Regulating The Bitcoin Ecosystem

Bitcoin is a peer to peer decentralized virtual currency, released online through a research paper in 2008 by the unknown Satoshi Nakamoto . Around the world, many countries have cautiously taken minor initiatives to address the regulatory issues, due to its rising popularity. The regulation is not seen as complete, due to the nascent and novel...

Macro-economic imbalances in the Eurozone: An input-output analysis of the core-periphery divergence

With stagnating growth rates among a majority of its members, soaring unemployment figures and an increased risk of deflation, the economic conditions of the European economy do not strongly reflect a stronger and more united Europe as was intended by the monetary unification in 2001. On the contrary, the recent painstaking negotiations between...

The Future of Manufacturing in India: Identifying Sectors which would lead to Sustained Growth

This study uses the product space map approach to study the future of manufacturing in India. It uses value added export data to predict structural transformation of the country's manufacturing sector.

Climate Change and Economic Growth: Production Based versus Consumption Based Evidence on the Decoupling of CO2 Emissions from Economic Growth

Of all the issues the world is facing today, Climate Change is the most threatening. The atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases has increased significantly after industrial revolution and the vast majority of scientists now agree that most of the observed warming in the Earth’s climate system has been caused by these anthropogenic...

Obstacles to Energy Efficiency: The incentive mismatch between the industry and the Energy Efficiency Directive

This Thesis focussed on what obstacles the refining and (petro)chemical industries are facing in reaching the Energy Efficiency Directive's target. This target means that the industry should become 20% more energy efficient than projected energy efficiency levels. Interviews have been conducted with members of the whole industry chain, e.g. R&D...

Inequality and Economic Growth in Emerging Market Economies: A Comparative Analysis of Indonesia and Korea

For the last four decades, inequality has been increasing in both industrialized and emerging market countries. Inequality is a concern in development due to its social-ethical and economic rationale. Inequality can impair social well-being which leads to political unrest. Also it can trigger economic instability and hamper economic growth....

A Study of the Potential for Small Wind Turbines In Greece: Current market status, barriers to growth and support policy options

Wind energy today is synonymous with the extraction of energy from wind via the deployment of groups of large multi-megawatt wind turbines. Nonetheless Small wind turbines (SWT) have been also designed for the built environment in order to extract energy from the wind, while being at close proximity to buildings. Despite the fact that their...

Fuel Cell Technology in Europe: What Are the Main Economic Barriers and How Can Policy Help to Overcome Them

Renewable Energy Technologies (RET) are the most promising way of covering the (present and future) energy demands all over the world in a sustainable manner and they have a big potential for being the energy leader in a few years. Until recently RET have supplied between 15 and 20% of the energy world demand and this will be possibly increased...

A predictive sourcing model for multi Export Credit Agency financed large industrial projects

CB&I is experiencing an issue in a new project to be executed in Russia, named NKNK. Despite the rich experience CB&I has with projects, there is a continuous struggle with the sourcing process in projects which it involves financing by multiple export credit agencies. The issue at stake is, CB&I does not know beforehand in which countries it is...

An Economic Assessment of Carbon Capture & Storage: The Case of the Netherlands

Following the industrial revolution started circa 1750, global energy consumption and, consequently, CO2 emissions have been rapidly increasing. The amount of CO2 rose from 280 ppm in 1750 to 388 ppm in 2010. This increasing amount of GHGs gases, specifically CO2, is the underlying cause of global warming. According to the IPCC report, with the...

The Economic, Environmental, and Geopolitical Impacts of ASEAN-China Free Trade Area (ACFTA) on Indonesia

The normalization of political relationship between ASEAN and China brings a closer economic cooperation between them. It culminated through the establishment of ASEAN-China Free Trade Area (ACFTA). In this research, I analyze the economic, environmental, and geopolitical impacts of ACFTA on Indonesia. The economic analysis covers trade...

Promoting wind energy in the Mediterranean Sea: Spain, Italy and Greece: A cross-country comparative analysis of the support policy instruments and framework changes

Inflation Targeting: A Reconsideration

In response to the abandonment of monetary targeting, Inflation targeting (IT) has emerged as a dominant monetary policy framework in both industrializing and industrialized countries. The framework was aimed to provide a new anchor for conducting monetary policy, and the theoretical underpinnings of this framework are based on two things: First...