The aim of this thesis is to analyse and clarify contemporary stage of the process of integration and liberalisation on the European railway market mentioning the situation in chosen member states of the European union. It also focuses on finding the answer to the question, what are the necessary steps to achieve maximum effectivity in the european railway services. This topic analyses both the European union and the states.

In my diploma thesis I engage in liberalisation process of rail transport, its effect of increasing the quality level of transport and I examine the legislative framework relating to rail transport which is related to European Union or to domestic market in the Czech Republic. I further examine the impact of liberalisation has had in Great Britain and Germany. In the practical part of this diploma thesis I deal with the analysis of private rail operators who are licenced to operate passenger rail transport. Primarily trying to determine the operators who express interest in operating scheduled passenger rail and thus making efforts to break the current strong dominant position of Czech Railways.

The aim of this diploma thesis is a summary of current knowledge and experience and analysis of the development of liberalization of the rail passenger transport in the Czech Republic and a detailed description of the current situation and comparison with the transport session Prague - Ostrava, where 3 railway carriers are competing for the favour of passengers. In the first part of the thesis is described historical development of the railways in the world and in the Czech Republic. The following section discusses the legislation relating to rail transport and its liberalization, both from the perspective European as well as from the Czech. The widest third part shows efforts, which have already taken place for tenders for the operation of railway transport and the steps that led to this state. The final part deals with the situation of the rail transport in the transport session Prague - Ostrava, where, as a single line in the Czech Republic, competition among rail carriers was launched.

Magister Economicae - MEcon / This paper explores the feasibility and desirability of the South African Government imposing a policy of prescribed asset requirements on contractual savings. This would serve as a short-term measure to secure finance for investment in high priority development projects. Such a policy would encourage contractual savings institutions to become active participants in the process of development by requiring them to diversify their assets to include claims on either the government or other identified institutions engaged in the above projects. The first section of this mini-thesis discusses some features of the South African economy focussing broadly on recent political changes and economic challenges facing the country. The second section of the paper reviews current literature on issues related to the thesis, exploring topics in public finance and financial liberalisation. The third section analyses the nature of tax concessions on contractual savings, the effects of tax distortions on the savings behaviour of individuals and problems that have arisen because of tax concessions. The fourth section uses a microeconomic approach to illustrate the bias that individuals have toward contractual savings. The fifth section develops analytical models, which illustrates how prescribed asset requirements could constitute a second best solution. Section six explores possible solutions based on the modelling exercises. Finally, section seven highlights some of the main conclusions reached.

京都大学 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(エネルギー科学) / 甲第23294号 / エネ博第419号 / 新制||エネ||79(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院エネルギー科学研究科エネルギー社会・環境科学専攻 / (主査)教授 手塚 哲央, 教授 宇根﨑 博信, 准教授 MCLELLAN Benjamin / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Energy Science / Kyoto University / DFAM

The subject of the diploma´s thesis is the comparison of the particular private rail transport policies in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. There are specific, both economic and non-economic impacts of a free fare in Slovakia and slightly different policy of fare discounts in the Czech Republic, identified and consequently analyzed in the thesis. Comparative analysis between both policies is conducted right after. All the impacts are measured and evaluated in the context of particular government budgets, both national and private railway transporters and different segments of users, who are mostly affected by the movement. The analysis of these extraordinary government policies is conducted based on selected publicly available indicators and data from several different sources (official statistics, agreements, annual reports, tariffs comparison, financial statements, granted subsidies etc.).

The recent LIBOR rate scandal in which Barclays received a sizeable fine for their role in the exploitation of the Interbank rate has had a negative reputational impact on Absa, as Barclays’ owns more than 50.1 per cent of Absa’s shares. This raises the question as to what the impact is of foreign bank ownership on a developing country.The purpose of this research is to ascertain whether a developing country can attain economic growth benefits in the form of increased levels of competition and efficiency in its banking sector, by implementing the foreign bank entry or more specifically the foreign bank ownership of local banks, economic liberalisation reform.Using econometric analysis the study calculated the levels of competition and efficiency from the annual firm-level financial statements for the period 1999 to 2010. This was done in two phases, where Phase One was from 1999 to 2004 and Phase Two was from 2005 to 2010 representing the periods pre- and post the Barclays’ acquisition of Absa.The findings of the two phases were then compared and indicated that there was no significant change in the level of competition or in the level of efficiency in the South African banking sector.The findings of the two phases were then compared and indicated that there was no significant change in the level of competition or in the level of efficiency in the South African banking sector. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

The role of trade flows in the modern economy has been brought to a focal point by the increased trade frictions, geopolitical tensions, countries exiting unions, pressures of global financial crises and the recent covid-19 pandemic. We, therefore, set out to examine the relationship between trade openness and economic growth among 31 advanced OECD countries between the period 2000 - 2018. Using a panel data analysis and utilizing a linear regression model with fixed effects, our findings show that trade openness has a positive and significant impact on economic growth. Our policy recommendation is that given a chosen level of economic integration, increasing investments can better leverage trade openness as a tool to enhance growth.

yes / The ideology of the liberal peace has propelled the political economies of war-torn societies into a scheme of global convergence towards ¿market liberalisation¿. This orthodoxy was an uncontestable assumption underlying external economic assistance. However, the project faltered under its inherent contradictions and because it ignored the socio-economic problems confronting war-torn societies, even aggravating them by increasing the vulnerability of populations to poverty and shadow economic activity. Although revisionists have embarked on a mission to boost the UN¿s peacebuilding capacity and also rescue the Millennium Development Goals, the basic assumptions of the liberal peace are not challenged and potential alternatives are overlooked.

No / This paper brings new evidence on the impact of services liberalization on the performance of manufacturing firms. Using a unique database of Ukrainian firms in 2001-2007, the authors utilize an external push for liberalization in the services sector as a source of exogenous variation to identify the impact of services liberalization on total factor productivity (TFP) of manufacturing firms. The results indicate that a standard deviation increase in services liberalization is associated with a 9 percent increase in TFP. Allowing services liberalization to dynamically influence TFP through the investment channel leads to an even larger effect. The effect is robust to different estimation methods and to different sub-samples of the data. In particular, it is more pronounced for domestic and small firms.