Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of Economics, August 1999. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Thesis--Freie University, Berlin, 2004. / Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references and index.

Diss.--Hamburg. / Bibliography: p. 198-210.

Freie Univ., Diss.--Berlin, 2004.

Freie Univ. Berlin, Diss., 2004. / Includes bibliographical references and index.

Dissertation--Freie University, Berlin, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references and index. Also available in print.

The dissertation develops and demonstrates a new Marxist approach to the epistemological problem of cognitive modernism, the problem of knowing the true laws of economic reality. This new approach is an antiessentialist and postmodernist critique of versions of Deweyan pragmatism. In American economics, versions of Deweyan pragmatism provide epistemological justification for the verity and primacy of two different economic theories of the world: the American Institutionalism of Thorstein Veblen and the Chicago School of Milton Friedman. Each school uses Deweyan pragmatism to ground its claim to be a science, and each uses Deweyan pragmatism to prove its contention that it offers the correct scientific analysis and view of the fundamental laws of operation of the economy. The dissertation demonstrates that Deweyan pragmatism cannot provide such justification. The primary reason is that Deweyan pragmatism, like all other philosophies of science, is subject to the epistemological problem of cognitive modernism. It is thus unable to provide objective, transdiscursive, and essential knowledge of economic reality. Chapter 1 is an introduction to modernist methodology in economics. It situates Deweyan pragmatism within the tradition of economic modernism. Chapter 2 examines the Deweyan pragmatism of Veblen's American Institutionalism. Chapter 3 examines the Deweyan pragmatism of Friedman's Chicago School. Both schools offer Deweyan pragmatisms as theories of knowledge which prove the truth of each's theory of society. Chapter 4 offers a postmodern critique of both modernist versions of Deweyan pragmatism. The analysis suggests several conclusions. First, for such different and directly opposed theories to claim a common affiliation to Deweyan pragmatism must mean that they understand that affiliation in fundamentally different ways. Second, by presenting different versions of pragmatism it becomes clear that it is not possible to discover the real Dewey, nor is it possible to evade the partiality of all readings of Dewey's philosophy. Third, by contesting pragmatism itself, I demonstrate that the cognitive modernist quest for certain foundations is a failed one, and that all knowledge products in economics are bound by the cultural conditions and discursive fields in which they are produced.

This dissertation studies the influence of the level of the real exchange rate on economic development. It first provides an econometric evaluation of this relationship. The main finding is that competitive real exchange rates tend to be associated with higher economic growth. The association is especially strong and statistically significant for developing countries. It then develops a historical narrative and episode analyses of several Latin American countries since the post-Second World War, in which the relationship is further investigated. There are three main findings. First, Latin American countries have experienced external and financial crises with immediate and/or long-lasting negative effects on growth that resulted from persistent real exchange rate overvaluation. Second, the most successful episodes of growth acceleration in the region have occurred in periods during which the governments aimed at maintaining stable and competitive real exchange rates. Finally, the analysis shows that currency over and undervaluation emerged as a result of explicit economic policies. This finding suggests that governments can use economic policy to manage the level and volatility of the real exchange rate to promote economic development. How macroeconomic policy needs to be managed to that end is evaluated with a formal model. The model shows that exchange rate policy targeting a competitive currency would more likely accelerate growth if it is implemented in coordination with domestic demand management policies that prevent non-tradable price inflation and wage management policies that coordinate the pace of wage increases with tradable productivity growth. An empirical illustration of these results is carried out through a comparative study of Argentina during the 2000s and Chile between the mid 1980s and the mid 1990s.

Hui Chik-chuen. / Thesis (M.Phil.)-Chinese University of Hong Kong. / Bibliography: leaves [116]-119.

This thesis examines the effectiveness of foreign aid in Nepal, and adds to the growing literature on the issue of aid effectiveness. Until the mid 1960s, almost all development projects in Nepal were financed by foreign aid. Since 1970, the average aid/GDP ratio remains at over 6 per cent, and in 2002 foreign aid financed over 50 per cent of Nepal’s development expenditure. Despite the constant flow of foreign aid and decades of aid-financed development efforts in Nepal, it remains one of the poorest countries in the world, with per capita income of about US$ 243 and almost 40 per cent of the total population living in absolute poverty. This thesis is the first rigorous study of aid effectiveness in Nepal. It examines the issue from three complementary perspectives. First, it looks at aid’s contribution to per capita GDP within the framework of the neoclassical production function. Second, it examines aid’s contribution to Nepal’s gross domestic investment within a framework of the two-gap model. Since aid is channelled through the government, the thesis lastly examines the impact of foreign aid on government expenditure and revenue efforts. Our study uses time-series data for the period 1970-2002, and employs cointegration and the error correction mechanism as the estimation procedure. The results show that aid has a positive and significant relationship between per capita real GDP, savings and investment in the long-run. In addition, we find that aid effectiveness improves in a good policy environment, that is, one characterised by a stable macroeconomy, openness to trade and a liberalised financial sector. The study also finds that bilateral and multilateral aid are equally effective in the long-run. However, grants aid has a stronger positive association with per capita real GDP in the long-run than loans aid. Finally, the relationship between aid and per capita real GDP in the short-run is found to be negative in both aggregate and disaggregated forms. This implies that Nepal, as in the case of most other developing countries, suffers from lack of absorptive capacity and high aid volatility. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)