The purpose of this thesis is to show the existing quantitative tool (model) measuring the true grant-value of foreign aid, expand that model somewhat to arrive at least at reasonably accurate input factors which are otherwise difficult to evaluate, and to document China's foreign aid program on a recipient by recipient basis, both in terms of its nature and its estimated grant-components.

Since 1925 Mormon missionaries have proselyted in Catholic Argentina. Yet the Argentine mission has grown very slowly and encountered many difficulties. Did the missionaries' North American image affect the missionary work? Did the predominance of the Catholic Church stunt the growth of the new sect? How did the impact of bitter U.S.-Argentine international relations during the Second World War, and the advent of Peron affect the reception of Mormonism in Argentina? These questions concerning the history of the Mormon Church in Argentina since 1940 can best be understood by considering the episodes of Argentine history which bear directly on the history of the Church in that country. Hence, this thesis will offer a broader interpretation of the official history of the Argentine mission than that written by the mission secretaries and historians. Moreover, it will concentrate on the years between 1940 and 1968, which seems the most significant era since it embraces the Church's confrontation with the Second World War, Peron, and increasing membership.

In the empirical literature on the revenue consequences of trade liberalization, most studies have focused on cross-country analysis. Because these studies are static in nature, they have not addressed the short-run and long-run dynamic public revenue and public investment consequences of economic reforms in developing countries. This dissertation contributes to the literature employing a dynamic time series analysis of the three East African countries-Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda. The dissertation uses a co-integration and error-correction framework to distinguish between short-run and long-run relationships. The results indicate that trade reforms in Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda had varying impacts on government revenue, tax performance and public investment spending in these three countries. It is demonstrated that trade reforms had adverse impact on government revenue in Uganda, but not in Tanzania and Kenya. The results also show that Tanzania has had the weakest overall tax revenue and public investment. Poor tax performance and erratic revenue generation have been problems in all three countries, contributing to adverse impacts on public investment spending.

The emergence of digital currency is becoming prevalent in the age of globalization – specifically, cryptocurrencies. Cryptocurrencies and blockchain are two recently discovered concepts currently being explored by researchers and developers. Cryptocurrency is a subset of digital currency that encompasses revolutionary technology, shifting political and economic spheres in nation-states. Certain governments are more prone to the adoption of cryptocurrencies and three comparative case study countries, Iran, Russia, and Venezuela, have shared attributes that result in adoption. Observed factors that result in the adoption of cryptocurrencies include corruption, GDP level, economic volatility, and Western sanctions. These factors will be applied in the case study countries to analyze the adoption of native government-backed cryptocurrency.

While Chinese economic development is often at the forefront of conversations by scholars shaping economic policy, further investigation into the state of China's economy has left a gap in research. Through analyzing the 13th Five Year Plan (FYP) and looking specifically at the effect it will have on unemployment, international trade, overcapacity rates, and the Belt and Road Initiative, the goal of this research is to understand if China will be able to obtain sustained economic growth. In order to achieve this, this research employs a qualitative discourse analysis, focusing on pre-existing works that discuss Chinese economic development. It will also conduct a case analysis of Chinese policies that target overcapacity, unemployment, and international trade. In utilizing a secondary data analysis methodology, this research will analyze the relevant policies presented in the 13th FYP and determine if it will solve the problems currently facing the Chinese economy. Ultimately, this research concludes China may be heading towards an economic recession should the government choose to have an overreliance on the Belt and Road Initiative and not heed the warning signs present within its economy.

No description available.

<p>In this dissertation I present three chapters all related by their focus on issues of money and finance and the methodological treatment, the New Monetarist methodology, each considering different aspects of the international monetary-financial system. Williamson and Wright (2010) describe the New Monetarist methodology in detail, including enumerating several key principles, which put emphasis on microfoundations, especially of the frictions in the exchange process and financial intermediation arising from the environment, which are essential to analyses of macro and monetary economics. </p> <p><br></p> <p>The first chapter is entitled ``Optimal Monetary Policy and the Welfare Cost of Inflation of a Currency Union.'' It seeks to answer the question: How do retail trade frictions interact with immigration choices, and how does this interaction affect monetary policy in a currency union? This chapter studies the welfare cost of inflation and optimal monetary policy of a currency union between two countries using a search-theoretic framework with endogenous composition of buyers and sellers. The model includes three features of a currency union that are key to welfare and policy analysis: heterogeneous market structure, imperfect market integration, and immigration policy. The model yields optimal monetary policy that deviates from the Friedman rule, with the magnitude of inflation rate and welfare cost determined by different policy regimes. The Friedman rule is suboptimal, because a matching congestion externality in the labor market arises from the endogenous composition of buyers and sellers. Higher labor mobility reduces the cost of inflation by alleviating congestion, regardless of buyers' bargaining power. Market integration may also reduce congestion, lowering the cost of inflation, but only when sellers are relatively scarce.</p> <p><br></p> <p>The second chapter is entitled ``Liquidity, Collective Moral Hazard, and Government Bailouts''. It tries to answer the question: How does financial intermediaries risk taking respond to monetary/fiscal policy including bailout policy?</p> <p>This chapter develops a general equilibrium model of assets market integrating a theory of liquidity risk in a New Monetarist framework. Collective moral hazard arises from the interaction between banks' maturity transformation and government intervention. With the anticipation and implementation of government bailouts during a crisis, collective moral hazard creates current and deferred social costs. However,  under the ``correct" monetary policy, the costs are justified by the improvement of liquidity condition as a result of higher provision of public and private liquidity.</p> <p><br></p> <p>The third chapter is entitled  ``On Cross-Border Payments and the Industrial Organization of Correspondent Banking.''  It tries to answer the question: How does an understanding of the market structure of international banking affect recent suggestions for the improvement of cross-border payments?</p> <p>Despite advances in domestic payments arrangements in recent times, cross-border payments remain expensive and slow. This paper builds a model of bank-intermediated cross-border payments, identifying market power inherent to correspondent banking relationships as the key friction reducing efficiency. After developing a simple model of correspondent banking, we consider two policy experiments: the introduction by one country of an internationally held central bank digital currency (CBDC), and development of an internationally interoperable settlement system. Both policies can at least attenuate the inefficiencies in cross-border payments, but neither is automatically a complete solution nor are they without difficulties. For an international CBDC, we identify a political economy barrier: banks of the country potentially introducing the CBDC disproportionately suffer losses while benefits tend to accrue to foreign depositors, so a central bank concerned with its domestic banks' profitability may be unlikely to take such an action. Interoperability does not face the same barrier, as benefits accrue more symmetrically, but we argue that technical and other issues inherent to interoperability may be difficult to overcome.</p> <p><br></p>

This study uses a random coefficient estimation procedure to test the hypothesis that much of the volatility in the U.S./Canada real exchange rate over the time period 1971 through 1999 is due to the relative price of non-traded goods to traded goods. The model specification used in this study provides estimates of the sensitivity of movements in the U.S./Canada real exchange rate to movements in both the relative price of traded goods and the relative price of non-traded goods to traded goods in each of the two countries. I test for purchasing power parity in each of the two components of the model and address the question of volatility through the examination of the time profile of the respective coefficient estimates. The empirical results support the conclusion that the average value of the coefficient on the relative price of non-traded goods to traded goods component is smaller than that on the relative price of traded goods component. However, purchasing power parity in both components can not be rejected when the period of study is limited to 1971 through 1994. Furthermore, examination of the time profile of the random coefficients on the relative price of non-traded goods to traded goods component suggests that it is much more volatile and, therefore, quite significant in capturing the volatility in U.S./Canada real exchange rate movements. With regard to purchasing power parity in both the traded goods component and the non-traded goods to traded goods component, these results are consistent with the implications of the theory of purchasing power parity. However, they are not entirely consistent with the evidence presented in recent literature. Specifically, evidence presented in recent studies can not support perfect purchasing power parity in either traded goods or non-traded goods and leads to the conclusion that non-traded goods are much less significant, if at all, in the determination of the U.S./Canada real exchange rate. This inconsistency with recent literature is most likely a result of the fact that the random coefficient modeling technique used in this study allows the coefficients to vary over time and, thereby, enables the volatility of both components to be captured in the model. Therefore, given the apparent significance of the relative price of non-traded goods to traded goods, the volatility of this component can logically be expected to significantly contribute to the volatility in the U.S./Canada real exchange rate. / Master of Arts

The assertion that financial flows are the primary drivers of exchange rates may be considered as financial markets become increasingly large and sophisticated. However, the Post-Keynesian critique leaves little room for the real economy to impact exchange rates. This paper aims to extend the Mundell-Fleming model to address the Post-Keynesian critique of mainstream models, by incorporating wealth effects, expectations, and Taylor-rule interest targeting. Discussion of significant financial events affecting the USDJPY exchange rate finds that wealth effects are significant considerations, and that the real economy cannot be discounted completely. Empirical results find that the real interest rate is a significant factor in exchange rate determination, tying into the discussion over the relationship between savings and consumption.

This dissertation consists of three essays on capital controls and exchange rate regimes. The first essay, under the background of international monetary policy trilemma, empirically investigates the validity of the proposition that holding the degree of exchange rate stability constant, a decrease in capital mobility through imposition of capital controls will enhance monetary independence. Using a panel dataset covering 88 countries for the 1995-2010 period and system GMM estimation, this paper finds that 1) capital controls help improve a country’s monetary independence; 2) the effectiveness of capital controls depends on the types of assets and the direction of flows they are imposed; 3) the choice of exchange rate regime has important impact on the effectiveness of capital controls on monetary independence. The second essay examines the role of capital controls on economic growth. Conventional wisdom suggests that allowing international capital flows improves domestic investment and growth by providing extra resources through international capital market, yet the flows can be misallocated to finance speculative or low-quality domestic investments. Using a panel dataset covering 78 countries over 1995-2009, this paper finds that 1) capital control policies promote economic growth after taking into account a country’s de facto level of capital flows; 2) controls on capital inflows helps a country’s economic growth, but not controls on outflows; 3) restrictions on different asset types affect growth differently. Capital controls on equity type flows are less effective than controls on debt type flows or direct investment. The third examines the role of exchange rate flexibility on current account balances. Global imbalances have become an important issue for economists and policy makers. Greater exchange rate flexibility is often suggested as a means to achieve faster and more efficient adjustment in the current account. However, previous empirical studies show little support for this hypothesis. This essay revisits this issue with a large panel dataset and Threshold VAR model and finds that 1) the speed of the current account adjustment is higher in a regime with greater exchange rate variability; 2) some existing popular exchange rate classifications may not capture actual exchange rate variability as well as expected.