Since the late 1980s, efforts made by the international community to deal with the complex and global problem of money laundering have stimulated the creation and definition of the so-called 'international crime of money laundering', which is included in various United Nations and Council of Europe international treaties, as well as European Union Directives. The Central purpose of this thesis is to investigate if the main goal of effectiveness in the adaptation of the international crime of money laundering at the domestic level, might undermine other values that international law is seeking to protect, namely the guarantee of due process and the adequate protection of human rights principles. Then, if the adoption of any element of the crime shows to be inconsistent with civil rights and guarantees, to propose how deficiencies could be remedied.

This paper attempts to provide a cost-benefit analysis of the economic and social effects of hosting the Olympic Games. I provide an overview of the economic and social impacts of the Games and analyze their effects. I focus the economic effects of the Games on tourism, trade, corporate sponsorship and the sale of television rights. I also look at the social effects of the Games on infrastructure and employment. Finally I assess why the Olympics remain an appealing venture for cities, despite evidence that demonstrates how they produce more actual harm than good for the host city. In addition, I provide predictions for two alternative directions that the Olympics could take in the future: to either continue in the current trend of immense growth and commercialization, or alternatively, implement a new Olympic bidding process that establishes stricter criteria for candidate cities.

This thesis enters the context of smallholder agriculture communities in the developing world. It explores the potentials of biochar and what biochar systems could bring to the smallholder communities while simultaneously bringing environmental benefits. It then acknowledges the challenges of diffusion –the spreading of an unfamiliar innovation. It seeks to answer the question of what will make diffusion of biochar systems more successful in the smallholder context, fixating on the characteristic of compatibility as well as the role local community members can play in making a new biochar system more visible to the rest of the communities.

The intent of the thesis is to ascertain whether mitigation of political risk to the IT industry in Panama can be of value to the country by improving the economy and standard of living.

This thesis consists in a collection of research works dealing with various aspects of International Economics. More precisely, we focus on three main themes: (i) the existence of a world business cycle and the implications thereof, (ii) the likelihood of asymmetric shocks in the Euro Zone resulting from fluctuations in the euro exchange rate because of differences in sector specialization patterns and some consequences of such shocks, and (iii) the relationship between trade openness and growth influence of the sector specialization structure on that relationship.<p><p>Regarding the approach pursued to tackle these problems, we have chosen to strictly remain within the boundaries of empirical (macro)economics - that is, applied econometrics. Though we systematically provide theoretical models to back up our empirical approach, our only real concern is to look at the stories the data can (or cannot) tell us. As to the econometric methodology, we will restrict ourselves to the use of panel data analysis. The large spectrum of techniques available within the panel framework allows us to utilize, for each of the problems at hand, the most suitable approach (or what we think it is). / Doctorat en sciences économiques, Orientation économie / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

This thesis examines the measurement, applications and properties of consumer inflation expectations in the context of eight European Union countries: France, Germany, the UK, Spain, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Sweden. The data proceed mainly from the European Commission's Consumer Survey and are qualitative in nature, therefore requiring quantification prior to use. This study first seeks to determine the optimal quantification methodology among a set of approaches spanning three traditions, associated with Carlson-Parkin (1975), Pesaran (1984) and Seitz (1988). The success of a quantification methodology is assessed on the basis of its ability to match quantitative expectations data and on its behaviour in an important economic application, namely the modelling of wages for our sample countries. The wage equation developed here draws on the theoretical background of the staggered contracts and the wage bargaining literature, and controls carefully for inflation expectations and institutional variables. The Carlson-Parkin variation proposed in Curto Millet (2004) was found to be the most satisfactory. This being established, the wage equations are used to test the hypothesis that the advent of EMU generated an increase in labour market flexibility, which would be reflected in structural breaks. The hypothesis is essentially rejected. Finally, the properties of inflation expectations and perceptions themselves are examined, especially in the context of EMU. Both the rational expectations and rational perceptions hypotheses are rejected. Popular expectations mechanisms, such as the "rule-of-thumb" model or Akerlof et al.'s (2000) "near-rationality hypothesis" are similarly unsupported. On the other hand, evidence is found for the transmission of expert forecasts to consumer expectations in the case of the UK, as in Carroll's (2003) model. The distribution of consumer expectations and perceptions is also considered, showing a tendency for gradual (as in Mankiw and Reis, 2002) but non-rational adjustment. Expectations formation is further shown to have important qualitative features.