本文嘗試以 Bug Push 模型解釋英國工業革命成功之原因，首先分析英國工業革命前的歷史背景，再說明英國產生工業革命的條件因素，同時敘述工業革命對英國帶來的正面與負面影響，進而闡述中國可以產生工業革命的有利條件與阻礙條件。 由於宋代是中國歷史上最有可能發生工業化的朝代，本文嘗試剖析宋朝的政治經濟社會背景情況，解析宋朝不能工業化的原因，進而論述在現代的經濟體系下，一個國家可以產生工業化的條件。

This dissertation consists of three independent essays. The first essay, “Long Waves and Short Cycles in a Model of Endogenous Financial Fragility,” presents a stock flow consistent macroeconomic model in which financial fragility in firm and household sectors evolves endogenously through the interaction between real and financial sectors. Changes in firms’ and households’ financial practices produce long waves. The Hopf bifurcation theorem is applied to clarify the conditions for the existence of limit cycles, and simulations illustrate stable limit cycles. The long waves are characterized by periodic economic crises following long expansions. Short cycles, generated by the interaction between effective demand and labor market dynamics, fluctuate around the long waves. The second essay,“Macroeconomic Implications of Financialization,” examines macroeconomic effects of changes in firms’ financial behavior (retention policy, equity financing, debt financing), and household saving and portfolio decisions using models that pay explicit attention to financial stock-flow relations. Unlike the first essay, the second essay focuses on the effects of financial change on steady growth path. The results are insensitive to the precise specification of household saving behavior but depend critically on the labor market assumptions (labor-constrained vs dual) and the specification of the investment function (Harrodian vs stagnationist). The last essay, “Finance, Sectoral Structure and the Big Push,” studies the role of finance in the presence of investment complementarities using a big push model. Due to complementarities between different investment projects, simultaneous industrialization of many sectors (big push) may be needed for an underdeveloped economy to escape from an underdevelopment trap. Such simultaneous industrialization requires costly coordination by a third party, such as the government. Some recent papers show that private banks with significant market power may also solve the problem of coordination failure. We show that private coordination may not work since even large private banks may find it more profitable to finance firms in the traditional sector than in the modern sector.

This Master thesis is the result of a study in which we looked at people's livelihoods - through the sustainable rural livelihoods analytical framework - from a coordination failure perspective. During three weeks spent in the district of Ribáuè, Mozambique, enabled us to conduct interviews with people from many different social categories and understand the conditions in which small-scale farmers live. The paper tackles issues related to development in general and governmental intervention and contributes to the debate about the type of growth which is on-going in Mozambique. What are the coordination failures that impact people's livelihoods in Mozambique, a country where strong economic growth does not seem to help the poorest to get out of poverty. / The Mozambican economy is characterised by a high level of employment in the agricultural sector. Most farmers are small-scale and farm for subsistence. As development at global level will continue to pressure these farmers to increase their productivity, the question is to know how this will affect the small-scale farmers’ capacity to improve their livelihoods. The economy of the African continent is predicted to rise substantially and countries like Mozambiquehave been praised for their staggering economic growth. However despite growth, the situation remains unchanged for many small-scale farmers. The intention of this research is then to look into the conditions in which small-scale agricultural activities take place. This study was carried out is the district of Ribáuè, located in the northern provinceof Nampula, Mozambique and adopts an abductive approach as it investigates coordination failures around farming activities. In other words, aspects concerning agricultural activities that are difficult to observe, will be included. The starting point for this argument is that it is impossible to obtain sustainable development (i.e. including small-scale farmers) without taking a holistic approach. Through this study, it becomes clear that small-scale farmers face a variety of obstacles from which patterns can be extracted. Strong emphasis is put on the importance of surrounding factors such as infrastructures, access to credit, wage work opportunities, access to inputs, extension services, and market access.  All these factors impact people’s livelihoods; and by investing in all of them in a coordinated way, it creates synergetic effects and boosts the potential for further development of each feature. This inter-connectivity becomes clear when considering that wage work opportunities are created when investments are made in the rehabilitation of infrastructures or the expansion of extension services. Furthermore, market access increases when the connectivity of remote farmers is improved and their livelihoods develop when their surplus can be sold. The amount of surplus farmers have is in turn affected by their financial capital, access to inputs, and access to extension services. Singling out one of these features as more important than the others risks missing the point and hindering sustainable development. This calls for big versatile government investments, in the form of big push policies, to ensure that these areas inter-connect and to create the highest possible levels of synergy.