It is a conventional wisdom that since the start of the Chinese economic reform in 1978, the domestic saving structure in China has changed significantly. Previous studies of household saving in China (for example: Qian, 1988, Feltenstein et al, 1990, and Wakabayashi and Mackellar, 1999) have usually relied upon the Keynesian absolute-income hypothesis, Duesenberry’s relative-income hypothesis, and Friedman’s permanent-income hypothesis. This thesis uses the Modigliani-Brumberg life-cycle hypothesis to examine the determinants of household saving behavior in the Peoples’ Republic of China during the period 1978 to 2003. The research uses modern cointegration techniques to examine the impact on saving rates of economic growth, age dependency, wealth, the real interest rate, social security payments and unemployment (as a proxy for income uncertainty). Autoregressive distributed lag models are constructed and tested. The results find that economic growth, the real interest rate and social security payments have the expected effect with significant parameters; age dependency has the expected sign but in one model is not statistically significant; and that unemployment is not significant. The most surprising result is that increases in household wealth are associated with increased saving rates, which may help explain very high economic growth rates in China post 1978.

<p>Poor people often lack collateral, which is one of the reasons that they have no access to</p><p>formal financial institutions. Microfinance institutions (MFIs) provide financial services to</p><p>poor people. Traditional MFIs have received some criticism, for instance that they do not</p><p>target the poorest of the poor. This paper, with a field study from Dhaka, takes a closer look at</p><p>SafeSave, a new MFI working in a quite different way than the traditional MFIs in</p><p>Bangladesh. The conclusion of this paper is that SafeSave’s more flexible services are able to</p><p>reach the poor better than the services of traditional MFIs, but might not be the best solution</p><p>seen from a long-term development perspective.</p>

Poor people often lack collateral, which is one of the reasons that they have no access to formal financial institutions. Microfinance institutions (MFIs) provide financial services to poor people. Traditional MFIs have received some criticism, for instance that they do not target the poorest of the poor. This paper, with a field study from Dhaka, takes a closer look at SafeSave, a new MFI working in a quite different way than the traditional MFIs in Bangladesh. The conclusion of this paper is that SafeSave’s more flexible services are able to reach the poor better than the services of traditional MFIs, but might not be the best solution seen from a long-term development perspective.

Air compressor systems play a large role in modern industry. These compressors can account for a significant portion of a manufacturing facility’s electric consumption and any increase in efficiency can lead to economic benefits. Air compressors are sensitive to ambient conditions, as evidenced by the fact that compressing cooler and drier air decreases the amount of work required to compress the air. A thermodynamic model of an air compressor system was developed and several cases were run by using both vapor compression and absorption cycle chillers to cool and dehumidify the inlet air. The results show that the performance increases as much as 8 percent for the compressor system with absorption inlet cooling and as much as 5 percent when using vapor compression inlet cooling. Climates with higher humidity and temperatures can see the most benefits from inlet air cooling and dehumidification.

Heating, ventilation, air conditioning, and refrigeration (HVAC&R) systems are a major component of worldwide energy consumption, and frequently consist of complex networks of interconnected components. The ubiquitous nature of these systems suggests that improvements in their energy efficiency characteristics can have significant impact on global energy consumption. The complexity of the systems, however, means that decentralized control schemes will not always suffice to balance competing goals of energy efficiency and occupant comfort and safety. This dissertation proposes control solutions for three facets of this problem. The first is a cascaded control architecture for actuators, such as electronic expansion valves, that provides excellent disturbance rejection and setpoint tracking characteristics, as well as partial nonlinearity compensation without a compensation model. The second solution is a hierarchical control architecture for multiple-evaporator vapor compression systems that uses model predictive control (MPC) at both the supervisory and component levels. The controllers leverage the characteristics of MPC to balance energy efficiency with occupant comfort. Since the local controllers are decentralized, the architecture retains a degree of modularity—changing one component does not require changing all controllers. The final contribution is a new distributed optimization algorithm that is rooted in distributed MPC and is especially motivated by HVAC&R systems. This algorithm allows local level optimizers to iterate to a centralized solution. The optimizers have no knowledge of any plant other than the plant they are associated with, and only need to communicate with their immediate neighbors. The efficacy of the algorithm is displayed with two sets of examples. One example is simulation based, wherein a building is modeled in the EnergyPlus software suite. The other is an experimental example. In this example, the algorithm is applied to a multiple evaporator vapor compression system. In both cases the design method is discussed, and the ability of the algorithm to reduce energy consumption when properly applied is demonstrated.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 1976. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 120-126). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center.

Thesis (M.A.)--Bowling Green State University, 2009. / Document formatted into pages; contains viii, 52 p. : 1 ill. Includes bibliographical references.

This thesis examines the empirical impact of financial liberalisation on the performance of the Turkish economy over the period 1963–95. In particular, the effect of financial liberalisation on domestic savings and investment, the demand for money and the rate of economic growth are examined.

Thesis deals with the analysis of financial behavior of czech population in terms of debt and savings. It focuses on households, because they support economic growth by consumer spending and also constitute an important factor in the labor market and store money into the various types of savings and thus provide important sources of financing to domestic economy. The work analyzes household debt with banks and non-banking institutions, its causes and possible consequences, and also includes comparison with the situation in the EU. Part of the savings analyzes the link between the level of gross savings, disposable income and household consumption and the relationship of growth of savings and unemployment, the development of various types of savings and compares the situation with EU countries.

In this diploma thesis I have dealt with the description of the most significant public expenditures, mandatory expenditures. I have focused on building savings, the state support for building savings and the profitableness of building savings as a whole. In the first part of the work, different types of public expenditures are defined and categorized; you may also find there a definition of mandatory expenditures. This section also contains the historical development of building savings to the current form and the development of the basic indicators of building savings in the Czech Republic. Another part is devoted to legislative regulation of building savings; this section also contains the development of the state support and its impact on the state budget. The third, analytical part contains an analysis of microeconomic benefits and macroeconomic consequences for the economy. In this part I analyze the profitability of the savings phase and the cost of credit phase of the building savings, compared with the selected alternative products. At the end of this chapter I will try to offer a picture of the possible forms of the building savings in the future.