The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of the Business Opportunity Projects (BOPs) that the Swedish Trade Council uses when promoting export for small enterprises. The Business Opportunity Projects have the same type of setup for all offices where the Swedish Trade Council is established and are subsidized by 60 percent from the government. A dataset on firms’ financial state on a ten year basis is used and survey interviews conducted in 2005/06 and 2007/08. From this data three types of methods are used; a calculations on expected values of return; a panel data model and a probit model.The results show that the expected return of one project is around 250 000 SEK and if the project is successful the average return is around 1 000 000 SEK. The governmental return is around 22 times the invested money. The probability of creating business volume directly or indirectly is around 45 percent. It is also shown that the projects have an impact on the export turnover of the participating firms. The effect comes after two years and it increases until four years after the BOP. The interpretation of the exact effect should be made with caution due to estimation issues. The result also indicates that the BOP generates around 1.5 employees on averages.The results show that the participating firms do not have advantage being larger, or being from the middle region of Sweden nor in a specific branch in order to have a successful project. Firms from north part of Sweden that have a slightly smaller chance of having a successful project, if the project is made in Western European offices, the firms have a higher probability to succeed compared to other offices.

One of the most important objectives for any countries is to sustain high economic growth. Even though there are main factors that affect economic growth, the concern of this paper is only about inflation. The relationship between economic growth and inflation is debatable. The first objective of this study is to investigate the relationship between inflation and economic growth. This study uses panel data which includes 13 SSA countries from 1969 to 2009. To analyze the data the model is formed by taking economic growth as dependent variable and four variables (i.e. inflation, investment, population and initial GDP) as independent variables. The result indicates that there is a negative relationship between economic growth and inflation. This study is also examined the causality relationship between economic growth and inflation by using panel Granger causality test. Panel granger causality test shows that inflation can be used in order to predict growth for all countries in the sample, while the opposite it is only true for Congo, Dep. Rep and Zimbabwe.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the changes in trade values are affected by the implementation of the euro currency. We study the EU members, including 11 EMU members and 3 non-EMU members (Sweden, Denmark and the United Kingdom). The empirical analysis is conducted by using a modified version of the standard gravity model. Our core findings can be summarized into two parts. First, the euro effect on trade which is estimated by the euro-dummy coefficient reflects an adverse influence by the euro creation on trade values for the first two years of the implementation on all our sample countries. It leads us to a conclusion that there is no significant improvement of trade in the year of implementation. These results do not change when a time trend variable is added to evaluate the robustness of the model. Our primary interpretation is that the euro creation does not have an immediate impact on trade but it is rather gradual as countries need time to adapt to a new currency. It is connected to our second finding that the negative influence of the euro implementation is not permanent but eventually initiates positive outcomes on trade values over time, thus concluding that the euro implementation has had gradual impact on both EMU and non-EMU members.

Employee turnover is a fairly common phenomenon across organizations throughout the globe, which creates both direct and indirect costs to companies (Lambert et al., 2012). Though numerous authors have investigated the problem, only a small number have studied the Canadian labour market. Furthermore, few have examined how various hiring or screening tests during the hiring process affect worker attrition. The thesis aims to complement existing research about employee voluntary turnover (vs. involuntary turnover) and retention by further investigating some of the root causes and potential solutions from a Canadian perspective. Using longitudinal data from the Workplace and Employee Survey (WES) supplied by Statistics Canada through an 8-year period, it explores 5 hypotheses relating to the initial hiring process (ten screening tests), the gender and marital status of employees, compensation, and employees’ seniority in the company. The survey datasets are based on respondents of, on average, 6,268 companies and 20,387 corresponding workers from 1999 to 2006. Logit and probit regression models are employed for the empirical tests. The results are surprising, and seem to differ from most studies in other countries. In Canada, it appears wage has no effect on workers’ turnover at all, employee engagement programs negatively affect workers’ decisions to stay, women are more likely to quit than men are, married employees are no more likely to quit than anyone else, children seem to have no impact on employee attrition, and workers with lower status in the company are more likely to stay. The concluding chapter discusses implications of these findings and how they might help Canadian organizations deal with employee voluntary turnover.

<p>This dissertation consists of three chapters relating to</p> <p>identification and inference in dynamic microeconometric models</p> <p>including dynamic discrete games with many players, dynamic games with</p> <p>discrete and continuous choices, and semiparametric binary choice and</p> <p>duration panel data models.</p> <p>The first chapter provides a framework for estimating large-scale</p> <p>dynamic discrete choice models (both single- and multi-agent models)</p> <p>in continuous time. The advantage of working in continuous time is</p> <p>that state changes occur sequentially, rather than simultaneously,</p> <p>avoiding a substantial curse of dimensionality that arises in</p> <p>multi-agent settings. Eliminating this computational bottleneck is</p> <p>the key to providing a seamless link between estimating the model and</p> <p>performing post-estimation counterfactuals. While recently developed</p> <p>two-step estimation techniques have made it possible to estimate</p> <p>large-scale problems, solving for equilibria remains computationally</p> <p>challenging. In many cases, the models that applied researchers</p> <p>estimate do not match the models that are then used to perform</p> <p>counterfactuals. By modeling decisions in continuous time, we are able</p> <p>to take advantage of the recent advances in estimation while</p> <p>preserving a tight link between estimation and policy experiments. We</p> <p>also consider estimation in situations with imperfectly sampled data,</p> <p>such as when we do not observe the decision not to move, or when data</p> <p>is aggregated over time, such as when only discrete-time data are</p> <p>available at regularly spaced intervals. We illustrate the power of</p> <p>our framework using several large-scale Monte Carlo experiments.</p> <p>The second chapter considers semiparametric panel data binary choice</p> <p>and duration models with fixed effects. Such models are point</p> <p>identified when at least one regressor has full support on the real</p> <p>line. It is common in practice, however, to have only discrete or</p> <p>continuous, but possibly bounded, regressors. We focus on</p> <p>identification, estimation, and inference for the identified set in</p> <p>such cases, when the parameters of interest may only be partially</p> <p>identified. We develop a set of general results for</p> <p>criterion-function-based estimation and inference in partially</p> <p>identified models which can be applied to both regular and irregular</p> <p>models. We apply our general results first to a fixed effects binary</p> <p>choice panel data model where we obtain a sharp characterization of</p> <p>the identified set and propose a consistent set estimator,</p> <p>establishing its rate of convergence under different conditions.</p> <p>Rates arbitrarily close to <italic>n<super>-1/3</super></italic> are</p> <p>possible when a continuous, but possibly bounded, regressor is</p> <p>present. When all regressors are discrete the estimates converge</p> <p>arbitrarily fast to the identified set. We also propose a</p> <p>subsampling-based procedure for constructing confidence regions in the</p> <p>models we consider. Finally, we carry out a series of Monte Carlo</p> <p>experiments to illustrate and evaluate the proposed procedures. We</p> <p>also consider extensions to other fixed effects panel data models such</p> <p>as binary choice models with lagged dependent variables and duration</p> <p>models.</p> <p>The third chapter considers nonparametric identification of dynamic</p> <p>games of incomplete information in which players make both discrete</p> <p>and continuous choices. Such models are commonly used in applied work</p> <p>in industrial organization where, for example, firms make discrete</p> <p>entry and exit decisions followed by continuous investment decisions.</p> <p>We first review existing identification results for single agent</p> <p>dynamic discrete choice models before turning to single-agent models</p> <p>with an additional continuous choice variable and finally to</p> <p>multi-agent models with both discrete and continuous choices. We</p> <p>provide conditions for nonparametric identification of the utility</p> <p>function in both cases.</p> / Dissertation

In economy, banking sector has been considered as the main issue for development. Using panel data analyzing to test the relationship between banks performance and economic freedom indexes for 9 emerging market countries in Asia, the paper¡¦s result shows that there is the positive effect between monetary freedom, business freedom, financial freedom and banks performance while investment freedom has a negative impact. It suggests that emerging market countries¡¦ government and the policy maker need to focus deeply on the operation, the efficiency of regulation and improving the economic freedom.

Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) is an important theory of exchange rate determination. The documents probing into the PPP theory are voluminous nowadays; however, there hasn¡¦t been an agreed conclusion yet. In this paper, we apply the Panel Lagrange Multiplier unit root test, a newly developed panel unit root test that allows for heterogeneous breaks, under both the null and the alternative, in both the level and trend of the series under investigation, addressed by Im, Lee and Tieslau (2010). The validity of PPP theory can be examined by testing the stationary of real exchange rates. We use the data chosen from the countries of Asia, including Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Tailand, Indonesia, Hong Kong and Singapore to proceed the positive analysis. The result shows that no matter we use CPI or WPI as the price index, both considering more about the structure breaks and using the panel unit root test strongly support the PPP theory. And it also shows that when using the WPI as the price index, there would be much more countries support the PPP theory.

Recent studies have reported that open-end fund has its performance persistence. However, those studies didn¡¦t mention the factors of performance persistence. Therefore, investors knows the character of the types of fund, but unable to determine which individual fund have the character given the type of fund. The main purpose of this study is to provide investors a new way to select funds. First, investors can select high performance funds in the past period and aim to pick the individual funds which fit the character of high performance persistence. This study is divided into two parts. In first part, the researcher use Spearman's Rank Correlation Coefficient Test to examine the existence of performance persistence. In second part, the study aims to use Panel Data Analysis to examine the impact of 10 factors on the performance persistence in different type of funds, and periods. Samples in the study are chosen from 160 Taiwan open-end equity funds during 2004-2011. The return rate data is rolling data. In order to remove the difference of the risks of the funds, simple return rates were transferred into Jensen¡¦s Alpha. The conclusions are shown as below¡G 1. In short term, Time of Establishment often has a positive effect on fund performance persistence. 2. In short term, Net Asset Value often has a negative effect on fund performance persistence. In long term, net asset value often has a positive effect on fund performance persistence. 3. In short and middle term, Average Investment Amount always has a positive effect on fund performance persistence. 4. Almost in all type of funds and all periods, Stock Holding Rate has a negative effect on fund performance persistence. 5. Almost in all type of funds and all periods, The Score of Monitoring indicator has a negative effect on fund performance persistence.

Business cycle is an important issue for economist. Because the fluctuations of product and employment have deep influences on people¡¦s life and social stability, almost every government tries to reduce the volatility of national business cycles. If we want to make it, we must realize it first. Since countries communicate with each other more frequently in recent decades, the volatility of national product cycles is not only influenced by domestic economic variables but also foreign ones. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effect of transmission mechanism on international business cycles synchronization (BCCs). The major purpose of this paper is to analyze the effect of international vertical specialization on BCCs among industrial countries. There are two kinds of effect. One is indirect effect. Vertical specialization happens between industrial countries and developing countries, so it can reduce bilateral trade intensity among industrial countries. Through this way, BCCs among industrial countries will reduce. The other one is direct effect. Vertical specialization changes the economic structure of industrial countries. Industrial countries can focus on product development and market research. This kind of economic structure is less capital intensive, which lessens the effect of common shocks to industrial country¡¦s business cycles. BCCs among industrial countries will reduce. We measured the effect using the data from G6 (Canada, France, Germany, Japan, UK and US). The result is consistent with our inferance. Vertical specialization can reduce BCCs by reducing bilateral trade intensive among industrial countries. There is a negative relation between Vertical specialization and BCCs among industrial countries.

Fertility levels are investigated in the thesis because significant changes have occurred recently in the fertility levels in Turkey. It is necessary to understand the factors related to fertility level declines to determine how people behave with regard to their fertility in Turkey. It is only after understanding people&rsquo / s behavior then it is possible to develop appropriate social and governmental policies. It is possible to evaluate the fertility level declines from different points of view. There are two opposite approaches when evaluating fertility level declines. One of the approaches explaining fertility level declines is the demographic transition theory which uses &ldquo / modernization&rdquo / as the cause of fertility level declines. The &ldquo / other&rdquo / approach is the opposite approach to the modernization theory. Both of these approaches are acceptable approaches from different views. However / this thesis is not written to prove either one of these approaches. The demographic transition or the modernization perspective is used as a tool to determine the variables which cause fertility levels to decline in Turkey. The aim is to provide an understanding of the determinants of fertility levels in Turkey by constituting an econometric model of fertility across the provinces of Turkey by using the panel data estimation. Data for the variables can be found in years from 1980 to 2000. One of the purposes of this thesis in investigating the fertility level declines is to identify which changes occurred in Turkey related to fertility levels between the years 1980-1985, 1985-1990 and 1990-2000. It is found that urbanization gained importance in effecting fertility level declines in the 1985-1990 period as compared to the 1980-1985 period. The other purpose of this thesis is to investigate how different are the fertility levels in the Provinces Prioritized in Development from the &ldquo / other&rdquo / provinces. Although contraception usage is important in effecting fertility levels in the &ldquo / other&rdquo / provinces, this factor is not important in effecting fertility levels in the Provinces Prioritized in Development.