The aim of this thesis is to consider two issues that are of particular significance for macroeconomic modelling. These are the existence of post-so'riet transitional economies and the relevance of either Post-Keynesian or Neo-Classical policy advice in the context of dynamic disorder. In this work, I use a methodology called System Dynamics. This prm'ides an alternative, interactive methodology for analysing macro-dynamics. Traditional macroeconomic tools such as Regression Analysis, Time-Series Analysis, Simultaneous Equation Models and the like require many years of unbroken data which does not exist for transitional economies. It is shmt'n that the different approach of System Dynamics can overcome these difficulties. Some of my models of the Kyrgyz Economy used quantity-rationed systems with pulse elements integrated into potential and actual excess demand levels reveal dynamic equilibria, disequilibria and the potential for chaotic behaviour. The d(tJiculties facing macroeconomic management in these conditions and the polrver of the System Dynamics modelling methodology in assisting policy formulation and evaluation are stressed. The key inSights delivered by the models discussed indicate that policy targe/cd at reducing delay lags could be beneficial in alleviating innate tendencies in this economy towards endemic disequilibria in Aggregate Supply and Demand. Morco)'er, due to the potential for chaos existing in the non-linear dynamic economic relationships inherent in the models the relevance (~lpolicy options based on cither extremc Post-Keyncsian or Nco-Classical thinking are questioned. Indeed our Post-Keynesian (zrnamic models contain non-linear dynamic tendencies, 'which parado,Yical(Y yield policy implications consistent with .Yco-Classical thinking.

Approved for public release, distribution is unlimited / Since the end of the cold war and the transition from a centrally-planned to market-oriented economic system, the Russian economy has undergone a staggering and incomplete economic transformation. International financial and technical assistance played a significant role in the evolution of the Russian economy. As the International Monetary Fund (IMF) took a central role in the Russian transition process through the provision of technical and, more importantly, financial assistance, it was able to attach significant conditions to the use of its funds. These conditions ranged from the reform of markets, government revenues and expenditures, to the role of the public sector in the emerging market economy. An unanswered and increasingly important question is whether IMF conditionality has promoted or hindered economic reform and more importantly economic performance. This thesis argues that IMF conditionality combined with mistakes by the Russian government created the 1998 financial crisis. / Lieutenant, United States Navy

Liberalization of the Indian economy in 199I increased the intensity of international competition and changed the internal information needs of Indian managers. This paper explores the evolution of a broad range of management accounting practices in 14 firms using a contingency theory framework. Differences in management accounting practices in 1996 are examined in relation to firms' experience and exposure to world markets prior to liberalization and as a function of contemporaneous differences in competitive strategy. We find evidence of changes associated with shifts in the external environment. / University of Michigan Business School

Abstract This thesis investigates how Finnish firms, as examples of Western firms, control and steer the operations of their subsidiaries in Russia and the Baltic countries and the role of accounting in the management control systems. The thesis consists of three essays, which focus on different aspects of the role of accounting in the management control systems. Even though the issues discussed in this thesis are probably not unique to the area of the former Soviet Union, the characteristics of business in this context highlight specific management control questions relating to organising and using power within management control systems. The first essay investigates the changing role of accounting in a knowledge transfer process between a head office and subsidiaries to show the importance of informal communication and cooperation in the development of accounting. Only after some time of intense informal cooperation and the development of social capital in the accounting-mediated knowledge transfer can more formal accounting controls can be relied on. The second essay illustrates how the central social position of an individual can be reproduced and how it affects accounting and formal reporting in the control system. The third essay investigates the role and power of an intermediate subsidiary in using accounting for controlling and steering the operations of its subsidiaries, when the intermediate acts between the subsidiaries and its own Western parent company. The intermediate can invoke the tensions between divergent social systems and thus use accounting signifiers according to its own needs, legitimating its existence despite the inflexibility the multilevel organizational structure may cause. Therefore, the whole thesis suggests that accounting plays an important role in integrating firms in very different contexts, but this can only happen with the help of more informal supportive structures and knowledgeable agents who utilise accounting. This is how accounting develops business thinking so that the practices adapted to the local demanding circumstances could also give something back to the parent companies.

Knowledge creation processes and the innovation systems through which it is transferred for the benefit of society are the economic driver of industrial economies in the globalized era, yet developing countries seeking to move through the transition from developing to developed status are struggling . A variety of theories and a range of speculations have been offered as to why some nations are more innovative than others, however little of this literature examines the theoretical and practical applicability of innovation models based on industrial societies for developing nations. This thesis examines a selection of theoretical innovation system models, analyzes their roots and assesses their applicability to transition economies where various pieces of the system present structural differences relative to developed nations. This thesis uses Mexico as a case study.<p> In the fifteen years since the 1994-95 collapse of Mexicos financial sector and the resulting economic crisis, the Mexican economy has made impressive progress towards macro-economic consolidation and stability. The OECD (2004) observes that the inflation rate has fallen from around 50% during the economic collapse of 1995 to about 4% in 2006. GDP growth has averaged 3.2% in the period from 1994 to 2008 (compared to the OECD average of 2.7%). As a partner in the North American Free Trade Agreement, trade liberalization has allowed Mexico to consolidate its export base and to specialize in medium- and high-technology manufacturing. However, the industrial sector in Mexico still shows a slow pace in developing, adopting and investing in technology. The Mexican industrial sector is lead by multinational firms that have located in Mexico due to the cheap costs of labour, while most of the research and development performed by these firms takes place outside of Mexico. Mexicos policy for S&T seems to show a disconnect between the discourse and practice.<p> Indicators show that Mexico considerably lags in S&T development. S&T development has not contributed to facilitating the country's positioning as one of the top ten most competitive nations in the world. Rather, technology transfer outcomes in the country, relative to other transitional economies, manifest an increasing deceleration in Mexico's S&T competitiveness. This thesis contrasts the innovation system in which technology transfer processes navigate in Mexico to the leading literature on theoretical models of innovation. This process facilitates identifying crucial barriers and challenges of the Mexican system of innovation that need to be addressed in order to achieve a level of S&T development that would contribute to facilitating Mexico's transition to a developed economy.

Knowledge creation processes and the innovation systems through which it is transferred for the benefit of society are the economic driver of industrial economies in the globalized era, yet developing countries seeking to move through the transition from developing to developed status are struggling . A variety of theories and a range of speculations have been offered as to why some nations are more innovative than others, however little of this literature examines the theoretical and practical applicability of innovation models based on industrial societies for developing nations. This thesis examines a selection of theoretical innovation system models, analyzes their roots and assesses their applicability to transition economies where various pieces of the system present structural differences relative to developed nations. This thesis uses Mexico as a case study.<p> In the fifteen years since the 1994-95 collapse of Mexicos financial sector and the resulting economic crisis, the Mexican economy has made impressive progress towards macro-economic consolidation and stability. The OECD (2004) observes that the inflation rate has fallen from around 50% during the economic collapse of 1995 to about 4% in 2006. GDP growth has averaged 3.2% in the period from 1994 to 2008 (compared to the OECD average of 2.7%). As a partner in the North American Free Trade Agreement, trade liberalization has allowed Mexico to consolidate its export base and to specialize in medium- and high-technology manufacturing. However, the industrial sector in Mexico still shows a slow pace in developing, adopting and investing in technology. The Mexican industrial sector is lead by multinational firms that have located in Mexico due to the cheap costs of labour, while most of the research and development performed by these firms takes place outside of Mexico. Mexicos policy for S&T seems to show a disconnect between the discourse and practice.<p> Indicators show that Mexico considerably lags in S&T development. S&T development has not contributed to facilitating the country's positioning as one of the top ten most competitive nations in the world. Rather, technology transfer outcomes in the country, relative to other transitional economies, manifest an increasing deceleration in Mexico's S&T competitiveness. This thesis contrasts the innovation system in which technology transfer processes navigate in Mexico to the leading literature on theoretical models of innovation. This process facilitates identifying crucial barriers and challenges of the Mexican system of innovation that need to be addressed in order to achieve a level of S&T development that would contribute to facilitating Mexico's transition to a developed economy.

Abstract Since the collapse of the Soviet Union Russia has undergone a number of reforms towards developing market economy. Accounting has encountered dramatic changes over the last two decades. Despite attractive investment opportunities in Russia, investors are often faced with uncertainty, which makes it very important to explore the quality of accounting information published in Russia. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the quality of published accounting information in Russia. The thesis consists of four essays, each of them addressing the question of the quality of accounting information published in Russia by incorporating the specific Russian institutional environment. Special attention is paid to the role of International Financial Accounting Standards (IFRS) and foreign investors. The quality of published accounting information is conceptualized by such accounting constructs as conservatism, earnings management and value relevance. This first essay investigates the earnings quality of both listed and non-listed Russian firms and explores whether foreign ownership affects the quality of earnings published by non-listed Russian firms. The second essay examines whether emphasis on international investors is associated with the adoption of or intention to adopt IFRS in Russian firms. The third essay addresses the question of IFRS and Russian Accounting Standards (RAS) accounting quality by using the methodology proposed by Barth et al. (2008) and by value relevance constructs of accounting quality. The fourth essay investigates the value relevance of firms’ integral environmental impact, i.e. a proxy for environmental performance, following the stream of non-financial information value relevance in accounting research. This thesis provides evidence that the quality of published accounting information published in Russia depends on many factors, the most influential of these being listing on the stock exchange, IFRS and foreign investors. The results of the thesis demonstrate that the institutional characteristics of the country shape accounting numbers and influence the incentives of those preparing financial statements. The findings of the thesis include information valuable for regulators and investors.

This paper examines the impact of financial sector foreign direct investment (FSFDI) on economic growth by estimating a panel data model for 11 Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) between 1996 and 2003 in a cross-country growth accounting framework. The analysis concentrates on the efficiency channel linking FSFDI to economic growth. The results clearly indicate that there can be a relationship between FSFDI and economic growth. Approaching a medium degree of financial M&A is rewarded by higher economic growth after two periods. Beyond it, FSFDI seems to spur economic growth depending on a higher human capital stock. FSFDI-induced knowledge-spillovers to domestic banks can be an explanation for this phenomenon. Above a certain threshold, the crowding-out of local physical capital caused by the entry of a foreign bank seems to hamper economic growth. The value of the paper lies in (1) providing novel data on FSFDI in CEECs, (2) analyzing the impact of FDI on a sectoral level and (3) in modeling the hitherto only qualitatively discussed relationship between foreign banks and economic development into a structural, econometric model that combines two streams of economic research: the FDI-growth-literature and the finance-growth-literature. (author's abstract) / Series: EI Working Papers / Europainstitut

Une des marques du développement est la résorption du décalage entre la distribution spatiale de l’activité économique et celle de la population. Cette thèse étudie les conséquences d’une telle résorption sous l’effet de la migration ou d’une redistribution géographique de l’activité économique. Le premier chapitre s’intéresse à la relation entre migrants internationaux et foyers d’origine. Il met en lumière l’importance, pour les envois de fonds et les investissements, des croyances des migrants et de l’asymétrie d’information, aggravée par la distance, entre migrants et destinataires de ces envois. Le deuxième chapitre explore la transformation de l’économie d’accueil sous l’effet d’un afflux de migrants venus des campagnes en ville, en Chine. Il mesure d’abord leur impact sur le marché du travail à destination, puis examine comment ils affectent l’allocation des facteurs de production et les contraintes rencontrées par les entreprises sur les marchés du travail et du capital. Le troisième chapitre étudie l’impact sur le long terme d’un vaste programme d’industrialisation réalisé en Chine, et montre un retour de fortune. Ce renversement est imputé aux distorsions introduites sur le marché du travail local par la présence de grands complexes manufacturiers. Ce chapitre met en évidence le rôle de la migration pour surmonter ces imperfections et amener l’étape ultérieure de la transformation structurelle : le passage de l’industrie lourde à la production de biens de consommation et de services. / A key characteristic of the process of economic development is the shrinking spatial mismatch between economic activity and population. This thesis analyzes what happens when this spatial mismatch is reduced, as people’s places of residence and work or the geographical distribution of economic activity is altered. Chapter I deals with the relationship between international migrants and their households of origin. It sheds light on the importance for remittances and investments of migrants' beliefs and the information asymmetry between remittance senders and recipients that distance aggravates. Chapter II explores the transformation of the receiving economy due to an influx of rural-to-urban migrants in China. It first quantifies the effect of immigrants on the labor market at destination, and then investigates their impact on the reallocation of production factors and factor-market constraints faced by urban firms. Chapter III focuses on the long-term impact of a large industrialization plan in China. It reveals a reversal pattern due to the distortions in local labor markets induced by the presence of big plants. It highlights the role of migration in overcoming such imperfections and in bringing about the later stage of structural transformation—from heavy industry to consumption goods and services.