Ce mémoire s’intéresse à l’endettement des gouvernements et aux facteurs historiques qui en sont les causes. L’analyse utilise des données historiques des cinquante États américains afin d’explorer l’influence de différents facteurs d’ordre économique, politique et institutionnel sur l’accumulation de la dette publique. Alors que la littérature met de l’avant l’impact des facteurs économiques, politiques et institutionnels dans la détermination de l’endettement public, la contrainte budgétaire du gouvernement fait ressortir la relation entre le stock de dette publique courant et les déficits passés. Cette relation est au cœur de la question de recherche abordée par le mémoire : quel est le rôle des facteurs économiques, politiques et institutionnels historiques dans l’accumulation de dette publique? Comment estimer leur poids respectif? Afin de répondre à ces questions, l’analyse empirique intègre des variables explicatives économiques, politiques et institutionnelles ayant une composante historique. De plus, elle accorde une attention particulière aux facteurs institutionnels en utilisant différentes sources de données et des caractérisations plus ou moins détaillées pour modéliser les règles budgétaires et les limites d’endettement. Par ailleurs, la méthodologie empirique tient compte de la question de l’endogénéité potentielle des institutions fiscales. Les résultats de l’analyse économétrique confirment l’importance des facteurs économiques. Dans le cas des variables politiques, ils infirment la théorie selon laquelle les gouvernements divisés s’endettent davantage, mais confirment que l’appartenance politique des gouverneurs a un effet certain sur le poids de la dette publique. Ils indiquent également que l’indice historique d’alternance des partis politiques est important, l’alternance plus fréquente étant associée à une légère diminution de l’endettement. L’instabilité politique n’alimenterait donc pas nécessairement l’endettement public, ce qui suggère qu’il est possible qu’une plus forte compétition électorale puisse avoir un effet positif sur la rigueur budgétaire dans un système à deux partis politiques. De façon générale, les effets estimés des variables institutionnelles impliquent qu’elles ne sont que peu efficaces à limiter l’endettement des États.

This paper looks at macro level data to measure the influence religion has played on female labor force participation (FLFP) rates between 1980 and 2005. It also attempts to find if this influence has changed over time. It then focuses specifically on African and post-communist nations as that is where some of the major religious changes have taken place in the last few decades. There is no clear pattern of an increasing or decreasing influence of religion on FLFP rates. Rather, different religions in different parts of the world affect FLFP in different ways. Finally, this paper looks specifically at Islamic and Catholic nations to see what variables have an effect on rising FLFP rates in those countries.

One of the very interesting demographic features in the US over the last three decades of the 20th century is the increase of the married women labor force participation rate. Over the same period, estimated labor supply elasticity varies substantially. This dissertation is to investigate the reasons behind them. I first study the determinants of the increase of the labor participation rate for married women with preschool-aged children over the last three decades of the 20th century. Using 5% samples of the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) for 1980, 1990 and 2000, I find that the existing explanations proposed in the literature may only account for 9.6% increase in the 1980s and 70% decrease in the 1990s. In this paper, I find that the rising ratio of career type women can explain 30.33% of the growth in the labor force participation rate, and the change in the composition of career motivating career type women can at least explain 17.22% growth across cohorts. Women who have been working three years before their first childbearing are more likely to return to work after the childbearing period. The analyzing data is the National Longitudinal Survey of Young Women (NLSYW) from 1968 to 2003 and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79) from 1979 to 2008. This dissertation sheds some insight about a puzzle on estimated married women's labor supply elasticity variation. This important puzzle (sometimes referred to as the Hausman puzzle) is that the estimated labor supply elasticity varies substantially even when similar frameworks and similar datasets are used. I study the role of budget sets in producing this wide range of estimates. In particular, I study the effect of the typical convexification approximation of the non-convex budgets, and the well-known Heckman critique of the lack of bunching at the kink points of budget sets in the Hausman model. I introduce measurement error in nonlabor income to create an uncertain budget constraint that no longer implies bunching at kink points. Using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) of 1984 and 2001, I find that neither the convexification approximation nor using a model with random budget sets affects the estimates. These results demonstrate that variations in budget constraints alone do not explain the different estimates of labor supply elasticity. Changing the level of budget sets, for example by ignoring the state individual income tax, could affect the variation in elasticities.

This diploma thesis deals with alternative estimation possibilities of the gravity model in trade. We provide the reader with a synthetic methodological overview of the technical problems with the estimation of gravity equations. Consequently, we test for the heterogeneity of data sets used in gravity models of trade which leads us to a conclusion that behavioural patterns of exporters and importers built in the datasets are very complicated and a single generalized specification of gravity equation can lead to bias in estimates and/or to similarly generalized conclusions that hide important robust idiosyncrasies in behavior present in some subsamples of economic agents. Both the theory of estimation techniques and dataset heterogeneity are applied in the empirical part estimating Austria's export function.

Closed-end funds’ (CEF) discount and discount fluctuations have been puzzling researchers for decades. Up to date, there are no multidimensional or cross-sectional variables that have been proved to influence CEFs simultaneously. Fact is that, earlier research and theories on the subject are contradictious and several suggestions on the origin of the CEF’s discount and its fluctuations have been proposed. To mention a few, investor sentiments, taxation issues, dividend policies, agency costs and agency problems are considered to influence these discounts. The purpose of this report is to examine the relationship between micro- and macroeconomic variables fluctuations, and how these can explain the discount fluctuation of the Swedish CEFs. This report focuses upon the CEFs traded at NASDAQ OMX Stockholm, which have been selected through a comprehensive multistage selection process. 10 CEFs were selected. Monthly data for calculating micro- and macroeconomic variables was collected for the period March 2003 – February 2013, which resulted in approximately 1 200 observations. OLS regression analysis, Fixed- and Random Effect Models and Hausman tests were conducted. The findings conclude that some of this report’s chosen micro- and macro variables influence on the Swedish CEFs’ discount fluctuation, although these findings are conditioned. The CEFs’ individual characteristics or traits result in a significant impact on the fluctuation of CEFs’ discount. Hence, only by controlling these characteristics, multidimensional or cross-sectional micro- and macroeconomic variables can be proved to affect the CEFs’ discount fluctuation.

Thesis (M. Com. (Economics)) -- University of Limpopo, 2021 / The main aim of the study is to analyze determinants of sovereign credit ratings (SCRs) for Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries, namely Angola, Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa and Zambia. The analysis is based on the SCRs given by Standard and Poor’s (S&P). The selected explanatory variables are gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, inflation, external debt, foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows and control of corruption for the period 1990-2016, based on annual data. The panel root test results, namely IPS, LLC, ADF Fisher and PP Fisher, show that GDP per capita, external debt and FDI are stationary at 5% level of significance. The Hausman test results indicates that the identified explanatory variable explains 80% of SCRs. The model observed a positive relationship between SCR, inflation and control of corruption. It also observed a negative correlation between SCR, GDP per capita, external debt and FDI. The Pedroni residual cointegration test results indicate that there is no long-run relationship among variables and no autocorrelation as shown by serial correlation LM test results. The study recommends that the selected member states of SADC develop strategic plans for reducing budget deficits. This will help countries to manage their debts, especially foreign currency denoted debt and to attract foreign investment. Keywords: Sovereign credit ratings, fixed effects model, random effects, Hausman test.

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