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The purpose of this study is to explore Black women’s experience of becoming and being entrepreneurs and accumulating wealth. Through interview questions that examine social capital, this study allows eight Black women to recall their ever-changing and evolving experience of entrepreneurship and economic mobility. This qualitative study goes beyond empirical data of the wealth gap and the numerical trends of Black women entrepreneurs. The study allowed for Black women to share their experience with wealth accumulation and the social factors, such as networks and relationships that attributed to starting and sustaining a business. Findings and implications will be discussed.

Real estate remains to be a major component of wealth for households as the market value of houses continues to rise noticeably again, as before the global recession 2007. Understanding households’ responses to changes of house prices and interest rates is important as fluctuations of these kind affect their preferences of saving. This thesis examines the impact of house price- and interest rate changes on household savings with the usage of secondary panel data from seven European countries. Providing a definite estimation of the interest elasticity of saving for households is not conceivable with any confidence considering the difficulties in estimating differential behavior. In accordance to previous studies the result of house prices is significant negative regarding household savings. However, the repo rate contradicts earlier results with a significant negative correlation toward household savings indicating an increased confidence due to a behavioral shift. In conclusion, this study shows that internal effects are of great importance as several factors suffer from high internal impact.

This paper argues that the cumulative causation processes between wealth and power risk leading to an escalation of wealth inequality. We confirm with new survey data for the Eurozone Piketty's conclusions that wealth is highly concentrated and that this inequality is perpetuated through dynastic wealth. This leads to an ever-concentrating ability to shape economic and political institutions. While neoclassical economics has a blind spot where power is concerned, we discuss how heterodox approaches have attempted to conceptualize this structural power which influences the framework of economic activity. Finally, we discuss three concrete channels through which the unequal distribution of private assets may affect power relations and economic activity.

This study represents an interpretation of Adam Smith's attitude toward a commercial society based upon natural liberty. In developing the thesis that the two works, The Theory of Moral Sentiments and Wealth of Nations, are logically consistent, it is necessary to establish the reason of reasons why Adam Smith embraced a commercial society based upon the "obvious and simple system of natural liberty." It will be established that he embraced such as system because it allowed the maximum accumulation of capital, which is the manifestation of being truly virtuous as developed in his Moral Sentiments. To go one step further, it will be seen that, so far as Smith is concerned, it is the rising bourgeoisie, the manufacturers and artificers, which is truly virtuous, i.e., accumulates capital.

in English In my diploma thesis I propose a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model to describe economic inequality. The model combines two approaches that were traditionally used to model inequality - first, it features two classes of agents that differ in their ownership of capital and second, each class consists of heterogeneous agents who are subject to uninsurable idiosyncratic shocks. This combination allows the two classes to behave in a fundamentally different way while maintaining the individual character of agents in the economy - a feature that has not been modeled before but which adequately describes the empirical reality. I show that the model with classical RBC structure and a single wage underestimates the observed inequality. When the wage differential is introduced through different taxation of the two classes, the model matches empirical inequality much better. Further I argue that the government can significantly reduce inequality at a relatively small cost in terms of output lost. Finally using Theil coefficient decomposition, I show how much of the total inequality is attributable to between-class and within-class inequalities.

M.A. / Please refer to full text to view abstract

Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) was signed into law on November 12, 1999. This act is regarded as the most influential deregulation for the U.S. financial services industry in the past one-century. The purpose of this study is to determine and analyze the wealth effects of the GLBA on U.S. and foreign banks and insurance companies. This dissertation is composed of four separate essays. In the first two chapters I investigate the wealth effects of the GLBA on domestic banks and insurance companies. I find that Money Center Banks followed by Super Regional Banks benefit most from this deregulation. I also find that banks with Section 20 investment subsidiaries benefit more than rest of the industry. For all types of banks exposure to systematic risk reduces following the enactment of the GLBA. In cross sectional analysis I find that banks size and change in exposure to systematic risk can explain the wealth effects at firm level. In the domestic insurance industry, property/casualty and life insurance companies have the highest wealth effect. Exposure to systematic risk also reduces for all types of insurance companies following the enactment of the GLBA. From cross sectional analysis I find that diversification opportunities and safeguards against excessive risk taking create value for property/casualty and all other (except life) insurance companies. I also test merger related hypothesis. The result shows that poor performing firms and larger firms gain more form this deregulation. In the third and fourth chapter I investigate the wealth effects of the GLBA on international banks and foreign insurance companies. I find that the events leading to the passage of the GLBA have significant negative wealth effects (spill-over effects) on the portfolios of banks and insurance companies for most of the developed countries I analyze. These effects are not same for any two countries. Most importantly I find that reduction in diversification opportunities for international banks and foreign insurance companies in the U.S. market can explain the wealth effects at firm level from the GLBA.

I create art, not out of a deep understanding of the world around me, but out of a lack of one. Human psychology, motives, behaviors, stressors, intentions and identity are the themes that boggle me the most. Therefore, it is only natural that my work would be fueled by the questions these themes pose. In the past I sought to understand what pushes people to make certain choices and how can the world around us affect the formation of identity. Currently I wonder about identity in terms of what do people use to form and reinforce identity both real and fabricated. In addition to this I am working through the question of what creates worth for an object; it’s function or its fabricated identity. Through the use of photography, video, sculpture and installation I explore the possibilities of questions and also understandings that my work can create.

In the last decade Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has become increasingly important and multiple corporations that have been exposed for unethical behavior have been harshly penalized by the market. This study aims at evaluating wealth effects of unethical corporate behavior by doing a case study, in which an in-depth analysis is conducted on four infamous corporate scandals; Wells Fargo, HSBC, Danske Bank, and Volkswagen. Share prices are compared to an approximation of what the prices could have been, had the scandals not been revealed, to give an indication on abnormal returns around the announcement of the corporate scandals. The approximation is based on the share’s previous correlation with market returns. Results of the study are then contrasted to and analyzed with regard to findings of previously conducted event studies on the wealth loss suffered due to exposed unethical behavior. It is found that the corporate scandals resulted in substantial direct wealth losses in terms of market cap value and shareholder wealth for two of our cases, Wells Fargo and Volkswagen. The value decrease that Danske Bank suffered was also substantial, but had a lag in discernible market reactions in comparison to Wells Fargo and Volkswagen. HSBC has in recent years been lagging behind our price approximation, but any direct negative effect from the scandal announcement cannot be observed.