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This thesis,firstly, studies the impact of financial liberalization and political instability on economic growth and quantitatively examines the relative importance of the identified underling reasons of Argentine riddle by using an innovative econometric methodology and unique data set: it presents power ARCH estimates for Argentina from 1896 to 2000. The main results show that the long-run effect of financial liberalization on economic growth is positive while the short-run effect is negative, albeit substantially smaller. The political instability effects are substantially larger in the short-run than in the long-run. We also investigate potential mechanisms for the effects of financial liberalization and political instability on economic growth: direct impact or happening through the variation of growth volatility. Our results also suggest that financial development, trade openness and political instability are the main factors to explain the Argentine decline. Furthermore, real business cycle variability - growth relationship and the link between inflation and its uncertainty are investigated by using monthly data of four Asian countries/regions (Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan) and parametric power ARCH methodology to proxy uncertainty. We fnd that more uncertainty about output leads to a higher rate of growth in three of the four countries/regions and the form of the uncertainty matters. Output growth reduces its uncertainty in all countries/regions via inflation uncertainty except Singapore. For all countries/regions, inflation significantly raises inflation uncertainty as predicted by Friedman. On the other hand, increased uncertainty affects inflation positively in Japan and Singapore, which support the Cukierman-Meltzer hypothesis. We find a negative sign for Taiwan which is in accordance with the Holland hypothesis when error term was normally distributed, however, this result is not statistically significant when the student-t distribution is applied. Interestingly, South Korea’s data reveals a positive sign initially, however, it turns around when a structural dummy is incorporated. This dramatic outcome in favour of the Holland hypothesis, and chimes in with Dueker and Kim (1999), who claim that the inflation was strictly controlled by the South Korean monetary authority. In addition, this thesis investigates two-way causal relationships between spread, volatility and volume in the FTSE100 stock index over the period from 1992 to 2004 by using bivariate AR-FI-GARCH model and multiple measurements of risk and spread. The measurements of the spread include relative bid-ask spread, effective bid-ask spread, the inventory cost component of the bid-ask spread and the information cost component of the bid-ask spread. Risk is proxied by two measurements of price volatility: the close-to-close volatility and the range-based volatility. We also take the impact of electronic trading into account. Our results suggest that the spread and volume are positively impacted by volatility simultaneously. In addition, both volatility and volume are negatively affected by the spread. Furthermore, we find that the inventory cost component of the spread has a negative effect on volatility, in contrast, the information component of the spread positively impacts volatility. These results support the argument that speculation generates volatility in the market and higher transaction costs bene t stability of the market.

The objective of this study was to determine the perceptions of the impact of political instability on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Nigeria. In conducting this research, 350 questionnaires were distributed to some selected Foreign Direct Investors, Nigerians, and chief executive officers (CEOs) of indigenous companies. Out of the 350, 280 questionnaires were completed, returned and analyzed for this research. Chi-square statistics and frequency distribution were used for the evaluation of the perceptions of the impact of political instability on foreign direct investment in Nigeria. Two hypotheses were also developed on the same subject. The results of the tests conducted showed that fo reign investment is negatively affected by political instability in Nigeria. The results of the study suggest that it would be good public policy for the Nigerian Government to strike a balance between the nation's developmental objectives and the interest of foreign investors. The study makes some recommendations to help improve the climate for foreign investments.

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This thesis consists of eight studies that cover topics in the increasingly influential field of futures- commodities, macroeconomic volatility and financial development. Chapter 2 considers the case of Argentina and provides a first thorough examination of the timing of the Argentine debacle. By applying a group of econometric tests for structural breaks on a range of GDP growth series over a period from 1886 to 2003 we conclude that there are two key dates in Argentina's economic history (1918 and 1948) that need to be inspected closely in order to further our understanding of the Argentine debacle. Chapters 3 and 4 investigated the time-varying link between financial development and economic growth. By employing the logistic smooth transition framework to annual data for Brazil covering the period 1890-2003 we found that financial development has a mixed (either positive or negative) time- varying effect on growth, which depends on trade openness thresholds. We also find a positive impact of trade openness on growth while a mainly negative one for the various political instability measures. Chapter 5 studied the convergence properties of inflation rates among the countries of the European Monetary Union over the period 1980-2013. By applying recently developed panel unit root/stationarity tests overall we are able to accept the stationarity hypothesis. Similarly, results from the univariate testing procedure indicated a mixed evidence in favour of convergence. Hence next we employ a clustering algorithm in the context of multivariate stationarity tests and we statistically detect three absolute convergence clubs in the pre-euro period, which consist of early accession countries. We also detect two separate clusters of early accession countries in the post-1997 period. For the rest of the countries/cases we find evidence of divergent behaviour. For robustness check we additionally employ a pairwise convergence Bayesian framework, which broadly confirms our findings. Finally, we show that in the presence of volatility spillovers and structural breaks time-varying persistence will be transmitted from the conditional variance to the conditional mean. Chapter 6 focuses on the negative consequences that the five years of austerity (2010-2014) imposed on the Greek economy and the society in general. To achieve that goal we summarize the views of three renowned economists, namely Paul De Grauwe, Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz on the eurozone crisis as well as the Greek case. In support of their claims we provide solid evidence of the dramatic effects that the restrictive policies had on Greece. Chapter 7 analyzes the properties of inflation rates and their volatilities among five European countries over a period 1960-2003. Unlike to previous studies we investigate whether or not the infl ation rate and its volatility of each individual country displayed time-varying characteristics. By applying various power ARCH processes with structural breaks and with or without in-mean effects the results indicated that the conditional means, variances as well as the in-mean effect displayed time-varying behaviour. We also show that for France, Italy and Netherlands the in-mean effect is positive, whereas that of Austria and Denmark is negative. Chapter 8 examines the stochastic properties of different commodity time series during the recent fi nancial and EU sovereign debt crisis (1997-2013). By employing the Bai-Perron method we detect five breaks for each of the commodity returns (both in the mean and in the variance). The majority of the breaks are closely associated with the two aforementioned crises. Having obtained the breaks we estimated the power ARCH models for each commodity allowing the conditional means and variances to switch across the breakpoints. The results indicate overall that there is a time-varying behaviour of the conditional mean and variance parameters in the case of grains, energies and softs. In contrast, metals and soya complex show time-varying characteristics only in the conditional variance. Finally, conducting a forecasting analysis using spectral techniques (in both mapped and unmapped data) we find that the prices of corn remained almost stable while for wheat, heating oil, wti and orange juice the prices decreased further, though slightly. In the case of natural gas, coffee and sugar overall the prices experienced significant defl ationary pressures. As far as the prices of oats, platinum, rbob, cocoa, soybean, soymeal and soyoil is concerned, they showed an upward trend. Chapter 9 examines the effect of health and military expenditures, trade openness and political instability on output growth. By employing a pooled generalised least squares method for 19 NATO countries from 1993 to 2010 we fi nd that there is a negative impact of health and military expenditures, and political instability on economic growth whereas that of trade openness is positive.

The present study is an effort to examine and understand the relationship between modernization and political instability. The following chapters focus on the effects of modernization on political instability. Data on twenty-four African nations are analyzed to test empirically the validity of the hypothesis. Chapter IV concludes the thesis by offering a general summary and conclusions.

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Background: As the number of smokers in industrialized nations declines the number of smokers in developing countries increases. Many of the nations that are experiencing an increase in smoking prevalence are poor, politically unstable countries. The smoking rates among adolescents are increasing at an especially alarming rate. The tumultuous sociopolitical conditions such as civil unrest, the overthrowing of government regimes and the presence of political violence makes adolescents in these environments susceptible to engagement in high risk behavior such as smoking as a means of self- medicating the symptoms of mental disorder or unhealthy coping mechanisms. The purpose of this study was to analyze the difference in smoking behaviors and beliefs among adolescents in politically unstable countries compared to those in more stable areas. Methods: The West Bank, Gaza Strip, Yemen, Iraq, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar and Kuwait were selected for inclusion in the study based on their World Bank Indicators. Stable countries were defined by their ranking in the 50th percentile or higher on the Political Stability and Absence of Violence Index, whereas unstable countries were defined as being in the 10th percentile or lower. Using secondary data from the 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006 Global Youth Tobacco Survey (GYTS) for eight countries, univariate and multivariate analyses were conducted to assess the factors associated with smoking behaviors. Cases were truncated for 13- 15 year old respondents. A p- value of < .05 and 95% confidence intervals was used to determine statistical significance through the various analyses performed. Results: The univariate and multivariate analysis found that living in an unstable country and being male was associated with increased odds of smoking and experimentation among 13- 15 year old adolescents. Conclusion: The study results suggest that political stability may be associated with smoking behaviors and beliefs among adolescents. Since the factors that create political instability are multi-factorial and beyond the scope of this study, interventions should be designed to address smoking and other risk behaviors within this unique sociopolitical context. Previous interventions in similar settings have found programs integrating mental health dimension and religious leaders have been successful in staving off the onset of smoking among study populations. INDEX WORDS: teens, adolescents, trauma, political instability, risk behavior, tobacco, smoking, interventions,