Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1991. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 204-208) / Microfiche. / xii, 208 leaves, bound 29 cm

Chan, Sheung Tat. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 61-63). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 2 --- Literature review --- p.5 / Chapter 3 --- The model --- p.14 / Chapter 3.1 --- The maximization problem --- p.14 / Chapter 3.2 --- Steady state and balanced growth path --- p.19 / Chapter 4 --- The analysis of the migration patterns and growth --- p.25 / Chapter 4.1 --- Case when education efficiency is proportional to the technological effi- ciency --- p.29 / Chapter 4.2 --- Case when foreign country has sufficiently large comparative advantage in technology --- p.34 / Chapter 4.3 --- Case when bilateral migration occurs --- p.40 / Chapter 5 --- Effect of the exogenous factors --- p.43 / Chapter 6 --- Conclusion --- p.49 / Chapter A --- Appendix: solving the endogenous growth model --- p.52 / Chapter A.l --- Solving the endogenous growth model in general form --- p.52 / Chapter A.2 --- Decision of the agents in the model --- p.54 / Chapter A.3 --- Properties of the general form --- p.55 / Chapter B --- Appendix: the steady state and balanced growth path --- p.57 / List of Tables / Chapter 1 --- Pattern of migration --- p.64 / Chapter 2 --- "The initial parameters for the first, second and third simulations" --- p.65 / Chapter 3 --- Comparative statics for proposition 12 --- p.65 / Chapter 4 --- Comparative statics for proposition 13 --- p.66 / List of Figures / Chapter 1 --- Four migration patterns --- p.64 / Chapter 2 --- Variables in the simulations --- p.66 / Chapter 3 --- The home country in first simulation --- p.67 / Chapter 4 --- The foreign country in first simulation --- p.68 / Chapter 5 --- The growth analysis in first simulation --- p.69 / Chapter 6 --- The home country in second simulation --- p.70 / Chapter 7 --- The foreign country in second simulation --- p.71 / Chapter 8 --- The growth analysis in second simulation --- p.72 / Chapter 9 --- The home country in third simulation --- p.73 / Chapter 10 --- The foreign country in third simulation --- p.74 / Chapter 11 --- The growth analysis in third simulation --- p.75

The thesis contains three papers on different areas of housing study in Hong Kong. The first paper focuses on government policy in public housing privatization on housing market and its effect on the overall economy. By comparing the negative impacts of two financial crises in 1997 and 2008 on housing market, the paper tries to offer explanation for the property downturn during 1997-2003. It aims to study how a public housing privatization program would produce adverse effects on housing transactions and the economy. The second one links up the housing market and macro economy. It is found that housing sector appears to serve as a link between exports and domestic expenditures. Housing prices are found to be driven by exports and interest rates over a long period, while housing prices in turn drive domestic expenditures. The last one attempts to investigate the dynamics of private housing market in Hong Kong. Using the cointegarting approach, the paper identifies two cointegrating relations, ie. a long run demand side relation between property price, prime rate, housing price expectation and GDP per capita, and supply side relation between private housing completion, property price, prime rate and land cost, which show a short run disequilibrium dynamics in demand and supply of private housing during 1985 – 2008.

The objective of this study is to evaluate the effects of macroeconomic policy variables on bilateral trade between the United States and Japan. An auto-regressive distributed lag model is developed to estimate the effects of government economic policies on four commodity groups: agriculture; materials and chemicals; machinery and transport equipment; and manufactured goods. Results indicate that monetary policy significantly affects U. S. and Japanese imports of manufactured goods and transport equipment. The results also show that changes in government expenditure have a significant long-run effect on U.S. imports of manufactured goods and Japanese imports of materials and chemicals, while the long-run effects of income and exchange rates are significant for most commodity groups.

This study develops comprehensive full-sector macro-econometric models for the Nigerian economy with the aim of explaining and providing a long-term solution for the persistent growth-poverty divergence experienced by the country. The models are applied to testing the hypothesis of existing structural supply-side constraints versus demand-side constraints impeding the growth and development of the country. Structural inadequacies have been the major setback to the achievement of the developmental objectives in the Nigerian economy. The last four decades has revealed several macroeconomic instabilities that hinder much improvement in the performance of the economy. Much of these structural inadequacies have been blamed on the persistent poor governance experienced by the country over the years. The poor political leadership and instability, corruption and the mismanagement of the oil resources have halted an appropriate and sound economic policy that should have alleviated poverty among the majority of the population. A review of the historical performance of the Nigerian economy reveals significant socio-economic constraints as the predominant impediments to high and sticky levels of poverty in the economy. As such, a model of the Nigerian economy suitable for policy analysis needs to capture the long-run supply-side characteristics of the economy. A price block is incorporated to specify the price adjustment between the production or supply-side sector and real aggregate demand sector. The institutional characteristics with associated policy behaviour are incorporated through a public and monetary sector, whereas the interaction with the rest of the world is presented by a foreign sector, with specific attention given to the oil sector. The models are estimated with time-series data from 1970 to 2006 using the Engle-Granger two-step cointegration technique, capturing both the long-run and short-run dynamic properties of the economy. The full-sector models are subjected to a series of policy scenarios to evaluate the various options for government. It is evident from the policy options assessed in this study that there is a need for an improvement in the quality of government spending. Fiscal policy expansion should tend towards increasing the component of government expenditure that will lead to sustained growth and also an improvement in the standard of living of the citizens. In order to be able to reap the benefits of a positive external shock, there is a need to increase the level of competitiveness and the productive capacity of the country. Investment in basic infrastructure such as power and roads is very crucial at this stage of the Nigerian economy. There is an urgent need to refocus the government role in certain critical areas of the economy. Government institutions need to be strengthened by improving the coordination that exists within the government structures. The political environment needs to be more secure in order to attract more private investment. The maintenance of public order, ensuring property rights, a sound regulatory structure and also creating a framework that will increase the provision of public goods and services and the maintenance of infrastructure are urgent elements required in order to achieve the set macroeconomic objectives. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Economics / unrestricted

The overall objective of this study is to develop a framework to predict the impacts of government policies on agricultural production in Albania. The specific goal of this study is to provide some empirical estimates of the farmers' short-run supply response to government policies that effect output and input prices. Different theoretical approaches to integrating the questions this study purports to answer were considered. Two models were deemed as most appropriate for Albanian agriculture. The first is a semi-commercial farm household model and the second is the well-known indirect profit function model. The first model was preferred. However, the second was used instead, due to the lack of information necessary for an empirical application of the semi-commercial farm household model. A quadratic functional form was selected to approximate the profit function. It satisfied the Taylor series approximation convergence test. Two approaches were used to estimate the empirical model. In the first, the traditional approach, the symmetry and homogeneity conditions were imposed beforehand and then the system of equations was estimated using the ITSUR procedure in SAS. Following common practice, a joint Rao test of these conditions was conducted, implicitly assuming that the test statistic has a Fisher distribution or, stated differently, assuming that parameter estimators are normally distributed. The test results indicate that the conditions are met. A second approach, proposed by McGuirk, et al., was also used in this study. The approach proposed by McGuirk, et al., requires that, before imposing and/or testing any theoretical assumption, the unrestricted model is estimated and tested to see if all the underlying statistical assumptions of the linear regression are met. The misspecification tests suggested that the model is not statistically adequate. This finding indicated that the theoretical test conducted in the traditional approach was invalid. An alternative estimation procedure is proposed in the study for cases when a statistically adequate model cannot be specified. Named the sub-sample or the bootstrapping method, this procedure consists of randomly selecting a large number of sub-samples from the cross-sectional sample and running a regression for each of them. The large number of estimates for each of the coefficients serves as a basis for estimating 95-percent confidence intervals. An inspection of the supply and input demand elasticities calculated based on coefficients estimated through the sub-sample method revealed that half of them have wide 95 percent confidence intervals. Therefore, predicting policy impacts across all output and input equations is not possible. However, elasticities that have narrow confidence intervals and make economic sense can be used to predict isolated policy impacts, if Albania returns to the conditions that prevailed before the political turmoil of 1997. / Ph. D.

The purpose of this study was to examine the economic implications of a rapid population growth on Nigeria's economic development. It was particularly interesting to study the relationship, because at the present Nigeria is making some economic progress while undergoing a demographic transition. Apparently, despite the acceptable growth of the national income, the growth of the per capita output has not been encouraging. This output growth must have been hampered by the rather rapid population growth in Nigeria. The neoclassical growth theory was basically employed to explain the growth of output in the economy in terms of both capital and labor inputs. For instance, the short-run impact of a possible fertility decline could lead to increased savings capability, possible through the curtailment of the consumption of the dependent population. The long-run impact, on the other hand, could be the opportunity to increase the rate of structural transformation needed to raise labor productivity and personal income in the economy. The model revealed that economic growth rates in Nigeria have been declining with rising affluence. It is more likely that such a slowing would arise from the population pressure and resource limitation rather than from the propensity to invest.

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The study was undertaken in response to a prediction by the Virginia Department of Forestry (VDOF) that current harvest levels cannot be sustained into the future given an increasing growth to removal insufficiency throughout the state of Virginia. The purpose of the study is to determine how market signals, land and owner characteristics, and owner preferences affect landowners' decisions concerning their forestland. Particular emphasis is placed on the effects of absenteeism and land fragmentation on landowner behavior. Such information is important for targeting policies that will successfully maintain commercial timber levels throughout the state. / Master of Science