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The thesis investigates the role of structural rigidities in recent labour market performances in Europe through various and complementary angles in five essays. By structural rigidities, we mean a lasting feature caused by a set of institutions, which prevents a market from operating efficiently. The approach is essentially empirical and macro-economic, while the scope of the analysis is definitely European, which is technically reflected in the use of either euro area aggregates or panels and cross-sections of European countries.

Drinking water is produced from raw water and is either from groundwater or surface water. This thesis aims to find out if the cleaning process of raw water is sufficiently effective. This is important because consumers are otherwise at risk of waterborne infection caused by pathogens. There are three groups of pathogens; bacteria, virus and parasite. These have different characteristics which mean that they require different water treatment to be separated. In addition to normal operation, a number of scenarios were examined. This is to investigate how water treatment would do if they became a reality. The thesis has examined Borg´s waterworks operated by Norrköping Vatten AB. It was defined to cover the distance from water source to the consumer. In the work, the model Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment (QMRA) was used to perform risk analysis by simulating the normal operation and different scenarios of the water purification process. Thus, knowledge can be obtained about the effectiveness of separation by bacteria, viruses and parasites. However, the QMRA-model is considered to contain some flaws and for that reason the Norwegian model called Good Disinfection Practice (GDP) was also used. GDP is a theoretical model which is based on formulas and tables. The model takes into account the raw water quality and also provides deductions for various measures that the water plant possesses to ensure a good supply of water. The results obtained with both models were similar and showed that the water treatment is sufficient for the bacteria, but not viruses and parasites. Both models were considered to be reliable but viruses and parasites are very difficult to analyze, which has resulted in uncertain literature values and hence in the results. The result also showed that neither viruses nor parasites exceeded the limit by so much that more hygienic barriers to the reduction of them are necessary. The conclusion which may be drawn from the fact that no parasites have been detected in the raw water is that the water treatment still might be sufficient. To determine the effects that an exclusion of various barriers may give, the normal operation was simulated and a purification step at a time was excluded. The result showed that the purification steps which are most important to maintain the treatment process are chemical precipitation followed by rapid filtration, slow filtration and disinfection with chlorine. If any of these cleaning steps were to fail, this introduces a large increase in the risk of waterborne disease. The results showed that the chemical precipitation step gave the greatest separation effect on the virus but also on the parasites. However, the slow filtration gave the largest separation of the parasites. Free chlorine had the greatest effect on bacteria. The investigated scenarios were assumed to be wastewater discharges, sewage discharges in relation to flood the nearby pastures, and sewage overflows due to heavy rainfall. The results of the simulated scenarios were the same when it was only bacteria that in all cases produced a result within the limits of the daily infection probability. Both viruses and parasites exceeded both values. However, there were few studies on these and thus literature values needed to be implemented in the QMRA-model. Hence, the uncertainty of the results was great. The QMRA-model also contained deficiencies in the simulation of the discharge of effluents, where the amount of virus was about 1000-10000 times too much. If this problem as well as more specific data for the investigated area, and more Swedish studies were available, a more credible simulation of the scenarios could be implemented.

Income inequality and its relationship to long-term GDP per capita growth has been researched for decades since the development of the Kuznet’s Curve. Theoretical and empirical research has shown mixed results including positive, negative, non-existent, or statistically insignificant relationships. Empirical research on income inequality and economic growth in the United States has also shown mixed results. In addition to using existing data, this paper uses originally-constructed Gini Coefficients from 2005 to 2009. A statistically significant negative correlation between income inequality, and both short-term growth and long-term growth is found in the analysis of this data. Finally, this paper attempts to justify a causal relationship between income inequality and long-term growth.

As emerging market economies gain increasing influence and importance in the global economy, any development with a potentially destabilizing effect on the economic performance on such countries should be carefully monitored. This paper examines one particular development: the rise of consumer debt. Through the case studies of Turkey, China, and Brazil, this paper seeks to analyze the relationship between an increase in consumer debt and a country's GDP growth in emerging markets and how a detrimental relationship could severely impact the international economy at large.

Economic growth in a country can be explained by numerous variables, both positive and negative. Increasing levels of education, investment and openness are examples of factors generally believed to have positive effects on the economic progress, while corruption is one of the factors often regarded as detrimental to economic growth. The purpose of this thesis is to measure and analyze if the levels of perceived corruption in a cross-section of countries have affected their economic growth rates over the years 2004-2008. The study is carried out with four regressions on a sample of 123 countries and eight variables for the time period in question. The models are constructed on the basis of both the neoclassical growth theory and the endogenous growth theory. The found result contradicts the expected outcome; it shows that the perceived levels of corruption are significantly and positively correlated with economic growth. It is however found that countries with widespread corruption, in general developing countries, have experienced high economic growth over these years. A correlation the authors argue can explain the unexpected sign of the corruption variable.

The main objective of this research paper is to find the association between unemployment rate and GDP growth which is presented empirically by Arthur Okun’s in early 1960s. For this purpose I have used annual time series data during the period 1981-2005 of Pakistan. I applied difference version of Okun’s law which is more appropriate to access results directly from empirical data. In order to find long run relation between the variables I used Engle-Granger cointegration technique and Error Correction Mechanism (ECM) to find the short term behavior of GDP growth to its long run value. This paper verifies negative relationship between unemployment rate and GDP growth and both variables have long run relation with each other. Moreover GDP growth will adjust more quickly towards equilibrium in the long run.

<p>Agriculture has been the backbone of the economy in Nigeria providing employment and source of livelihood for the increasing population and accounting for over half of the GDP of the Nigeria economy at independence in 1960. However, the role it plays in the regional and economic development of the country has diminished over the years due to the dominant role of the crude oil sector in the economy. With the increasing food demand in Nigeria, the country has available input natural resources and potential for increasing the volume of crop production towards meeting the food and nutritional requirement of the rapidly increasing population and guarantee food security in the country. The study was undertaken to analyse the effect of different factors and policies on the changes in trend of crop production and investigate the possible effect of water resources development on increased volume of agricultural crop production in Nigeria.</p><p>The study revealed that there are opportunities for water resources development in the country through irrigation to supplement the water requirements and needs of farmers for agricultural production activities in many areas in the semi-arid and arid regions. Available data shows that there are available land and water resources that could be developed to support the production of food and agricultural development with opportunity for increased productivity.</p><p>However, while the water resources are unevenly distributed in the country, there is need for the efficient use and management of the available water resources and increasing the productive use especially in the northern region of the country where there is increasing incidence of drought and competing need for water among the different sectors of the economy. The study also made possible recommendations for policy formulation to address the current problems facing the agricultural sector in conjunction with the requirement for the development of the water resources.</p>

This thesis explores how economic performance, measured as real GDP-growth per capita, affects the vote share of parties which relies on radical ideological platforms. Using a fixed effect model with panel data, based on real electoral outcomes of 18 western European democracies, the result reveals an ambiguous reality. The overall conclusion implies that low growth rates benefit the electoral success of radical-right parties and holds for robustness checks. No solid evidence of the relationship is found on the radical-left side.The result further reveals that the individuals decision to vote radical is relative more affected by the ongoing business cycle trend between the elections rather than sudden changes close to the election day. The relationship also appears to be stronger among nations of southern Europe.

This thesis consists of a summary and four self-contained papers. Paper [I] Following the 1987 report by The World Commission on Environment and Development, the genuine saving has come to play a key role in the context of sustainable development, and the World Bank regularly publishes numbers for genuine saving on a national basis. However, these numbers are typically calculated as if the tax system is non-distortionary. This paper presents an analogue to genuine saving in a second best economy, where the government raises revenue by means of distortionary taxation. We show how the social cost of public debt, which depends on the marginal excess burden, ought to be reflected in the genuine saving. We also illustrate by presenting calculations for Greece, Japan, Portugal, U.K., U.S. and OECD average, showing that the numbers published by the World Bank are likely to be biased and may even give incorrect information as to whether the economy is locally sustainable. Paper [II] This paper examines the relationships among per capita CO2 emissions, per capita GDP and international trade based on panel data spanning the period 1960-2008 for 150 countries. A distinction is also made between OECD and Non-OECD countries to capture the differences of this relationship between developed and developing economies. We apply panel unit root and cointegration tests, and estimate a panel error correction model. The results from the error correction model suggest that there are long-term relationships between the variables for the whole sample and for Non-OECD countries. Finally, Granger causality tests show that there is bi-directional short-term causality between per capita GDP and international trade for the whole sample and between per capita GDP and CO2 emissions for OECD countries. Paper [III] Fundamental questions in economics are why some regions are richer than others, why their growth rates differ, whether their growth rates tend to converge, and what key factors contribute to explain economic growth. This paper deals with the average income growth, net migration, and changes in unemployment rates at the municipal level in Sweden. The aim is to explore in depth the effects of possible underlying determinants with a particular focus on local policy variables. The analysis is based on a three-equation model. Our results show, among other things, that increases in the local public expenditure and income taxe rate have negative effects on subsequent income income growth. In addition, the results show conditional convergence, i.e. that the average income among the municipal residents tends to grow more rapidly in relatively poor local jurisdictions than in initially “richer” jurisdictions, conditional on the other explanatory variables. Paper [IV] This paper explores the relationship between income growth and income inequality using data at the municipal level in Sweden for the period 1992-2007. We estimate a fixed effects panel data growth model, where the within-municipality income inequality is one of the explanatory variables. Different inequality measures (Gini coefficient, top income shares, and measures of inequality in the lower and upper part of the income distribution) are examined. We find a positive and significant relationship between income growth and income inequality measured as the Gini coefficient and top income shares, respectively. In addition, while inequality in the upper part of the income distribution is positively associated with the income growth rate, inequality in the lower part of the income distribution seems to be negatively related to the income growth. Our findings also suggest that increased income inequality enhances growth more in municipalities with a high level of average income than in municipalities with a low level of average income.