Economical and Ethical Implications of Off-shoring Decisions from Germany to Romania

With globalization, off-shoring has become a common practice for companies because of its cost saving advantages and ability to access needed human capital. However, off-shoring is often associated with the job loss and wage change in the domestic country. With the opening of the East European market, Germany has become one of the most important...

Harnessing Solar Power for Productive Use

As sub-Saharan Africa seeks to address their growing energy demands given financial constraints, limited capital, and poor existing infrastructure; Uganda presents a particularly challenging case among African countries. With a rapidly growing population and economy and rural electricity penetration of only about 5%, the Ugandan government is...

Dynamic efficiency analysis of wind energy deployment policy: Lessons from Germany, the Netherlands and the United States

Feed-in tariffs (FIT) and Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) have been introduced as main support schemes to deploy wind power in major economies. Both policies involve a high cost burden to the public through either government expenditure or a surcharge on consumer electricity price, since wind is still more expensive for generation than...

Working Conditions in the Bangladeshi garment sector: Social dialogue and compliance

The Bangladeshi garment sector is a leading garment manufacturing industry in the world that has been growing constantly during the last decades. Today the garment sector represent the 80% of the national export and counts USD 19 billions revenues; these numbers describe the sector as the most important manufacturing industry in Bangladesh. The...

Employment and Working Hours Effects of Minimum Wage Policy in China

The effect of minimum wage policy on employment and working hours is crucial for assessing the overall effect of this policy. A large number of scholars studied this issue from both the theoretical and empirical perspectives, but still no consensus was reached. Under the background of economic rebalance which is a transition from the export...

Financial Stress Testing: A model based exploration under deep uncertainty

Years of turmoil in the banking sector have revealed the need to assess the performance of banks and explore the resilience of the banking system under adverse futures. Banks are not the safe houses everyone believed them to be, as the recent crisis of 2007 showed. Today, banks are highly uncertain dynamically complex systems that are...

Capitalising Renewable Energy Projects Through the Incentivisation of Private-Sector Investments via the New Market Mechanism (NMM)

The European Union (EU), United Nations (UN) (as stressed through the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC)), and other nations and international organisations would like to see significantly lower global carbon & greenhouse gas emissions. To reach or surpass Kyoto commitments, considerable (technological) steps must be...

ICT, Productivity and Economic Growth

This master thesis is part of the project that Statistics Netherlands (CBS) conducts for the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs. The main purpose of this project is to study the influence of ICT on productivity and economic growth. This thesis had three objectives: (1) to define ICT and indicators to measure ICT intensity, (2) to investigate the...

Credit to SMEs? Robust Lending Decisions with Exploratory System Dynamics Modelling and Analysis

This project’s commissioner, the head of ING’s emerging markets credit trading desk developed a loan structure called Revenue Participation Loan to fit the needs of SMEs in emerging markets. He now wants to combine this new product with innovation in his approach to uncertainty. With these types of loans SMEs agree to pay a fixed percentage of...

Instituitions and Venture Capital: A cross country analysis on OECD countries

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) form the backbone of any economy. However, access to finance remains a key contraint to SME development and thus economic development. The Venture Capital industry has proved to be a good alternative source of financing in some countries to promote innovation and entrepreneurship. Having originated in the USA ...

Can Wage Restraint Pull the Mediterranean Countries Out of the Sovereign-Debt Crisis? An Empirical Analysis of OECD Export Performance

On March 25th 2011, the European Council passed the Euro-plus Pact in order to enhance the competitiveness of European countries especially for the four Mediterranean countries which were trapped in a sovereign-debt crisis. One of the main focuses of the Pact was to restrain the growth rate of wages to make it below the growth rate of...