertaken to test the impact of regional trade agreements on foreign direct investment inflows to Australia and China. It uses the same regional trade agreements to that of the trade flow study for the period of 1980 to 2004 for Australia and 1985 to 2004 for China. The results show that CER members tend to strengthen their bilateral foreign direct investment cooperation after the implementation of CER trade and investment liberalization. Thirdly, the impact of regional trade agreements is examined on industrial total factor productivity growth. The findings show that industries with comparative trading advantages in both Australia and China tend to improve their total factor productivity upon liberalizing trade both bilaterally and multilaterally. However, industries with comparative disadvantages need more protection against severe foreign competition. It uses data from 1974-75 to 2004-05 for the Australian market sector analysis, from 1968-69 to 1990-2000 for the Australian manufacturing industry analysis, and from 1987 to 2003 for the Chinese industry analysis. Finally, the thesis investigates the impact of regional trade agreements on bilateral commodity trade between Australia and China from 1979 to 2004. A similar gravity model to that of the trade flow study is used, introducing an additional GDP per capita variable to capture the effect of increasing consumers' income on their consumption of particular goods and products type based on product and production characteristics. Both the one-digit and some detailed four-digit commodity classifications described in the Standard International Trade Classification are considered. The results show that participation in regional trade agreements is an important factor that affects Australia's major commodity trade with China. The major contribution of this thesis is the investigation of issues on trade flows and foreign direct investment specifically in Australia and China, together with the studies of the effect of regional trade agreements on industrial total factor productivity improvement and specific commodity trade changes. Due to the increasing pursuit of bilateral and regional economic cooperation in Australia and China, the results of this thesis are of particular importance to both countries in their foreign trade and economic strategies.

Submitted by Renata Lopes (renatasil82@gmail.com) on 2016-06-23T20:24:45Z No. of bitstreams: 1 priscillabelleoliveirapinto.pdf: 1398069 bytes, checksum: a26dbfa8bcbdf30a5d13755290af49b5 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Oliveira (adriana.oliveira@ufjf.edu.br) on 2016-07-13T15:41:58Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 priscillabelleoliveirapinto.pdf: 1398069 bytes, checksum: a26dbfa8bcbdf30a5d13755290af49b5 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-07-13T15:41:58Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 priscillabelleoliveirapinto.pdf: 1398069 bytes, checksum: a26dbfa8bcbdf30a5d13755290af49b5 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-12-20 / FAPEMIG - Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Minas Gerais / Considerando a possível relação entre o comércio intraindústria e o deslocamento de trabalhadores, o objetivo deste trabalho é analisar a Hipótese de Ajuste Suavizado (HAS) para a economia brasileira no período 1997 a 2008. Teoricamente, espera-se uma relação inversa entre o comércio intraindustrial marginal (Brülhart, 1994) e deslocamento do fator trabalho no fluxo de comércio externo. Na análise da HAS para o cenário brasileiro utilizou-se a abordagem econométrica de dados em painel dinâmico para o período de 1997 a 2008. Para tanto, foi necessária a compatibilização de três bancos de dados – CNAE 1.0, CNAE 2.0 e Nomenclatura Comum do Mercosul (NCM). Os resultados empíricos encontrados para o Brasil não confirmam a HAS, ou seja, a expansão de comércio intraindústria marginal não mostra significância estatística para afetar os custos de ajustes das indústrias de manufatura. / Considering the possible relationship between intra-industry trade and the displacement of workers, the aim of this paper is to analyze the “Smooth Adjustment Hypothesis” (HAS) for the Brazilian’s economy during 1997 a 2008. Theoretically, we expect an inverse relationship between the marginal intra-industry trade (Brülhart, 1994) and displacement of labor in the flow of foreign trade. In the analysis of SAH to the Brazilian scenario approach was used econometric dynamic panel data for the period 1997 to 2008. Therefore, it was necessary to reconcile three databases – CNAE 1.0, CNAE 2.0 and Mercosul Common Nomenclature (NCM). Empirical results were not found in Brazil according to HAS, ie, can not asset that intra-industry marginal causes the opposite effect the displacement of workers.