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What Determines Chinese Outward Foreign Direct Investment: An Empirical Research, Qiaoli Yu Jan 2019

What Determines Chinese Outward Foreign Direct Investment: An Empirical Research, Qiaoli Yu

CGU Theses & Dissertations

The rise of Chinese multinational enterprises (CMNEs) and the growth of Chinese outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) have been two important trends in the world economy. This dissertation aims to deliver a complete picture of Chinese OFDI by investigating what determines Chinese OFDI. Based on a perspective of international political economy, we use a multilevel framework which includes country level, industry level, and firm level to demonstrate a reciprocal relationship between the Chinese government’s political benefits and CMNEs’ economic benefits. The Chinese government plays the role of an organizer in this relationship to guarantee its political benefits and enlarge CMNEs’ …


Three Essays On Africa, Lisa Jené Jan 2019

Three Essays On Africa, Lisa Jené

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Part 1: Climate Change, Urbanization, and Government Responses in Sub-Saharan Africa This paper examines the relationship between climate change, rising urbanization rates, and regime types in the countries of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). This project uses the national-level ND-GAIN (Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative) score and a selection of its sub-variables. The ND-GAIN score is a composite index that grades a country’s vulnerability to climatic disruptions (exogenous) as well as its readiness in terms of adaptation investment (endogenous); sub-variables used here include Governance Readiness, Vulnerability, and Adaptive Capacity. Data are used for all 49 SSA countries, over the years 1995-2016, in …


Essays On The Underlying Capacity Of The State And Its Effects On Economic Development, Alma Alicia Bezares Calderón Jan 2019

Essays On The Underlying Capacity Of The State And Its Effects On Economic Development, Alma Alicia Bezares Calderón

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on three main topics: state capacity, conflict and development. During my progress in my program, I have become more interested in these issues as I have seen how closely linked they are and how they help to explore questions related to prosperity, or the lack of thereof. In particular, my research, and more precisely this dissertation, concentrates on the connection among these three issues in low- and middle-income countries. In the first chapter, titled ”How Strong is your Shield? Subnational State Capacity and Violence in Mexico” I center the analysis on the case of Mexico, a middle-income …


A Tacticians Guide To Conflict, Vol. 1: Advancing Explanations & Predictions Of Intrastate Conflict, Khaled Eid Jan 2019

A Tacticians Guide To Conflict, Vol. 1: Advancing Explanations & Predictions Of Intrastate Conflict, Khaled Eid

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Intrastate conflict is an ever-evolving problem – causes, explanation, and predictions are increasingly murky as traditional methods of analysis focus on structural issues as precursors of conflict. Often times these theories do not consider the underlying meso and micro dynamics that can provide vital insights into the phenomena. Tactical decision-makers are left using models that rely on highly aggregated, country level data to create proper courses of actions (COAs) to address or predict conflict. The shortcoming is that conflicts morph quite rapidly and structural variables can struggle capture such dynamic changes. To address this some tacticians are using big data …


Application Of Agent-Based Modeling: Simulating Financial Systemic Risk And Contagion Within Housing And Financial Markets, Faizan Khan Jan 2019

Application Of Agent-Based Modeling: Simulating Financial Systemic Risk And Contagion Within Housing And Financial Markets, Faizan Khan

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation presents an agent-based model (ABM) to model systemic risk in the housing and financial markets from 1986 to 2017 and provides a unique approach to simulating the financial market along with demonstrating the phenomenon of emergence resulting from the interconnected-behavior of consumers, banks and the Federal Reserve. Consumers can buy or rent properties, and these agents own characteristics such as income and may be employed or unemployed. Banks own balance sheets to monitor their assets and liabilities and participate in the interbank lending market with one another. This tool can model the complexities within the United States’ housing …


The Short-Term And Long-Term Relationship Between Public Sentiment And Insurgency Violence In 3 Southern Provinces Of Thailand, Domrongphol Sangmanee Jan 2019

The Short-Term And Long-Term Relationship Between Public Sentiment And Insurgency Violence In 3 Southern Provinces Of Thailand, Domrongphol Sangmanee

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation is aimed to developing and improving the theory on the intrastate conflict and public sentiment as well as the conventional wisdom on the conflict study as well as developing new analytical framework for studying intrastate conflict and for informing policymakers to deliver or adjust for a better policy to cope with this problem. The empirical case study is an insurgency conflict in three Southern provinces of Thailand. The study employs multivariate time-series analysis, namely Vector Autoregressive Model (VAR) and Vector Error Correction Model (VECM), and empirical system dynamics analysis, namely Convergent CrossMapping (CCM). The results show that the …


Msmes (Microsoft, Small And Medium Enterprises) And Democracy, A Panel Data Model, Simon Hsien-Tun Tang Jan 2019

Msmes (Microsoft, Small And Medium Enterprises) And Democracy, A Panel Data Model, Simon Hsien-Tun Tang

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This paper focuses on different national economic development structures, such as microsmall-medium-enterprises (MSMEs) vs. big or state-owned enterprises and their relations with political development. A well-established literature argues that MSMEs are conducive to economic growth. Existing literature does not tell us much about the relationship between MSMEs and democracy. This dissertation examines the relationship between economic development structure and democracy. I demonstrate that we observe a negative correlation between high concentration of MSMEs and political development in the early stages of a country’s economic development (pre-takeoff or takeoff states stages), ceteris paribus. I provide a theoretical framework and causal mechanism …


Using A Mixed Methods Approach To Study The Evolution Of Party Platforms - 1960-2016, Artour Aslanian Jan 2019

Using A Mixed Methods Approach To Study The Evolution Of Party Platforms - 1960-2016, Artour Aslanian

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Every four years, members of political parties convene in order to craft platforms in which they articulate the positions of the parties on a plethora of different issues. While not widely read, the importance of these platforms cannot be understated. They provide a lens for us in order to view the ideological shifts of the parties and often serve as a mechanism by which to guide the legislative agendas of the parties. This dissertation examines Republican and Democratic platforms written between 1960-2016 using a mixed methods approach in order to evaluate the value of using both quantitative and qualitative approaches. …