This thesis is comprised of three essays that examine the impact of economic deterioration on the economy and society. It focuses on the interrelations among several socio-economic ills examined: sovereign defaults, excessive public debt, absence of economic growth and suicides. In an attempt to provide a holistic view of the topics covered, a combination of both economic and political explanatory variables are used. After discussing in Chapter 1 the motivation for this thesis, the Global Financial Crisis of 2007, Chapter 2, investigated the determinants of sovereign defaults. With the help of a logit regression and using a variety of political and economic variables, we show that both types of variables determine whether a county will default or not. Various robustness tests were also carried out that confirm these findings. In Chapter 3, the effect of the IMF intervention, once a country has defaulted, on its economic growth is investigated. The IMF intervention is measured as a dummy and the method used is the two stage least squares regression, where the instruments are the level of democracy and the UN Security council temporary membership. The findings suggest that the lagged effect of IMF rather than its contemporaneous effect is positive with respect to economic growth. In Chapter 4, the focus is on the sociological effects of the IMF intervention, with the dependent variable being suicide rates. The data sample has been split in many different ways, such as males/females, and the results of the research show that IMF intervention, unemployment and abortions increase suicides whereas alcohol consumption decreases them.

El texto completo de este trabajo no está disponible en el Repositorio Académico UPC por restricciones de la casa editorial donde ha sido publicado. / Over time, the textile sector has been globally represented and characterized by increasingly demanding customers, which has forced companies to seek more flexible processes. However, these changes in production methods have also generated greater wastes, a common problem, which also leads to a greater number of defaults on meeting the demand. As a result, several efforts have been made to solve this issue, such as using emerging Lean or Just-in-Time philosophies with different approaches. Likewise, high sector turnover sometimes causes learning to become tedious, thus affecting the knowledge which has already been acquired. Therefore, this paper proposes a Lean Manufacturing model, bolstered by knowledge management to guarantee its viability over time. A simulation using the Arena software reduced non-compliances with companies’ production schedule up to 80%.

This thesis mainly examines inflectional morphology of verbal paradigms in Laki, which is considered as one of the Southern varieties of Kurdish language. The association of form and content of morphological markings are viewed from a realizational angle, in which exponents (morphological forms) are associated with the morphosyntactic properties via the application of rules of exponence, appealed by paradigm functions (Stump 2001) and ordered into rule blocks (Anderson 1992). In particular, I applied the paradigm linkage theory proposed and fully developed by Stump (2002 and 2016) to account for Laki verbal paradigms. In this study, it is claimed that alignment pattern and the syntagmatic combination of some of the inflectional exponents such as agreement markers are sensitive to preterite property. Hence, I argue in favor of considering two distinct morphotactic patternings in Laki. As the result of this assumption, depending on whether the inflectional markers attach to a preterite or a non-preterite stem, we should define two separate sets of affix position in this language. Moreover, I examine Laki polyfunctional agreement markers through the consideration of the morphotactics of this language. Applying Stump's analysis (to appear) of Swahili verbal concords, I consider two distinct types of content for these agreement markers: intrinsic content, and positional content. Their positional content is what the morphotactics of the language determines.

In the aftermath of the recent financial crisis, the way credit risk is affected by and affects the macroeconomic environment has been the focus of academics, risk practitioners and central bankers alike. In this thesis I approach three distinct questions that aim to provide valuable insight into how corporate defaults, recoveries and credit ratings interact with the conditions in the wider economy. The first question focuses on how well the macroeconomic environment forecasts corporate bond defaults. I approach the question from a macroeconomic perspective and I make full use of the multitude of lengthy macroeconomic time series available. Following the recent literature on data-rich environment modelling, I summarise a large panel of 103 macroeconomic time series into a small set of 6 dynamic factors; the factors capture business cycle, yield curve, credit premia and equity market conditions. Prior studies on dynamic factors use identification schemes based on principal components or recursive short-run restrictions. The main contribution to the body of existing literature is that I provide a novel and more robust identification scheme for the 6 macro-financial stochastic factors, based on a set of over-identifying restrictions. This allows for a more straightforward interpretation of the extracted factors and a more meaningful decomposition of the corporate default dynamics. Furthermore, I use a novel Bayesian estimation scheme based on a Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm that has not been used before in a credit risk context. I argue that the proposed algorithm provides an effcient and flexible alternative to the simulation based estimation approaches used in the existing literature. The sampling scheme is used to estimate a state-of-the-art dynamic econometric specification that is able to separate macro-economic fluctuations from unobserved default clustering. Finally, I provide evidence that the macroeconomic factors can lead to significant improvements in default probability forecasting performance. The forecasting performance gains become less pronounced the longer the default forecasting horizon. The second question explores the sensitivity of corporate bond defaults and recoveries on monetary policy and macro-financial shocks. To address the question, I follow a more structural approach to extract theory-based economic shocks and quantify the magnitude of the impact on the two main credit risk drivers. This is the first study that approaches the decomposition of the movements in credit risk metrics from a structural perspective. I introduce a VAR model with a novel semi-structural identification scheme to isolate the various shocks at the macro level. The dynamic econometric specification for defaults and recoveries is similar to the one used to address the first question. The specification is flexible enough to allow for the separation of the macroeconomic movements from the credit risk specific unobserved correlation and, therefore, isolate the different shock transmission mechanisms. I report that the corporate default likelihood is strongly affected by balance sheet and real economy shocks for the cyclical industry sectors, while the effects of monetary policy shocks typically take up to one year to materialise. In contrast, recovery rates tend to be more sensitive to asset price shocks, while real economy shocks mainly affect secured debt recovery values. The third question shifts the focus to credit ratings and addresses the Through-the- Cycle dynamics of the serial dependence in rating migrations. The existing literature treats the so-called rating momentum as constant through time. I show that the rating momentum is far from constant, it changes with the business cycle and its magnitude exhibits a non-linear dependence on time spent in a given rating grade. Furthermore, I provide robust evidence that the time-varying rating momentum substantially increases actual and Marked-to-Market losses in periods of stress. The impact on regulatory capital for financial institutions is less clear; nevertheless, capital requirements for high credit quality portfolios can be significantly underestimated during economic downturns.

[pt] A grande quantidade de dados disponíveis na Web permite aos usuários combinarem e rapidamente integrarem dados provenientes de fontes diferentes, pertencentes ao mesmo domínio de aplicação. Entretanto, combinações de dados construídas a partir de fontes de dados independentes e heterogêneas podem gerar inconsistências e, portanto, confundir o usuário que faz uso de tais dados. Esta tese aborda o problema de criação de uma combinação consistente de dados a partir de fontes de dados mutuamente inconsistentes. Especificamente, aborda o problema de testar quando os dados a serem combinados são inconsistentes em relação a um conjunto pré-definido de restrições. As principais contribuições desta tese são: (1) a formalização da noção de combinação consistente de dados, tratando os dados retornados pelas fontes como uma Teoria de Defaults e considerando uma combinação consistente de dados como uma extensão desta teoria; (2) um verificador de modelos para uma família de Lógicas de Descrição, usado para analisar e separar os dados consistentes e inconsistentes, além de testar a consistência e completude das combinações de dados obtidas; (3) um procedimento heurístico para computar tais combinações consistentes de dados. / [en] With the amount of data available on the Web, consumers can mashup and quickly integrate data from different sources belonging to the same application domain. However, data mashups constructed from independent and heterogeneous data sources may contain inconsistencies and, therefore, puzzle the user when observing the data. This thesis addresses the problem of creating a consistent data mashup from mutually inconsistent data sources. Specifically, it deals with the problem of testing, when data to be combined is inconsistent with respect to a predefined set of constraints. The main contributions of this thesis are: (1) the formalization of the notion of consistent data mashups by treating the data returned from the data sources as a default theory and considering a consistent data mashup as an extension of this theory; (2) a model checker for a family of Description Logics, which analyzes and separates consistent from inconsistent data and also tests the consistency and completeness of the obtained data mashups; (3) a heuristic procedure for computing such consistent data mashups.

Orientador: Cassio Eduardo Lima de Paiva / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Civil, Arquitetura e Urbanismo / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-06T06:46:08Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Semprebone_PauladaSilva_M.pdf: 2252000 bytes, checksum: 59351d3c7428a44235337a6191251e14 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2005 / Resumo: O assunto a ser abordado nesta pesquisa refere-se ao componente da superestrutura ferroviária trilho, especificamente aos defeitos que nele se verificam em conseqüência de sua utilização como guia para o material rodante e transmissor de esforços decorrentes do movimento do veículo, e do desgaste do contato roda-trilho. A importância de se realizar este estudo fundamenta-se na necessidade de se conhecer detalhadamente os defeitos e o limite de desgaste do trilho, que permitem determinar sua vida útil, para que se possa evitar ao máximo sua substituição, devido ao alto custo envolvido, além da questão da segurança da via que, dependendo do defeito, pode ser comprometida. Para a realização do trabalho foi realizada uma pesquisa bibliográfica, objetivando reunir informações sobre o assunto e levantar dissertações existentes que buscam solucionar tais problemas. Busca-se, ainda, encontrar uma justificativa para o valor limite de desgaste adotado atualmente no meio ferroviário, que corresponde a 25% de perda em área do boleto do trilho, através de simulações do desgaste utilizando-se um modelo computacional, além de rotinas de cálculo que permitam verificar se esse parâme1rO é restrição do . ponto de vista do dimensionamento do trilho. Pretende-se, assim, a1ravés desta pesquisa proporcionar uma contribuição ao meio ferroviário, avaliando-se se o limite de desgaste adotado mos1ra-se adequado à realidade ferroviária / Abstract: The matters concerned in this research particularly refer to damages caused by stress while using tracks on permanent railways as guide and strain transmitter of the vehicles. Importance is attached to this study based on the need of understanding deep and in detail the faults and wear limits on the tracks, which allow determining its period of use, so that substitution may be avoided due to its high costs. Furthermore, the railway safety may be weaknessed depending on the sort of wear. This study has basis on a bibliographical research aiming to gather information and possible works on this field in order to solve the problems mentioned above, as well as finding proofs for the current wear rate accepted in the railway field, which is 25% of track area decrease, throughout wear simulations on a computer based model, besides calculations which allow stating whether this standard depends on the track size. This work claims to contribute to the railway field evaluating if the adopted wear rate meets our railway reality / Mestrado / Transportes / Mestre em Engenharia Civil

Abstract Standard macroeconomic models based on a representative firm ignore firm entry and exit. Therefore, these models miss a potentially significant channel of economic interactions through the firm dynamics. This doctoral thesis examines the role of firm dynamics in the economy through four essays. The first essay examines the impact of monetary policy on firm entry. The essay finds that substantial inertia exists in the firm entry process. Based on the empirical evidence on firm dynamics, the second essay develops a real business cycle model in which firm entry is endogenous and default rates are stochastic. The essay studies how default shocks affect the economy. We concentrate on the stochastic properties of the model and show that the stochastic default rate is a potential explanation for the observed low correlation between labor productivity and hours worked. The third essay contributes to the previous literature by studying how endogenous exit rates affect business cycle dynamics in an economy subject to technology and money supply shocks. The fourth essay concentrates on the impact of exchange rate shocks on competition and import prices. The paper finds weak evidence that the changes in competition after a currency devaluation increase import prices. However, this effect occurs only in the long run (i.e., one year after the shock), and its magnitude varies greatly across countries. / Tiivistelmä Tässä väitöskirjassa tutkitaan yritysten markkinoilletulon ja markkinoilta poistumisen vaikutuksia talouden dynamiikkaan. Väitöskirja koostuu neljästä erillisestä esseestä. Ensimmäisessä esseessä tutkitaan rahapolitiikan vaikutusta yritysten markkinoilletuloon. Siinä löydetään yritysten syntymiseen liittyviä kustannuksia, jotka hidastavat koko talouden sopeutumista rahapoliittiseen sokkiin. Toisessa esseessä tutkitaan stokastisen yritysten markkinoilta poistumisen vaikutuksia makrotaloudellisiin muuttujiin. Havaitaan, että yritysten poistuminen markkinoilta on mahdollinen selitys aikaisemmassa kirjallisuudessa todettuun työn tuottavuuden ja tehtyjen työtuntien väliseen alhaiseen korrelaatioon. Kolmannessa esseessä endogenisoidaan yritysten poistuminen markkinoilta ja tutkitaan teknologian ja rahapolitiikan sokkien vaikutusta yritysten konkurssien määrään. Neljännessä esseessä puolestaan tutkitaan, miten valuuttakurssimuutokset vaikuttavat ulkomaisten yritysten markkinoilletuloon ja hinnoitteluun. Esseessä löydetään heikkoja todisteita siitä, että valuuttadevalvaation jälkeinen ulkomaisen kilpailun muutos nostaa tuontihintoja. Tämä vaikutus ilmenee kuitenkin vasta yli vuoden kuluttua sokista, ja sen suuruus vaihtelee suuresti maittain.

Since 2018, privacy notices are required by websites to inform users of their use of cookies where the users can choose whether or not they want to accept the cookies. While the use of privacy notices theoretically provides the ability for users to be in charge of their own privacy online, there are issues regarding privacy notices that lead to that they hardly ever work in practice. The reasons for this are many but center around that privacy notices are designed to manipulate users to accept cookies rather than to inform and encourage users to make deliberate choices. In light of this, the purpose of this study is to evaluate whether or not the two principles from choice architecture, defaults and mappings, are an appropriate approach to improve users' understanding and affect their decision-making process regarding privacy notices. The study used a combination of qualitative methods and contained a screening survey, prototype testing and interviews. The screening survey was used to select appropriate participants who later conducted the prototype testing and interviews. Four prototypes displaying four different privacy notices were designed and presented to the participants. Each participant was randomly assigned one of the prototypes and later asked questions regarding their interaction with and understanding of the privacy notice. The data collected was analyzed using a thematic analysis. The results derived from the analysis revealed that a majority of the participants did not read the privacy notice. Further, the factors that influenced participants’ interactions with the privacy notice were mainly habitual rather than affected by the specific prototype they were presented with. Based on the results, it can be concluded that defaults may impact the user’s decision due to visual cues. However, neither defaults nor mappings worked as an encouragement for the user to make a well-informed and deliberate choice.

Educational loan defaulting is a problem increasing on a worldwide scale. In Malaysia, the default rate is almost 50% in the case of loans advanced to students in higher education. With this in mind, for the first time, this study analyses this chronic problem in-depth with consideration to primary data collected from a cross-section of students currently studying in public universities in Malaysia. With help from the Theory of Planned Behaviour, the empirical analysis establishes that loan defaults are influenced by a complex interaction of personal-, social- and psychology-related variables: students’ attitude, intention to repay loan, parental influence, perceptions that loan repayment will affect quality of life after graduation, perceptions towards loan agreement, and an awareness of loan repayment issues created by the media. This study succeeds in disentangling the precise impact of such variables in regard to loan defaults. The findings are of great relevance to government-funding agencies, which can better plan the loan advancement and recovery process once they understand the true reasons behind defaults. The novel method utilised for the first time with the objective to study the default issue should also be useful to academic researchers seeking to conduct similar studies in the context of other countries. This study should also assist policy makers in planning long-term strategies in terms of assessing, designing and evaluating new loan schemes. Developing countries, such as Malaysia, face competing demands on their limited financial resources. An increase in the recovery rate will bring in funds that can be lent to additional students or used for strengthening educational infrastructure. These measures add useful value to the social and economic set-up of the country.

Understanding the determinants of aggregated default probabilities (PDs) has attracted substantial research over the past decades. This study addresses two major difficulties in understanding the determinants of aggregate PDs: Model uncertainty and multicollinearity among the regressors. We present Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA) as a powerful tool that overcomes model uncertainty. Furthermore, we supplement BMA with ridge regression to mitigate multicollinearity. We apply our approach to an Austrian dataset. Our findings suggest that factor prices like short term interest rates and energy prices constitute major drivers of default rates, while firms' profits reduce the expected number of failures. Finally, we show that the results of our baseline model are fairly robust to the choice of the prior model size. / Series: Research Report Series / Department of Statistics and Mathematics