The fact that saving is one of the main factors to economic growth is unquestionable. Accumulated saving can be consider as the sources of capital stock to which play a crucial role in creating investment, production, and employment. And all these activities eventually enhance the economic growth. Therefore the main objective of this paper, ―The relationship between domestic saving and economic growth and convergence hypothesis: case study of Thailand‖, was to investigate the causality relationship between the domestic saving and economic growth of Thailand. This paper will analyze whether the direction of causality go from domestic saving to economic growth, or vice versa. Granger causality test were conducted by using time series annual data from 1960 to 2010, and the empirical result suggests that the direct of causality go from economic growth to domestic saving only. Aiming to grow its economy, Thailand had had development plans which used both saving and direct investment to stimulate economy. This paper examine whether the convergence hypothesis does hold in Thailand. This part would check whether or not Thailand is in the process of convergence, catching up, lagging behind, loose catching up, loose lagging behind or divergence over time compared with other developed countries. This test was conducted in pairwise between Thailand-Singapore, Thailand-United States, Thailand-United Kingdom, deployed data from 1970 to 2010, and the Augmented Dickey–Fuller (ADF) Test. The regression results demonstrate that convergence hypothesis does not hold in Thailand. Finally, the result of Granger Causality report that economic growth rate does matter lead to growth rate of domestic savings in Thailand only. Thus, in order to learn the effect of gross domestic saving per capita growth rate can help narrow the different of GDP between two countries concerned, this paper will examine the correlation of two variables, deployed the OSL methods to investigate the correlation between gross domestic saving growth rate and the different of GDP per capita between Thailand and Singapore. This test also examine whether saving does help support convergence hypothesis for Thailand or not. The test results shows that domestic saving growth rate does not help narrowing the range of different of income of Thailand and Singapore which mean that domestic saving growth rate does not support the convergence hypothesis in Thailand.

Ever since the environment and nonhumanity became major ethical topics, human-centered worldviews have been blamed for all that is morally wrong about our dealings with nature. Those who consider themselves nonanthropocentrists typically assume that the West’s anthropocentric axiologies and ontologies underlie all of the environmental degradations associated with our species. On the other hand, a handful of environmental philosophers argue that anthropocentrism is perfectly acceptable as a foundation for environmental ethics. According to Bryan Norton’s convergence hypothesis, "If reasonably interpreted and translated into appropriate policies, a nonanthropocentric ethic will advocate the same [environmental] policies as a suitably broad and long-sighted anthropocentrism" (Norton 2004:11). Norton notes that although adherents to either ism may disagree about the relative importance of the various reasons they have for advocating such policies, they nevertheless share an equal commitment to protecting the environment. Because any form of anthropocentrism must fundamentally favor humanity over nonhumanity, nonanthropocentrists are nevertheless concerned that such favoritism is "nothing more than the expression of an irrational bias" (Taylor 1981:215). They reason that only a nonanthropocentric ethic can guarantee that policies do not arbitrarily favor humans when their interests conflict with those of nonhumans. I argue that critics of convergence fail to appreciate that Norton’s hypothesis is limited to ideologies that he deems "reasonable" and "suitably broad and long-sighted," or else they misapprehend what these terms imply. When it comes to ethics, nonanthropocentrists and anthropocentrists alike vary along a continuum according to whether their overriding intuitions are more aligned with individualistic or collectivistic axiologies and their associated timescales. The most unreasonable, narrow, and short-sighted ideologies are those that are the most individualistic. It is at the collective end of the continuum that Norton’s proposed convergence takes place. I defend a version of anthropocentrism that I term ecological anthropocentrism.

本篇論文在結構性時間序列模型基礎下，將中國大陸29省市自治區1978-2005年實質人均GDP，拆解出其長期趨勢變動軌跡中的水準值與斜率值，對照傳統上直接利用實質所得數據，以動態縱橫資料方法進行經濟成長條件收斂假說的檢定。本文特色在於加入潛在GDP長期趨勢項的水準值和斜率值，並利用內生解釋變數落後項動態分析。除可驗證隨著時間經過，中國相對貧窮省區是否終將逐漸趕上相對富有省份所得水準外，其次，根據GDP趨勢項一階與二階條件的收斂與否，可進而確認實質GDP收斂的本質。 我們發現，實質人均GDP收斂的本質關鍵在於潛在趨勢水準收斂，潛在GDP趨勢斜率的成長率將左右區域間實質所得收斂速度。大部分樣本中，擴大的Solow模型或考慮不同經濟開放程度因素下的內生成長模型，支持條件收斂假說，而後者設算出的收斂係數明顯較為低。此外，考慮採用Arellano and Bond(1991)的the first difference GMM估計式可能存在弱工具性問題(a weak instruments problem)，以Blundell and Bond(1998)發展出的the system GMM估計式，作為探討初始所得與經濟成長收斂的關係應是較為適合的方法。 / This research examines the economic growth conditional convergence hypothesis. Using the data of 29 provinces in Mainland China between 1978 and 2005, this study applied the structural time series model to deconstruct the provinces’ real GDP per capita into two parts - the level and the slope of trend movement. The characteristics of this paper are to include the level and the slope of trend of potential GDP and to consider the lagged dependent variables into the panel data. This study intends to validate whether the income level of relatively poor provinces will gradually catch up that of the relatively affluent provinces in Mainland China eventually. In addition, this study, based on the convergence or divergence in the first-order and second-order conditions of GDP tendency, will confirm the essence of the convergence in real GDP. The findings are that the essential key of the convergence in real GDP per capita is the convergence of the potential level of GDP. The growth of potential GDP tendency slope would affect the converging speed of real income in regions. The testing results of either the augmented Solow model or the endogenous growth model which considered different economic opening degrees both support the conditional convergence hypothesis in most sample sets, while the estimated convergence coefficients of the later are significantly lower than those of the former. In addition, considering the possible weak instruments problem in the first difference GMM estimator developed by Arellano and Bond (1991), the system GMM developed by Blundell and Bond (1998) should be a more suitable way to observe the relation between initial income level and economic growth convergence.

Biogeochemical processes of reefs have been studied for over fifty years, however, information is still lacking on several fundamental reef processes. This lack of information has been limited essentially by techniques that cannot repeatedly sample large spatial areas. These limitations can be reduced with the use of an optical model to estimate biogeochemical processes. This project applied Monteith's light-use efficiency model to coral reef communities for determining photosynthetic and calcification efficiency of light. Gross primary production and net calcification were pooled from the peer-reviewed literature to calculate efficiency. Process efficiency was then compared across functional types of reef communities (i.e., coral, algae/seagrasses, mixed, and sand), and by year, location, season, and depth. Photosynthetic efficiency was calculated from 19 studies, showing an average of 0.039 mol O2 mol-1 photons. Photosynthetic efficiency differed significantly for mixed communities between studies, and for algae/seagrass communities among depths. Calcification efficiency averaged at 0.007 mol CaCO3 mol-1 photons. Significant differences were found in calcification efficiency of algae/seagrasses and mixed reef communities among studies and localities. Additionally, calcification efficiency of algae/seagrasses varied significantly in accordance with depth. Future use of the light-use efficiency model will require determining the efficiency of each functional type to estimate gross production and calcification. Additionally, further investigation of the light-use efficiency model will require long-term measurements of APAR, which is the fraction of incident light absorbed, and the incorporation of environmental parameters that reduce efficiency.