Kristen Binda A Donkey's Worth in South Africa: Domestic Laborer or Export Product; Socioeconomic impacts of China's skin trade on South African donkey owners Master Thesis Prague 2019 Abstract Within South Africa, rural communities use working animals instead of, or combined with mechanization for farming and chores. Development progress may have evaded these areas yet impacts them through globalization and China's expanded market power. The burgeoning market for ejiao, a popular Traditional Chinese Medicine made from boiling donkey hides is a growing issue. Wealthier Chinese consumers, a stalled South African rural population who missed development's benefits plus increasing economic and political engagements between the two countries allows a monopolized, and often exploitative market for donkeys. Politicians are eager to partner with Chinese ejiao retailers despite resulting decimation of donkey populations in some areas of Africa and destruction of livelihoods. I evaluate the value of donkeys as domestic laborers within South Africa along with how China's rapidly expanding market for ejiao and simultaneous consumption of donkeys has affected South Africa to answer in which context donkeys are more valuable. Interview responses and cost-benefit analyses are used to answer the research question and...

Thesis (Ph.D. (Economics))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.

20 Jahre sind mittlerweile vergangen seit die friedliche Protestbewegung zur Abdankung des alten Regimes der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik führte. Im darauf folgenden Jahre kam es zur Wiedervereinigung der beiden deutschen Staaten. Der anschließende Transformationsprozess ist aufgrund der besonderen Umstände in Deutschland einzigartig unter den ehemaligen sozialistischen Staaten Mittel- und Osteuropas. Der Schwerpunkt dieser Arbeit liegt in der Transformation des Verarbeitenden Gewerbes in den Bundesländern Berlin und Brandenburg. Mit der Wiedervereinigung der beiden deutschen Staaten veränderte sich die Situation für die Betriebe im ehemals sozialistischen Teil auf dramatische Weise. Die Auswirkungen werden anhand von Makro- und Mikrodaten analysiert. Untersuchungsgegenstände sind verschiedene ökonomische Indikatoren, wie Zahl von Betrieben und Arbeitsplätzen, Strukturen (nach Größe und Branchen), Umsätze (im In- und Ausland) sowie Investitionen. Der Vergleich von Brandenburg und Ostberlin mit Westberlin bietet dabei die Möglichkeit, Aufschluss über den erreichten Stand des Transformationsprozesses zu erhalten. Die Datenbasis dieser Arbeit besteht neben Angaben aus der Volkswirtschaftlichen Gesamtrechnung der Länder aus verschiedenen betriebsbasierten Erhebungen der amtlichen Statistik. Der Beobachtungszeitraum umfasst dabei die Jahre 1991 bis 2005. Zur Analyse von Betriebs- und Beschäftigungszahlen und ihrer Dynamik steht sogar eine Totalerhebung für die Jahre 1991 bis 2000 zur Verfügung. Ein besonderer Schwerpunkt dieser Arbeit ist die Rolle der Exporte für die betriebliche Entwicklung. Die deutsche Wirtschaftspolitik fördert Unternehmen bei ihrem Schritt auf ausländische Märkte, da man sich von Exporten eine Wachstumsstimulation erhofft. Damit eine solche Förderung auch langfristige positive Effekte entfalten kann, muss einerseits der Export positiven Einfluss auf das Produktivitätswachstum des betreffenden Betriebes haben, und andererseits muss das Exportverhalten eine gewisse Persistenz aufweisen. Beide Bedingungen werden innerhalb der Arbeit detailliert untersucht. / 20 years have elapsed since the peaceful protest movement led to the resignation of the old regime in the German Democratic Republic. In the following year both German states reunited. Due to the special situation in Germany the subsequent transformation process is unique within the former socialistic countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The special focus of this thesis is the transition of the manufacturing industry in the federal states of Berlin and Brandenburg. After reunification of the two German states the situation of plants in the former socialistic part changed dramatically. The results are analyzed using, both, macro and micro data. The evolution of some economic indicators, like number of plants and jobs, structure (size and sector), sales (domestic and foreign), and investments, is analyzed. The comparison of Brandenburg and East Berlin with West Berlin provides information about the current state in the transition process. The data used in this study is drawn from two sources: firstly, aggregated data from the national accounts of the federal states, and secondly, micro data from plant based surveys conducted by the official statistics. The observation period covers the years between 1991 and 2005. For the analysis of the number of plants and jobs, and the dynamic in their evolution there could be used a full survey for the years from 1991 to 2000. The thesis pays special attention to the role of exports for the development of plants. German economic policy promotes firms in their step on foreign markets, because exports are expected to stimulate the economic growth. In order that such a promotion has a positive effect in the long run, exports have to have a positive effect on productivity growth, and additionally export behavior has to be persistent over time. Both conditions are empirically examined within this thesis.

Trade openness, market size, transparency, ease of doing business, location advantagesand low levels of corruption and country risk are the main determinants that attractForeign Direct Investment into a host country. FDI inflows in México have increasedremarkably since 1994 when the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) cameinto effect. Using multiple regression analysis in order to measure the impact of FDI onGDP; the Empirical results showed that a one percent increase in FDI leads on average toan increase of 0.08 percent in GDP which clearly reflects a positive but neither animportant nor a substantial impact of FDI on economic growth in México as it would beexpected. Time series data analysis for the period 1980-2007 has been tested for UnitRoot by applying the Dickey-Fuller (DF) test. Each time series after the first differencebecomes stationary and therefore it might be a causal relationship among the variables.However, FDI will not have a real impact on the society unless there is an effective stockof Human Capital capable of learning and absorbing the know-how to work successfullywith the technology that Multinational Corporations bring into the host country with theirinvestment. The challenge for the Mexican Government is to create structural reformssuch as the deregulation of energy and oil sector for private investment that will lead toconstantly higher flows of FDI. In the medium term this will then be reflected in thesociety in terms of poverty reduction and development of its population.

Abstract The main objective of our paper is to investigate whether expansion in exports can lead to improve economic growth of Sub-Saharan African countries for the period 1970-2006. Four macro economic indicators (real GDP, Trade balance, Government expenditure and Investment) are used in our model to carry out our analysis concerning Sub Saharan African countries. Time series techniques such as unit root test (Augmented Dickey Fuller test) and co integration test (Johansen’s procedure) are used to find out whether there is a long run relationship between economic growth and trade balance. The results of the unit root test indicate that all series are stationary after first difference, with I (1). Johansen’s co integration test showed that co integration (long run relationship) exists between GDP and Trade balance, as we got significant eigenvalues and found co integration between all of the four variables which shows that they are co integrated with each other and indicates a long run relationship. Our results indicate that for the time period of 1970 to 2006, Sub Saharan African countries experienced a simultaneous increase in economic growth and trade balance as well as in investment and Govt expenditure.   Key words: exports, economic growth, unit root, co integration, Sub-Saharan Africa

This study investigates the causal relationship among comparative advantage, exports and economic growth by using the time series annual data for the period of 1980-2009 on 13 developing countries. The purpose is to develop an understanding of causal relationship and explore the differences or similarities among different sectors of several developing countries that are in different stages of development and how their comparative advantage influences the exports, which further effect the economic growth of the country. The co-integration and the vector error correction techniques are used to explore the causal relationship among the three variables. The results suggest bi-directional or mutual long run relationship between comparative advantage, exports and economic growth in most of the developing countries. The overall long run results of the study favour the export led growth hypothesis that exports precede the growth in case of all countries except for Malaysia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The short run mutual relationship exists mostly among the three variables except for Malaysian exports and growth and its comparative advantage and GDP and for Singapore‟s exports and growth. The short run causality runs from exports to gross domestic product (GDP). So overall, short run results favour export led growth in all cases except for Malaysia, Nepal and Sri Lanka.

This thesis aims to investigate the trade intensity between the Baltic States and the Nordic countries over a period of 14 years. The bilateral exports of 42 European countries are explored with the focus on the Baltic-Nordic trade. Since many previous studies provided support for the strong relationship between the Baltic States and the Nordic countries, this thesis aims to explore this relationship over time. The Baltic States after their independence, shifted their trade to the Western economies, including Nordic countries. The results reveal that the magnitude of the trade intensity between these two regions have become more important and is higher than expected. Furthermore, it is accounted for commodities of different values traded between the Baltic States and the Nordic countries by introducing dummy variables. It has been shown that the value of commodities is not very important in the Baltic-Nordic trade and therefore there is no trend over time.

This paper investigates the impact of inward FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) on international trade of China empirically on the country level by using panel data from 1984 to 2007. Two separate transformed models which are based on the gravity equation and refer to the econometric models of some previous studies, are used in this paper to estimate the effect of FDI inflows on exports and imports respectively. The estimation results confirmed the complementary relationship between FDI inflows and trade of China both on exports and imports, which has also been supported by previous empirical studies.

The dissertation consists of three essays. Chapter II examines the asymmetric effects of monetary policy on stock prices by using an unobserved components model with Markov-switching. My results show that monetary policy has negative effects on stock prices, which is consistent with the most recent literature. When the transitory component is in the low volatility state, a contractionary monetary policy significantly reduces stock prices. When the transitory component is in the high volatility state, the negative effect of monetary policy becomes larger, but the difference of the monetary policy effects between two states is not significant. Besides, a contractionary monetary policy will lower the probability of stock prices staying in the low volatility state. Monetary policy also reduces the total volatility of stock prices and the volatility of the transitory component of stock prices. Chapter III employs the smooth transition autoregressive (STAR) models to investigate the nonlinear effect of monetary policy on stock returns. The change in the Federal funds rate is used as an endogenous measure of monetary policy and the growth rate of industrial production is also considered in the model. My empirical results show that excess stock returns, the change in the Federal funds rate, and the growth rate of industrial production all can be expressed in the nonlinear STAR models. The estimated coefficients and the impulse response functions show that the effect of monetary policy on excess returns of stock prices is significantly negative and nonlinear. The change in the Federal funds rate has a larger negative effect on excess returns in the extreme low excess returns regime and the effect becomes smaller when the excess returns are greater than the threshold value. In chapter IV, I use a panel data approach to investigate the impact of exchange rate volatility on bilateral exports of the U.S. to the thirteen major trading partners. I further test the possibility of nonlinear effects of exchange rate volatility on exports by using threshold regression methods for non-dynamic panels with individual-specific fixed effects proposed by Hansen (1999). The results indicate that the effect of exchange rate volatility on bilateral exports is nonlinear. When the relative real GDP per capita of the exporting partner is lower than the threshold value, the response of bilateral U.S. exports to exchange rate volatility is positive. But, exchange rate volatility decreases bilateral exports of the U.S. to the exporting partners when their relative real GDP per capita surpass the threshold value.

<p><strong>Abstract</strong></p><p>The main objective of our paper is to investigate whether expansion in exports can lead to improve economic growth of Sub-Saharan African countries for the period 1970-2006. Four macro economic indicators (real GDP, Trade balance, Government expenditure and</p><p>Investment) are used in our model to carry out our analysis concerning Sub Saharan African countries.</p><p>Time series techniques such as unit root test (Augmented Dickey Fuller test) and co integration test (Johansen’s procedure) are used to find out whether there is a long run relationship between economic growth and trade balance.</p><p>The results of the unit root test indicate that all series are stationary after first difference, with I (1). Johansen’s co integration test showed that co integration (long run relationship) exists between GDP and Trade balance, as we got significant eigenvalues and found co integration between all of the four variables which shows that they are co integrated with each other and indicates a long run relationship.</p><p>Our results indicate that for the time period of 1970 to 2006, Sub Saharan African countries experienced a simultaneous increase in economic growth and trade balance as well as in investment and Govt expenditure.</p><p> </p><p><strong>Key words</strong>: exports, economic growth, unit root, co integration, Sub-Saharan Africa</p>