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Det främsta motivet regeringen hade för införandet av ägarlägenheter år 2008 var att skapa valfrihetoch mångfald på bostadsmarknaden. Antalet ägarlägenheter har ökat successivt, däremot har det intebyggts lika många ägarlägenheter som regeringen prognostiserat. Om omvandling blir en möjlighetskulle andelen ägarlägenheter öka på marknaden. Detta examensarbete har i syfte att undersöka omdet finns anpassningar som behöver göras i befintliga hyreshus vid en omvandling för att hyresrätterska övergå till lämpliga ägarlägenheter. Dessutom ska detta arbete utreda om dessa anpassningar ärsvåra att genomföra. I detta examensarbete har en kvalitativ metod använts genom en intervjustudie för att ge en djupareförståelse för ämnet. Intervjuerna har genomförts med olika experter inom ämnesområdet och bestårav fastighetsbolag, förrättningslantmätare och sakkunniga. Dessutom har en litteraturstudiegenomförts där propositioner, kommittédirektiv och statliga offentliga utredningar analyserats för attfå en grundläggande förståelse för de bakomliggande motiven för införandet av ägarlägenheter. Studien visar att det finns både fastighetsrättsliga och byggtekniska anpassningar som behöver görasvid en omvandling av hyresrätter till ägarlägenheter. Dessa är att skapa nya fastighetsgränser, bildagemensamhetsanläggningar och hantera byggtekniska skillnader mellan respektive upplåtelseform.Anpassningar som berör gemensamhetsanläggningar och byggtekniska skillnader är inte ett krav föratt omvandling ska vara möjligt, men är nödvändiga att genomföra för att bilda lämpligaägarlägenheter. Dock framkommer det att omvandling av äldre fastigheter kan vara problematiskteftersom att det finns risk att väsentlig information antingen inte stämmer eller saknas helt. Åsikterna för en möjlighet till omvandling varierar mellan olika aktörer. Däremot tror många att det iframtiden kan bli en möjlighet att omvandla hyresrätter till ägarlägenheter. Den viktigasteförutsättningen för en omvandling är att regeringen skapar en fungerande lagstiftning med starktkonsumentskydd och fungerande förvaltning. / The main motive behind the government's introduction of condominium apartments in 2008 was tocreate options and diversity in the housing market. The number of condominium apartments hasgradually increased, however, the amount has not met the government's forecasts. If conversionbecomes an option, the proportion of condominium apartments on the market would increase. Thisthesis aims to investigate whether there are adjustments that need to be made in existing rentalproperties to convert rental apartments into suitable condominium apartments. Additionally, this workwill examine whether these adjustments are difficult to implement. In this thesis, a qualitative method has been used through an interview study to provide a deeperunderstanding of the subject. The interviews were conducted with various experts in the field,including real estate companies, surveyors, and specialists. Furthermore, a literature study wasconducted, analyzing bills and public inquiries to gain a fundamental understanding of the underlyingmotives for the introduction of condominium apartments. The study shows that there are both judicial adjustments and building technical adjustments that needto be made when converting rental apartments into condominium apartments. These include creatingnew property boundaries, establishing joint facilities, and handling building technical differencesbetween the respective forms of tenure. Adjustments concerning joint facilities and building technicaldifferences are not required in order for the conversion to be possible, but they are necessary to createsuitable condominium units. It is noted, however, that the conversion of older properties can beproblematic due to the risk that essential information may either be incorrect or entirely missing. Opinions on the possibility of conversion vary among different concerned parties. However, manybelieve that in the future, it may be possible to convert rental apartments into condominiumapartments. The most important condition for a successful conversion is that the government createseffective legislation with strong consumer protection and efficient management.

Deviations from arm’s length prices (prices charged between independent persons) charged between connected cross-border companies are corrected by primary transfer pricing adjustments, effected by the tax authorities of a country, resulting in secondary transactions classified as constructive loans, constructive dividends or constructive equity contributions. Tax could be imposed on the secondary transaction, giving rise to a secondary adjustment. For years of assessment commencing on 1 April 2012 secondary transactions, previously regarded as constructive dividends with Secondary Tax on Companies, were amended to be treated as constructive loans with interest adjustments. The primary research problem addressed by this literature study was to establish whether the constructive loan is the appropriate treatment of secondary transfer pricing transactions in the South African context and if not, whether the other alternatives suggested by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (“OECD”) guidelines should be considered. The OECD suggests that a transaction should be characterised in accordance with its substance. Determination of the subjective economic substance may be established by the motives of multinational groups for setting transfer prices. Multinational groups could have various motives for setting transfer prices that deviate from the arm’s length principle, influencing the economic substance of secondary transactions. In order to determine if the treatment of a secondary transaction, as a constructive loan, would be appropriate and reflect the economic substance of adjustments arising as a result of these motives, the characteristics of each alternative were analysed. The characteristics determined for each of the alternatives were then applied to the economic substance arising from a motive, to determine the appropriateness of each of the alternatives as a secondary transaction. Based on the motives for entering into these transactions, an analysis was performed. The findings led to the conclusion that in the case of the economic substance of transactions, which give rise to transfer pricing adjustments, a constructive dividend appears to be the appropriate treatment for a secondary transaction in most circumstances, as opposed to the constructive loan currently applied by South Africa. Constructive loans or constructive equity contributions may be reflective of the economic substance in exceptional circumstances. The study makes recommendations that South Africa should consider amending the current treatment of a secondary transaction as a constructive loan, to a constructive dividend. It was also recommended that overlapping criteria in the dividend definition be eliminated and that further research should be undertaken in order to determine how the exceptional circumstances for characterisation as a constructive loan or constructive equity contribution, should be provided for in the Income Tax Act (58 of 1962). / MCom (South African and International Taxation), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

Deviations from arm’s length prices (prices charged between independent persons) charged between connected cross-border companies are corrected by primary transfer pricing adjustments, effected by the tax authorities of a country, resulting in secondary transactions classified as constructive loans, constructive dividends or constructive equity contributions. Tax could be imposed on the secondary transaction, giving rise to a secondary adjustment. For years of assessment commencing on 1 April 2012 secondary transactions, previously regarded as constructive dividends with Secondary Tax on Companies, were amended to be treated as constructive loans with interest adjustments. The primary research problem addressed by this literature study was to establish whether the constructive loan is the appropriate treatment of secondary transfer pricing transactions in the South African context and if not, whether the other alternatives suggested by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (“OECD”) guidelines should be considered. The OECD suggests that a transaction should be characterised in accordance with its substance. Determination of the subjective economic substance may be established by the motives of multinational groups for setting transfer prices. Multinational groups could have various motives for setting transfer prices that deviate from the arm’s length principle, influencing the economic substance of secondary transactions. In order to determine if the treatment of a secondary transaction, as a constructive loan, would be appropriate and reflect the economic substance of adjustments arising as a result of these motives, the characteristics of each alternative were analysed. The characteristics determined for each of the alternatives were then applied to the economic substance arising from a motive, to determine the appropriateness of each of the alternatives as a secondary transaction. Based on the motives for entering into these transactions, an analysis was performed. The findings led to the conclusion that in the case of the economic substance of transactions, which give rise to transfer pricing adjustments, a constructive dividend appears to be the appropriate treatment for a secondary transaction in most circumstances, as opposed to the constructive loan currently applied by South Africa. Constructive loans or constructive equity contributions may be reflective of the economic substance in exceptional circumstances. The study makes recommendations that South Africa should consider amending the current treatment of a secondary transaction as a constructive loan, to a constructive dividend. It was also recommended that overlapping criteria in the dividend definition be eliminated and that further research should be undertaken in order to determine how the exceptional circumstances for characterisation as a constructive loan or constructive equity contribution, should be provided for in the Income Tax Act (58 of 1962). / MCom (South African and International Taxation), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T20:18:14Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 3650.pdf: 2665411 bytes, checksum: a3e1a670598c88e67fcd991608db14b7 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-02-18 / Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos / Reaching behavior is an important motor skill because its emergence is one of the first phases of the voluntary motor development during childhood. However, few studies have shown how intrinsic (such as prematurity) and extrinsic factors (such as additional weight) influence this ability. Objectives: This study has as main objectives: 1) to analyze the development of categorical reach variables in preterm and full-term infants, 2) to verify the effect of additional weight attached on the wrists of preterm infants, 3) to verify the need for age correction in the reach of preterm infants. Methods: This study evaluated longitudinally 9 preterm infants aged 5-7 month with mean gestational age of 35.6 (± 0.5) weeks and 10 full-term infants with mean gestational age of 39 (± 0.73) weeks. Both groups had normal birthweight and Apgar score above 7 in the first and fifth minutes. Categorical and kinematic reach variables were analyzed. The categorical variables analyzed were: a) proximal adjustments: unimanual and bimanual b) distal adjustments: hand orientation (vertical, horizontal or oblique), hand classification (open, closed and semi-open), c) grasping: successful and unsuccessful grasping. The kinematic variables measured were: a) mean velocity (MV): ratio between distance traveled and time spent in movement b) movement unit (MU): phase of acceleration and deceleration of the movement during the trajectory; straightness index (SI): ratio between the distance traveled by the hand and the smallest distance that could be traveled on this path. To meet the objectives, three studies were developed for this PhD thesis. Results: Study I was aimed at investigating the development of proximal and distal adjustments of the reach of low-risk pre-term infants in the age group of 5-7 months. The categorical reach variables were analyzed. It was observed that the unimanual reach frequency was greater than the bimanual reach throughout the study period, with no difference between ages in both groups; the frequency of vertical orientation of the hand increased significantly from the 6th to the 7th month in the preterm group and from the 5th to the 7th month in the full-term group; the increased frequency of open hand and decreased frequency of semi-open hand were significant from the 5th to the 7th month in the preterm and full-term groups; the frequency of successful grasp increased from the 6th to the 7th month in preterm and full-term groups. A higher frequency of open hand was found in the preterm group at the 6th month compared to the full-term group between groups. Study II aimed to determine the influence of additional weight and its immediate removal on the reaching of low-risk preterm infants at the age group from 5 to 7 months. The kinematic variables and the grasping were analyzed. It was found that additional weight has reduced the straightness index at the age of five months, increased the mean velocity and decreased the movement units in all age groups and increased the frequency of reaches without grasp at 5 and 7 months. The post-weight reduced the straightness index at the age of 5 months and increased the movement units at 6 and 7 months. Finally, study III aimed to assess the reach of low-risk preterm infants at corrected and chronological ages in order to determine the need for age correction to evaluate the reaching behavior. Comparing the preterm group with chronological age with the full-term group, the former had lower speed, more movement units, hand more horizontal and higher frequency of unsuccessful grasp at 7 months of age. In the pre-corrected age, preterm infants showed lower speed than the full-term group, but with successful grasping. Conclusions: considering the intrinsic restriction imposed by prematurity (considering the corrected age of preterm infants), it seems that it was not enough to prevent the performance of the reaching task in the age group studied. When checking the extrinsic restriction caused by additional weight, it was found that it significantly influenced the reach parameters of preterm infants and these results could support future researches aimed at intervention techniques with the use of additional weight in infants at risk. / O alcance manual é uma importante habilidade motora, pois sua emergência é uma das primeiras fases do desenvolvimento motor voluntário durante a infância. No entanto, poucos estudos são encontrados demonstrando como os fatores intrínsecos (como a prematuridade) e extrínsecos (como o peso adicional) influenciam esta habilidade. Objetivos: Desta forma, o presente estudo tem como objetivos principais: 1) analisar o desenvolvimento das variáveis categóricas do alcance em lactentes pré-termo e a termo; 2) verificar o efeito do peso adicional nos punhos dos lactentes pré-termo; 3) verificar a necessidade da correção da idade no alcance em lactentes pré-termo. Métodos: Para tanto foram avaliados longitudinalmente, na faixa etária de 5 a 7 meses, 9 lactentes pré-termo, com idade gestacional média de 35,6 (±0,5) semanas e 10 lactentes a termo, com idade gestacional média de 39 (±0,73) semanas. Ambos os grupos apresentaram peso adequado ao nascer e Apgar superior a 7 no 1o e 5o minutos. Foram analisadas variáveis categóricas e cinemáticas do alcance. As variáveis categóricas analisadas foram: a) ajustes proximais: unimanual e bimanual; b) ajustes distais: orientação da mão (verticalizada, horizontalizada e obliqua), classificação da mão (aberta, fechada e semi-aberta); c) preensão: preensão com sucesso e sem sucesso. As variáveis cinemáticas avaliadas foram: a) velocidade média (VM): razão entre distância percorrida e tempo gasto no movimento; b) unidade de movimento (UM): fase de aceleração e desaceleração do movimento durante a trajetória; índice de retidão (IR): razão entre a distância percorrida pela mão e a menor distância que poderia ser percorrida nesta trajetória. Para atender os objetivos, três estudos foram desenvolvidos para esta tese de doutorado. Resultados: O Estudo I teve como objetivo investigar o desenvolvimento de ajustes proximais e distais do alcance de lactentes pré-termo de baixo risco na faixa etária de 5 a 7 meses de vida. Foram analisadas as variáveis categóricas do alcance. Foi observado que a freqüência de alcances unimanuais foi maior que bimanuais durante todo o período analisado, sem nenhuma diferença entre as idades em ambos os grupos; a freqüência de orientação vertical da mão aumentou significativamente do 6º para o 7º mês no grupo pré-termo e do 5º para o 7º mês no grupo a termo; o aumento da freqüência de mão aberta e diminuição de semi-aberta foram significativos do 5º para o 7º mês no grupo pré-termo e a termo; a freqüência de preensão com sucesso aumentou do 6º para o 7º mês no grupo pré-termo e a termo. Entre os grupos foi encontrado uma maior freqüência de mão aberta no grupo pré-termo aos 6 meses quando comparado ao a termo. O Estudo II teve como objetivo verificar a influência do peso adicional e a sua retirada imediata no alcance manual de lactentes pré-termo de baixo risco, na faixa etária de 5 a 7 meses de idade. Foram analisadas as variáveis cinemáticas e a preensão do alcance. Constatouse que o peso adicional diminuiu o índice de retidão aos 5 meses, aumentou a velocidade média e diminuiu as unidades de movimento em todas as idades e aumentou a freqüência de alcances sem preensão aos 5 e 7 meses. O pós-peso levou a diminuição do índice de retidão aos 5 meses e aumento das unidades de movimento aos 6 e 7 meses. E finalmente, o Estudo III que teve como objetivo avaliar o alcance de lactentes pré-termo de baixo risco nas idades cronológica e corrigida, com o intuito de determinar a necessidade da correção da idade ao se avaliar o alcance manual. Comparando-se o grupo pré-termo com idade cronológica com o grupo a termo, os primeiros apresentaram menor velocidade, mais unidades de movimento, mão mais horizontalizada e com maior freqüência de preensão sem sucesso aos 7 meses. Na idade corrigida os pré-temo apresentaram velocidade menor que o a termo, porém manteve a preensão com sucesso. Conclusões: Referente à restrição intrínseca imposta pela prematuridade (ao considerar a idade corrigida dos lactentes pré-termo) parece que esta não foi suficiente para impedir a performance da tarefa do alcance na faixa etária estudada. Ao verificar a restrição extrínseca causada pelo peso adicional, observou-se que esta influenciou significativamente os parâmetros do alcance de lactentes pré-termo e tais resultados poderão subsidiar futuras pesquisas objetivando técnicas de intervenção com o uso do peso adicional em lactentes de risco.

This thesis describes and analyses the current issue of legal aspects related to complex land adjustments, especially to the procedure used, including all the necessary subsequent legal acts. With regard to the membership of the Czech Republic in the European Union, the way of making land adjustments in neighbouring countries is also mentioned, specifically in Germany and Austria. The thesis is divided in seven chapters. The first chapter offers an outline of the present state of land adjustments in the Czech Republic and of the objectives of such adjustments. The second chapter deals with the procedure used when making land adjustments. First subchapter is devoted to the history of land adjustments, from the Ancient times till the year 1990. The second subchapter describes the procedure of land adjustments and the third subchapter refers to the real estate register. Some characteristic features of the Czech Republic, Southern Bohemia and district of České Budějovice, which are related to land adjustments, are mentioned in the third chapter. There is also an analysis of a specific complex land adjustment carried out in Southern Bohemia. Some facts that might cause troubles when making land adjustments are outlined here as well. The fourth chapter deals with the way other neighbouring member countries of the European Union carry out the land adjustments; specifically Germany and Austria are mentioned above. Last three chapters consist of conclusion, this summary and list of literature used. The thesis is supplemented by appendices that provide virtual representation of some facts described in the text.

This study aims to describe the actions and processes under the subject teachers and special educators can facilitate mathematics teaching for pupils with ADHD. Qualitative interviews were conducted with three subject teachers in mathematics and two special education teachers. The interviews were recorded and transcribed in its entirety. They were analyzed based on a categorical and a relational perspective. The results show that the most important of all education is to allow the pupils to be in focus, even a varied approach with specific materials experienced successful. It also shows that pupils with ADHD may need adjustments in the form of clarification, structure and dense feedback, but that these adaptations should be individual as it can differentiate between individuals. It is also clear that external factors affect pupils with ADHD, especially classroom placement is important for these pupils. / Denna studie syftar till att beskriva vilka åtgärder och arbetsmetoder som enligt ämneslärare och specialpedagoger kan underlätta matematikundervisningen för elever med ADHD.  Kvalitativa intervjuer har genomförts med tre ämneslärare i matematik samt två specialpedagoger. Intervjuerna spelades in och transkriberades sedan i sin helhet. Intervjuerna analyserades utifrån ett kategoriskt och ett relationellt perspektiv. Resultaten visar att det viktigaste i all undervisning är att låta eleven vara i fokus.  Det går även se att ett varierat arbetssätt med mycket konkret material upplevs framgångsrikt. Det visar även att elever med ADHD kan behöva anpassningar i form av tydliggörande, struktur och tät återkoppling. Dessa anpassningar bör vara individuella då det kan skilja mellan individ och individ. Det är även tydligt att yttre faktorer påverkar eleverna med ADHD, därför är framförallt klassrumsplacering viktig för dessa elever.

This thesis addresses three relevant macroeconomic issues: (i) why Central Banks behave so cautiously compared to optimal theoretical benchmarks, (ii) do monetary variables add information about future Euro Area inflation to a large amount of non monetary variables and (iii) why national saving and investment are so correlated in OECD countries in spite of the high degree of integration of international financial markets. The process of innovation in the elaboration of economic theory and statistical analysis of the data witnessed in the last thirty years has greatly enriched the toolbox available to macroeconomists. Two aspects of such a process are particularly noteworthy for addressing the issues in this thesis: the development of macroeconomic dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models (see Woodford, 1999b for an historical perspective) and of techniques that enable to handle large data sets in a parsimonious and flexible manner (see Reichlin, 2002 for an historical perspective). Dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models (DSGE) provide the appropriate tools to evaluate the macroeconomic consequences of policy changes. These models, by exploiting modern intertemporal general equilibrium theory, aggregate the optimal responses of individual as consumers and firms in order to identify the aggregate shocks and their propagation mechanisms by the restrictions imposed by optimizing individual behavior. Such a modelling strategy, uncovering economic relationships invariant to a change in policy regimes, provides a framework to analyze the effects of economic policy that is robust to the Lucas'critique (see Lucas, 1976). The early attempts of explaining business cycles by starting from microeconomic behavior suggested that economic policy should play no role since business cycles reflected the efficient response of economic agents to exogenous sources of fluctuations (see the seminal paper by Kydland and Prescott, 1982} and, more recently, King and Rebelo, 1999). This view was challenged by several empirical studies showing that the adjustment mechanisms of variables at the heart of macroeconomic propagation mechanisms like prices and wages are not well represented by efficient responses of individual agents in frictionless economies (see, for example, Kashyap, 1999; Cecchetti, 1986; Bils and Klenow, 2004 and Dhyne et al., 2004). Hence, macroeconomic models currently incorporate some sources of nominal and real rigidities in the DSGE framework and allow the study of the optimal policy reactions to inefficient fluctuations stemming from frictions in macroeconomic propagation mechanisms. Against this background, the first chapter of this thesis sets up a DSGE model in order to analyze optimal monetary policy in an economy with sectorial heterogeneity in the frequency of price adjustments. Price setters are divided in two groups: those subject to Calvo type nominal rigidities and those able to change their prices at each period. Sectorial heterogeneity in price setting behavior is a relevant feature in real economies (see, for example, Bils and Klenow, 2004 for the US and Dhyne, 2004 for the Euro Area). Hence, neglecting it would lead to an understatement of the heterogeneity in the transmission mechanisms of economy wide shocks. In this framework, Aoki (2001) shows that a Central Bank maximizing social welfare should stabilize only inflation in the sector where prices are sticky (hereafter, core inflation). Since complete stabilization is the only true objective of the policymaker in Aoki (2001) and, hence, is not only desirable but also implementable, the equilibrium real interest rate in the economy is equal to the natural interest rate irrespective of the degree of heterogeneity that is assumed. This would lead to conclude that stabilizing core inflation rather than overall inflation does not imply any observable difference in the aggressiveness of the policy behavior. While maintaining the assumption of sectorial heterogeneity in the frequency of price adjustments, this chapter adds non negligible transaction frictions to the model economy in Aoki (2001). As a consequence, the social welfare maximizing monetary policymaker faces a trade-off among the stabilization of core inflation, economy wide output gap and the nominal interest rate. This feature reflects the trade-offs between conflicting objectives faced by actual policymakers. The chapter shows that the existence of this trade-off makes the aggressiveness of the monetary policy reaction dependent on the degree of sectorial heterogeneity in the economy. In particular, in presence of sectorial heterogeneity in price adjustments, Central Banks are much more likely to behave less aggressively than in an economy where all firms face nominal rigidities. Hence, the chapter concludes that the excessive caution in the conduct of monetary policy shown by actual Central Banks (see, for example, Rudebusch and Svennsson, 1999 and Sack, 2000) might not represent a sub-optimal behavior but, on the contrary, might be the optimal monetary policy response in presence of a relevant sectorial dispersion in the frequency of price adjustments. DSGE models are proving useful also in empirical applications and recently efforts have been made to incorporate large amounts of information in their framework (see Boivin and Giannoni, 2006). However, the typical DSGE model still relies on a handful of variables. Partly, this reflects the fact that, increasing the number of variables, the specification of a plausible set of theoretical restrictions identifying aggregate shocks and their propagation mechanisms becomes cumbersome. On the other hand, several questions in macroeconomics require the study of a large amount of variables. Among others, two examples related to the second and third chapter of this thesis can help to understand why. First, policymakers analyze a large quantity of information to assess the current and future stance of their economies and, because of model uncertainty, do not rely on a single modelling framework. Consequently, macroeconomic policy can be better understood if the econometrician relies on large set of variables without imposing too much a priori structure on the relationships governing their evolution (see, for example, Giannone et al., 2004 and Bernanke et al., 2005). Moreover, the process of integration of good and financial markets implies that the source of aggregate shocks is increasingly global requiring, in turn, the study of their propagation through cross country links (see, among others, Forni and Reichlin, 2001 and Kose et al., 2003). A priori, country specific behavior cannot be ruled out and many of the homogeneity assumptions that are typically embodied in open macroeconomic models for keeping them tractable are rejected by the data. Summing up, in order to deal with such issues, we need modelling frameworks able to treat a large amount of variables in a flexible manner, i.e. without pre-committing on too many a-priori restrictions more likely to be rejected by the data. The large extent of comovement among wide cross sections of economic variables suggests the existence of few common sources of fluctuations (Forni et al., 2000 and Stock and Watson, 2002) around which individual variables may display specific features: a shock to the world price of oil, for example, hits oil exporters and importers with different sign and intensity or global technological advances can affect some countries before others (Giannone and Reichlin, 2004). Factor models mainly rely on the identification assumption that the dynamics of each variable can be decomposed into two orthogonal components - common and idiosyncratic - and provide a parsimonious tool allowing the analysis of the aggregate shocks and their propagation mechanisms in a large cross section of variables. In fact, while the idiosyncratic components are poorly cross-sectionally correlated, driven by shocks specific of a variable or a group of variables or measurement error, the common components capture the bulk of cross-sectional correlation, and are driven by few shocks that affect, through variable specific factor loadings, all items in a panel of economic time series. Focusing on the latter components allows useful insights on the identity and propagation mechanisms of aggregate shocks underlying a large amount of variables. The second and third chapter of this thesis exploit this idea. The second chapter deals with the issue whether monetary variables help to forecast inflation in the Euro Area harmonized index of consumer prices (HICP). Policymakers form their views on the economic outlook by drawing on large amounts of potentially relevant information. Indeed, the monetary policy strategy of the European Central Bank acknowledges that many variables and models can be informative about future Euro Area inflation. A peculiarity of such strategy is that it assigns to monetary information the role of providing insights for the medium - long term evolution of prices while a wide range of alternative non monetary variables and models are employed in order to form a view on the short term and to cross-check the inference based on monetary information. However, both the academic literature and the practice of the leading Central Banks other than the ECB do not assign such a special role to monetary variables (see Gali et al., 2004 and references therein). Hence, the debate whether money really provides relevant information for the inflation outlook in the Euro Area is still open. Specifically, this chapter addresses the issue whether money provides useful information about future inflation beyond what contained in a large amount of non monetary variables. It shows that a few aggregates of the data explain a large amount of the fluctuations in a large cross section of Euro Area variables. This allows to postulate a factor structure for the large panel of variables at hand and to aggregate it in few synthetic indexes that still retain the salient features of the large cross section. The database is split in two big blocks of variables: non monetary (baseline) and monetary variables. Results show that baseline variables provide a satisfactory predictive performance improving on the best univariate benchmarks in the period 1997 - 2005 at all horizons between 6 and 36 months. Remarkably, monetary variables provide a sensible improvement on the performance of baseline variables at horizons above two years. However, the analysis of the evolution of the forecast errors reveals that most of the gains obtained relative to univariate benchmarks of non forecastability with baseline and monetary variables are realized in the first part of the prediction sample up to the end of 2002, which casts doubts on the current forecastability of inflation in the Euro Area. The third chapter is based on a joint work with Domenico Giannone and gives empirical foundation to the general equilibrium explanation of the Feldstein - Horioka puzzle. Feldstein and Horioka (1980) found that domestic saving and investment in OECD countries strongly comove, contrary to the idea that high capital mobility should allow countries to seek the highest returns in global financial markets and, hence, imply a correlation among national saving and investment closer to zero than one. Moreover, capital mobility has strongly increased since the publication of Feldstein - Horioka's seminal paper while the association between saving and investment does not seem to comparably decrease. Through general equilibrium mechanisms, the presence of global shocks might rationalize the correlation between saving and investment. In fact, global shocks, affecting all countries, tend to create imbalance on global capital markets causing offsetting movements in the global interest rate and can generate the observed correlation across national saving and investment rates. However, previous empirical studies (see Ventura, 2003) that have controlled for the effects of global shocks in the context of saving-investment regressions failed to give empirical foundation to this explanation. We show that previous studies have neglected the fact that global shocks may propagate heterogeneously across countries, failing to properly isolate components of saving and investment that are affected by non pervasive shocks. We propose a novel factor augmented panel regression methodology that allows to isolate idiosyncratic sources of fluctuations under the assumption of heterogenous transmission mechanisms of global shocks. Remarkably, by applying our methodology, the association between domestic saving and investment decreases considerably over time, consistently with the observed increase in international capital mobility. In particular, in the last 25 years the correlation between saving and investment disappears.

The purpose of this study is to examine how children interact with each other in the free play. My questions have been which access strategies children use, how they use secondary adjustments and how they use language in order to gain position and status in the play. The study has been characterized by a qualitative research-oriented method, with interpretive analysis and qualitative interviews. The data collection was done through observations and conversations with children about their play. The children in the study are between the ages of three and five-years-old. The weakness of this study has been that I haven’t had enough children to observe and interview, because I didn’t get the parents approval to use their children in the study. This might have affected the result. The theories I have used in the analysis has been Löfdahl's theories of secondary adjustments and play acts and Corsaro's theories about how children's use of language in play varies depending on what status they have and his theories of access strategies.  The study shows that children are aware of what social codes they should follow in their pre-school groups. The results showed that the children have developed various secondary adjustments, both to teachers and other children in the group. The most common entry strategy to gain access to a play was request for access. This was such an approved strategy, the children rarely tried to gain access by any other strategies. The children showed awareness of which status the other children in the group had, children with a higher status, more often were allowed to have the control in play.

This research examined the influence of psychological temperament and family-of-origin socialization influences on relationship adjustment in marriage. The major goals were to determine: (a) if there was a relationship between the temperament of one mate in the marriage and the temperament of his or her spouse, and (b) if there was a relationship between the marital adjustment scores of a mate relative to either personal temperament or that of his or her spouse. A secondary purpose was to determine if certain family-of-origin socialization experiences influenced adjustment in marriage. One hundred seventy-nine couples (H = 358) completed three test instruments including the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (Myers, 1962), Dyadic Adjustment Scale (Spanier, 1976), and the Socialization Background Questionnaire (Church, unpublished), along with a demographic questionnaire. The subjects, volunteers from 12 churches in a large metropolitan area, had mean ages of 35.3 and 33.6 years for husbands and wives, respectively, and had been married for an average of 10.1 years. Five hypotheses and two research questions were tested at the .05 level of significance. The results gathered did not support the hypothesis that there was a relationship between temperament type and mate selection. Similarly, no support was evidenced for any specific relationship between temperament and marital adjustment. On the Socialization Background Questionnaire, one relationship at the prescribed level of significance was present between husbands' self-concept and their marital adjustment scores. At the .10 significance level, there was also indication that husbands' marital adjustment was related to the acceptance they did or did not receive as children., regardless of the expectations held for them. Neither of these relationships was present with regard to wives' marital adjustment scores. The overall conclusions are that couples do not choose mates based on temperaments, that no relationship exists between temperament combinations and marital adjustment, and that socialization experiences affect marital adjustment differently for husbands and wives.