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The socioeconomic context of many biodiversity rich countries is argued to be heavily dwarfed in current conservation and development debate, resulting in that projects that intersect complex issues of development and conservation are often simplistically deemed as being unsuccessful. The aim of this research has therefore been to attain a more profound understanding of how socioeconomic conditions and local neoliberal contexts effect ICDP projects and to an extent also agroecological transition. In this case study ten qualitative life-story interviews were carried out during a minor field study in rural Las Pavas, Nicaragua. These were further analyzed through the use of the sustainable livelihood approach in order to identify what impacts the local socioeconomic contexts had on participant livelihoods and also what prospects and challenges C.I.P.P’s permaculture project presented in this regard. The empirical evidence shows that participant livelihoods were subjected to several constraints that were buttressed by the neoliberal development context which signified a great reliance on cattle raising as main financial activity at the expense of other important natural assets such as forest and water. Furthermore, demonstrating that permaculture projects had to provide the widest range of benefits with the least amount of risk in order to be adopted.

Promoting economic diversity is important for states reliant on natural resources as the major source of economic development. Many of these states suffer from the Dutch disease leading to negative effects, which hinders economic diversification. One of the ways to reduce dependency on national resources is to encourage Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows, which aids diversification by the transfer of technology, the creation of new employment opportunities, and the adoption of modern management practices. The Gulf Council Cooperation (GCC) countries recognised the necessity and benefits of FDI as an aid to economic diversification; it seems, however, that Kuwait is lagging behind in this endeavour. The government of Kuwait has engaged in a series of policy measures to induce Multinational Companies (MNCs) to invest in Kuwait, but the results, thus far, have been disappointing. The formal and informal institutions interact in a variety of ways. However, ineffective formal rules can create different outcomes; particularly, in the presence of strong informal institutions. In such a case, formal rules and procedures are not enforced systematically, that is, enabling actors who are involved in the policy process to ignore or violate them, which subsequently results in a failure to attract inward FDI to a host country. Thus, this study investigates the reasons behind this failure by examining the role of formal and informal institutions on FDI policy and on decisions on whether to grant FDI licences by means of using a New Institutional Economics (NIE) approach. The conceptual framework is used as a guide for an inquiry into the subject of study by constructing a category of intellectual scaffolding, which would provide a coherent structure (Schlager, 2007). The conceptual framework in this study systematically organises the investigation into how a MNC examines a potential investment location by dividing the host country assessments into four distinct 'stages'. When systematically conducted, the respective approach is grounded in the existing literature, which provides theories regarding the behaviour of MNCs in relation to their decision-making processes for considering locations for their FDI projects. The research questions derived from the conceptual framework are answered using a mixed methods research approach that uses three sets of data survey, semi-structured interviews, and secondary data. Firstly, the findings show that almost that all MNCs in the Gulf region have a limited awareness regarding investment opportunities in Kuwait, FDI laws and regulations. Secondly, the findings reveal a number of attractive and unattractive locations, and institutional factors of Kuwait. Finally, it is discovered that the high rejection rate of FDI applications is linked to unsuccessful policy implementation, which is a result of interaction of both formal and informal institutions in Kuwait. Subsequently, the results are utilised to make a number of recommendations for government policy makers, administrators, and for MNCs regarding how to improve FDI inflows into Kuwait. The results are also used to contribute towards the international business literature concerning the institution based view of FDI, and for government policy connected to attracting FDI.

Substansrabatt för investmentbolag har sedan länge diskuterats inom företagsvärlden och forskningsvärlden. Substansrabattens bakomliggande faktorer är väldokumenterade och omdiskuterade men forskare är inte eniga om exakt vilka faktorer det är som driver investmentbolagets substansrabatt. En av de faktorer som visat sig ha en effekt på substansrabatten för investmentbolag är onoterat innehav och det är onoterat innehav som ligger till grund för vår uppsatts. Syftet med studien är att analyser sambandet mellan svenska investmentbolags substansrabatt och dess onoterade innehav genom att studera ekonomiska egenskaper för de onoterade bolagen som ingår i respektive investmentbolags innehav. Studien baserades på kvartalsvisa observationer för svenska investmentbolags nivå av substansrabatt, andel onoterat innehav, diversifiering av onoterat innehav och värdedrivande parametrar i respektive investmentbolags onoterade innehav. För att besvara studiens frågeställning använde vi oss av Pearson`s korrelationstest och linjära regressioner. Resultatet av studien påvisade att det finns ett positivt samband mellan investmentbolagens substansrabatt och andelen tillväxtbolag i det onoterade innehavet och att det finns ett negativt samband mellan lönsamhet i det onoterade innehavet och investmentbolagets substansrabatt. / The discount to NAV has been a debatable topic in the corporate world and the scientific field for a long period of time. Even though the underlying factors associated with the discount to NAV has been well documented and widely discussed, scientist remains divided on the topic. A factor that has been determined to have an effect on the discount to NAV is unquoted holdings which also is the starting point for this thesis. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the relationship between Swedish investment companies discount to NAV and the companies’ unquoted holdings by studying key performance indicators regarding the companies ‘unquoted holdings. The thesis was based on quarterly observations of the discount to NAV, the quota of unquoted holdings, level of diversification and financial key figures. To answer the hypothesis of the thesis we used Pearson`s test of correlation and linear regression. The thesis result indicates that there is a positive relationship between the discount to NAV and the quota of unquoted growth companies. The results also showed a negative relationship between profitability in unquoted holdings and the discount to NAV.

Credit derivative market has experienced an exponential growth during the last 10 years with credit default swap (CDS) as an undoubted leader within this group. CDS contract is a bilateral agreement where the seller of the financial instrument provides the buyer the right to get reimbursed in case of the default in exchange for a continuous payment expressed as a CDS spread multiplied by the notional amount of the underlying debt. Originally invented to transfer the credit risk from the risk-averse investor to that one who is more prone to take on an additional risk, recently the instrument has been actively employed by the speculators betting on the financial health of the underlying obligation. It is believed that CDS contributed to the recent turmoil on financial markets and served as a weapon of mass destruction exaggerating the systematic risk. However, the latest attempts to curb the destructive force of the credit derivative for the market by means of enhancing the regulation over the instrument, bringing it on the stock-exchange and solving the transparency issue might approve CDS in the face of investor who seeks to diminish the risk of his financial portfolio. In our thesis we provide empirical evidence of CDS ability to fulfil the diversification function in the portfolio of such credit sensitive claims as bonds and stocks. Our data for the empirical analysis consist of 12 European companies whose debt underlies the most frequently traded single-name CDS with the maturity of 5 years. Through multivariate vector autoregressive models we have tested the intertemporal relation between stock returns, CDS and bond spreads changes as well as the magnitude of this relation depending on the stock market state.   The results we have achieved for our sample are the following: 1) stock returns are mainly negatively related to the CDS and bond spread changes; 2) stock returns are the least affected by both credit spread changes, whereas changes in bond spreads are the best explained by the stock and CDS market movements; 3) the strength of the relation between three variables differs over the time: the relationship between stock returns and CDS spreads is the most dominant during the pre and post-crisis periods, while during the financial crisis time the relation between stock returns and bond spread changes as well as that of between both credit spreads comes to the foreground.   The above described relations between the three markets serve as a proof of the possibility to work out diversification strategies employing CDS. During the time of turbulence on the markets the investor may exert bigger diversification gains with the help of CDS. Thus, in spite of all the recent blame of the instrument from the investor perspective it is still remains one of the sources of profit.

There is evidence that globalization, economic assimilation and integration among countries and their financial markets have increased correlation among stock markets and the correlation may in turn impact investors’ allocation of their assets and economic policies. We have conducted a quantitative study with daily stock index quotes for the period January 2000 and December 2009 in order to measure the eventual correlation between the markets of ASEAN+3. This economic integration consists of; Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, China, Japan and South Korea. Our problem formulation is:Are the stock markets of ASEAN+3 correlated?Does the eventual correlation change under turbulent market conditions?In terms of the eventual correlation, discuss: is it possible to diversify an investment portfolio within this area?The purpose of the study is to conduct a research that will provide investors with information about stock market correlation within the chosen market. We have conducted the study with a positivistic view and a deductive approach with some theories as our starting point. The main theories discussed are; market efficiency, risk and return, Modern Portfolio Theory, correlation and international investments. By using the financial datatbase, DataStream, we have been able to collect the necessary data for our study. The data has been processed in the statistical program SPSS by using Pearson correlation.From the empirical findings and our analysis we were able to draw some main conclusions about our study. We found that most of the ASEAN+3 countries were strongly correlated with each other. Japan showed lower correlation with all of the other countries. Based on this we concluded that economic integration seems to increase correlation between stock markets. When looking at the economic downturn in 2007-2009, we found that the correlation between ASEAN+3 became stronger and positive for all of the countries. The results also showed that the correlation varies over time. We concluded that it is, to a small extent, possible to diversify an investment portfolio across these markets.

Cette recherche est consacrée à l'étude des co-mouvements des marchés financiers et les stratégies de diversification internationale en se servant de l'approche indicielle, précisément en utilisant les fonds négociés en bourse et les indices investissables. L'objectif de notre premier essai est de présenter une étude exhaustive sur les fonds négociés en bourse dans un premier lieu, ensuite d'étudier les iShares, selon trois stratégies de diversification internationale différentes : par les pays, par les secteurs et par les multinationales. En utilisant deux modèles à facteurs avec des orthogonalisations différentes dans le but d'isoler l'exposition respective au marché américain et à l'indice sous-jacent, nous avons constaté que les rendements des iShares pays et des multinationales sont fortement influencés par le marché américain. Cependant, pour les iShares des secteurs globaux, quand l'effet du facteur de risque du marché américain est isolé par orthogonalisation, leurs variations sont principalement expliquées par leurs indices sous-jacents. Ce résultat démontre la dominance des secteurs par rapport aux pays comme stratégie de diversification internationale. Dans le deuxième essai, nous étudions l'équivalence de trois stratégies d'investissement internationale : par pays, par secteurs industriels et par régions géographiques en nous servant cette fois-ci des indices investissables. Pour ce faire, nous avons adopté deux approches méthodologiques différentes. La première est celle du « mean variance spanning » et la deuxième consiste en un test de cointégration multivarié proposé par Johansen (1988) et développé par Johansen et Juselius (1990). Nous avons constaté que les trois stratégies de diversification internationale par pays, par secteurs et par régions sont des stratégies indépendantes et efficaces particulièrement à partir des années 2000 où la stratégie par régions a gagné en efficacité quant à la diversification internationale. Toutefois, pendant cette même période, les deux autres stratégies par pays et par secteurs ont perdu du terrain. La cointégration a montré qu'il n'existe aucune relation linéaire à long terme entre ces trois stratégies, ce qui est cohérent avec les résultats du mean-variance spanning. Finalement, dans le dernier essai, notre objectif est d'utiliser les FNB pour examiner l'importance de l'interdépendance à long et à court termes entre les États-Unis et 21 autres pays développés et émergents et son impact sur la diversification internationale et ce, suite à la crise financière des subprimes. Nos résultats montrent que les interdépendances à court terme, mesurées par les corrélations dynamiques et la VaR, entre le marché américain et les autres marchés financiers sous étude, ont significativement augmenté de sorte que les bénéfices de la diversification internationale à court terme diminuent considérablement. Par contre, l'analyse de la contagion et de la cointégration démontre que malgré l'ampleur de la crise financière, la diversification internationale reste pertinente à long terme. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : Fonds négociés en bourse, stratégies de diversification internationale, indices boursiers investissables, crise financière, corrélations dynamiques, cointégration.

In recent years the three Prairie Pools have actively expanded their primary operations to include a number of investments both within and outside of the agricultural sector. The Pools' investment strategies are economically interesting because they are being pursued within the context of a co-operative organizational structure which requires that the users of the cooperative business also own, control, and benefit from its operations. This thesis examines the possible economic incentives agricultural co-operatives may have to invest in vertically integrated and diversified activities using the case of the Western Canadian co-operative elevator companies as an example. The analysis undertaken in this thesis is structured in two ways. First, the economic literature regarding co-operative formation and conventional firm expansion is surveyed. This analysis suggests that an important difference between vertically integrated investments and diversified investments is that they are motivated by the realization of distincly different sets of economic benefits for the co-operative firm and its members. It is argued that co-operative vertical integration can convey benefits to members indirectly through the market, in the form of increased producer margins and improved market access. However, these benefits may not impact the "bottom line" of the co-operative firm. Diversification can, on the other hand, provide a co-operative with direct monetary benefits in the form of improved financial performance and increased profits, which can translate into increased patronage refunds available to members. The second component of this analysis involves the development of a simulation model to examine the implications of an additional hypothesis proposed to explain co-operative expansion. The proposed hypothesis is based on the notion that perhaps the indirect market benefits from cooperation and co-operative expansion are being undervalued. This undervaluation can result in a preoccupation with the monetary benefits from co-operative business, and may therefore cause a bias towards diversified investments. The model developed in this thesis illustrates that, although such a bias may improve a co-operative's rate of return, it may also result in significant opportunity costs for agricultural producers due to a decrease in a co-operative's pro-competitive effect on primary markets.

There are two key observations in international macroeconomics which pertain to output and real exchange rate dynamics. First, fluctuations in national output around its long-run growth path are very persistent. Second, fluctuations in real exchange rates are very persistent. The sticky price framework offers an explanation for both phenomena. The first and second essay of this thesis take an empirical approach to test the predictions of this framework. In the first essay I test the prediction of the sticky price model for output dynamics using annual IFS data on 51 countries over the period 1950 -1996. The model predicts that price stickiness should be less important in high inflation countries and therefore output fluctuations less persistent. I find that, this inverse relationship is statistically insignificant in the international data. A similar result holds for OECD countries. In the empirical implementation I explicitly control for the within-country time variation in inflation by first characterizing the inflationary environment using the long-run movements in inflation (trend inflation), and secondly, by excluding episodes of hyperinflation. The analysis shows that when the within-country time variation in inflation is ignored, there is support for the prediction. For instance, the inverse relationship between persistence in deviations of output from its long-run growth path and average inflation is statistically significant in the full sample. However, the exclusion of a few episodes of hyperinflation renders this relationship statistically insignificant. In the second essay I investigate the prediction of the sticky price model for real exchange rate dynamics using annual IFS data on 49 countries over the period 1972-1996. The model predicts that deviations of real exchange rates from purchasing power parity should be less persistent, in high inflation countries. The empirical analysis reveals that the support for such an inverse relationship is extremely fragile. In particular, eliminating episodes of hyperinflation renders this relationship statistically insignificant. The lack of evidence in favour of the two predictions of the sticky price model is problematic since this model is extensively used as a microfoundation for understanding output and real exchange rate fluctuations. In the third essay I take a structural approach to qualitatively explore the role of slow diffusion of new products in propagating the effect of technology shocks on output. I present a multi-sector dynamic general equilibrium model in which the creation of new products requires real resources. These products are beneficial for the economy but only upon complete diffusion. However, this diffusion is not instantaneous. I find that relative to a model in which there is instantaneous diffusion of new products, the qualitative output dynamics are similar to what is observed in the U.S. data. This warrants further quantitative investigation.

Multimarket competition has become a substantial part of the modern economy. As such, it has drawn the attention of academics in both economics and strategy fields. Many studies have found empirical evidence of mutual forbearance in several industries, but despite its importance, its behavioral roots have not been explored. In my dissertation I integrate the reality of boundedly-rational decision makers into the mutual forbearance hypothesis. I apply an outgrowth of the behavioral theory of the firm – the shifting focus model of risk taking – to the study of competitive behavior. I propose a behavioral model of multimarket competition that focuses on corporate strategic decisions - market entry and exit decisions, regardless of entry mode (e.g. acquisitions) or exit mode (e.g. divestitures). This approach provides a granular view of changes in the business scope of the firms in terms of product and geographic markets served. I test my hypotheses in the U.S. property liability insurance industry over a 12-year period (1998-2008). I argue that firms follow the mutual forbearance logic as long as their performance goals are satisfied. However, under conditions of adversity, firms shift attention to recovering from the performance shortfall and their actions deviate from the mutual forbearance predictions. This dissertation shows that underperforming firms with abundant slack take longer to forbear, and underperforming firms with limited slack start forbearing sooner, as predicted. By bridging behavioral and competitive perspectives to the study of market entry and exit decisions, I underscore the value of cross-fertilization in strategy research.