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This thesis examines whether household-level idiosyncratic shocks are associated with food insecurity among rural Nigerian households, and whether this association is more visible in experience-based indicators than in consumption-based outcomes. Using Wave 4 of the Nigeria General Household Survey-Panel, the analysis focuses on 3,383 rural households and estimates conditional associations between
This research paper seeks to understand the persistence of the Church Fund in contemporary Poland. The Church Fund, an entirely state-funded financing scheme for churches in Poland, is considered to be an archaic institution by popular opinion, and a contradiction to Poland’s constitutional mandate for secularism. This study analyzes the political debates within the Lower House of the Polish Gover
This thesis examines how governance quality influences the legal and financial terms of Chinese sovereign loan contracts in Africa. With a qualitative approach, using a comparative case study of Ghana, Uganda, the Republic of Congo, and Botswana, it examines the presence and severity of clauses such as confidentiality, sovereign immunity waivers, governing law, collateralization, and dispute resol
This thesis explores the impact of political violence on human capital development in Northern Ireland during conflict called the Troubles. The study aims to capture whether areas affected by violence experienced long-term economic disruptions, particularly in relation to unemployment rates. With the use of geocoded data on over 3500 conflict-related deaths and census data from 1971, 1981 and 1991
This thesis analyses how exchange rate regimes impact the competitiveness of Côte d'Ivoirian and Ghanaian commodity exports between 1999 and 2023. While Ghana’s floating cedi offers flexibility in the form of currency-driven price adjustments, Côte d’Ivoire’s fixed CFA franc, pegged to the euro, offers stability at the cost of flexibility. By analysing trade flows of their primary commodity ex
This thesis analyzes the consequences of the debt shift in South Korea and explores whether the expansion of property-related lending causes the rise in residential property prices. By making use of quantitative methods, such as statistical analysis and econometric techniques, the thesis studies the causal relationship between the expansion of property-related loans, which includes both mortgage a
The research investigates whether Bukele’s zero tolerance to crime approach, the state’s involvement in economic affairs and the president’s investments can serve as a viable model for long-term economic development. Using case study analysis, the study examines El Salvador alongside South Korea and Singapore, two historically successful cases of state-led development. It assesses the socio-econom
This thesis examines whether female labor force participation (FLFP) and export diversification function as complementary drivers of macroeconomic resilience in oil-dependent Nigeria between 1996 and 2024. Anchored in the social capability framework and OLS on annual time series data, it tests whether higher FLFP and diversification alone reduce GDP volatility, and whether their interaction yields
This thesis investigates the divergent economic outcomes of developing nations following the 1980s Volcker Shock. It challenges the mainstream 'export-led resilience' hypothesis, which attributes East Asia's success and Latin America's 'lost decade' to their respective industrial strategies. This study argues that the decisive factor was not trade orientation but the compos
New EU laws, policies, and strategies establish that European fibre, textile, and fashion producers must transform to operate more sustainably. This need for transformation raises numerous questions about the future of the European fibre, textile, and fashion industry. This thesis aims, through a case study approach explore the experiences and perspectives held by producers and other industry acto
This thesis investigates the creation of the Ñuble Region in Chile in 2017 as a case of subnational fiscal autonomy and its impact on regional development. Using detailed budget data from 2012 to 2024, it analyses changes in total budget, per capita allocations, and sectoral spending, focusing on social investments. Results show that Ñuble experienced significant increases in total and per capita
This study investigates the persistent impact of child marriage on the educational attainment of Brazilian women born between 1930 and 1999. Drawing on microdata from the 2019 National Health Survey (PNS) conducted by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), the research employs a quantitative analysis using logit models. Although overall access to education in Brazil has signif
The discovery of petroleum in Norway provides a useful way of examining how natural resource wealth interacts with institutional development in an already strong institutional environment. While much of the previous literature on the resource curse focuses on weak-institutional oil-states, the Nordic comparison setting allows for an examination in a semi-controlled environment with strong pre-exis
The green transition has increased the demand for minerals and raw materials, positioning the mining industry as essential for achieving the current climate goals. However, mining activities also create significant social and environmental tensions, particularly for local communities and indigenous groups. This paper examines whether sustainability practices within the Swedish mining industry alig
Does the quality of project planning documents predict development outcomes? This thesis examines that question empirically using 1,110 World Bank Investment Project Financing operations in South Asia approved between 1958 and 2021. Drawing on the full text of project appraisal documents, the thesis constructs quantitative scores operationalising three competing theoretical frameworks: Results-Bas
The rapid growth of artificial intelligence (AI) has made data centres a significant and growing source of electricity demand. This study projects AI-driven data centre electricity demand in Sweden for the years 2022 to 2045, and further quantifies its implications for Sweden’s 2030 and 2045 climate targets. Using a three-step methodological approach, the study constructs a total data centre elect
This thesis investigates how the 2004 European Union enlargement influenced economic development in border regions of new member states. Using a synthetic difference-in-differences approach on panel data for NUTS 3 regions across all EU member states between 1995-2024, the analysis estimates the causal effect of EU accession on border regions relative to interior regions. The results show that lan
This study investigates how mobile broadband expansion affected the allocation of labor across sectors in Mongolia from 2000 to 2020. Drawing on MobiCom tower rollout data and IPUMS International census microdata, it employs a Difference-in-Differences design that exploits the staggered geographic rollout of broadband infrastructure as a source of quasi-experimental variation. Key findings indicat
In 2005, the EU launched its flagship environmental policy, the European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS). Through the framework of the leading environmental regulation theories, the Pollution Haven Hypothesis (PHH) and the Porter Hypothesis (PH), this study explores the effect of Phase 3 of the EU ETS on foreign direct investment (FDI) flows and the industrial production index (IPI). Using
This thesis evaluates whether Thailand’s EV industrial policies, EV 3.0 and EV 3.5, have supported domestic industrial upgrading or reorganised foreign dependency under new technological conditions. It develops a framework combining global value chain governance theory, leapfrogging theory and product cycle theory, operationalised through four diagnostic conditions: lead firm control, knowledge tr
