Economic growth and development is intimately related to the decline of agriculture’s share of output and employment. This process of structural change has important implications for income and productivity differences between regions within a country or between countries themselves. Agriculture typically has low productivity relative to other sectors and this is particularly true in poor areas. So, as labour switches to nonagricultural activities or as agricultural productivity increases, poor agriculturallyintensive areas will benefit the most. In this thesis, I contribute to a recent and growing line of research and incorporate a separate role for agriculture, both into modeling frameworks and data analysis, to examine income and productivity differences. I first demonstrate that restrictions on trade in agricultural goods, which support inefficient domestic producers, inhibit structural change and lower productivity in poor countries. To do this, I incorporate multiple sectors, non-homothetic preferences, and labour mobility costs into an Eaton-Kortum trade model. With the model, I estimate productivity from trade data (avoiding problematic data for poor countries that typical estimates require) and perform a variety of counterfactual exercises. I find import barriers and labour mobility costs account for one-third of the aggregate labour productivity gap between rich and poor countries and for nearly half the gap in agriculture. Second, moving away from international income differences, I use a general equilibrium model of structural transformation to show a large labour migration cost between regions of the US magnifies the impact improved labour markets have on regional convergence. Finally, I estimate the influence of structural change on convergence between Canadian regions. I construct a unique dataset of census-division level wage and employment levels in both agriculture and nonagriculture between 1901 and 1981. I find convergence is primarily due to region-specific factors with structural change playing little role.

Structural changes, including moving, renaming, merging and splitting are important design change decisions made by programmers. However, during the process of software evolution, this information often gets lost. Recovering instances of structural changes in the past, as well as understanding them, are essential for us to achieve a better understanding of how and why software changes. In this thesis, we propose an approach that helps to recover and understand the lost information of structural changes.

As in many least developed countries the farmers in Laos are heavily dependent on subsistence based agriculture production for their livelihood. A key for increased welfare for the rural population inLaosis to increase their profits of small scale farmers and generate a higher income per capita. One possible way to increase the profits and income for smallholder farmers may be to convert in to organic rice production for the export market, since the international market for organic rice is growing, consumers are prepared to pay a premium prise for organic products and conditions for organic rice production are favourable in Laos. Organic rice farming has grown in Laos during the last decade as greater volumes of organic rice are produced and exported. Organic rice is mainly produced by smallholders in donor projects or by contract farmers supplying contract farming companies. In this thesis I try to determine the causes behind this structural transformation by incorporating evolutionary economic theory (Schumpeter, 1911; Dahmén, 1950 and Marmefelt, 1998) which focuses on entrepreneurial innovations and creditors as the basis for changes in the economy. By performing a Dahménian transformation analysis of the transition from conventional- to organic rice production within the development block around rice production in Laos, I try to determine the transformation pressure causing the transformation to take place. Emphasis is in particular given to the role of contract farming in this process. I investigate to what extent the contract farming firm can be regarded as a Schumpeterian banker, a concept introduced by Marmefelt (1998), that can coordinate the development block around rice production by providing credits to the entrepreneurs within the development block. The analysis shows that two types of transformation pressures are likely to have caused the farmers to convert to organic rice production. First of all it is likely that the relatively higher price paid for organic rice (42 percent higher than conventional rice) has convinced farmers to make the transition. This type of transformation pressure can be seen as a market pull type, as it originates from an increased demand in the international market, which in turn increases the relative price for the product. The analysis further shows that a production method innovation had taken place by the introduction of new inputs, made available by the contract farming firm. This has led to an increased productivity which, combined with the premium price, generated higher profits for the organic contract farmers. The production method innovation can be seen as a market push type of transformation pressure originating from the supply side. In this thesis I argue that it is unlikely that the transformation would have occurred without the involvement of the contract farming firm. On their own, farmers did neither have the means to grow the organic rice, nor the proper market channels to process and sell the organic rice on the international market. I argue that the contract farming firm’s ability to facilitate price signal information from the international market to farmers, provide access to the new market thru market links, and provide credits for new inputs as well as technical assistance essentially made the transition to organic rice possible. However the analysis also shows that the contract farming firm had a limited ability to fulfil its role as a coordinator in the evolvement of the organic rice production, in terms of a Schumpeterian banker, because of limited abilities to solve bottlenecks in the value chain. The reason for this is mainly limited financial resources to finance complementary investments in other parts of the development block.

Abstract Under the great impact and known to all, the structural changes may be obviously clear that can be observed out, when being not so obvious, should observe whether there are structural changes to appear, it is very difficult to get a clear result clearly to turn into. This paper tries to use such models as Chow test, CUSUM test, CUSUMSQ test, STAR in unknown cases, whether going to assay the data separately has structural changes, various kinds of examination ways of result received are each different to some extent, clear conclusion not unanimous and unified. The dominance the Chow test is the most obvious; Consider heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation restriction in because CUSUM test and CUSUMSQ test model, it is not apt to demonstrate the dominance instead; The STAR depends on state of the materials.

In this dissertation, three related issues of building empirical time series models for financial markets are investigated with respect to contemporaneous causality, dynamics, and structural change. In the first essay, nation-wide industry information transmission among stock returns of ten sectors in the U.S. economy is examined through the Directed Acyclical Graph (DAG) for contemporaneous causality and Bernanke decomposition for dynamics. The evidence shows that the information technology sector is the most root cause sector. Test results show that DAG from ex ante forecast innovations is consistent with the DAG fro m ex post fit innovations. This supports innovation accounting based on DAGs using ex post innovations. In the second essay, the contemporaneous/dynamic behaviors of real estate and stock returns are investigated. Selected macroeconomic variables are included in the model to explain recent movements of both returns. During 1971-2004, there was a single structural break in October 1980. A distinct difference in contemporaneous causal structure before and after the break is found. DAG results show that REITs take the role of a causal parent after the break. Innovation accounting shows significantly positive responses of real estate returns due to an initial shock in default risk but insignificant responses of stock returns. Also, a shock in short run interest rates affects real estate returns negatively with significance but does not affect stock returns. In the third essay, a structural change in the volatility of five Asian and U.S. stock markets is examined during the post-liberalization period (1990-2005) in the Asian financial markets, using the Sup LM test. Four Asian financial markets (Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, and Singapore) experienced structural changes. However, test results do not support the existence of structural change in volatility for Thailand and U.S. Also, results show that the Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (GARCH) persistent coefficient increases, but the Autoregressive Conditional heteroskedasticity (ARCH) impact coefficient, implying short run adjustment, decreases in Asian markets. In conclusion, when the econometric model is set up, it is necessary to consider contemporaneous causality and possible structural breaks (changes). The dissertation emphasizes causal inference and structural consistency in econometric modeling. It highlights their importance in discovering contemporaneous/dynamic causal relationships among variables. These characteristics will likely be helpful in generating accurate forecasts.

This bachelor's thesis has been conducted based on an interest in the women's empowerment processes taking place in India after the 2012 Delhi gang rape,  and after the suicide of Amina Filali in Morocco in 2012. The goal of the study is to analyze whether there are similarities in the way the processes unfold, based on Hans Abrahamsson's (2003) work on structural change, and to analyze how far the processes of change have advanced. In order to do so, a qualitative, abductive study of each country was conducted and later compared through the framework of Abrahamsson's three key concepts in order to analyze similarities and differences.   Based on secondary- and tertiary sources from both academia and media, the thesis attempts to create a holistic picture of the developments by discussing opinions accessible both to the broader public and scholarly community.   The thesis suggests that neither India nor Morocco show signs of permanent strategic gender changes, or structural change, but are instead situated in the problem-solving phase of the model. Neither country can be seen as having experienced strategic gender changes, as they have failed to satisfy strategic gender interests. India appears further along in its process, as the government has been forced to take larger problem-solving measures in order to stifle the protests. Morocco on the other hand, has survived on the promise of change alone. Recently, both countries have experienced a second tragedy similar to their first, the results of which remain to be seen. In the light of past developments, this thesis predicts future strategic gender changes are more likely in India than Morocco, albeit problematic in both.

The Swedish Environment Protection Act (SEPA) was implemented in 1969 and constituted the first comprehensive Swedish regulation of industry-induced environmental externalities. In keeping with a longstanding corporatist tradition, Swedish policymakers aimed to establish a cooperative climate with industrial producers and instructed the regulatory authorities to strive to reach consensual agreements with affected firms. Despite such accommodations, the environmental adaptation of Swedish industrial production proceeded at a greater pace, during the 1970’s and 1980’s, than in most comparable countries, many of which had implemented seemingly more stringent environmental regulations than had Sweden. This thesis seeks to identify the firm level incentives behind this process, by examining the economic impact of the SEPA upon one of the more pollution-intensive branches of Swedish industrial production, the pulp and paper industry. Guided by previous research, an hypothesis is proposed in which the implementation of the SEPA came to aid the structural rationalization of this industry during the 1970’s and 1980’s, by inducing the exit of marginal, small-scale pulp and paper mills, thereby relaxing the prevailing competition over wood resources and available market space and creating more room for expansion within the surviving mills. As larger firms tend to operate larger mills, the hypothesized effects are suggested to have benefited large-scale producers within the industry, at the expense of their smaller rivals.   The findings of the thesis show that the economic effects of the SEPA were more severe for small as compared to large-scale mills and that regulatory requirements for pollution abatement did contribute to the shutdown of several small-scale mills during the 1970’s and 1980’s. No conclusive evidence could, however, be found for the validity of the thesis’ hypothesis as a whole, as these shutdowns were not predominantly administered by small-scale firms, as predicted by the hypothesis. Rather, the vast majority of these shutdowns were accounted for by some of the largest firms within the industry. Some tentative evidence was found, however, that the implementation of the SEPA may have benefitted certain large-scale producers within the industry, by facilitating acquisitions of smaller firms with valuable assets.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Uppsala : Sveriges lantbruksuniv., 2001. / Härtill 5 uppsatser.

abstract: Photocatalytic water splitting is a promising technique to produce H2 fuels from water using sustainable solar energy. To better design photocatalysts, the understanding of charge transfer at surfaces/interfaces and the corresponding structure change during the reaction is very important. Local structural and chemical information on nanoparticle surfaces or interfaces can be achieved through characterizations on transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Emphasis should be put on materials structure changes during the reactions in their “working conditions”. Environmental TEM with in situ light illumination system allows the photocatalysts to be studied under light irradiation when exposed to H2O vapor. A set of ex situ and in situ TEM characterizations are carried out on typical types of TiO2 based photocatalysts. The observed structure changes during the reaction are correlated with the H2 production rate for structure-property relationships. A surface disordering was observed in situ when well-defined anatase TiO2 rhombohedral nanoparticles were exposed to 1 Torr H2O vapor and 10suns light inside the environmental TEM. The disordering is believed to be related to high density of hydroxyl groups formed on surface oxygen vacancies during water splitting reactions. Pt co-catalyst on TiO2 is able to split pure water producing H2 and O2. The H2 production rate drops during the reaction. Particle size growth during reaction was discovered with Z-contrast images. The particle size growth is believed to be a photo-electro-chemical Ostwald ripening. Characterizations were also carried out on a more complicated photocatalyst system: Ni/NiO core/shell co-catalyst on TiO2. A decrease of the H2 production rate resulting from photo-corrosion was observed. The Ni is believed to be oxidized to Ni2+ by OH• radicals which are intermediate products of H2O oxidation. The mechanism that the OH• radicals leak into the cores through cracks on NiO shells is more supported by experiments. Overall this research has done a comprehensive ex situ and in situ TEM characterizations following some typical TiO2 based photocatalysts during reactions. This research has shown the technique availability to study photocatalyst inside TEM in photocatalytic conditions. It also demonstrates the importance to follow structure changes of materials during reactions in understanding deactivation mechanisms. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Materials Science and Engineering 2015

The mobility of urban residents has been expanding over time. Kitamura and susilo (2005) have shown that this expansion stems more from structural change (i.e. change in the relationship between travel behavior and demographic factors), than from change in demographic and socio-economic characteristics (for example, attributes of the individuals and households, such as, more women employed, the household size shrinking, and the resident population aging) of urban residents. Urry (2005) went to conjecture that this structural change is due to increasingly prevailing automobility, i.e., conversion of social and economic system and way of life to adapt to the ownership and use of the automobile. In this study, this conjecture is explored by examining automobility characteristics across lifecycle stages and across automobility cohorts over time. The level of automobility is operationally defined in this study in terms of: automobile ownership, total auto travel time, modal split, and the fraction of trip attraction in traditional central city in the study area. The Kyoto-Osaka-Kobe (Keihanshin) metropolitan area of Japan is the study area of this effort. Intra-household interaction has dominant influences on household members' activity and travel, and also it is closely associated with lifecycle stage. Lifecycle stage factor is introduced into the analytical scope of this study and regarded as a main factor through this research. Nine stages of household lifecycle are formulated according to the classification scheme of the family lifecycle stage. The classification scheme utilizes the criteria, which generally are age and marital status of household head, presence and age of children of head, presence of other relatives and non-relatives. On the other side, changing the built environment affects urban residents' travel behavior to a large extent. This study explores how automobility characteristics and travel activity behavior changed across lifecycle stages within different residential areas over time using statistical analyses. The results confirm that the residence area rather than lifecycle stage is a significant explainer for automobile ownership and automobile use. It further suggests that even within each lifecycle stage, change in the automobile use over time is suppressed in commercial and mixed commercial/residential areas. However, the fraction of automobile trips for suburbs, unurbanized areas, and autonomous areas increased over time in the range of 0 to 4 times depending on the lifecycle stage. Younger childless couple stage and all adults' stage are more auto-oriented in suburbs, unurbanized area, and autonomous areas, and this trend becomes stronger as automobility progresses. No significant differences were observed in the numbers of trips for households of the same lifecycle stage across different residential areas, suggesting that similarly active lifestyles exist. The results suggest that household members' age is also a strong explainer for the fraction of auto trips and total auto travel time, through a four variable ANOVA analysis, including lifecycle stage, residence area, time, and age effect. It has been pointed out that the elderly of these days behave differently than the elderly grew up with the automobile and have been using it ever since their habit forming ages. Thus another important factor introduced into this research is automobility cohort which is defined by grouping individuals who turn 20 years old during the time period indicated. Each time period is chosen with respect to the level of automobility. The following five cohorts are developed for the study area and used in the analysis: pre-war (up to 1945), pre-motorization (1946-1960), initial growth (1961-1970), mass-ownership (1971-1980), and multi-car ownership (1980-). Using the repeated cross-sectional data of Kyoto-Osaka-Kobe metropolitan area in 1970, 1980, 1990, and 2000, this study has attempted to offer a possible explanation of the increases in automobility characteristics by examining automobility characteristics of automobility cohorts. In addition, time effects and age effects are introduced into the analysis as in standard cohort analysis. It focused on statistical age-period-cohort analysis using the popular multiple classification APC model. The identifiability problem attendant with the use of APC model was discussed with repeated cross-sectional data. An interesting finding is shown that pre-war and pre-motorization cohorts show little, roughly 6%, increase on the fraction of auto trips and nearly unchanged on total auto travel time over 1970 through 2000, although their household automobile ownership has increased more than 2 times. Initial growth, mass-ownership, and multi-car ownership cohorts show a great growth of automobile ownership, the fraction of auto trips, and auto travel time from 1970 to 2000, but a little surprising result is that mass-ownership cohorts, not multi-car ownership cohorts, show the largest increases to rely on auto use over 1970 through 2000. The above results confirm that each cohort having certain automobility traits that are unique, especially in terms of auto use. The standard age-period-cohort analysis confirms that automobility cohort effect do exist, unfortunately, automobility cohort effect is not an important explainer for automobility characteristics, while time effect plays an important part in automobile ownership choice, and age effect mainly determines automobile use. An attempt at APC-RA model illustrate that residence area rather than time effect have the strongest impact on automobile ownership, and age effect is still a significant explainer for the fraction of auto trips and auto travel time. This result is different with the results of age-period-cohort analysis, which further emphasize that residence area is a significant explainer for household automobile ownership in the Kyoto-Osaka-Kobe metropolitan area from 1970 to 2000. Significant changes in demographic and socio-economic characteristics of urban resident have taken place over the past several decades. Most notable are: aging of the population and resulting increases in retired, non-employed individuals; decreasing household size caused by increasing fractions of single individuals and couples with fewer children; increased labor force participation by women; general increased in income; and increasing auto ownership and auto dependence. The overall effects on travel of these changes are complex and future trends are not immediately obvious, partly because some of the changes have opposite, cancelling effects on travel, and partly because these changes themselves are not independent but closely linked to each other. Prevailing tendencies in travel, however, have been expansion—urban residents' travel has continuously expanded over time in terms of total travel time (or distance), auto use, energy consumption, and the spatial extension of their action space. Will these trends continue into the future? Or will the trend change due to the aging of the urban population? Or are there other factors at work? If so, what are the magnitudes of demographic effects relative to theirs? The focus of this study is on auto travel. The analysis examines how auto travel has changed over time with changing demographics, residential location, and metropolitan structure. Simultaneous equations model systems are developed at the household level, with auto ownership, fraction of auto trips and total auto travel time as its dependent (or endogenous) variables. Their automobility characteristics are characterized and behavioral distinction identified through examination of the models' coefficient estimates. Using the repeated household travel survey results, the stability over time of the simultaneous equation system is statistically examined, and thereby the effects of demographics changes are separated from those of structural change. Using the results, it is shown how much of the change in urban auto travel is due to changes in demographics and how much is due to structural change. The statistical analyses have offered strong evidence that urban residents' auto use have been expanding. The results have further indicated that this expansion has been caused primarily by changes in the structural relationships even mixed changes in demographic factors have had opposite, cancelling effects on auto travel. In addition, the resultant model system is applied in a scenario analysis to forecast possible changes in future auto travel that will follow hypothetical demographic changes in the metropolitan area. To face the coming global energy crisis and air pollution issues, the above results with the findings of this study would suggest that significantly more sustainable behavior for society would be possible with more compact built environments that facilitate non-motorized and public transit travel. Unfortunately, it takes time, money, resources, and the political will to change the built environment and initial steps that educate the public such as voluntary travel behavior change may be necessary first steps on the move to more sustainable travel. As a suggestion for future works, more statistical analysis on interaction effects of three variables or four variables ANOVA analysis, including lifecycle stage, residence area, time, and age effects, need to be considered. Also, the interaction effects of age-period-cohort analysis need us to pay more attention on the future work. The simultaneous equations model system is developed as an attempt to explore how much of the change in urban travel is due to changes in demographics and how much is due to structural change, more endogenous variable could be considered in the future research, such as, residential location, commute distance, and commute trip mode choice. / Kyoto University (京都大学) / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(工学) / 甲第14925号 / 工博第3152号 / 新制||工||1473(附属図書館) / 27363 / UT51-2009-M839 / 京都大学大学院工学研究科都市社会工学専攻 / (主査)教授 藤井 聡, 准教授 吉井 稔雄, 准教授 宇野 伸宏 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当