This thesis aims at contributing to the growing number of studies on banking productivity, by attempting to introduce the interest rate spread as one of the driving forces behind productivity changes and alterations of the intermediary role of banks. The analysis is based on observations form the banking sectors of Germany and Sweden. As there is no clear concensus on the proper way of measuring banking output, and the choice of method varies considerably form study to study, this paper adopts the intermediation approach which is one of the three most offen recurring methods applied in research papers. The results include some interesting revelations such as the low significance of a change in labour and capital to the growth in banking output (challenging traditional theory), and that Swedish banks on average were moving away from the traditional intermediary role between 1979 and 1996 while German banks kept lending business at their centre of attention.

This bachelor thesis aims to uncover the determinants of the economic growth in Mexico with an exogenous growth model. The study is based in an Augmented Solow Model em-ployed by Mankiw, Romer and Weil in "A contribution to the Empirics of the Economic Growth" (1992). The model uses annual data of Mexico from 1960-2007 and the regressions and tests are developed in the econometric package Stata 10 for eight different periods. The thesis not only uses the Effective Labour and Physical Capital as Inputs in the production Function, but also employs the variable of Human Capital as an economic determinant of growth in the production function. The results of the model correspond with the actual scenario in Mexico; more weight to the Effective Labour (76.34%) rather than to Human Capital (2.12%) or Physical Capital (21.54%) as determinants of growth.

<p>This thesis aims at contributing to the growing number of studies on banking productivity, by attempting to introduce the interest rate spread as one of the driving forces behind productivity changes and alterations of the intermediary role of banks. The analysis is based on observations form the banking sectors of Germany and Sweden. As there is no clear concensus on the proper way of measuring banking output, and the choice of method varies considerably form study to study, this paper adopts the intermediation approach which is one of the three most offen recurring methods applied in research papers. The results include some interesting revelations such as the low significance of a change in labour and capital to the growth in banking output (challenging traditional theory), and that Swedish banks on average were moving away from the traditional intermediary role between 1979 and 1996 while German banks kept lending business at their centre of attention.</p>

<p> </p><p> </p><p>This bachelor thesis aims to uncover the determinants of the economic growth in Mexico with an exogenous growth model. The study is based in an Augmented Solow Model em-ployed by Mankiw, Romer and Weil in</p><p><em>"A contribution to the Empirics of the Economic Growth" </em>(1992). The model uses annual data of Mexico from 1960-2007 and the regressions and tests are developed in the econometric package Stata 10 for eight different periods. The thesis not only uses the Effective Labour and Physical Capital as Inputs in the production Function, but also employs the variable of Human Capital as an economic determinant of growth in the production function. The results of the model correspond with the actual scenario in Mexico; more weight to the Effective Labour (76.34%) rather than to Human Capital (2.12%) or Physical Capital (21.54%) as determinants of growth.</p><p> </p><p> </p>