Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2006. / Title from title screen (site viewed on Nov. 22, 2006). PDF text: 179 p. : ill. (some col.) ; 1.09Mb. UMI publication number: AAT 3215319. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in microfilm and microfiche format.

The rapid growth of countries that opened their markets to international trade has led to an increase in the number of Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs). A number of countries have signed these agreements with their regional trade partners in order to reap the benefits of free trade. Such benefits include: trade stimulation, integrated markets, foreign exchange gains, and economic growth, to name just a few. The main objective of RTAs is to stimulate bilateral trade by integrating the markets of member states. However, RTAs have not achieved the same level of success globally. In some regions around the world, intra-bloc trade remains low post RTA ratification, especially in developing countries. A review of the trade literature revealed a number of reasons for the failure of the regional economic integration model to stimulating bilateral trade. Such reasons include: inadequate economic policies; lack of administrative capacity and infrastructure; protectionist trade policies; political immaturity and instability; and border issues. However, according to trade literature, there is an argument that, in recent years, most of these factors have been taken care of, yet intra-bloc trade remains low. In a quest to provide more answers for this puzzle, trade researchers have identified risk, which is defined as a situation where there are multiple possible outcomes (with known probabilities), but the ultimate outcome is not known, as a possible answer to the low intra-bloc trade mystery. Risk has also been identified as a key impediment to bilateral trade, especially between developing economies, where risk is inherent. However, investigations of the trade-risk nexus are still in their infancy, and are said to be flawed. Such investigations which have generally been done in developed countries have focused on the impact of one risk event on trade, in isolation. This approach is inadequate as risk is a multi-dimensional phenomenon with spill-over effects which require a more holistic approach to explore interdependencies between seemingly unrelated events. As such, there is still no framework for aggregating risk in the trade processes of an economy. This means therefore that the impact of risk on trade is still not yet fully understood. This also means that conclusions drawn from trade-risk studies involving developed countries could be misleading for developing countries because of the differences in underlying economic conditions. This study, therefore, pursued two main objectives: (1) to develop a risk aggregation framework in the form of a composite risk index; and (2) to determine the impact of risk on bilateral trade. In pursuit of the first objective, this study, used the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) as a case study, and developed a framework for quantifying risk. The output of this framework was a composite risk indicator which measures the level of risk in an economy. To construct the composite risk index, this study adapted a framework used to construct other social indexes e.g. the human development index; environmental sustainability index; and disaster risk index. The results from this exercise showed that the SACU member states (Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia, and South Africa) had different levels of risk, as expected. The results also showed that Lesotho and Eswatini had higher risk, which was constant or increased over time. This implies that these countries were less resilient to risk, as they were not able to address the risk over time, probably due to the lack of resources. Botswana, Namibia and South Africa proved to be more resilient as their risk decreased over time. In pursuit of the second objective, this study augmented the gravity model with the constructed composite risk index to determine the impact of aggregate risk on bilateral trade flows. This study addressed a number of issues around the gravity model related to; specification, and structural econometric concerns. Agriculture commodity trade data (from 2000 to 2018) was also preferred over aggregated trade data. From the results, it was found that imports increased, though marginally when the incidence of risky events increased. The analysis showed that a 10 per cent increase in risky events in the domestic economy increases imports by 0.65 per cent. This result is probable because risk could potentially disrupt the production of goods and services by domestic producers. As such, domestic producers would be unable to meet domestic demand and, therefore, goods would have to be sourced from external markets. On the export side, risk was found to have quite a substantial negative impact. A 10 per cent increase in the incidence of risky events decreased bilateral trade by 10 per cent. This result is intuitive because risk in the domestic economy is expected to affect exports more than imports. This result was also expected because risky events in the domestic economy affect the production of goods. This means the exporting country would have fewer goods available to satisfy domestic demand and even fewer for export. According to the results, aggregate risk on the importing economy leads to an increase in bilateral trade, whereas it decreased bilateral trade on the exporting end. This means that risk is a major impediment for countries with export-promoting trade policies. The policy implications are that, SACU member states need to build their individual and collective resilience through effective risk mitigation policies and strategies. SACU operates the common revenue pool (CRP), which is a form of risk mitigation, but it needs proper management. The CRP has a customs component which compensates Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, and Namibia for the trade diverting exploits of South Africa in the bloc. There is also a developmental component which is meant to fund developmental projects. The development component of the pool needs to be channelled towards infrastructural development to reduce transportation costs. This needs to be coupled with interventions that build the resilience of domestic producers since risk was found to impede exports. This would reduce the high dependence on the South Africa economy by the other countries in the SACU bloc. / Thesis (PhD (Agricultural Economics))--University of Pretoria, 2021. / African Economic Research Consortium (AERC) / Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural Development / PhD (Agricultural Economics) / Unrestricted

Regional growth literature indicates that the relations between the core and the peripheral regions, and the process by which growth is transmitted between regions are of prime importance in discussing growth disparities. Northeastern Ontario is a peripheral region, economically subordinate to the Ontario core region, and exhibits adverse growth conditions. Diversification of the region's resource dependent economy has been called for by many groups but has been hindered by the perception of higher manufacturing production costs. However, these costs have not been investigated. In this thesis, Northeastern Ontario centers' factor costs in manufacturing are compared with core centers' costs by utilizing a cost accounting method. The results indicate that some Northeastern locations may be cost attractive locations. However, low costs derived for Toronto would indicate continued manufacturing concentration in the principle centers of the core region. When costs are calculated for hypothetical firms, the importance of the factor requirement structure is indicated in determining location. Northeastern locations would be attractive to firms with large land, and low labour requirements. If future analyses verify these results, alternative explanations of the development problem of the Northeast should be explored. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

The Cotonou Agreement introduces never fundamental principles with respect to trade between the European Union and African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries relative to the Lome Convention: in particular non-reciprocal preferential market access for ACP economies will only last until 1 January 2008. After that date, it will be replaced by a string of Economic Partnership Agreements (E PA) meant to progressively liberalise trade in a reciprocal way. The progressive removal of barriers to trade is expected to result in the establishment of Free Trade Agreements between the EU and ACP regional groups in accordance with the relevant WTO rules and help further existing regional integration efforts among the ACP. Most discussions or economic development in Africa focus on regional integration as an important element. From the first post-colonial meetings. African leaders emphasised regional integration as a key element of their strategies. In the most recent African plan for economic development, the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), regional and sub regional approaches to development arc again a key element. The plan sees the small size of countries, low incomes, and consequently limited markets as a limit to economies of scale, thus denying attractive returns to investors and in o doing constraining the diversification of production and exports. This is the key reason for pooling resources in order to enhance regional economic integration. The decision by Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland to sign the interim EPA came in the result of SACU's failure to negotiate as a bloc with a view to sign the EPA. In this research, the following statistical techniques were applied: t-test, f-test, regression analysis and its forecasts model for seven Southern African Development Community Economic Partnership Agreement (SADC EPA) group trading with the European Union, is used to simulate the opportunities and benefits of EPAs for countries or the SADC region. Simulation results show that EPAs with the EU are welfare-enhancing for SADC overall. leading also to substantive increases in real GOP. For most countries further gains may arise from intra-SADC liberalization. / Thesis (M.Com.(Economics) North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, 2011

The Master Thesis deals with the topic of the programme of support Prosperity, which is a part of Enterpreneurship and Innovation Programme during period 2007-2013. The main objective of the programme Prosperity is to facilitate the access to finance for the start-ups and further development of the infrastastructure for industrial research, technological development and innovation. Further analysis is focused on finding if there exists any dependency between regional economic performance and amount of received financial support from the programme Prosperity. Achieved regional economic performance will be evaluated based on selected indicators.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2006. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file viewed on (April 26, 2007) Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

The economic development in Mainland China is obvious to all. After adopting the open door policy, the differences of competitive advantages among regions gradually contribute to an unbalanced economic development. The huge difference will cause not only economic crisis but also political crisis resulting from people's dissatisfaction on the decline of living standard. This has been gradually erodes the fruits of opening policy and causes a bottleneck on the way forward economic development in the future. The aim of this thesis is to discuss about the unbalanced phenomenon of economical development resulted from the competitive superiority in regions. We thus objectively evaluate the degree of advantages in each region on the aspects of exterior environment, such as plentiful resources in each region, and the demand structure of market, the mutual influence of the geographical distribution of industries and the governmental economical development policies, and the competitive ability of enterprises. In this article, we also want to reach the following goals. First of all, we try to realize what reasons caused the gaps of economical development among regions, what situations it current presented, and what problems it existed. Secondly, looking for the most suitable way of economic development in each region, it would suggest how to upgrade the competitive advantage in those disadvantaged regions. Finally, introducing the environmental competition of each region in the Mainland China to investors, it will let those investors choose the best location for business to promote their market competitiveness in the future.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI/Dissertation Abstracts International.

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 298-309).