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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™

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Macroeconomics

University of Massachusetts Amherst

Doctoral Dissertations

Theses/Dissertations

2014

Articles 1 - 6 of 6

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Financialization Of The Commodities Futures Markets And Its Effects On Prices, Manisha Pradhananga Nov 2014

Financialization Of The Commodities Futures Markets And Its Effects On Prices, Manisha Pradhananga

Doctoral Dissertations

After declining for almost three decades, the food price index of the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) rose by 90 percent between January 2002 and June 2008. Besides the magnitude, the rise in prices was remarkable for its breadth, affecting a broad range of commodities including agricultural (wheat, corn, soybeans, cocoa, coffee), energy (crude oil, gasoline), and metals (copper, aluminum). According to the US Department of Agriculture, this price spike was responsible for increasing the number of malnourished people by 80 million. These dramatic developments in prices coincided with a rapid inflow of investment into the commodities futures market -- …

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Three Essays In Macroeconomic History, Joshua W. Mason Nov 2014

Three Essays In Macroeconomic History, Joshua W. Mason

Doctoral Dissertations

Following Minsky, an economy can be understood as a set of units linked to each other by flows of money payments and by the commitments to future payments reflected on balance sheets. This dissertation offers three accounts of the historical evolution of the US economy, conceived of a network of balance sheets, over the course of 20th and early 21st century. The first essay looks at changes in the pattern of payment flows between nonfinancial corporations and financial markets associated with the ``shareholder revolution" of the 1980s. It argues that the shift in payouts to shareholders from a quasi-fixed stream …

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Output Fluctuations And Economic Growth In Latin America In The Aftermath Of The Great Recession, Gonzalo Hernandez Jimenez Nov 2014

Output Fluctuations And Economic Growth In Latin America In The Aftermath Of The Great Recession, Gonzalo Hernandez Jimenez

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines the short and long run effects of the Great Recession on Latin America. For the short run, this study evaluates (i) the existence of a business cycle co-movement between the US and Latin America, (ii) the role of the Latin American export structure as an aspect that may amplify the growth spillover effects of the output fluctuations in the US, and (iii) the terms of trade as a determinant of the short run output fluctuations in Colombia, a primary commodity exporter that resembles the assumptions of open small dependent economies. Consistent with the historical evidence, the US …

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The Financial Underpinnings Of The Eu Crisis: Financial Deregulation, Privatization, And Asymmetric State Power, Nina Q. Eichacker Nov 2014

The Financial Underpinnings Of The Eu Crisis: Financial Deregulation, Privatization, And Asymmetric State Power, Nina Q. Eichacker

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation asks the following questions. How has financial liberalization affected the incidence of financial crisis in Europe? How have power asymmetries within Western Europe facilitated the process of financial liberalization, and distributed the costs and gains from this liberalization? How have these dynamics been demonstrated at the state level? It charts the institutional liberalization and privatization of European finance from the 1960s onward and presents a survey of descriptive statistics that show how different financial stability, financial flow, and macroeconomic variables have changed in Western Europe since the early 1980s, generally increasing financial and economic instability. It also demonstrates …

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The Financialization Of The Nonfinancial Corporation In The Post-1970 U.S. Economy, Leila Emami Davis Nov 2014

The Financialization Of The Nonfinancial Corporation In The Post-1970 U.S. Economy, Leila Emami Davis

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation analyzes the financialization of nonfinancial corporations (NFCs), emphasizing changes in firm-level financial behavior in the post-1970 U.S. economy. The dissertation consists of four essays. These essays ask what is the financialization of NFCs, explore why NFCs have ‘financialized’, and evaluate the implications for fixed investment behavior. Chapter 2 lays out a simple stylized framework describing firm-level portfolio choice and utilizes this framework to analyze the implications of increasing NFC involvement in the provision of financial services, increasingly entrenched shareholder value norms, and rising firm-level demand volatility for NFC financial structure. By articulating underlying determinants of firm-level portfolio and …

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The Financial Sector And Inclusive Development In Africa: Essays On Access To Finance For Small And Medium-Sized Enterprises In South Sudan And Kenya, James A. Garang Aug 2014

The Financial Sector And Inclusive Development In Africa: Essays On Access To Finance For Small And Medium-Sized Enterprises In South Sudan And Kenya, James A. Garang

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation, consisting of three essays, uses data from field surveys of banks and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) conducted in South Sudan and Kenya from July 2011 through September 2012. The first essay examines the role of financial sector development in expanding access to finance by SMEs in Kenya. We find that while the financial system in general, and the Central Bank of Kenya in particular, have made headway in expanding financial inclusion in Kenya, small firms continue to face more constraints in access to finance compared to larger firms. The policy emphasis on financial inclusion, coupled with the …

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