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Thesis states there are 128 pages. However, only 126 pages provided. (chronological from 1-126) / The purpose of this thesis is to examine foreign firms' spatial economic impacts on Canada with particular emphasis on the industrial linkage and spatial employment effects. The thesis focuses on the recent characteristics and strategies of foreign firms, which include rationalization and restructuring, in Canada. FDI in Canada is decreasing in a relative sense, while the share of foreign control and ownership in Canadian industry have remained almost constant for last twenty years: about sixty per cent and fifty per cent in the manufacturing sector, respectively. Furthermore, foreign firms recently increases acquisitions of Canadian firms, disinvestment from Canada, and remittance to the home countries in the form of royalties and license fees. Foreign firms seem to have contributed to the deficit of international balance of payments in Canada. Also foreign control over the Canadian economy is increasing without a corresponding increase in new capacity, income and employment. The linkage analysis and Spearman's rank correlation analysis reveal that foreign investments in Canada prefer to concentrate in industries with lower backward linkages and higher forward linkages. Foreign firms in Canada heavily depend upon foreign sources of material inputs and are directed to Canadian market for their outputs. This indicates that foreign firms' role in Canadian international balance could be negative. Along with decreasing rate of growth of FDI in Canada the employment of foreign firms has decreased rapidly, while their spatial concentration has increased. In addition, the rapid decrease in foreign employment in Canada's lagging regions since 1970 also contributed to regional disparity. For the locational change over the last two decades, domestic firms have been more dispersed out of Ontario and Quebec than foreign firms. Foreign firms were more stable then domestic firms implying that they specialized themselves in the plant level to cope with the changes in economic climates while domestic firms might have adjusted themselves possibly by relocation and plant closures and new set ups. Foreign firms have positively influenced some parts of Canada's competitiveness through rapid specialization and productivity growth and have negatively influenced some parts of Canada's competitiveness, including the tendency toward importing, weak development in high-technology industries, less R & D activity and employment. The rapid specialization and productivity growth of foreign firms can contribute to enhance Canada's competitiveness at the expense of employment loss and regional disparity. In addition, considering Canada's poor performance in high-technologysectors and R&D activity in spite of the fact that foreign firms show rapid specialization, productivity growth, and growth in high-technology sectors, the spillover effects of foreign firms are not so satisfactory as expected in Canada. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T14:02:04Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 MichelleMR.pdf: 448282 bytes, checksum: a72147e483ab07cc3c64242fa0a8d888 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007-03-21 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cient?fico e Tecnol?gico / Artificial lakes must differ from natural lakes in important structural and functional aspects that need to be understood so that these ecosystems can be properly managed. The aim of this work was to test the hypothesis that the artificial lakes (impoundments) in the semi-arid region of the Rio Grande do Norte State are more eutrophic and turbid and have different trophic structure when compared to the natural coastal lakes that occur in the humid eastern coast of the State. To test this hypothesis, 10 natural lakes and 8 artificial lakes with about 100 ha were sampled between September and November 2005 for the determination of some limnological variables and the abundance of the main fish species, which were grouped in three trophic guilds: facultative piscivores, facultative planktivores and omnivores. The results show that the artificial lakes had significantly higher concentrations of total nitrogen, total phosphorus, chlorophyll a , total and volatile suspended solids than the natural lakes. Results also show that the values of pH, total alkalinity, electric conductivity, turbidity as well as the coefficient of vertical attenuation of light were significantly higher in the artificial lakes than in the natural lakes. In the artificial lakes, the abundance of facultative planktivores was significantly higher, while the abundance of facultative piscivores significantly lower than in the natural lakes. There was no significant difference in the abundance of omnivorous fish between the two types of lakes. These results suggest that the increase in turbidity together with the other changes in the water quality of the artificial lakes, modifies the trophic structure of the fish communities reducing the importance of piscivores and the length of the food chains / Lagos artificiais devem diferir de lagos naturais em importantes aspectos estruturais e funcionais que precisam ser compreendidos para que possamos manejar adequadamente esses ecossistemas. Este trabalho foi realizado com o objetivo de testar a hip?tese de que os lagos artificiais (a?udes) na regi?o semi-?rida s?o ambientes mais eutrofizados e t?rbidos que possuem uma estrutura tr?fica distinta dos lagos costeiros naturais que ocorrem no litoral leste ?mido do Estado do Rio Grande do Norte. Para testar esta hip?tese, 10 lagos naturais e 8 lagos artificiais com cerca de 100 ha foram amostrados entre setembro e novembro de 2005 para determina??o de algumas vari?veis limnol?gicas e da abund?ncia das principais esp?cies de peixes, as quais foram agrupadas em tr?s guildas tr?ficas: pisc?voros facultativos, planct?voros facultativos e on?voros. Os resultados mostram que os lagos artificiais apresentaram concentra??es significativamente maiores de nitrog?nio e f?sforo total, clorofila a e s?lidos totais e vol?teis em suspens?o do que os lagos naturais. Os resultados tamb?m mostram que o pH, a alcalinidade total, a condutividade el?trica, a turbidez da ?gua e coeficiente de atenua??o vertical da luz nos lagos artificiais foram significativamente maiores do que nos lagos naturais. Nos lagos artificiais, a abund?ncia de peixes planct?voros facultativos tamb?m foi significativamente maior, enquanto que a abund?ncia de peixes pisc?voros facultativos foi significativamente menor do que nos lagos naturais. N?o houve diferen?as significativas na abund?ncia de peixes on?voros entre os dois tipos de lagos estudados. Esses resultados sugerem que a maior turbidez da ?gua aliada a outras mudan?as na qualidade da ?gua dos lagos artificiais eutrofizados afetam a estrutura tr?fica das comunidades de peixes reduzindo a import?ncia dos peixes pisc?voros e conseq?entemente o comprimento das cadeias alimentares