Despite years of deepening economic integration among the states and regions of the European Union, empirical research remains inconclusive about speed of convergence across regions, if not its existence. This thesis provides novel evidence on convergence in the EU while focusing on development at regional level after the Great Recession. It uses recently developed log t convergence test by Phillips and Sul (2007). Our findings speak against the convergence in level of income per capita among the European regions and give us five clubs of regions converging in their income growth rates instead. Investigating further the geographical distribution of the convergence clubs, we confirm high inequality within the member states and find large continuous area of high convergence clubs in the urbanized part of Western Europe. Furthermore, we investigated the determinants of convergence club membership using Logistic Regression. The main explanatory variable of interest were Business Services (BS), a dynamic sector of the economy with presumably strong positive effect on regional innovative potential. We found positive effect of BS on membership in higher convergence clubs. Yet, this effect seems to diminish for the very highest club.

Maintaining global warming to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels is vital. Whether the convergence hypothesis holds for carbon dioxide emissions is important for policymakers facing this issue. This paper investigates the convergence behavior of carbon dioxide emissions for 39 countries in the Americas from 1960-2016. A linear regression test of convergence which looks for conditional sigma convergence is employed, and a clustering algorithm is used to identify convergence clubs. The results show evidence of convergence in the region for the long run. Convergence clubs are identified for the short run. The convergence clubs show some relation to spatial distribution and income level. Possible factors determining the formation of convergence clubs are investigated through logistic regression. Initial level of emissions and energy intensity were found to have the largest impact determining what convergence club a country belongs to. Per capita GDP, trade openness, and renewable energy were all found to be highly significant factors determining what convergence club a country belongs to as well. Different results were found for urbanization’s impact in determining the formation of convergence clubs. These findings show that policymakers should promote allocation schemes for carbon dioxide emissions. Policymakers should also aim to reduce carbon footprint based on the economy’s structural characteristics.

Le but de cette thèse est d'examiner les causes et les conséquences des activités productives des entrepreneurs. Cette étude utilise la base de données sur les régions d'Indonésie pour mettre à l'épreuve des faits nos hypothèses. Le premier chapitre scrute le rôle de l'entrepreneur dans la dynamique du marché du travail. Son originalité est d'introduire la structure du chômage et de travailleur indépendant pour expliquer la relation entre l'entrepreneuriat et le chômage. Le deuxième chapitre cherche à renouveler le raisonnement sur les relations entre les institutions et l'entrepreneuriat. La particularité de cette étude est d'expliquer ces relations au travers de l'ontologie d'Aristote de la contingence et de la prudence. Le troisième chapitre étudie les conséquences de la diversité culturelle sur l'entrepreneuriat. Nous proposons que la diversité culturelle n'influence pas seulement la compétence des individus à découvrir des opportunités, mais qu'elle se trouve également à l'origine de ces opportunités. Le quatrième chapitre étudie les effets des activités productives des entrepreneurs sur la croissance économique. Nous proposons quatre types de modèles économiques: Innovation-économie managériale, innovation-économie entrepreneuriale, imitation-économie managériale et imitation-économie entrepreneuriale. Le cinquième chapitre a pour but de comprendre les conséquences de l'entrepreneuriat sur le processus de la convergence économique. Nous proposons que l'égalisation du capital entrepreneurial à la période initiale soit un facteur nécessaire à la formation de convergence club. / This dissertation aims to examine the causes and consequences of entrepreneurial productive activities. This study makes use Indonesian cross-region database to investigate empirically our hypotheses. The first chapter observes the role of entrepreneurship in the dynamic of the labor markets. The value of this chapter is to consider the structure of unemployment and self-employment to uncover the entrepreneurship-unemployment relationships. The second chapter seeks to renew the explanation of the relationships between institutions and entrepreneurship. The originality is to explain this relationship through Aristotle's ontology of contingency and prudence. The third chapter investigates the consequences of cultural diversity on entrepreneurship. We propose that cultural heterogeneity not only influences the ability to discover profit opportunities, but it also is the origin of these opportunities. The fourth chapter studies the effect of entrepreneurial productive activities of economic growth. The novelty of this chapter is to propose that a country's model of economic growth may fall into four possible economic models: innovation-managed economy or innovation­entrepreneurial economy and imitation-managed economy or imitation-entrepreneurial economy. The fifth chapter aims to understand the consequences of entrepreneurship on the process of convergence. We propose that the equalization of entrepreneurial capital at the initial period is a conditioning factor of convergence club formation and different types of entrepreneurship based on technology intensity matters for explaining the process of catch-up.

Cette thèse comporte quatre essais et porte sur les questions fondamentales sur la relation entre l’environnement et le développement économique. Le premier chapitre cherche à identifier les déterminants individuels et contextuels qui affectent la volonté de contribuer des gens à la lutte contre la pollution environnementale. Nos résultats révèlent que les individus riches, les personnes éduquées ainsi que les personnes possédant des valeurs post-matérialistes sont plus susceptibles d’être préoccupées par la pollution environnementale. On remarque que la caractéristique du pays de ces individus affecte leur volonté à contribuer. Ainsi, dans les pays à forte démocratie avec une forte stabilité gouvernementale, les individus sont réticents à faire des dons pour prévenir les dommages environnementaux. Le deuxième chapitre examine la relation entre la croissance économique et la dégradation de l’environnement en s’interrogeant sur la relation U inversée de Kuznets. Nos résultats empiriques ne révèlent aucune preuve de ladite relation. Cependant, nous notons l’existence d’une relation non linéaire entre la croissance économique et la dégradation de l’environnement. Les émissions ont tendance à augmenter un rythme plus rapide dans les premiers stades de la croissance économique puis dans les dernière étapes, cette hausse persiste mais à un rythme plus lent. Le troisième chapitre étudie la relation de causalité de long terme entre la consommation d'énergie propre et la croissance économique dans un groupe de pays de l’Afrique subsaharienne. Le résultat révèle l'existence d'une relation d'équilibre à long terme entre la consommation d'énergie propre et la croissance économique. En outre, la dynamique de court terme et de long terme indiquent une relation de causalité à la Granger unidirectionnelle de la consommation d'énergie propre vers la croissance économique sans aucun effet rétroactif. Le dernier chapitre de cette thèse cherche à investiguer sur la convergence des émissions de gaz entre les provinces canadiennes. L'étude montre que les émissions de gaz des provinces canadiennes sont caractérisées des convergences de clubs. En d'autres termes, on détecte l'existence d'une segmentation des émissions entre les provinces canadiennes. / This thesis comprises four empirical essays on environmental and development economics. In the first chapter, we examine to what extent individual and contextual level factors influence individuals to contribute financially to prevent environmental pollution. We find that rich people, individuals with higher education, as well as those who possess post-materialist values are more likely to be concerned about environmental pollution. We also observe the country in which individuals live matter in their willingness to contribute. More precisely, we find democracy and government stability reduce individuals’ intention to donate to prevent environmental damage mainly in developed countries. The second chapter deals with the relation between economic growth and environmental degradation by focusing on the issue of whether the inverted U-shaped relation exist. The study discloses no evidence for the U-shaped relation. However, the empirical result points toward a non-linear relationship between environmental degradation and economic growth, that is, emissions tend to rise rapidly in the early stages with economic growth, and then emissions continue to increase but a lower rate in the later stages. The third chapter investigates the long-run as well as the causal relationship between energy consumption and economic growth in a group of Sub-Saharan Africa. The result discovers the existence of a long-run equilibrium relationship between clean energy consumption and economic growth. Furthermore, the short-run and the long-run dynamics indicate unidirectional Granger causality running from clean energy consumption to economic growth without any feedback effects. The last chapter of this thesis concerns with convergence of emissions across Canadian provinces. The study determines convergence clubs better characterizes Canadian’s emissions. In other words, we detect the existence of segmentation in emissions across Canadian provinces.