This thesis examines the impact of institutions, especially the financial institutions, on international trade and foreign direct investments. The first four chapters study the financial institutions and their impact on trade and international specialization. Specifically, the first chapter examines these financial institutions and the determinants of their level of development. The second chapter examines how finance impacts bilateral trade. The third chapter builds a theoretical model and aims to explain the impact of finance on the sectoral trade as a function of the degree of financial intensity of each sector. The fourth chapter analyzes the heterogeneous impact of finance on the different manufacturing sectors. The last chapter of the thesis uses the term "institution" in a broader sense and studies theoretically and empirically whether the similarities and differences in institutional environments across countries explain the international patterns of foreign direct investment (FDI).

Questa tesi offre un’analisi complessiva della posizione e del ruolo giocato dall’Argentina nell’economia globale durante l’ultimo decennio, attraverso l’uso di diverse metodologie tipiche dell’analisi economica. La ricerca parte dall’analisi della dimensione economica interna del Paese, fornendo uno studio della struttura produttiva dell’Argentina e del suo sviluppo economico. In seguito l’analisi si focalizza sullo studio delle variabili determinanti dei flussi commerciali dell’Argentina con i suoi partners regionali tramite un’applicazione econometrica del modello gravitazionale. Infine, si concentra sull’analisi del ruolo dell’Argentina nella gestione dell’economia globale studiandone il ruolo nel Fondo Monetario Internazionale, nel G20 e nel MERCOSUR attraverso un approccio di International Political Economy. Il risultato principale è la scoperta dell’esistenza di un collegamento tra la dimensione interna e quella esterna. Infatti la persistente instabilità macroeconomica e inappropriate politiche economiche adottate a livello nazionale provocano una perdita di competitività globale che potrebbe danneggiare nel lungo periodo la performance economica dell’Argentina, ostacolandone il raggiungimento dello status di Paese completamente sviluppato. Inoltre, populismo e nazionalismo economico stanno isolando l’Argentina dal resto della regione sudamericana e dal mondo, portando il Paese verso la condizione di ‘pariah’ nelle relazioni internazionali. / This thesis offers a comprehensive analysis of Argentina’s position and role within the global economy during the last decade, adopting different methodologies of the economic analysis. The focus of the research starts from the analysis of the domestic economic dimension of the country, providing a study of Argentina’s economic structure and development pattern. It then examines the study of the determinants of Argentina’s trading flows with its regional partners with an econometric application of the gravity model of international trade. It finally focuses on the analysis of Argentina’s global inclusion in the management of the global economy through the description of Argentina’s behavior in the IMF, the G20 and MERCOSUR with an approach taken from International Political Economy. The main finding is that there is a link from the internal to the external dimension, since persistent macroeconomic instability and inappropriate economic policies result into a lack of global competitiveness which might affect in the long run the economic performance of Argentina, preventing it from achieving the status of a completely developed country. Moreover, populism and economic nationalism are isolating Argentina from the rest of South America and the world, driving the country to the status of a ‘pariah’ in international relations.

In the thesis foreign direct investment in the Baltic countries using gravity model have been analysed. The first part of the thesis consists of foreign direct investment definition, the positive and negative influencing factors of foreign direct investment evaluation criteria analysis of the scientific literature and the authors different approaches to them. It is also made a critical evaluation of literature, authors usually distinguishing factors mentioned in different sources that affect foreign direct investment. Also in the first part of the paper theoretically gravity model and its application in practice of direct foreign investment assessment has been described. In the practical, analytical part the analysis of the chosen 7 most popular parameters from has been performed using the graphical methods. Also analyzed the market size, average wages, education levels, tax burden, economic openness index , GDP per capita and the average disposable income per household member on foreign direct investment in the Baltic countries, using multiple regression and correlation analysis and using a gravity model. The thesis ends with conclusions and recommendations. Structure: introduction, theoretical part, practical part, conclusions and suggestions, references. Thesis consist of: 77 p. text without appendixes, 19 pictures, 34 tables, 55 bibliographical entries. / Baigiamajame magistro darbe nagrinėjamos tiesioginės užsienio investicijos Baltijos šalyse taikant gravitacinį modelį. Pirmoje darbo dalyje pateikiama tiesioginių užsienio investicijų sąvokos, teigiamą ir neigiamą įtaką darančių veiksnių, tiesioginių užsienio investicijų vertinimo kriterijų analizė mokslinėje literatūroje bei skirtingas autorių požiūris į juos. Taip pat atliktas kritinis literatūros vertinimas, išskiriant dažniausiai autorių minimus veiksnius skirtinguose šaltiniuose, kurie daro įtaką tiesioginėms užsienio investicijoms. Taip pat pirmoje darbo dalyje teoriniu požiūriu išanalizuotas gravitacinis modelis bei jo taikymas praktikoje tiesioginėse užsienio investicijoms įvertinti. Praktinėje, analitinėje darbo dalyje pagal pasirinktus 7 parametrus iš dažniausiai pasitaikančių literatūros apžvalgose išanalizuotas Baltijos šalių tiesioginių užsienio investicijų atvejis naudojant grafinę analizę. Taip pat nagrinėjamas rinkos dydžio, vidutinio darbo užmokesčio, išsilavinimo lygio, mokesčių naštos, ekonominio atvirumo indekso BVP vienam gyventojui bei vidutinių disponuojamų pajamų vienam namų ūkio nariui įtaka tiesioginėms užsienio investicijoms Baltijos šalyse naudojant daugianarę koreliacinę regresinę analizę bei pritaikant gravitacinį modelį. Darbo pabaigoje pateikiamos išvados ir siūlymai. Darbą sudaro 2 dalys: įvadas, teorinė dalis, praktinė dalis išvados ir siūlymai, literatūros sąrašas. Darbo apimtis – 77 p. teksto be priedų, 19 iliustr., 34 lent., 55... [toliau žr. visą tekstą]

In the BATHOLITHSonland seismic project, a refraction - wide-angle reflection survey was shot in 2009 across the Coast Mountains and Interior Plateau of central British Columbia. Part of the seismic profile crossed the Nechako Basin, a Jurassic-Cretaceous basin with potential for hydrocarbons within sedimentary rocks that underlie widespread volcanics. Along this 205-km-long line segment, eight explosive shots averaging 750 kg were fired and recorded on 980 seismometers. Forward and inverse modelling of the traveltime data were conducted with two independent methods: ray-tracing based modelling of first and secondary arrivals, and a higher resolution wavefront-based first-arrival seismic tomography. Gravity modelling was utilized as a means of evaluating the density structure corresponding to the final velocity model. Material with velocities less than 5.0 km/s is interpreted as sedimentary rocks of the Nechako Basin, while velocities from 5.0-6.0 km/s may correspond to interlayered sediments and volcanics. The greatest thickness of sedimentary rocks in the basin is found in the central 110 km of the profile. Two sub-basins were identified in this region, with widths of 20-50 km and maximum sedimentary depths of 2.5 km and 3.3 km. Such features are well-defined in the velocity model, since resolution tests indicate that features with widths greater than ~13 km are reliable. Beneath the sedimentary rocks, seismic velocities increase more slowly with depth – from 6.0 km/s just below the basin to 6.3 km/s at ~17 km depth, and then to 6.8-7.0 km/s at the base of the crust. The Moho is interpreted at a depth of 33.5-35 km along the profile, and mantle velocities are high at 8.05-8.10 km/s.

In this dissertation, it is aimed to develop an approach for the trip distribution element which is one of the important phases of four-step travel demand modelling. The trip distribution problem using back-propagation artificial neural networks has been researched in a limited number of studies and, in a critically evaluated study it has been concluded that the artificial neural networks underperform when compared to the traditional models. The underperformance of back-propagation artificial neural networks appears to be due to the thresholding the linearly combined inputs from the input layer in the hidden layer as well as thresholding the linearly combined outputs from the hidden layer in the output layer. In the proposed neural trip distribution model, it is attempted not to threshold the linearly combined outputs from the hidden layer in the output layer. Thus, in this approach, linearly combined iv inputs are activated in the hidden layer as in most neural networks and the neuron in the output layer is used as a summation unit in contrast to other neural networks. When this developed neural trip distribution model is compared with various approaches as modular, gravity and back-propagation neural models, it has been found that reliable trip distribution predictions are obtained.

The gravity model for international trade is one of the most successful empirical models in trade literature. There is a long tradition to log-linearise the multiplicative model and to estimate the parameters of interest by least squares. But this practice is inappropriate for several reasons. First of all, bilateral trade flows are frequently zero and disregarding countries that do not trade with each other produces biased results. Second, log-linearisation in the presence of heteroscedasticity leads to inconsistent estimates in general. In recent years, the Poisson gravity model along with pseudo maximum likelihood estimation methods have become popular as a way of dealing with such econometric issues as arise when dealing with origin-destination flows. But the standard Poisson model specification is vulnerable to problems of overdispersion and excess zero flows. To overcome these problems, this paper presents zero-inflated extensions of the Poisson and negative binomial specifications as viable alternatives to both the log-linear and the standard Poisson specifications of the gravity model. The performance of the alternative model specifications is assessed on a real world example, where more than half of country-level trade flows are zero. (authors' abstract) / Series: Working Papers in Regional Science

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T19:33:10Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 CIPOLLA_Caroline_2013.pdf: 1859503 bytes, checksum: 2cdf4c49a03fb3aecdc02755a04d239c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-02-07 / Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos / In recent years, international trade has intensified and liberalized, so that decreases in border costs have become increasingly relevant. Much of these costs are associated with the excessive number of documents required to export or import, the bad infrastructure of ports and airports, among others. It is in this sense that stands out the importance of trade facilitation, principally regarding logistical factors. The trade facilitation began to be discussed at the WTO in 1996, but only in 2004 began the negotiations about it. Several papers have been written for several countries in order to assess the impact of trade facilitation on trade flows. However, studies for the brazilian case are still few, especially those that take into account logistical variables. This study aimed to identify the effects of trade facilitation, especially concerning logistics, upon the pattern of trade that includes Brazil and its major trading partners witch belong to the most important economic blocs. The data extends from 2008 to 2011 and takes into account variables on the quality of transport infrastructure and customs procedure. Gravity models considering Brazil and other 47 counties, witch were responsible for about 78% of brazilian exports in 2011, were estimated. The results evidenced the largest impact of custom variables on trade flows between countries. When considering separate models for blocs of developed and developing countries, the results showed the importance of improvements in terms of documentation, time and cost for blocs of developing countries, as well as improvement regarding the time for blocs of developed countries. With regard to transport infrastructure, good quality of rail was important for both groups. Finally, it was concluded that, for blocs of developing countries, there is a dependency on reforms in trade partners, while in blocs of developed countries the reforms made by the countries themselves have greater impact on trade flows. / Nos últimos anos, o comércio internacional tem se intensificado e liberalizado, de modo que tomar medidas para diminuir os custos de fronteira vem se tornado cada vez mais relevante. Boa parte desses custos está associada ao excessivo número de documentos exigidos para exportar ou importar, a falta de infraestrutura de portos e aeroportos, entre outros. É neste sentido que se destaca a importância da facilitação de comércio, principalmente no que tange os fatores logísticos. A facilitação de comércio passou a ser discutida na OMC em 1996, mas apenas em 2004 começaram a ser feitas negociações a respeito. Vários trabalhos já foram elaborados para diversos países com o objetivo de avaliar o impacto da facilitação nos fluxos de comércio. Entretanto, trabalhos mais direcionados para o caso brasileiro ainda são poucos, principalmente aqueles que levam em consideração variáveis logísticas. O presente trabalho teve por objetivo identificar os efeitos da facilitação de comércio, em termos logísticos, no padrão de comércio que abrange o Brasil e seus principais parceiros comerciais pertencentes aos principais blocos econômicos. Os dados se estendem de 2008 a 2011 e levam em consideração variáveis de qualidade de infraestrutura dos transportes e variáveis que medem a eficiência alfandegária. Foram estimados modelos gravitacionais levando em consideração o Brasil e mais 47 países, responsáveis por cerca de 78% das exportações brasileiras em 2011. Os resultados evidenciaram o maior impacto das variáveis alfandegárias sobre o fluxo de comércio entre os países. Ao considerar modelos separados para blocos de países desenvolvidos e em desenvolvimento, os resultados mostraram a importância de melhorias em termos de documentação, tempo e custo nos blocos de países em desenvolvimento, bem como melhoria no que concerne o tempo para blocos de países desenvolvidos. Com relação a infraestrutura dos transportes, a boa qualidade do transporte ferroviário se mostrou importante para ambos os grupos. Por fim, concluiu-se também que, para blocos de países em desenvolvimento, há uma dependência quanto a reformas nos parceiros comercias, enquanto nos blocos de países desenvolvidos as reformas feitas pelos próprios países apresentam impacto maior sobre o fluxo de comércio.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T19:33:12Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 PEREIRA_Tainara_2013.pdf: 1316115 bytes, checksum: e27f367a9554f43f23c9d5278c584514 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-05-28 / Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais / The aim of this study is to assess the potential effects of technical measures belong to the WTO TBT agreement on exports of Brazilian pulp and paper industry. The choice of this segment was due to the same consist of a major component of national export agenda, being susceptible to external regulations. For this, we employed a gravity model comprising Brazil and its importers who reported at least one technical measure within the analysis period 1997-2012. The econometric model, whose inference occurs through the Tobit method further comprises the GDP of the countries involved in trade , foreign tariffs for products affected, bilateral distances and the official languages of each of the trading partners considered. Through descriptive and statistical analyzes we found that greater attention is given to papers and supplies intended for toilet use and the information content present in these seems to be a decisive factor in purchasing their partners. The effect of technical measures on the segment revealed that some of the measures imposed are associated with lower export volumes, thus suggesting greater trade between the same restriction as notifications to the production processes on the product, as well as measures involving compliance which can influence the cost structure of exporting in an effort to adapt its products. Thus, it is expected that the results found to contribute to greater understanding of the effect of technical measures on the pulp and paper industry, as well as the behavior of these requirements over others products of agribusiness. / O objetivo desse estudo é verificar os potenciais efeitos das medidas da OMC sobre as exportações do setor de papel e celulose brasileiro. A escolha desse segmento se deu em virtude do mesmo consistir em um importante componente da pauta exportadora nacional, sendo suscetível a regulações externas. Para isso, foi empregado um modelo gravitacional compreendendo o Brasil e seus importadores que notificaram pelo menos uma medida técnica dentro do período analisado, 1997 a 2012. O modelo econométrico, cuja inferência se dá por meio do método Tobit, inclui ainda o PIB dos países envolvidos nas trocas comerciais, as tarifas externas aplicadas aos produtos afetados, as distâncias bilaterais e os idiomas oficiais de cada um dos parceiros comerciais considerados. Por meio das análises descritivas e estatísticas foi possível verificar que uma maior atenção é dada a papéis e insumos destinados ao uso higiênico e que o conteúdo informacional presente nestes parece não constituir fator decisivo na compra de seus demandantes. O efeito das medidas técnicas sobre o segmento revelaram que as algumas das medidas impostas estão associadas a volumes menores de exportação, sugerindo assim uma maior restrição comercial quanto às mesmas, como notificações destinadas aos processos produtivos, sobre o produto, bem como medidas que envolvem conformidade, as quais podem influenciar na estrutura de custos das exportadoras, no esforço de adequação de seus produtos. Assim, é esperado que os resultados encontrados contribuam para um maior entendimento a respeito dos efeitos das medidas técnicas sobre o segmento de papel e celulose, como também o comportamento dessas exigências sobre outros produtos do agronegócio.

Dans un contexte où les négociations commerciales multilatérales languissent dans une impasse, les accords commerciaux régionaux ACR prennent de l’élan. Cette thèse doctorale cherche à faire avancer la connaissance sur ce domaine. C’est grâce au modèle de gravité du commerce que trois chapitres supportés par des analyses économétriques appliqués ont été mis au point.Le premier chapitre examine les effets sur les flux bilatéraux de commerce attribuables aux ACR, le système généralisé de préférences (SGP) et l’appartenance à l’Organisation mondiale du commerce OMC. Plusieurs spécifications économétriques et techniques d’estimation ont été testées. Particulièrement Poisson Pseudo Maximum Likelihood (PPML), qui se présente comme la technique la plus recommandée pour contenir des biais bien connues et des problèmes d’endogénéité. Cette recherche a été conduite avec un modèle de gravité du commerce international qui comporte 153 pays sur la période 1980-2012. Les résultats montrent systématiquement qu’un effet positif et significatif sur les flux bilatéraux de commerce est à attendre après l’entrée en vigueur d’un ACR. De même, des effets positifs mais peu importants, voir nuls sont accordés à la participation au sein de l’OMC. La spécification qui utilise PPML et qui contrôle l’influence de l’hétérogénéité inobservable montre un effet non-significatif pour le SGP. Le deuxième chapitre, coécrit avec mon directeur de thèse Jean-Marc Siroën, explore quel est l’effet de l’hétérogénéité des ACR sur le cadre de l’approfondissement de l’intégration. Nous envisageons pouvoir déceler si les ACR qui sont plus profonds contribuent plus à la création de commerce que ceux qui sont moins profonds. Nous avons recours à deux bases de données récemment ouverts au public. La première appartenant à l’OMC et la deuxième a la World Trade Institute (WTI-DESTA). Nous procédons à créer des indicateurs crédibles de l’approfondissement de l’intégration pour passer à les tester dans un modèle de gravité. Nous trouvons qu’un effet positif et significatif peut-être accordé aux accords les plus profonds, indépendamment que l’indicateur testé soit un indicateur additive où un indicateur obtenu par l’Analyse de correspondance multiple (ACM). De même cet effet est constaté pas seulement dans les accords qui comportent des clauses classiquement négociées sur le cadre de l’OMC, mais aussi dans les accords qui dépassent cette dimension. Le troisième chapitre se consacre à étudier l’existence des potentiels de commerce entre la Colombie et l’Union Européenne. Des prédictions dans l’échantillon après des estimations avec PPML et effets fixes qui varient dans le temps nous indiquent que des potentiels de commerce existent avec l’Autriche, la République Tchèque, la Finlande, la France, l’Allemagne, la Hongrie, la Suède et la Pologne. Dans le sens inverse la Suède, l’Irlande, la Finlande et Pologne détiennent une marge importante à gagner dans le marché colombien. Des tests de sensibilité ont été effectués pour garantir la robustesse de ces résultats. / Regional trade agreements (RTAs) have surged in a context of stalled multilateral trade negotiations. This doctoral thesis intends to advance scientific knowledge in the field. Thus, thanks to a gravity model theoretical framework, three chapters of applied empirical econometrics analysis have been completed. The first chapter examines the effects of RTAs, the Generalized System of Preference (GSP) and World Trade Organization memberships on bilateral trade flows. I put into practice different econometric specifications and estimation methods, notably Poisson Pseudo Maximum Likelihood (PPML), which is the one that better seems to contend with well-known biases and endogeneity problems. I conduct this research with an international trade gravity model estimated across 153 countries from the year 1980 to 2012.I consistently found a strong positive impact of regional trade agreement RTAs on most specifications and low or non-significant results for WTO membership. The estimates from the PPML method that includes controls for unobserved heterogeneity show non-significant effects of the Generalized System of Preference (GSP) on trade.The second chapter, co-authored with my supervisor Jean-Marc Siroën, explores the effect of heterogeneity of RTAs in the scope of deep integration. We intend to determine if deeper RTAs promote trade more effectively than less ambitious agreements. We make use of two recently available data sets from the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the World Trade Institute (WTI-DESTA) to generate credible indicators of deep integration. Additive and Multiple Correspondence Analysis derived indicators for the depth of the agreements are then computed and their significance is tested in a gravity model. We find that deeper agreements increase trade more than shallow ones, whereas the provisions they included are within or outside of the WTO domain.The third chapter investigates the existence of trade potentials between Colombia and the EU. I obtain in-sample predictions after the estimation of a gravity model with the Poisson Pseudo Maximum Likelihood estimator. I control for unobserved omitted variable bias by the inclusion of exporter and importer time varying fixed effects, and run a series of sensitivity analysis.Untapped trade potentials are found between Colombia and a group of EU countries in both directions of the trade flows. Exports from Colombia have a gap to bridge with Austria, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Poland and Sweden. In the other direction, Sweden, Ireland, Finland and Poland have an interesting margin to gain in the Colombian market.

The theory of optimum currency areas states that the more two countries trade with each other, the better candidates they are for a currency union. In terms of the endogeneity argument, convergence follows from joining a currency union and the integration process itself turns the countries into optimal currency areas. The potential increase in trade is regarded as one of the most important benefits of a currency union. Indirect evidence from studies on the effect of exchange rate volatility on trade does not support this claim. Rose argues that the common currency effect on trade is separate from the effect of the elimination of exchange rate variability and finds a large positive effect of a currency union on trade. Although his methodology has met with criticism, most studies find a positive estimate. A meta-analysis of the studies confirms that a common currency has a statistically and economically significant trade-creating effect. / Economics / M.Com. (Economics)