Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Queensland, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references.

Across the country more and more states are taking advantage of the economic value of state historic tax credits that can be used in conjunction with federal rehabilitation tax credits to incentivize significant investment in the rehabilitation of buildings. Texas joined thirty-three other states when it passed a state historic tax credit in 2013. The financial incentives of this new piece of legislation are expected to spur the rehabilitation of historic buildings in large cities and small towns across the state. In order to be a successful statewide program the tax credit must be an attractive financial incentive for not only sophisticated investors, but also for small building owners with no previous tax credit or rehabilitation experience. The tax credit creates a new market of buyers and sellers, drawing the attention of local and national real estate developers and investors. The ability to combine state and federal historic tax credits changes the bottom line in real estate pro formas, leveraging historic buildings as assets. The availability of the tax credit for small preservation projects may have the greatest impact on historic preservation efforts across the states as smaller towns begin to see new investment in downtown commercial districts. This report explains how the tax credit was created, analyzes the strength of the policy, and makes recommendations for its implementation and use. This work addresses a series of important questions. Will the Texas Historic Preservation Tax Credit be an effective economic driver as compared to other state historic tax credits? What are the strengths and weaknesses of the Texas tax credit? This report analyzes the new Texas program and gages its potential to incentivize the rehabilitation of historic properties in a range of sizes and locales. / text

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This dissertation is entitled "Essays in the International Economics of Credit and Banking". It comprises three essays. The first essay develops an empirical model of international credit with moral hazard and the risk of repudiation to examine (i) the determinants of the intertemporal and cross-national variations in credit ceilings and (ii) the channels through which output attracts foreign credit. It reports that productivity is the most important variable in attracting credit, followed by education, and then physical capital. Furthermore, international trade, country financial risk ratings, and geography explain more than 60% of the cross-national variations in credit ceiling. Therefore, international relations and investment in education and productivity-enhancing institutions are crucial in attracting foreign credit. / The second essay develops open-economy variants of the old Friedman-Schwartz and the new Lucas-Sargent-Wallace monetarist models to investigate the puzzle of monetary neutrality. The essay further introduces financial aggregation theories into the models. It studies the theoretical and business-cycle relationships between real output and financial aggregates, interest rates, exchange rate, and prices using Canadian quarterly data for the period 1959: 1 to 2002: 1. It reports that the open-economy variants of the monetarist models with aggregation-theoretic financial aggregates perform the best in producing significant sign patterns that are predicted by theory. Furthermore, Monte Carlo experiments show that large percentage of real output variance is explained by shocks to aggregation-theoretic financial aggregates relative to other variables. Thus, there is no difference between the effects of anticipated and unanticipated monetary shocks. / The third essay examines the appropriate formulation of the monetary aggregate for the Nigerian economy for the period 1970:1-2000:4 for the determination of real output. This examination covers simple sum, variable elasticity of substitution (ves), and divisia (dv) aggregation over currency, demand deposits, and savings deposits. The user cost of liquid assets is employed in the construction of both the dv and the yes aggregates. Using maximum likelihood estimation technique, the essay reports that, for the Nigerian economy, currency does as well as or better than any narrow- or broad-money measure in explaining industrial production. Further, the simple sum m1 and m2 outperformed both the yes and dv aggregates. Therefore, monetary policy in Nigeria should focus on the supply of currency and/or of narrow money, rather than on broad money or the divisia aggregates.

This study investigates women's economic empowerment in relation to micro'credit schemes in southern Nigeria. The study also evaluates the benefits and limitations of micro'credit as a resourceful means of enhancing women's economic activities in the labour market and eliminating poverty among market and rural women. Micro'credit schemes and institutions which provide soft loans to women have become a critical tool in development programmes aiming to empower them. The Nigerian government (both at Federal and State levels) has pursued this development trend since 1985 and today, it is estimated that an increasing number of Nigerian women participate in these schemes. Besides, it is widely accepted among development practitioners that micro'credit schemes not only contribute to poverty reduction but also empower the have'nots. My research design has drawn on gender analytical frameworks such as the 1980 Harvard Analytical Framework, Kabeer's 1998 Women's Empowerment Assessment, and Mayoux' 2001 micro'credit empowerment paradigm. This study employed as its methodology, ethnographic field research. This includes semi'structured interviews and participant observation. In addition, data was obtained from state databases, archives and development websites. Throughout, both qualitative and quantitative methods and analysis were used. This study found that women in southern Nigeria are extensively engaged in economic activities. It also established that micro'credit provides finance to enhance market and rural women's participation in production and trade. The study further ascertains that women have some control over their loans. However, increased economic activities may have also increased participants' financial responsibilities and household decision'making is still a prerogative of male head of the family. In addition, this study found that older married women in this region enjoy a comparatively high degree of personal mobility, but restrictions on travel in terms of distance and time are very common for younger married women. These restrictions are sanctioned by customs, household obligations, and social infrastructures. While problems with the transportation network have enhanced the middlemen's domination of economic activities in this region they increased women's dependence on their services. All this renders empowerment for women more difficult to achieve although it makes a practical contribution to their everyday lives.

This thesis presents an examination of the role of co-operatives in the economic development of pre-independent Cyprus and also in the economic reconstruction effort following the war events of 1974. The provision of credit is a key element of the contribution made by the co-operative movement during these two different phases of the island's modern economic history; first agricultural credit and then housing credit. Government involvement is treated as a very important variable in the co-operative function and various types of such involvement are examined in the course of the thesis, ranging from zero to maximum government input. This maximum type relates to a situation where the initiation, financing and control of co-operatives are tightly in the hands of state agents. In this respect various aspects of institutional theory are applied in order to explain empirical findings. Another important variable of the co-operative function relates to political party involvement. Existing beliefs about the ill-effects of politicisation are put to the test using highly sensitive empirical evidence from Cyprus, available to the author only due to his special relationship with the co-operative movement. The effects of such politicisation are also studied in relation to member participation.

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