Analyzing crimes through the scope of economics, this thesis explores the correlation between unemployment rate and crime rate, and other possible causes of surging crimes in China by using a fixed-effect regression model. Using provincial level panel data from 2000 to 2010, we did not find significant correlation between arrest rate and prosecution rate to unemployment rate. We found evidence that the Chinese government might intentionally controlled the unemployment rate at an artificially low and stable rate. Additionally, the set of ‘stern punishment’ campaigns during the 2008 Beijing Olympic games, causing a huge increase in arrest rate and police expenditure, could distort the overall trend of crime and unemployment. Moreover, we find a significant positive correlation between GDP per capita level, rural-urban income inequality and floating population to crime. Therefore, we recommend that the Chinese government should create social safety net that targets specifically at rural migrant workers. Not only that, reform and increase job opportunities in rural area is also urgent to close the income gap in rural and urban areas.

This research contributes to the evolving field of New Media Studies through an empirical examination of social media design in real-time practice at the computer interface. In recent years questions of technology and design have started to figure more prominently in research into Social Network Sites (SNSs) but critical analysis of design in practice, at the interface remains under-researched. The interface is becoming an increasingly important analytical concept in the digital age as it is the space where machine readable code is translated into the cultural codes which are accessible to the everyday users of digital media technology. Furthermore, there have been recent calls for an expansion of the traditional media practice paradigm encouraging practice approaches to media which take seriously the mediating role of technologies in emergent forms of digital media practice. This thesis carries out empirical research into social media/ted practice; it critically examines sites and real-time interactions at the interface, to understand the interrelationships between the specific design of platforms and evolving forms of social media/ted practice. The thesis draws on Media Studies, New Media Studies, Sociology and Social Studies of Technology to explicate an original interdisciplinary analytical framework for studying people’s interactions with social media technologies at the interface. This framework is referred to as the triple articulation of social media/ted practice. The triple articulation of social media/ted practice acknowledges the interplay between the materiality of social media technologies, the cultural coding of social media technologies and active practice with social media technologies. The term social media/ted practice has been coined specifically to emphasise the mediating role of technology in social media use. Using SNSs as a case study the thesis combines critical site analysis with interviews at the interface which illuminate the interpretive and constructive elements of the micro-interactions between people and SNSs that underpin related forms of social media/ted practice. Whilst this thesis is focused on SNSs, the analytical framework has wider applicability in New Media Studies and media-orientated Sociology. The central argument of this thesis is that design matters for social media/ted practice. Site-specific ‘micro’ architectures, affordances and algorithmic processes continue to shape social media/ted practice at the interface. The user-interface works to render aspects of the technology visible, accessible, meaningful and useful. This thesis calls attention to the user-interface as a key site for: (1), mediating social practice (2), understanding emerging social trends (3), site governance and (4), developing critical digital media literacies.

The history of the agrarian reform movement in Texas, its origin and its activities, reveals a minimal participation of the Negro. The relationship of the white farmer and the Negro in Texas with regard to agrarian reform demonstrates what they had in common and why the black did not choose to embrace agrarian reform.

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The purpose of this study is to find causes of inflation in Korea. We hypothesized that inflation in Korea was a "mixed" inflation generated by not only monetary factors but also nonmonetary factors. The data was obtained mainly from International Finance Statistics (IMF) and Monthly Bulletin (The Bank of Korea). The first chapter introduces the Korean economy. Chapter two surveyed the effects of import prices, wages, and money supply in inflationary process. The third chapter studied some theoretical backgrounds of inflation. Chapter four analyzed the results of statistical tests. Finally, chapter five consisted of summary and policy implications.

1 Abstract This thesis provides an extensive comparative analysis of India and China. This analysis may be divided into two parts. The first one deals with the political development and the contemporary political situation in these countries, and the second one focuses on the economic development and the present state of the economy. The first part of the first chapter examines the political development of China. It is focused on the history in the 19th and the 20th century and it shows that it was quite turbulent after the fall of the feudalism. It concludes with the period after the death of Mao. The second part of the first chapter talks about the political development in India, mainly while India was a British colony. Second chapter provides a comparative analysis of the contemporary political systems in India and China. It shows that in India the citizens are able to influence the politics more than in China. With the third chapter, the second part of the thesis begins. The third chapter analyzes the development of the Chinese economy especially since 1980s. That is when the Chinese government started to implement substantial economic changes into the system. These changes have changed the planned economy of China to something what resembles very closely the market economy. The fourth chapter is...

This paper aims to evaluate merits of the Austrian business cycle theory in explaining the 2001-2009 business cycle in the US economy. The theory postulates that a monetary shock upsets equilibrium in the market for loanable funds and adversely influences coordination mechanisms of the economy. The structure of relative prices is distorted and resources are misallocated as a result. The economy follows an unsustainable investment trajectory inconsistent with the amount of available resources and with the consumer preferences. When the inconsistencies are revealed, some of the investments are liquidated and costly correction follows. After providing exposition of the theory and description of the US economy in 2001-2009, the theory is confronted with the data. Although some deviations are conceded, mainly in development of the labor market, analysis presented in the paper supports the Austrian business cycle theory as a solid theoretical tool for explanation of the economic development throughout the examined period. The theory exhibits its main strengths in accounting for development of relative prices and linking them to conditions in the market for loanable funds.

This thesis explores anonymity as an aspect of identity construction within electronic dance music (EDM). Its specific focus is on the production and control of image within genres that have arisen since the development and expansion of the club scene in the UK from the latter part of the 20th century and, then situated in visual culture and performance research, its examination of anonymity represents an area that, to date, has been overlooked in EDM. As part of this investigation, the thesis’ chapters notably analyse elements that are external to music recordings including record sleeve design and press interviews: components that are essential elements in the development and distribution of these performative identities. Following Thornton (1995), Rietveld (1998), Hesmondhalgh (1998a) and Gilbert and Pearson (1999), the research critically reviews a range of issues that are determined as associated with these representations – including the influence of technologies, a resistance to mainstream assimilation and the impact of collective ‘scene’ – while explaining some of EDM’s distinctions and hierarchies within a post-subcultural setting. To do this it uses case studies focusing on the approaches of Daft Punk, Burial, Zomby and SBTRKT: examples that are presented as unique demonstrations of image construction within the field. It also places the role of identity within a more expansive history of electronic music by aligning contemporary practice with the earlier presented image of Kraftwerk. Ultimately, and while observing this lineage of often counterintuitive practices, the thesis argues that the EDM producer’s separation from the high visibility ‘star system’ model favoured by pop and rock performers reflects commitment to a marginal status: a commitment also communicated through its visual aesthetics that reinforce an underground cultural context to celebrate the peripheral whilst, simultaneously, highlighting the EDM producer’s perceived condition as that which is inferior to his or her rock counterpart.

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Master of Arts / Department of Economics / Peri Da Silva / It is usually preached by economists that trade should be free, but in reality, it is almost always chained. The reason for this discrepancy lies in the fact that trade policies are set in political contexts in which policy makers have different objective function than maximizing economic efficiency. So, endogenous protection literature evolved around the ideas and reasons to explain trade policy as determined under specific political contexts. The early empirical work until late 1980s examined the correlation between different political factors and trade policies. These works were helpful in identifying relative importance of political economy variables, but were criticized to have specifications which were loosely linked with the theories behind them. In recent years with development of theoretical platforms, study of political economy of trade policy has moved to a more structured direction and empirical investigations have been done to link real world data with the model predictions. In this regard, Median Voter model and Grossman-Helpman (GH) model are the main branches of literature. Median Voter model predicts positive tariffs in capital-abundant countries and negative tariffs in labor-abundant ones, but in real world, negative tariffs are rare. Empirical investigation of this model tries to reconcile observed trade policies with median voter model and two of these studies are included in this report. Interest group model is the framework of Grossman-Helpman model in which the effect of organized lobbies in trade policy determination is taken into account. Two empirical studies of this model showed that real world data support this model. By employing modifications in GH model, researchers try to account for factors like lobbying competition and foreign lobbying in explaining data. These results show that foreign lobbying is not necessarily against trade and ignoring lobbying competition may lead to wrong conclusions about welfare mindedness of government.