<P> This dissertation argues that the imagination takes on a new importance in the current moment of "financialization": the expansion of financial power both broadly around the world and deeply into everyday life. I suggest that a dialectic theory of imagination and value is necessary to understand this shift. Following an introduction laying out this problematic, chapter two looks at the career of the Western notions of the imagination up to and including the 191h century, positing that it has been an important aspect of the rise of modernity, capitalism and colonialism, but one whose political salience diminished with the rise of discourses of value. In chapter three I turn to theories of imagination in the twentieth century. But I suggest that none of these theories sufficiently accounts for the economic. In order to do so, I turn in chapter four to the notion of value, arguing that we are better equipped to understand economic value under capitalism when we see its relationship to other social values (ethical, aesthetic, political, etc.). To do so, I revisit Marx's "Labour Theory of Value" and, after narrating the rise and fall of this influential idea, I discuss the work of current social theorists seeking to revivify this concept for new times. In the fifth chapter I delineate how capitalism as a system subordinates social values to economic value and how finance is both the highest articulation and a key moment of this process. I conclude by mapping this theoretical approach through a reading of children's play with Pokemon cards, arguing that financialization demands we revisit questions of structure and agency in cultural studies. </p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Many social, political and economic changes that affected intra-family relationships between men and women have occupied over the past century. It could be assumed that these changes also affected the distribution of power between women and men within a family, in particular - financial power. Whereas previously a man was the sole breadwinner of a family and the only manager of the household budget, now when women have new opportunities in the labor market it is logical to assume that women should also be included into the process of money management. The purpose of this study was to examine the mechanisms of financial management in Czech families and find the determinants that affect the choice of allocation systems. The study that was based on quantitative methods surveyed 560 men and women. Statistical analysis showed that the most common type of allocation systems is a financial pool (joint or partial), which indicates that there is a transformation of the distribution of financial power in families. However, traditional gender stereotypes are still evident in the management of family finances. The study also revealed that the main factors that affect the choice of a family allocation system are the level of household income, gender, length of cohabitation of spouses, woman's education and...

La Chine a fait le pari de s’ouvrir au monde, à cette mondialisation, dans laquelle règne une grande disharmonie. Aujourd’hui, la mise en œuvre du socialisme, aux couleurs chinoises, s’inscrit dans un processus beaucoup plus global, fondé sur la promotion de la culture chinoise. Deng Xiaoping, le premier, avait, en 1979, libéré l’initiative de chaque citoyen Chinois, avec sa fameuse expression « Enrichissez-vous ! ». Le rêve pour tous les chinois de pouvoir entrevoir une réussite sociale et matérielle devenait donc palpable. Le lancement par la Chine d’un programme d’envergure dans la recherche et le développement technologique, assure à ses industries un socle qui reste aujourd’hui une priorité stratégique de l’Etat - Parti, libère les énergies et crée les conditions de son ouverture au reste du monde. Le « rêve chinois », expression lancée par le nouveau président Xi Jinping, en 2013, lors de son accession au pouvoir suprême, sonne comme un rappel utopique à l’imaginaire de tout son peuple et revêt une portée symbolique face à une Amérique, fondamentalement attachée à son célèbre « rêve américain ». Notre étude porte sur le rôle du système bancaire chinois et sur son évolution. Son particularisme nous permettra de comprendre dans quelle mesure il constitue un moyen pour la Chine de mettre en œuvre son propre développement économique et financier. Mon travail s’est appuyé sur les nombreux ouvrages et articles cités dans la bibliographie. Cette recherche a été enrichie par les différentes conférences auxquelles j’ai pu assister et par la réalisation d’interviews auprès de banquiers, d’économistes, d’universitaires et d’acteurs reconnus du monde industriel. Dans un premier temps, nous dresserons un indispensable rappel historique pour mieux comprendre les choix politiques d’une Chine qui va finir par défendre avec fermeté ses intérêts, à la fois sur la scène régionale et internationale. Nous focaliserons par la suite notre attention sur la construction et le processus de décision de son système bancaire, au service de sa croissance, et, enfin, nous élargirons notre propos et tenterons de démontrer de quelle manière les fonds d’Etats répondent à la mission qui leur est donnée : financer les ambitions économiques de la Chine et conforter son rôle central dans l’économie mondiale. En trois décennies à peine, la Chine, reléguée auparavant dans un statut de nation sous-développée, s’est élevée au rang de première puissance industrielle et commerciale. Elle est, aujourd’hui, la seconde économie du monde. Nulle part, dans l’histoire, une nation, dans un temps aussi court, n’aura été en mesure de remettre en cause les équilibres internationaux, bouleversant l’actuel paradigme de la hiérarchie des grandes puissances. Dans cette perspective, la question des vrais objectifs de la Chine semble être pertinente et ceci à chaque étape de ses réformes. Une telle puissance financière interpelle et inquiète, lorsque, en quelques années, elle a enregistré une forte inflation de ses investissements à l’étranger. En effet, les banques d’Etat chinoises jouent un rôle pivot dans la gouvernance financière des entreprises d’Etat, plus globalement dans le seul but du développement durable de l’économie chinoise pour édifier son propre système de conquête économique. La Chine souhaite-t-elle vraiment atteindre les standards du système de régulation international ? La Chine est-elle en train par ses choix déterminants, de tracer sa propre voie ? Tout l’effort de cet Etat vise à reconstruire la puissance économique et financière, sans laquelle ne peut se matérialiser efficacement son influence politique et lui offrir son prestige du passé. / China has made the bet to open up to the world, to this globalization, in which there is a great disharmony. Today, the implementation of socialism, with Chinese colors, is part of a much more global process, based on the promotion of Chinese culture. Deng Xiaoping, the first, in 1979, released the initiative of every Chinese citizen, with his famous expression " Enrich yourself ! ". The dream for all Chinese to be able to glimpse a social and material success became palpable.The launch by China of a major program in research and technological development, ensures its industries a base that remains today a strategic priority of the State Party, releases the energies and creates the conditions of its opening to the rest of the world. The "Chinese Dream", an expression launched by the new President Xi Jinping in 2013, when he ascended to supreme power, sounds like an utopian reminder to the imagination of all his people and has a symbolic significance in front of an America, fundamentally attached to his famous "American Dream". Our study focuses on the role of the Chinese banking system and its evolution. Its particularity will allow us to understand in what extent it constitutes a means for China to implement its own economic and financial development. My work was based on the many books and articles cited in the bibliography. This research was enriched by the various conferences I attended and by conducting interviews with bankers, economists, academics and recognized industry players. At a first step, we will draw an essential historical reminder to better understand the political choices of a China that will finish to defend stongly its interests, at the same time on the regional and international level. Then, we will focalize our attention upon the construction and the process of its banking system, for its growth. Endly,we will expand our discusion and try to demonstrate how the state funds respond to the mission. given to them: to finance China's economic ambitions and consolidate its central role in the global economy. In three decades, China, previously relegated to underdeveloped nation status, has risen to the rank of the first industrial and commercial power. It is today the second largest economy in the world. Nowhere in history has a nation, in such a short time, been able to question international balance, to change completly the current paradigm of the hierarchy of the great powers. In this perspective, the question of the true objectives of China seems to be relevant and this at each stage of its reforms. Such a financial power questions and worries when, in a few years, it has recorded a high inflation of its investments abroad. Indeed, Chinese state-owned banks play a principal role in the financial governance of state-owned enterprises, more generally for the only purpose of the sustainable development of the Chinese economy to build its own system of economic conquest. Does China really want to reach the standards of the international regulatory system ? Is China in the process of determining its own path through its decisive choices ? The whole effort of this state aims to rebuild the economic and financial power, without which its political influence can not be effectively realized and offer it its prestige of the past.

Diploma thesis deals with evaluation of the economic situation of the company TRW Volant Inc. in the years 2003 -- 2007 and assessment of its financial health by analysing the chosen economic indicators. There are shortly described the individual phases of financial analysis as a basic instrument of the economic analysis in the theoretical part and there are also explained some basic terms. The practical part is focused on further identification of the company and the branch where it operates in, and also on aplication of theoretical analyses by means of mathematic calculation and graphic comparison. For the analysis purposes I used f.e. ratio indexes from the sphere of profitability, liquidity, structure of capital, activity and capital market, value index EVA, chosen bankruptcy and financial standing models, Du Pont's pyramidal decomposition etc. One of the component parts is also comparison of the analysed company with an average of the branch.