The gravity model of trade is the workhorse model for international trade. In its most basic form, it stipulates that bilateral trade flow between two countries is proportional to the countries’ Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the distance between them. According to the gravity model, the elasticity of trade flows to distance, or the “distance effect,” has increased since the early 1970s, a confounding empirical result known as the “distance puzzle.” This paper investigates the distance effect more closely by decomposing it. More specifically, it aims to isolate the effects from culture, constructing measures of cultural distance and examining their effects on bilateral trade levels and the distance effect. The results show that cultural differences do not account for the distance puzzle. However, it also finds that cultural distance has both a substantial and statistically significant effect on bilateral trade.

May’s Journey is a game where you help a video game character, May, finding her friend and repairing the broken game world. This is a 3D puzzle game in which players solve an environmental maze by using the game’s pseudo code to manipulate the environment. The game is aimed at 12 to 18-year-old girls and the purpose is to attract them into Computer Science fields by teaching them basics of programming by focusing on logics and concepts while still asking them to type simple instructions in our programming language. Players do this in a compelling environment, with characters they can identify with,embedded in a relevant story. Our design process was based on our research on young female preferences in games and current teaching techniques for programming.Each decision we made whether for the teaching content, the art style, or the game mechanics and the techniques used to develop this game are motivated by the goal of making programming more appealing and interesting for girls. For this, we developed our own pseudo-code language in order to provide an interface that bridges the gap between drag and drop approach and real programming and introduce typing as part of the experience. We tested our game with 10 teenagers aged from 14 to 17 years old for educational content. We were pleased to see how engaged with the game they were. Overall, the testing results were mostly as expected. The players liked the game (rated 4.8 out of 6) and all of them wanted to play more of it. They all felt that they learned something and 8 of them expressed the will to learn more about programming. Unfortunately, the sample of players is too small to generalize our results so we plan to take the feedback into account, iterate and test it again with a larger study group and get conclusive results. Working on this project has allowed us to understand the importance of iterative design and early playtest feedback. We have also learned the importance of tutorials in games and how that might completely change the users’ experience. Finally, a crucial point was the importance of the UI helpers and targeted feedback in serious games.

<p>Syftet med uppsatsen är att diskutera det så kallade equity premium puzzle. Jag</p><p>analyserar teoretiskt den intertemporala konsumtionsbaserade CAPM (C-CAPM),</p><p>sammanställer en del av litteraturdiskussionen som finns på området samt empiriskt</p><p>testar C-CAPM på svensk data. Fenomenet equity premium puzzle innebär att</p><p>överavkastningen på aktier är så stor att det inte stämmer med den ekonomiska teorin.</p><p>Enligt teorin beror C-CAPMs riskpremie på kovariansen mellan konsumtionen och</p><p>aktieavkastningen. Litteraturen visar att forskare inte har lyckats förklara equity</p><p>premium puzzle genom att ändra antagandena i grundmodellen. Den empiriska</p><p>undersökningen visar att equity premium puzzle även uppkommer på svensk data.</p>

In my Thesis I investigate many of the standard accounts of knowledge. I argue that epistemic fallibilism, infallibilism, and contextualism fail as viable accounts. I defend an account of knowledge according to which 'knows' is ambiguous. More specifically, I promote an account of knowledge according to which 'knows' is polysemous. This position was advanced by Rene Van Woudenberg. At the end of my thesis, I propose an adjustment to Van Woudenberg's view that will protect his account from problematic implications.

This thesis develops an algorithm for the Schubert calculus of the Grassmanian. Specifically, we state a puzzle-based, synthesis algorithm for a triple intersection of Schubert varieties. Our algorithm is a reformulation of the synthesis algorithm by Bercovici, Collins, Dykema, Li, and Timotin. We replace their combinatorial approach, based on specialized Lebesgue measures, with an approach based on the puzzles of Knutson, Tao and Woodward. The use of puzzles in our algorithm is beneficial for several reasons, foremost among them being the larger body of work exploiting puzzles. To understand the algorithm, we study the necessary Schubert calculus of the Grassmanian to define synthesis. We also discuss the puzzle-based Littlewood-Richardson rule, which connects puzzles to triple intersections of Schubert varieties. We also survey three combinatorial objects related to puzzles in which we include a puzzle-based construction, by King, Tollu, and Toumazet, of the well known Horn inequalities.

This thesis develops an algorithm for the Schubert calculus of the Grassmanian. Specifically, we state a puzzle-based, synthesis algorithm for a triple intersection of Schubert varieties. Our algorithm is a reformulation of the synthesis algorithm by Bercovici, Collins, Dykema, Li, and Timotin. We replace their combinatorial approach, based on specialized Lebesgue measures, with an approach based on the puzzles of Knutson, Tao and Woodward. The use of puzzles in our algorithm is beneficial for several reasons, foremost among them being the larger body of work exploiting puzzles. To understand the algorithm, we study the necessary Schubert calculus of the Grassmanian to define synthesis. We also discuss the puzzle-based Littlewood-Richardson rule, which connects puzzles to triple intersections of Schubert varieties. We also survey three combinatorial objects related to puzzles in which we include a puzzle-based construction, by King, Tollu, and Toumazet, of the well known Horn inequalities.

Eidgen. Techn. Hochschule, Diss.--Zürich, 2006. / Zsfassung in dt. Sprache.

Syftet med uppsatsen är att diskutera det så kallade equity premium puzzle. Jag analyserar teoretiskt den intertemporala konsumtionsbaserade CAPM (C-CAPM), sammanställer en del av litteraturdiskussionen som finns på området samt empiriskt testar C-CAPM på svensk data. Fenomenet equity premium puzzle innebär att överavkastningen på aktier är så stor att det inte stämmer med den ekonomiska teorin. Enligt teorin beror C-CAPMs riskpremie på kovariansen mellan konsumtionen och aktieavkastningen. Litteraturen visar att forskare inte har lyckats förklara equity premium puzzle genom att ändra antagandena i grundmodellen. Den empiriska undersökningen visar att equity premium puzzle även uppkommer på svensk data.

This thesis examines the financing and construction arrangements of the recently designed Airport Link project in Brisbane, Australia. The central hypothesis of the thesis is that the equity risk premium, combined with the public nature of toll roads, makes private financing of this kind of public infrastructure undesirable. It attempts to test this hypothesis by valuing the project under standard CAPM and WACC frameworks, and then modelling the sensitivity of the project’s value to different assumptions regarding traffic flows, inflation, asset risk, and errors in operating-cost forecasts. The results show that with large equity contributions the project is inherently unstable and given the finance structure, was always susceptible to a downward price spiral of the type observed. The thesis then models the project value under a public finance option and concludes that this is a more beneficial option for investors, the government, and the community alike.

This thesis examines the financing and construction arrangements of the recently designed Airport Link project in Brisbane, Australia. The central hypothesis of the thesis is that the equity risk premium, combined with the public nature of toll roads, makes private financing of this kind of public infrastructure undesirable. It attempts to test this hypothesis by valuing the project under standard CAPM and WACC frameworks, and then modelling the sensitivity of the project’s value to different assumptions regarding traffic flows, inflation, asset risk, and errors in operating-cost forecasts. The results show that with large equity contributions the project is inherently unstable and given the finance structure, was always susceptible to a downward price spiral of the type observed. The thesis then models the project value under a public finance option and concludes that this is a more beneficial option for investors, the government, and the community alike.