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Taiwan is the country which relies on foreign trade and the value of import and export markets accounts for eighty percent of the Gross Net Product¡]GNP¡^. It is obvious that the feature of economic system in island highly depends on the existence of foreign trade. Therefore, exchange rate is considered as one of the major indexes for Taiwan¡¦s economic activities. Federal Reserve System¡]FED¡^has constantly begun to lower the interest rate for thirteen times since 2001, and this would influence the trends of the interest rate of the whole world. Also, it seems that reducing the interest rate promotes the low interest which leads to a more prosperous economy in Taiwan society than before. It is clear, thus, that the interest is regarded as a major variable in economic system. The stock market of Taiwan has shifted from bear market to bullish one since 2002 and it would have developed the bullish market for almost ten years. According to this phenomenon, the issue of how to evaluate the trend of the stock index has been becoming important for Taiwanese investors to explore the stock market. This study is based on the observation of the relationships between the stock index and the two rates, exchange and interest rates. It is hoping, by doing so, that investors can obtain sufficient information and successfully estimate different aspects of investing trends in the stock market in Taiwan.

In the past decades there has been onsiderable commercial and academic interest in methods for monitoring control system performance for linear systems. Far less has been written on control system performance for nonlinear dynamic / stochastic systems. This thesis presents research results on three control performance monitoring topics for the nonlinear systems: i) Controller assessment of a class of nonlinear systems: The use of autoregressive moving average (ARMA) models to assess the control loop performance for linear systems is well known. Classes of nonlinear dynamic / stochastic systems for which a similar result can be obtained are established for SISO discrete systems. For these systems, the performance lower bounds can be estimated from closed-loop routine operating data using nonlinear autoregressive moving average with exogenous inputs (NARMAX) models. ii) Variance decomposition of nonlinear systems / time series: We develop a variance decomposition approach to quantify the effects of different sources of disturbances on the nonlinear dynamic / stochastic systems. A method, called ANOVA-like decomposition, is employed to achieve this variance decomposition. Modifications of ANOVA-like decomposition are proposed so that the NOVA-like decomposition can be used to deal with the time dependency and the initial condition. iii) Parameter uncertainty effects on the variance decomposition: For the variance decomposition in the second part, the model parameters are assumed to be exactly known. However, parameters of empirical or mechanistic models are uncertain. The uncertainties associated with parameters should be included when the model is used for variance analysis. General solutions of the parameter uncertainty effects on the variance decomposition for the general nonlinear systems are proposed. Analytical solutions of the parameter uncertainty effects on the variance decomposition are provided for models with linear parameters. / Thesis (Ph.D, Chemical Engineering) -- Queen's University, 2007-10-17 16:02:26.376 / This work was sponsored by NSERC Discovery, NSERC Equipment, Shell Global Solutions, OGSST and QGA

In this study, we examine the dynamic relationship between tourism growth and economic growth, using a newly introduced spillover index approach. Based on monthly data for 10 European countries over the period 1995-2012, our analysis reveals the following empirical regularities. First, the tourism-economic growth relationship is not stable over time in terms of both magnitude and direction, indicating that the tourism-led economic growth (TLEG) and the economic-driven tourism growth (EDTG) hypotheses are time-dependent. Second, the aforementioned relationship is also highly economic event-dependent, as it is influenced by the Great Recession of 2007 and the ongoing Eurozone debt crisis that began in 2010. Finally, the impact of these economic events is more pronounced in Cyprus, Greece, Portugal and Spain, which are the European countries that have witnessed the greatest economic downturn since 2009. Plausible explanations of these results are provided and policy implications are drawn. (authors' abstract)

Essa pesquisa busca investigar a influência de diferentes níveis de fatores na variância da maturidade do endividamento corporativo na América Latina. Ao todo, foram levantados cinco diferentes grupos (divididos em três níveis de influência) de variáveis que potencialmente determinam a maturidade do endividamento das empresas dos países estudados ao longo do período de 1996 a 2009. Foi utilizado o modelo linear hierárquico, que possibilita o aninhamento de variáveis em diferentes níveis – em que os níveis superiores influenciam os níveis inferiores. Ao longo do estudo, procedeu-se à análise fatorial com o objetivo de extrair fatores representativos do nível de desenvolvimento financeiro e da qualidade das instituições de Argentina, Brasil, Chile, Colômbia, México, Peru, Venezuela e Estados Unidos (países componentes da amostra). Os resultados sugerem que as variações ao longo do tempo e as variações entre as empresas são as maiores fontes de modificações na maturidade do endividamento. Além disso, o tamanho, a liquidez, a taxa real de juros e o nível de desenvolvimento financeiro do país se sobressaem como fatores que impactam de forma significativa a maturidade do endividamento corporativo. Finalmente, os fatores extraídos e a taxa real de juros impactaram indiretamente na maturidade do endividamento através de outras variáveis, a saber: oportunidades de crescimento, tamanho e liquidez. / This research investigates the influence of distinct factor´s levels in corporate debt maturity in Latin America. Five different variables groups (divided into three influence levels) that potentially determine the corporate debt maturity in the countries studied were collected over the period 1996 to 2009. We used Hierarchical Linear Modeling, which allows nesting of variables at different levels – in which the higher levels may influence the lower levels. Throughout the study, we proceeded to factor analysis in order to extract financial development and institutional quality factors in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela and the United States (countries belonging to the sample). The results suggest that variations over time and variations between firms are the major sources of changes in corporate debt maturity. Moreover, size, liquidity, the real interest rate and the financial development stand out as factors that impact significantly the corporate debt maturity. Finally, the extracted factors and the real interest rate indirectly impacted the corporate debt maturity by others variables, namely: growth opportunities, size and liquidity.

The purpose of this study is to research the volume-price relationship and information transmission among Taiwan Stock Index, Electronic Industry Index, Financial Industry Index and Plastic Industry Index. This study uses the time series methods of ADF unit root test, variance decomposition, Granger causality and impulse response analysis to proceed empirical research. It covers the period June 2, 2003, through December 29, 2006 and uses the daily data for sample. The empirical results can be summarized as follows¡G (1) All the trading volume and stock return series are trend stationary at level, therefore, they are integrated of order 0 ~ I (0). (2) The variance decomposition shows that the major change of every variable comes from by itself. The explanatory power of trading volume is higher than stock returns. Among the stock returns of Taiwan Stock Index, Electronic Industry Index, Financial Industry Index and Plastic Industry Index, Taiwan Stock Index has the highest explanatory power. (3) According to the Granger causality test, it expresses that trading volume leads stock returns. Taiwan Stock Index is the leading indicator of the Electronic Industry Index and Financial Industry Index. (4) As to the impulse response functions, neither persistent nor overall. The effect of shocks on all variables is transitory.

This paper examines the oil price-macro economy relationship by means of analyzing the impact ofoil price on Industrial production, real effective exchange rate, long term interest rate and inflation rate for a sample of ten OECD countries using quarterly data for the period 1970q1-2011q1.The impact of oil price shock on industrial production is negative and occurs with a lag of one year. However, the impact has weakened considerably compared to the 1970s. The impact on real effective exchange rate is negative/positive for a net importer/exporter, and the magnitude of the shock depends on the county´s share of net import/export of total world demand/supply. Interest rates are affected negatively, through increase in inflation rates following the oil price shock. The effect tends to die out after 5-8 quarters following the shock for most of the variables and countries. This paper also applies alternative methods to test for unit root and cointegration, which takes into account for structural breaks in the data. The weakness of Phillips-Peron test is clearly demonstrated in the case of inflation rates and interest rates, where the test falsely considered the series to be non-stationary when they in fact are stationary around a structural break. There is also strong evidence of cointegration between oil price and inflation rates and between oil price and interest rates, especially when taking account for structural breaks. / This study also highlights the relevance of oil scarcity and oil peak theory. It is shown that these two terms should receive more attention than they have received so far as more oilexporters have reached their production peaks and more are likely to be followed. According to the data, renewable source of energy are not likely to dominate OECD countries energy mix in the short term, instead, there is a trend of increasing natural gas consumption among most of OECD countries. Natural gas markets are likely to play an equal role in the future as oil markets do today. The dilemma that importing countries are facing today, particularly in Europe, is whether to expose their markets to Russia or to the Middle East.

This paper discusses the factors that affect the share price index of Taiwan solar power industry, crude oil prices and the size of the solar manufacturers in Taiwan and Taiwan's market index into the consideration. In addition, considering whether the policies implemented by our government would change the solar industry in Taiwan¡¦s stocks structural .Using the correlation coefficient, the unit root test, Chow test, cointegration test , vector error correction model, impulse response and forecast error variance decomposition to explore their relationship respectively. The study period starts from January 3,2002 until December 30,2011, a total of 2450 daily data for empirical analysis. By Chow test , we find that there is no structural change of solar stock index after the implementation of the domestic policies. Three international crude oil prices and the total share capital of solar manufacturers in Taiwan and the Taiwan solar power industry stocks index has co-integration relationship, means the three international crude oil prices and solar companies total share capital of solar stock index has a long-run equilibrium relationship. By the error correction model of West Texas crude oil price of Brent crude oil prices, the total share capital of the solar companies in Taiwan and Taiwan solar stock index mutual interaction, and the relationship between changes in Taiwan's solar stock price index and Brent crude oil price, West Texas crude oil prices and the total manufacturers of solar energy manufacturers in Taiwan¡¦s share capital are positive, besides, I also found a positive relationship in the impulse response.

The Great Moderation means the reduction in the volatility of aggregate economic activity and here we use GDP growth rate to stand for economic activity. In this paper, we apply a Markov switching model to estimate the timing of the Great Moderation in France. Subsequently, by using a Time-varying structural vector autoregression model to determine which are the main variables that cause the reduction of French GDP growth rate and to see the relationship of these variables we choose.

Abstract Japan is the second largest economic power in the world. It has a great deal of FDI outflows but few FDI inflows. Therefore, Japan is in the serious situation of ¡§FDI balance of payments deficit.¡¨ In terms of inward FDI stocks as a percentage of GDP and gross fixed capital formation, Japan is the lowest place of G-7. The purpose of this research is focusing on discussing the shortage of FDI inflows and causing factors which lower the desires of investments in Japan by using the simplest way which is based on the actual situation and the limit of the information in Japan. This paper takes the quarterly data of Japan from 1978 to 2005 and four variables (wage index, real exchange rate, trade and FDI inflows). In this research, the unit root test is used to check if the data have the stationarity or not, and then it uses vector autoregression model (VAR) to proceed impulse response function and forecast error variance decomposition. According to the result of these two approaches, we can figure out the influences of four variables for each other, and then find out the causing factors which lead Japan to have less FDI inflows. The calculation shows that the reason which leads Japanese wages to increase gradually results not only from real exchange rate, trade and FDI inflows, but also from Japanese labor system (lifetime employment system and payment according to working seniority) and the labor quantities. The causality runs from real exchange rate to trade is greater than vice versa. Trade has a positive impact from the real exchange rate which means that the depreciation can accelerate trade. However, the main factor of hindering FDI inflows is Japanese high wages rather than real exchange rate or trade. Therefore, in order to get rid of the depression which was caused by the bubble economy in 1990s, Japanese government not only opens up the restrictions in policy but also takes the control of the prime costs into the most important consideration.