Abstract Syfte:Att med resultat baserade på World Value Surveys undersökningar, studera de postmoderna värderingarnas betydelse för befolkningars aggregerade beteenden och dess eventuella konsekvenser för politiken. Inledningsvis redogörs för problematiken kring postmoderna värderingar från ett politiskt-teoretiskt perspektiv. Därefter genomförs en teoriprövning med hjälp av regressionsanalyser för att se i hur hög grad värderingar samvarierar med utvalda beteendemönster, vilka kan tänkas vara signifikanta för befolkningar med postmoderna värderingar. Frågeställningar:Finns samband mellan graden av postmoderna värderingar befolkningar har, och följande fyra beteendemönster? 1. Hushållsskuld i förhållande till inkomst. 2. Andel enpersonshushåll.  3. Antal skönhetsoperationer.  4. Påverkan på miljön i form av globalt fotavtryck.  Finns eventuella samband kvar med kontroll för BNP/Capita? Resultat:Studien visar förhållandevis höga korrelationsgrader mellan värderingar och flera beteendemönster. Med kontroll för varandra, har dock BNP/Capita ofta en högre korrelationsgrad. Ingenting tyder på att befolkningar med postmoderna värderingar tar en större praktisk hänsyn till miljön än andra länders befolkningar, även med kontroll för BNP/Capita.

The Sharing Economy (SE) and its platforms has been on the uprise since the 2008’s Great Recession. Although previous researchers have found that culture influences consumers' willingness to adapt new innovations and technologies, very few studies on SE and collaborative consumption focus on how cultural values can play a role. Additionally, most studies on SE do not include Asian countries, event hough they contributed to 57% of the global GDP growth between the years 2015 and 2021. Thailand has one of the highest GDP in Southeast Asia, where the tourism sector comprises a large portion. In 2022, Thailand was Airbnb’s most visited country in the region, yet no study has been conducted on how the country’s cultural values influence SE participation and the potential expansion of Airbnb. As domestic tourism in the country is also big, Thai nationals’ answers from the 7th wave of World Value Survey, were used to establish where the country is situated on Hofstede’s scales. Thailand was deemed to be closer to having a Large Power Distance, High Uncertainty Avoidance, Collectivism, Femininity, Short-term Orientation, and Restraint. After the cultural values had been established, a systematic literature review was performed to identify previous studies done on how cultural values, as defined by Hofstede’s model, influence SE participation and adaptation. The results from the sestudies were then applied to Thailand, to establish how Thailand’s cultural values would influence Airbnb’s expansion in the country. Thailand’s Collectivism and Femininity were found to be to Airbnb’s benefit. However, the Large Power Distance, High Uncertainty Avoidance, and Restraint, were to Airbnb’s disadvantage. For the dimension Long-term vs Short-term Orientation, it was difficult to draw any clear conclusions as the studies did not agree on its influence. / Sharing Economy (SE), eller delningsekonomi, och dess plattformar har sitt ursprung i börskraschen 2008. Även om tidigare studier pekat på att en individs kultur påverkar dennes tendens att anamma nya innovationer och teknologier, har väldigt få studier gällande SE och dess koppling till kulturella värden gjorts. Vidare har få studier utförts inom länder i Asien, även om dessa länder bidrog med 57% av den globala BNP tillväxten mellan åren 2015 och 2021. Thailand är ett av de länder med högst BNP i Sydostasien, där turismsektorn utgör en stor del av detta. År 2022 var Thailand Airbnb’s mest besökta land i regionen, trots detta har ingen studie gjorts på hur landets kulturella värden påverkar SE deltagande och Airbnbs potentiella expansion i landet.   Eftersom den nationella turismen inom landet också är stor, användes thailändares svar från 7e vågen för World Value Survey för att etablera vart landet befinner sig på Hofstedes skalor. Baserat på detta så anses Thailand vara närmare till att ha Large Power Distance, High Uncertainty Avoidance, Collectivism, Femininity, Short-term Orientation, och Restraint. Efter att landets kulturella värden hade etablerats, genomfördes en systematisk litteraturstudie för att identifiera tidigare studier som genomförts på hur kulturella värden, enligt Hofstedes modell, påverkar SE deltagande. Resultaten från dessa studier applicerades sedan på Thailand, för att etablera hur Thailands kulturella värden påverkar Airbnbs expansion i landet.   Thailands Collectivism och Femininity är till Airbnbs fördel, medan dess Large Power Distance, High Uncertainty Avoidance, och Restraint är till Airbnbs nackdel. För den kulturella dimensionen Long-term vs Short-term Orientation, var det svårt att dra några tydliga slutsatser då de identifierade studierna inte höll med varandra om dess påverkan.

Cette thèse comporte quatre essais et porte sur les questions fondamentales sur la relation entre l’environnement et le développement économique. Le premier chapitre cherche à identifier les déterminants individuels et contextuels qui affectent la volonté de contribuer des gens à la lutte contre la pollution environnementale. Nos résultats révèlent que les individus riches, les personnes éduquées ainsi que les personnes possédant des valeurs post-matérialistes sont plus susceptibles d’être préoccupées par la pollution environnementale. On remarque que la caractéristique du pays de ces individus affecte leur volonté à contribuer. Ainsi, dans les pays à forte démocratie avec une forte stabilité gouvernementale, les individus sont réticents à faire des dons pour prévenir les dommages environnementaux. Le deuxième chapitre examine la relation entre la croissance économique et la dégradation de l’environnement en s’interrogeant sur la relation U inversée de Kuznets. Nos résultats empiriques ne révèlent aucune preuve de ladite relation. Cependant, nous notons l’existence d’une relation non linéaire entre la croissance économique et la dégradation de l’environnement. Les émissions ont tendance à augmenter un rythme plus rapide dans les premiers stades de la croissance économique puis dans les dernière étapes, cette hausse persiste mais à un rythme plus lent. Le troisième chapitre étudie la relation de causalité de long terme entre la consommation d'énergie propre et la croissance économique dans un groupe de pays de l’Afrique subsaharienne. Le résultat révèle l'existence d'une relation d'équilibre à long terme entre la consommation d'énergie propre et la croissance économique. En outre, la dynamique de court terme et de long terme indiquent une relation de causalité à la Granger unidirectionnelle de la consommation d'énergie propre vers la croissance économique sans aucun effet rétroactif. Le dernier chapitre de cette thèse cherche à investiguer sur la convergence des émissions de gaz entre les provinces canadiennes. L'étude montre que les émissions de gaz des provinces canadiennes sont caractérisées des convergences de clubs. En d'autres termes, on détecte l'existence d'une segmentation des émissions entre les provinces canadiennes. / This thesis comprises four empirical essays on environmental and development economics. In the first chapter, we examine to what extent individual and contextual level factors influence individuals to contribute financially to prevent environmental pollution. We find that rich people, individuals with higher education, as well as those who possess post-materialist values are more likely to be concerned about environmental pollution. We also observe the country in which individuals live matter in their willingness to contribute. More precisely, we find democracy and government stability reduce individuals’ intention to donate to prevent environmental damage mainly in developed countries. The second chapter deals with the relation between economic growth and environmental degradation by focusing on the issue of whether the inverted U-shaped relation exist. The study discloses no evidence for the U-shaped relation. However, the empirical result points toward a non-linear relationship between environmental degradation and economic growth, that is, emissions tend to rise rapidly in the early stages with economic growth, and then emissions continue to increase but a lower rate in the later stages. The third chapter investigates the long-run as well as the causal relationship between energy consumption and economic growth in a group of Sub-Saharan Africa. The result discovers the existence of a long-run equilibrium relationship between clean energy consumption and economic growth. Furthermore, the short-run and the long-run dynamics indicate unidirectional Granger causality running from clean energy consumption to economic growth without any feedback effects. The last chapter of this thesis concerns with convergence of emissions across Canadian provinces. The study determines convergence clubs better characterizes Canadian’s emissions. In other words, we detect the existence of segmentation in emissions across Canadian provinces.

Chapter 1: The Impact of Culture on the Second-Generation Immigrants’ Level of Trust in Canada Trust is one of the main elements of social capital; it determines the extent to which an individual cooperates with others. In this chapter, I assess whether cultural factors influence the level of trust in the population of second-generation immigrants in Canada. This paper is related to two strands of empirical literature. The first analyses the determinants of trust and the second studies the cultural transmission of values, attitudes and beliefs. I follow closely the literature on the cultural transmission and use an epidemiological approach to assess whether trust of second-generation immigrants is affected by their cultural heritage. This approach consists of comparing information about the outcomes of second-generation immigrants with that of the country of origin of their ancestry. We apply this approach using the Ethnic Diversity Survey (EDS), the World Value Survey (WVS) and the European Value Survey (EVS). Estimation results show that the average level of trust in the countries of origin of the ancestors of the second-generation immigrants has a strong significant impact on their level of trust. Thus, individual whose country of ancestry displays a high level of trust, tend to have a high level of trust. This provides evidence that individuals’ level of trust is not only explained by their personal experiences, characteristics, and the environment in which they live; but also by the culture in their country of ancestry. This means that culture does matter! I find that the results remain robust even if certain key countries are omitted or a different data set is used. Chapter 2: Decomposing Health Achievement and Socioeconomic Health Inequalities in Presence of Multiple Categorical Information This chapter presents a decomposition of the health achievement and the socioeconomic health inequality indices by multiple categorical variables and by regions. I adopt Makdissi and Yazbeck's (2014) counting approach to deal with the ordinal nature of the data of the United States National Health Interview Survey 2010. The findings suggest that the attributes that contribute the most to the deviation from perfect health in the United States are: anxiety, depression and exhaustion. Also, I find that the attributes that contribute the most to the total socioeconomic health inequality are ambulation, depression and pain. The regional decomposition results suggest that, if the aversion to socioeconomic health inequality is high enough, socioeconomic health inequalities between regions are the main contributors to the total socioeconomic health inequality in the United States. Chapter 3: Accounting for Freedom and Economic Resources in the Assessment of Changes in Women Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa This chapter assesses the importance of freedom in women’s wellbeing in twelve Sub-Saharan Africa countries by using data from Demographic Health Surveys. This paper presents a poverty comparison by using the stochastic dominance approach and relies on the economic resources and freedom as the two aspects of wellbeing which evokes the multidimensionality of poverty. This study is related to the following three pieces of literature: the sequential stochastic dominance, the multidimensional poverty, the Sen’s capability approach which is based on freedom. This paper is built on Makdissi et al. (2014) but differs from it in a number of respects. First, it focuses on poverty instead of welfare. Secondly, it applies the Shapley decomposition to determine the contributions of the economic resource distribution and the incidence of the threat of domestic violence to poverty changes over time. Consistent with previous work on the importance of freedom, I find that more freedom, i.e. less threat of domestic violence, affects women’s wellbeing positively since it decreases women’s poverty. The results indicate that women’s wellbeing has improved in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Rwanda, Senegal, and Zimbabwe and deteriorated in Ethiopia, Nigeria and Tanzania.