Suchergebnisse

Research on economic growth and development in developing countries has often highlighted the role of liberalisation policies (economic and political) in improving economic performance in the developing world. In sub-Saharan Africa, in particular, efforts at fostering economic growth and development have not only resulted in the adoption of these policies, but have also led to the proliferation of regional economic integration (include monetary unification). Nonetheless, the impact of these policies on economic performance continues to be a subject of debate among policy makers, development partners, academic researchers, and the international community at large. This debate has become increasingly important in light of the challenges facing the aforementioned agents in helping to improve the economic performance of these countries. This thesis focuses on this topic providing empirical evidence for sub-Saharan African countries. The first chapter uses post-liberalisation data on Ghana and focuses on the extent to which trade openness and foreign aid inflows impact on economic growth. Ghana, being one of the forerunners to adopt liberalisation policies in sub-Saharan Africa, has received commendations from the international community for its post-liberalisation economic growth performance. This has increased government commitment in recent years to open the economy to international competition. Moreover, foreign aid inflows over the period have been relatively large. The study, which employs the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach to cointegration, provides empirical findings, which clearly indicate that the impact of both trade openness and foreign aid on Ghana's post-liberalisation economic growth is positive and statistically significant in both the short-run and the long run, although this is somewhat reduced by their interaction. In addition, the study reveals long run economic growth benefits of Ghana's political system whilst government spending and labour force performance retarded economic growth over the study period. The empirical findings and policy recommendations are relevant for Ghana's long-term economic growth policy reforms. The second chapter, taken cognisance of the fact that sub-Saharan Africa has been characterised by low-income levels for decades, analyses the impact of economic globalisation and democracy on income levels in the area using panel cointegration techniques. The study considers a composite indicator for economic globalisation and several indicators of democracy and highlights the essence of the simultaneous adoption of economic globalisation and democracy for sub-Saharan African countries. The empirical results, based on a sample of 31 countries over the period 1980-2005, clearly indicate that, whilst the total long run impact of economic globalisation on income levels has been beneficial, the total long run impact of democracy has been the bane of the level of income in sub-Saharan Africa. The study concludes that policy reforms should be aimed at improving democratic institutions in sub-Saharan Africa for its potential benefits to be realised The third chapter focuses on the implications of trade openness, foreign aid and democracy for the fulfilment of Wagner's law in West African Monetary Zone (WAMZ) countries. Although the impact of trade openness, foreign aid and democracy on government expenditure in developing countries has been emphasised in the literature in recent decades most recent studies of Wagner's law have often neglected the increasing role played by these policy variables. The study provides an empirical analysis of the long run implications of trade openness, foreign aid and democracy for the fulfilment of Wagner's law in WAMZ countries using panel data techniques for the period 1980-2008. The study finds the existence of Wagner's law in WAMZ countries, but only when the role of these policy variables has been catered for. The analysis concludes that, if these countries are to meet the fiscal convergence criteria and ensure the sustainability of a single currency area, explicit sets of restraint on the national authorities and innovative and efficient ways of domestic revenue generation necessary to ensure that government revenue keep pace with its expenditure become crucial, because the monetary union by itself may not necessarily ensure fiscal discipline. The fourth chapter focuses on the relationship between democracy, government spending, and economic growth. Although, economic theory predicts that various core functions of governments are growth enhancing, its spending in non democratic countries often goes beyond these core functions, namely into rent-seeking and non-productive activities. The study employs the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach to cointegration to investigate the extent to which democracy and government spending have had an impact on economic growth in Ghana over the period 1960-2008. The empirical results obtained are encouraging, revealing support for the high efficiency of government spending in democracies hypothesis. The study demonstrates that democracy and government spending go hand in hand in providing a complementary role to impact positive on economic growth in Ghana in both the long-and short-run. The fifth chapter investigates the impact of trade openness on economic growth and development for a sample of 85 middle-income countries over the period 1970-2009. The study employs non-stationary heterogeneous panel cointegration techniques that take into consideration the impact of cross-section dependence. The analysis reveals four important findings. Firstly, that trade openness has been one of the main drivers of the level of development, but not of economic growth in middle-income countries. Secondly, that trade openness is both a cause and a consequence of the level of development in middle-income countries. Thirdly, that neglecting the impact of cross-section dependence overestimates the coefficient linked to the long-run relationship between trade openness and development. Lastly, and most importantly, that these results are consistent for all the 20 middle-income sub-Saharan African countries included in the sample.

The aim of this thesis is contributing to the debate about the organization of economic activities across space and its impacts both on economic competitiveness and on environmental sustainability. The first chapter states the most important aspects of spatial structure, which are polycentric development and urban dispersion, and highlights the relevance of spatial economic organization for public policies, in particular with reference to the spatial policies addressed by the European Union. In order to assess the effects of spatial structure, the second chapter tackles the issue of the analytical definition and measurement of polycentricity and dispersion. By surveying the most relevant literature in urban and regional economics, and geography and spatial planning, the chapter illustrates the main analytical dimensions and the empirical methods for the measurement of spatial structure at regional level, providing an empirical illustration on Italian regions. The third chapter analyses the relationships between spatial structure and economic competitiveness in Italian NUTS-3 regions. It presents the theoretical framework, grounded on agglomeration economies literature, and check whether agglomeration economies may depend on spatial organization of economic activities across Italian regions. In the empirical analysis labour productivity is taken as a proxy for economic competitiveness and both of polycentricity and urban dispersion seems to have negative impacts. The fourth chapter analyses the links between spatial structure and environmental pressure. The latter have been measured by gas emissions generated by private road transport and house heating. After the literature review, the chapter shows, through regression analysis of NUTS-3 regions, that spatial structure influences CO2 emissions from transport and PM10 emissions from house heating, with no evidence that polycentricity helps in reducing emissions. The thesis concludes discussing the main results from the empirical part of the work and sketch further steps in the analysis of spatial structure and economic development.

The issue of the link between migration and development is increasingly relevant in the global political agenda. However, the scientific discussion concerning the increased migratory flows seems to be more focused on the questions regarding admission and / or rejection of migrants on the territory of receiving countries than on the general topic of the contribution of migrants to the financial, social and cultural development of societies (of origin, transit, or destination). The volume aims at offering food for thought for the analysis of the changes occurring in modern societies, that are asked to answer thoroughly to economic and forced migration. The goal of the volume is to open discussion among experts, scholars and policy-makers, on the problematic questions, outcomes, implications and achievements on migration and development.

Una dura critica all'approccio definito "Analisi dell'impatto sociale" o "Analisi del benessere sociale", sorto recentemente nel campo dell'antropologia dello sviluppo, e avanzata da Gutkind in questo saggio.L'autore considera lo "sviluppo", a cui con confuso liberalismo si rivolge l'interesse degli antropologi, estraneo alle masse beneficiarie. La logica capitalistica e gli obiettivi capitalistici sono mascherati sotto iniziative e opportunità locali. Condanna quindi l'ideologia dello sviluppo che finora ha ispirato gli obiettivi delle politiche di sviluppo adottate nel Terzo Mondo e denuncia il coinvolgimento degli antropologi, quali professionisti dello sviluppo, in questo "gioco". Addirittura aberrazioni sono definite dall'autore i concetti proposti dall' "Analisi dell'impatto sociale", ultimo prodotto di quell'ideologia dello sviluppo che egli ulteriormente condanna in quanto riflette l'ideologia del professionalismo, del carrierismo, dell'intellettualismo di falsa tradizione umanistica.Gutkind propone quindi di affrontare i problemi relativi allo sviluppo dei paesi del Terzo Mondo con una prospettiva radicalmente diversa, attraverso cioè concettualizzazioni e metodologie proprie della storia sociale. Solo l'approccio della storia sociale con impostazione marxista permette una valutazione ed un'analisi degli effetti dell'incorporazione di paesi a basso reddito in un sistema complesso dominato dal capitalismo. Solamente adottando un orientamento storico sociale si può far luce su questi importanti problemi, offuscati invece da modelli come le "Analisi di impatto sociale", garantendo inoltre la sopravvivenza dell'antropologia altrimenti destinata a scomparire.

L'obiettivo di questo articolo è la presentazione dei risultati preliminari di una ricerca a lungo termine che pensiamo di completare nel termine di sette od otto anni. Il progetto si interessa della struttura, dell'ideologia e dello sviluppo storico dell' "alta borghesia" messicana, con particolare riferimento alla sua componente aristocratica.In questa nostra descrizione storica discuteremo le cause della stratificazione borghese e delle conquiste aristocratiche negli oltre quattro secoli trascorsi dalla conquista spagnola, al fine di poter comprendere l'attuale conformazione dell'alta borghesia. Per il momento della conquista e per il primo periodo coloniale (1519-1650), analizzeremo le condizioni socioeconomiche che determinarono la preminenza degli encomenderos all'interno di una societa divisa in "stati". Per il medio e tardo periodo coloniale (1650-1824) mostreremo come la mobilita tendera a far disporre i piu elevati settori della societa coloniale lungo linee di classe; mentre per il periodo compreso tra l'indipendenza e la rivoluzione messicana (1824-1910) si avrà praticamente un proseguimento del sistema pre-repubblicano e la dominanza della classe degli hacendados nella vita economica e sociale della nazione. Infine, per il periodo che va dalla rivoluzione all'epoca attuale (1910-1940) registreremo la fine dell'aristocrazia terriera quale classe dominante in Messico. In questo nostro lavoro abbiamo in conclusione tentato di correlare la formazione e lo sviluppo storico dell'aristocrazia messicana con la dinamica della formazione delle classi in Messico e ai fattori sociali, politici, economici e religiosi che l'hanno accompagnata.

Nowadays the efforts aimed at enhancing the Internal Combustion Engines (ICEs) are mainly focused on the fuel consumption minimization to comply with binding CO2 emission legislation for vehicle homologation. Concerning the Spark-Ignition ICEs, the most widespread path to satisfy the pollutant emission limits is the adoption of a three-way catalyst (TWC) along the exhaust line. As known, this solution poses some issues, such as a low efficiency at cold start or an effectiveness degradation because of aging. In addition, it involves the impossibility to exploit the advantages of lean combustions, since a close to stoichiometric air/fuel mixture is mandatory for efficient TWC operation. For the above reasons, a growing interest towards solutions limiting engine raw emissions is emerging. So future legislation requires new technical measures to increase engine efficiency and reduce pollutant emissions. Here gasoline engines with high specific power have a huge development potential, since, on the one hand, knocking at high Brake Mean Effective Pressure (BMEP) limits thermal efficiency and, on the other hand, high power densities lead to increased thermal loads, which, for component protection reasons, need to be controlled by means of enrichment beyond the stoichiometric air-fuel ratio. This operation leads to increased fuel consumption and to higher pollutant emissions; especially harmful soot particles, hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide are emitted in a higher amount. In addition to known systems, such as exhaust manifolds integrated in the cylinder head for direct cooling of the exhaust gas, extended effective expansion by optimized valve timings (Miller, Atkinson) and external cooled exhaust gas recirculation, also new technologies are being developed for passenger cars. Those technologies primarily aim to widen the lambda one range of the engine in order to maintain the stoichiometric air/fuel ratio throughout the entire engine operating range, which is expected to be required for future Real Driving Emissions (RDE) legislation. The first chapter explains the current situation and future direction of internal combustion engines, with a particular focus on the gasoline engines with high specific power and covers broad regulatory changes in the last year related to tailpipe emissions of criteria pollutants and CO2/fuel economy. Throughout the chapter, a brief overview of internal combustion engines and their future development will be provided so to understand and appreciate why it is still relevant to conduct research in this field, while facilitating the improvement of green technologies in order to achieve a sustainable transportation system. The motivation behind this study and the research direction will also be clarified. Then, a Lamborghini 12-cylinder naturally aspirated spark ignition engine is investigated. The engine is experimentally tested under full and part load operation with two different Air-to-fuel ratio maps. Main performance parameters, in-cylinder pressure cycles and raw pollutant emissions are measured. The engine is schematized in a one-dimensional model (GT-Power™), where "user routines" are employed to simulate turbulence, combustion, knock and pollutant production. 1D model is validated against the experimental data, denoting a good accuracy. The innovative contribution of this section can be hence recognized in the development of a 1D model characterized by a single set of tuning constants allowing for an accurate reproduction of the combustion process in all the engine configurations. As better explained in the following, the combustion model is in fact coupled to a turbulence sub-model, preliminary tuned with reference to 3D-CFD results, in motored operation. This methodology is particularly helpful in the calibration of a VVT engine, where the turbulence levels substantially vary at part load according to the intake/exhaust valve strategies. Combustion and turbulence constants are hence selected through comparisons with few experimental data at full load and 3D results, and then employed at part load and in the optimization process, as well. The results about the raw emissions put into evidence that the numerical approach predicts the experimental data of carbon monoxide (CO) and nitrogen oxides (NO), but it is not enough advanced to reproduce the hydrocarbon (HC) level, although the variations with the engine operating parameters (speed, load, air/fuel ratio) are captured. The model is employed to study the water injection impact to draw the variation trend of the exhaust temperature, performance and the pollutant emissions changing the engine hardware, rather than to predict their absolute levels. The combustion speed takes into account the water presence with a refined correlation of laminar flame velocity and the knock model gives the possibility to set the best spark advance. The water evaporation reduces the in-cylinder temperature and, as a consequence the knock level, is lower. The computed HC, CO and NO maps have been embedded in a vehicle simulation to estimate the impact of the analysed technical solutions on a RDE cycle suggested by Lamborghini. In this way, with a fully numerical approach, a new hardware is analysed and its impact in term of pollutions level is verified on a realistic drive cycle that the new regulations seems to impose. In this way, a new approach to design the future high performance engines has been individuated and the impact of the new regulations can be seen before experimental tests, reducing the time to market and the economic effort. Then, the difference between the engine out emission level and the limit that the regulation imposes can help also to design the after-treatment system. Summarizing, the presented numerical approach showed the potential to predict, on a physical basis, the combined effects of various techniques on the engine performance. This methodology could represent an effective tool to identify the trade-off between engine complexity and expected improvements, contributing to support and drive the development process of new engine/vehicle.

Il presente lavoro è mirato a controllare l'asserzione sulla scarsa determinazione dei governi occidentali nel favorire la democratizzazione dei paesi dell'est Europa. L'analisi empirica mostra che la modalità principale di applicazione della condizionalità politica da parte della EBRO è stata lo sbarramento all'accesso verso i regimi autoritari. Tuttavia, non tutte le dittature sono state sanzionate. Un trattamento diverso è stato riservato alla Serbia e Georgia da un lato e ai cinque paesi dell'Asia e all' Azeirbaijan dall'altro.