Over the course of the past centuries, humanity’s influence on the Earth’s atmosphere and climate system has become so significant as to induce geophysical feedback effects, specifically in the form of a self-reinforcing process of global warming. In order to contain the global warming and prevent the expected impacts of climate change from happening, it has become imperative to undertake drastic steps directed towards reducing emissions of greenhouse gases (including CO2). Action needs to be taken soon, as with the growing population, the demand for carbon-intensive (conventional) energy sources is growing and thus greenhouse gas emissions (the main cause for global warming) are increasing. To slow down global warming, energy conservation, energy efficiency improvement and renewable energy generation are the only practical solutions available to mankind...

National policies that seek to stimulate the energy transition require attention with the requirement for generation sources that can compensate for moments when wind and solar plants are not available. Electricity supply needs to adjust to demand in real-time, at least until energy storage becomes commercially viable, otherwise the energy security is compromised. Hence, the dilemma for energy policies is to continue to promote the expansion of renewables at the same time they secure the provision of flexible sources. One well-known technology for such is the combined-cycle gas turbine (CCGT). It has been used for a long time, however now there is concern over its economic viability due to the merit order effect of renewables. Germany is a front-runner in the energy transition and, recently, it enacted the Energy Market 2.0 to lay out a market design to accommodate the increasing intermittency. The underlying belief is that a competitive environment will allow market forces to provide the necessary flexibility in an economic efficient manner. Hence, the success of the Energiewende in this new policy framework depends on how the generation firms perceive the market conditions and investment incentives. This research investigates how these market actors and the federal government will perceive CCGT generation competitiveness, using generation costs as a criterion and external costs to account for social efficiency. A tailored Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) calculation is used to evaluate a CCGT power-plant in the context of a high presence of renewables. The method is broadly used and conveys the complexities of investment appraisal in a relatively simple manner, however there is no prior research that applies it to the described scenario. Energy storage is also investigated for comparison purposes. This research finds that CCGT generation firms in Germany will not have sufficient incentive to invest in new power-plants between 2020 and 2030. It is also found that the technology is not a cost-effective option for flexibility from a societal perspective either. Energy storage is more cost-advantageous than CCGT, especially when external costs are considered. Therefore, CCGT plants are expected not to be attractive for generation actors under the German energy policy framework. Vanadium batteries pose as a promising alternative for the system after 2030, but its uncertain cost development requires public investment to guarantee it effectively becomes competitive. Policies to incentivize CCGT generation seem economic inefficient and are not advisable, as the implementation of new plants during the next ten years would create long-term lock-ins.

With the decision made to act upon climate change, the remaining question is: "How?". Economic theory suggests that the most efficient method is by means of market-based policies. These policies are often designed based on Integrated Assessment Models like DICE, which is the subject of this thesis. Integrating uncertainty into this model has been the aim of the thesis. The stochastic version of DICE, EICE, showed to be sensitive to the distribution of climate uncertainty, but results were less explicit then expected. Overall, the conclusion is that both modest and more strict mitigation policies can be justified based on EICE.

Current implementation of Quantitative Easing (QE) by the European Central Bank (ECB) contributes to global warming and counteracts a transition to a carbon-free economy. The research formulates green alternatives for current QE policy that are consistent with the ECB’s mandate. Evaluation in a stock-flow-fund ecological macroeconomic model shows that global implementation of these alternatives can significantly contribute to a mitigation of climate change. Through lowering financing costs, green QE leads to higher shares of green investment and green capital, apparent immediately after implementation. More green capital leads to higher shares of renewable energy which leads to lower levels of carbon emissions. In the most extensive policy alternative, this results in a mitigation of atmospheric temperature rise of approximately 12% compared to a baseline scenario, to approximately 6% in a limited policy alternative. Macroeconomic performance or the stability of the financial system are not affected by these policies in the short to medium term, and positively in the long term. These effects justify a consideration on whether green QE should become ECB policy.

Humanity faces the unprecedented global challenge of climate change. The sheer complexity and uncertainty of this problem renders mere intuitive reasoning insufficient. To aid global climate negotiations, Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) are used to analyze the interplay between climate and the economy. More specifically, IAMs account for how greenhouse gas emissions affect climate change, how climate change affects economic production, and how economic production affects GHG emissions. We can use IAMs to project trends in emissions and gross domestic product, assess the costs and benefits of climate policies, and estimate the social carbon cost required to achieve stated emissions reduction targets. Although IAMs are central to informing decision-making to avoid catastrophic consequences, policy recommendations resulting from IAMs commonly prompt a very heterogeneous distribution of risks and benefits across the globe. During the recent 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), it became clear that equity is a central issue in the climate action debate. Emerging economies consider currently suggested abatement policies unjust in light of the historical CO2 generation of high-income countries and the strongly increasing need for energy in low-income countries. The term double inequality has been coined to describe the inverse relationship between the distributions of risks and responsibilities. In fact, the regions that are the least responsible for historical and mostly current CO2 emissions around the world, exhibit the highest degree of vulnerability to climate damages. In order to enable international cooperation and have a shot at meeting the Paris Agreement target, we require policies that promote more equitable mitigation pathways. Equity is therefore an eminently pressing topic, yet most IAM studies largely neglect it due to the implicit use of a utilitarian social welfare function that aggregates risks and benefits over space and time, thus losing sight of distributional consequences. In order to account for distributional justice, we transform the RICE model into a simulation model and embed it in a many-objective simulation-optimization setup such that we can find Pareto-optimal climate mitigation pathways for different problem formulations. Next to using four ethical premises (rooted in utilitarianism, sufficientarianism, egalitarianism, and prioritarianism), we also direct particular attention to the disaggregation of utility and disutility within each of these ethical premises. The reason for this disaggregation is based on the incommensurability of these two. Usually, IAMs maximize aggregate variables such as welfare. If we also consider the minimization of welfare loss, which is based on economic damages as one of the objectives, we can enable a potentially fairer distribution of not only consumption but economic damages. We argue that we can find climate justice behind the veil of aggregation. What we mean by this is that more equitable policy recommendations are obscured and lie hidden behind a bulwark of highly aggregated variables. If we look beyond this obstruction by the means of disaggregation, we are better equipped to find climate justice. In order to get to the bottom of this, we ask the following question: How are Pareto-optimal climate abatement pathways affected by the disaggregation of utility and disutility in alternative ethical problem formulations when using an integrated assessment model under deep uncertainty? To answer this question, we use a framework that is called multi-scenario multi-objective robust decision-making. For each of the eight problem formulations (4 ethical premises x 2 levels of aggregation), we use a multi-objective evolutionary algorithm to find Pareto-optimal policies. We reevaluate their performances under uncertainty by comparing their climate abatement pathways across the problem formulations. On a high-level, we can summarize our key findings as: - dominance of aggregation levels over ethical premises - correlation between low welfare and high welfare loss - general dominance of egalitarian aggregated Pareto-optimal policies - shared misery via egalitarian disaggregated Pareto-optimal policies The effect of disaggregating utility and disutility is stronger than originally expected. Using disaggregated problem formulations yields substantially different pathways even within the same ethical premise. These results are promising as we could transfer these insights to other more complex IAMs such as IMAGE and MESSAGE. Overall, this could be also good news for the equity debate. Using alternative ethical premises and disaggregating incommensurate objectives such as utility and disutility can offer alternative policy recommendations and resulting climate abatement pathways which could in turn enable more equity. What we likely need now, is a stronger dialogue between the modelers and policy analysts on the one side and the stakeholders and decision-makers on the other side. The latter ones should not just blindly trust in the magical outputs of a model but they need to be involved to decide what problem formulations we need to use as there is no correct way to frame a complex real-world problem. As unmitigated climate damages exhibit an independent impact on a region's well-being, we could render IAMs more useful for climate policy if we a) acknowledge that the classical notion of welfare is obsolete, b) use a multi-objective approach, and c) let the decision-makers decide how they want to trade-off the various objectives in post. In this manner, we could use IAMs to advance into the direction of enabling a transition of more climate justice.

Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) are aiming to shed light on the cost-benefit of climate mitigations. However, current IAMs are depicted with a wide range of weaknesses. Next, to questionable assumptions of model functions, such as the damage function, IAMs are inadequate at addressing deeply uncertain parameters, such as the equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS). Various research has been conducted in addressing uncertainties by utilizing stochastic dynamic programming or approximate dynamic processing. However, two crucial aspects were not considered in these studies. First, most researchers utilized optimization to determine the optimal policy as their decision analytic method for the risk analysis. Yet optimal strategies are highly sensitive to uncertainties and thus, they lose their prescriptive value in a deeply uncertain environment like in the field of climate economics. Furthermore, most economists described the deep uncertainties of IAMs model by a normal distribution, at best by a lognormal distribution. However, Weitzman (2009) has shown in his Dismal Theorem, that deep “uncertainty in the form of fat tails is, at least in theory, capable of swamping the outcome of any CBA”. This research addresses both aspects by utilizing the Exploratory Modelling and Analysis (EMA) framework on the Dynamic Integrated Model of Climate and the Economy (DICE) of the Nobel prize winner Nordhaus. By translating the DICE model into a stochastic simulation model and conducting an EMA approach, this research demonstrates the importance of defining robust strategies against the disproportional risk in the fat-tails.

Twenty years ago, American-style shareholder capitalism, with its focus on maximising shareholders’ value (MSV), was widening its lead (in terms of economic growth) over European-style stakeholder capitalism. Nevertheless, the U.S. economy runs large trade deficits, inequality in income and wealth has risen, and there is a growing disappointment in the ability of American capitalism to deliver on its economic promise of prosperity. Evidence of superior long-run performance of enterprises operating in economies (such as Germany) where the MSV hypothesis is not the norm guiding corporate governance (but co-determination), suggests (at the minimum) that there are approaches to corporate governance which may be superior to MSV. In this thesis, the longer-run impacts of two alternative systems of corporate governance are explored with the aid of two business case studies—performed on General Motors (GM), from the U.S., and Volkswagen (VW), from Germany—with an aim to find the extent to which their diverse systems of corporate governance have contributed to (dis)investments in innovation. It has been found that, unlike the conditions at VW, the lack of a stable decision-making structure; inability to identify and confront competition; high profit-orientation, short-termism, yearly stock buybacks and regulations which permits it, and stock-based remuneration rationalised by the MSV hypothesis; flexible labour markets and downsizing; focus on the development of “general” skills; and aggressive debt financing, have shaped the corporate governance of GM and have affected its innovative capabilities. Moreover, VW—with its strong long-term competence development motive, technocratic managers, and better debt ratios—can be expected to identify and sustain its new (radical) innovation projects and if successful, can aid VW to emerge from any cost-disadvantage. GM can be expected to possess superior proprietary technologies and radical innovations or could be in a path of acquiring them. But, it is likely that with its current low cash margins and riskier credit-risk exposure—as a result of MSV perspective in corporate governance—GM may be placed at a cost disadvantage if the innovations fail or fail to appropriate gains.

Baumol's unbalanced growth model predicts the tendency of aggregate productivity growth to slow down in the process of tertiarisation. This thesis studies the relationship between employment structural changes and aggregate productivity growth in the case of China. William Nordhaus’s (2008) testing methodology will be applied to the China Industrial Productivity (CIP) Database that follows the KLEMS principles. The results suggest that there is a significant sign of Baumol’s cost disease in China during 1987-2010. Moreover, with more and more workers tolerating lower pay in the stagnant sectors, aggregate demand growth in the market will slow down. Eventually, the unbalanced growth may lead to economic stagnation. Hence, it is necessary to intervene in income distribution through fiscal and monetary policies to make the workers in the stagnant industries benefit from the technological progress.

Authors such as Clough (1955) and Rostow (1960) believed that countries endowed with natural resources could achieve sustainable economic growth. This belief was based on the role coal and oil had during the 19th and 20th century in the industrial development of countries such as Australia, Canada and the United States of America. However, this perspective started to change in the early 1980´s and has prevailed throughout the years, economists have observed that developing countries rich in non-renewable natural resources such as minerals and fossil fuels, have had a slower economic growth compared to developing resource-poor countries. The economist Auty (1993) denominated this phenomenon as a Natural Resource Curse, in which there is a negative correlation between natural resource dependence and economic growth. The South American country, Colombia, is the case study of the thesis in which an analysis is provided on how the growth and development of the extractive sector during the commodity price boom of the period 2004-2013 has affected the overall economy of the country. Additionally, the Colombian constitution states, the exploitation of a non-renewable natural resource will cause, in favour of the National Government, an economic consideration as a royalty (Const., 1991 Art. 360). Thus, for the present thesis, an emphasis is placed on the royalties the government received during the years 2012-2016 through the General Royalty System, (i) how these were used in the aspects of Science, Technology and Innovation, and Regional Development, (ii) to provide an understanding of to what extent these investments have contributed to regional growth, (iii) the correlation these investments have in a strategic economic sector such as the agroindustry.

For most countries, the targets set in the sustainable development goals for 2030 are far from being met. The main cause is a lack of financing, due to the relatively high risks and low rewards associated with sustainable projects. This has caused a financing gap in developing countries of upwards of 2.5 trillion US$ annually, equal to 3% of global GDP. These unattractive aspects of sustainable investment projects result in a lack of private investment, leaving public investment as the main source of funding for these projects. A vital area within the financing gap is the lack of financing for SMEs in developing countries, which are important for economic growth and job creation. The issues faced by these countries and especially SMEs have been compounded by the COVID 19 pandemic, which has claimed countless lives, but also countless jobs in developing countries and has caused extensive economic damage. In this light, achieving impact on SDG 8: ‘Decent Work and Economic Growth’ was deemed critical for the whole of sustainable development. Recently, blended finance, an investment type utilizing public and philanthropic capital to accelerate private investments, has become more popular. However, effective practices of using blended finance to foster job creation in developing countries through SME financing are lacking. Furthermore, there is little to no literature on investment decisions that goes into selecting projects for blended finance. In this light, this research aims to answer the following question: “What are effective practices and key investment decisions in using blended finance to fund SMEs in developing countries, focusing on impact towards achieving SDG8? To answer this question, a literature review of the concept of sustainable development, sustainable financing methods and the role of SMEs in the developing countries was conducted. This highlighted the potential of blended finance when compared to other sustainable financing methods in being able to aid these SMEs and impact SDG 8. Afterwards, a data analysis of the performance of recent SME financing projects in developing countries, as well as a case study consisting of interviews with blended finance investment experts was conducted, in order to find effective practices of financing SMEs in developing countries to facilitate the targets set by in SDG8 and highlight how investment decisions are (to be) taken when considering blended finance projects. It was found that even though the projects in lower-income countries within the could have stronger performance, a balance has to be struck between projects in these countries and those in slightly less low-income countries, in order to achieve consistent results. Furthermore, the use of public loan guarantees seems like a promising method but is currently suffering from a lack of willingness by banks to engage in blended finance transactions, due to solvency issues and general lower risk appetite and unfamiliarity with the methodology. Furthermore, key investment decisions from an investor perspective lie in the specific business case of the project and whether the investment is ‘additional’ to the market. Furthermore, the attitude and capabilities of the entrepreneur behind the project are essential, as investors prefer projects in which the entrepreneur has enough skin in the game and is open to collaboration with a multitude of investors, such that one investor does not have to bear all the risks. Furthermore, it is important for investors to balance impact with financial performance, as only achieving impact through risky projects is not a sustainable business practice. More investment decisions could be made in the future if more and different blended finance methodologies would become more readily available. However, many of these, such as higher-leverage loan guarantees and first loss guarantees, are hampered by a lack of willingness again of private credit suppliers to engage in these transactions with public blended finance institutions. Furthermore, larger fund sizes would help investor diversity more, and thereby reach a wider range of projects and achieve more universal impact. Therefore, it is recommended that if blended finance investments globally were to be expanded, that policy makers such as the UN, local governments, and the World Bank find ways to increase awareness of private credit suppliers and for them engage in more blended finance transactions. Furthermore, concrete law and regulation changes should be considered to the use of collateral, both physical and non-physical, by SMEs in developing countries, as to ensure SMEs will become more capable of engaging in loans with banks, which could then be supported by public investors in various blended finance arrangements. It is finally recommended that further research is done on this topic, especially at a larger scale and perhaps slightly into the future, when more projects will have been completed and therefore results will have become clearer. This could further explore the effectiveness of blended finance compared to other investment methods, and if found to be more effective, convey this to private parties. If these measures are to be taken and the knowledge on blended finance is expanded, it stands to reason that blended finance could be one of the tools to reduce the investment gap in sustainable development and aid in the creation of jobs in developing countries, where people need these most.

In 2008, the crash of the housing market bubble lead not only to the collapse of the U.S financial system, but also to a Global Financial Crisis. The Eurozone was hurt, and the impact was not uniform. The “sick periphery”, and in particular Greece, still suffer from the consequences of this crisis. After three adjustment programmes and €293 billion in financial assistance, Greece is weakened and left in stagnation. The country is aging, and if this reality does not change in the coming years, we will not be talking about a lost decade, but about a lost generation, and even worse, a lost nation. When we observe stagnation in economic growth, we should examine carefully the slowdown of TFP growth. Consequently, we investigate whether there was a long-run slowdown of TFP growth in the Greek economy and what are the other contributing factors that can explain this decline. On this basis, we will propose policies and strategies to the Greek government and private sector for a new and effective National Innovation System.

Since the conception of the euro, it has often been suggested that the eurozone start a programme of jointly issuing government debt. There are many arguments for these so-called Eurobonds, and temporary issuance of them has already taken place in response to the economic impact of the recent COVID-19 pandemic. However, a permanent Eurobond programme remains a controversial topic within the EU. Advocates claim that a Eurobond programme can facilitate economic growth and stability for the entire eurozone. It could offer much-needed fiscal space to some of the eurozone’s most heavily indebted southern economies, by decreasing borrowing costs. It is assumed that the extra growth facilitated in these countries will spill over to the rest (mostly the less indebted north) of the eurozone, through increased cross-country trade and investment. Criticism mostly originates from the more financially sound eurozone member states, which fear a situation of moral hazard that leads to uncontrolled spending, and a possible deterioration of their own creditworthiness. This research attempts to explore the economic effects of the introduction of Eurobonds on the eurozone economies. For this effort, two distinct types of Eurobonds are identified and analysed: unlimited Eurobonds and Blue Bond Eurobonds, with the former allowing unlimited issuance of mutualised debt, and the latter restricting this to 60% of a country’s GDP. The economic sub systems that are crucial for explaining the dynamics relevant to this study show a high degree of complexity and uncertainty; whether it is the dynamics of debt management (including stocks, flows, delays and feedback mechanisms), the different ways of determining bond yields (these are structural uncertainties), or the magnitude of economic elasticities/sensitivities (these are parametric uncertainties). These system characteristics stress the need for a simulation modelling approach. Because the interactions between the system’s components and the relative importance of certain elements are of interest, and because the results should be insightful to non-technical policy-makers, a transparent, ‘white-box’ model can provide the most meaningful results. For these reasons, a system dynamics model has been developed for this study. Specifically, an exploratory system dynamics modelling and analysis approach is used, due to the inherent structural and parametric uncertainties related to the system that have to be accounted for. Through exploratory experimentation with this model, the effectiveness of both Eurobond policies has been assessed based on how they affect eurozone and country-specific GDP, interest rates, and debt levels. All experimental results are robust for the different structural and parametric uncertainties identified in the system; multiple methods of determining bond yields taken have been into account, just as a large number of configurations of the parametric uncertainties. As for the economic growth facilitated by both Eurobond policies, the country-level results are mostly insignificant (i.e., not more than 0.50% additional GDP growth after 10 years). Only slight increases in GDP are observed for both policies, with the benefits not evenly distributed amongst member states. Southern, more heavily indebted economies have more to gain, due to the larger relative decrease in their borrowing costs, assuming that the additional funding is spent productively. Furthermore, the anticipated positive economic spill-over effects caused by increased cross-country trade and investment (and not attributed decreases in interest rates) are shown to be insignificant as well. ii However, the results of the analysis do indicate that both unlimited and Blue Bond Eurobonds have the potential to offer significant benefits to the eurozone’s economic stability, by reducing borrowing costs for all participating countries. As anticipated, it is again mostly the heavily indebted southern economies that benefit from this. Unlimited Eurobonds offer slightly more benefits to these countries, when compared to Blue Bond Eurobonds. However, the latter is the preferred option for the less indebted north, since it restricts debt issuance and subsequently prevents Eurobond yields from surpassing their current borrowing costs; something will eventually be the case with unlimited Eurobonds. Based on this study’s results, a recommendation is made to start the implementation of (a variant of) the Blue Bond Eurobond policy. It has the potential to significantly increase the eurozone’s public debt sustainability, while also offering minor (mostly insignificant) growth benefits to the heavily indebted southern member states, without deteriorating the creditworthiness and the fiscal position of the other, northern member states. Furthermore, the existing market pressure for prudent fiscal behaviour is maintained in the Blue Bond Eurobond proposal, mitigating the risks of moral hazard feared by critics of debt mutualisation. Additionally, it is necessary to set up an adequate legal and political framework that incentivises fiscal discipline and does not allow for free-riding behaviour. A transfer of fiscal sovereignty to the EU level is to be a requirement for participation in the Eurobond programme. This is necessary to build confidence in the system, both for the eurozone member states, as for the capital markets and the general public. It is further deemed sensible to include a legal clause in the Eurobond programme that allows for the suspension of individual member states’ participation. The (budgetary) conditions for such a clause to be invoked, and the potential (financial) penalties associated with this remain to be decided upon by the eurozone member states and the EU’s (to-be erected) fiscal and monetary institutions. Keywords: Eurobonds, Bond yield determination, Debt sustainability, Macroeconomic analysis, Policy analysis, Exploratory Modelling and Analysis

Climate change has been largely attributed to global temperatures rising over the years. This has been further mitigated by the increased usage of fossil fuels, deforestation, increased livestock farming, and chemical emissions, as a result of the large-scale industrialization of developing nations, combined with the increased consumption of goods and services all across the world (Steffen et. al., 2018). While separate research can be conducted in individual fields, it has become increasingly apparent that interdisciplinary research is imperative. The Kaya Identity was formulated by Yoichi Kaya to form a relationship between carbon emissions and economic and technological factors, particularly in the form of ‘growth factors’ in this thesis. The Kaya Identity has since been a mainstay of analyzing carbon emissions by internationally acclaimed bodies like the United Nations. To specify the research objectives a few research questions were asked: What form have policies to curb carbon emissions taken until now and what are the main points of differentiation between developed and developing countries? Using the Kaya Identity framework, what have been the main trends in energy efficiency and carbon intensity, thus identifying the main factors that policies have been aimed at correcting? What are the trends in energy efficiency and carbon emissions in each of the main sectors of the economy: transport, industry and manufacture, energy and heat, and buildings? What are the main deep decarbonization pathways which can be implemented by a developing economy (India) and a developed economy (the United Kingdom)? To find answers to these questions, metadata over a period of thirty years was decomposed over the different sectors in India and the United Kingdom. The results of the decomposition showed that while the United Kingdom showed a decreasing trend in carbon emissions over time, India has shown an opposite trend. Also, technological factors have had a sufficient impact in offsetting carbon emissions in the United Kingdom, shown by negative growth percentages. Similar trends are observed in most individual sectors in the UK, except for the building sector, where the technology factor has not sufficient to offset the scale factor, showing us that it is a sector which needs particular focus. In India it is evident that the effect of technological factors needs to be enhanced, since the scale factors will. In each of the chapters, policies which were implemented for corresponding sectors looked at as well. A regression analysis was then done till the year 2050 to predict the future trends of carbon emissions, followed by a stakeholder analysis of a possible technology in each sector. A two-phase solution is suggested since the demand for energy will never cease; first by integrating carbon capture technologies into existing industrial methods, followed by large-scale investments into the research and development of technologies with a much higher efficiency which have a greater chance of mass acceptance into society and industry without discounting important stakeholder values. This will reduce the rate of carbon emissions released into the environment till a truly sustainable result can be achieved.

Fostering green innovation diffusion is one of the goals of the European Green Deal, European Commission's ambitious plan of eliminating greenhouse emissions in the European Union by 2050. This study approaches diffusion of green innovation through the lens of evolutionary economics by considering concepts like path-dependency and technology lock-in. The aim is to gain insights on the effectiveness of different public financing tools in supporting the diffusion of green innovation. For this purpose, an agent-based computational model is developed consisting of four entity types: a commercial bank, a state investment bank, consumers, and innovative firms.The model is used to study the interaction of financial policies, consumer preferences, firm's innovation activities and the conditions under which the desired behavior, green innovation diffusion, emerges.

This integrative literature research analyses economic inequality using a system perspective. Topics related to the quantification, causes, and effects revolving around economic inequality are reviewed and presented in an overarching conceptual framework. The functioning of the conceptual framework is tested by performing an application on the Netherlands. Results show that economic inequality is a complex problem with multiple interconnecting parameters that cannot be solved with a single "silver bullet" policy. Economic inequality requires a systematic and integrative approach to enable a positive change. Also, the conceptual framework allowed to indicate numerous issues within the system of economic inequality occurring in the Netherlands that require our attention. Overall, this research offers a new perspective on the issue of economic inequality. The conceptual framework is the first in its kind and is able to inform and educate researchers, policymakers, and others about the system of economic inequality in a manner that has never been done before.

The world is now facing what seems to be the biggest crisis since the Great Depression. An unparalleled pandemic of a highly contagious virus in a globalized word. Early economic indicators and the death tolls are suggesting a gloomier situation than expected. Sub-national governments (SNGs) are at the forefront of this crisis, since they are both responsible for the provision of critical health and social protection services and are severely hit financially by it. SNGs may be impacted by a “scissors effect” of SNG expenditures surging, while at the same time their revenues collapsing. This thesis analyses how SNGs' revenue and expenditure compositions affect their fiscal vulnerability to the COVID-19 crisis. To that avail, fiscal sustainability at the sub-national level is defined, the SNGs' revenue and expenditure composition are analysed and compared between 24 countries. Also, the impact of external variables on their fiscal sustainability is assessed under different scenarios. Through the use of the machine learning technique, LASSO (least absolute shrinkage and selection operator), different external variables were tested and only the economic activity (i.e. gross domestic product - GDP) was selected as a good predictor and only for SNGs' revenue. The impact of the GDP on SNGs' revenue differ significantly depending on their revenue composition in terms of taxes and inter-governmental grants. A panel data model was used to estimate each revenue item elasticity and those elasticities were used to simulate the expected revenue under six different GDP scenarios for the COVID-19 crisis. For the SNGs' expenditure, sixteen scenarios were made considering different policies (e.g. expansionary, contractionary), shocks on health and social protection expenditure and SNGs' expenditure composition. In total, 96 scenarios were created through the combination of the six GDP scenarios and sixteen expenditure scenarios. The experiments' results revealed that the higher the property taxes and inter-governmental grants share as a proportion of the revenue the smaller the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on SNGs' fiscal sustainability. For income taxes, the opposite is true. Regarding expenditures, the higher the investment and capital transfers budget share, the better SNGs adapt and handle the crisis. Social protection expenditure share, on the other hand, has negatively affected fiscal sustainability.

The Global Financial Crisis caused by the collapse of the U.S. financial system had immense repercussions for the Eurozone countries. The fall-out of the global crisis turned out to be quite different for the “economically healthy” economies of Northern Europe and “core” and the economies of the Southern “sick periphery”, with the latter still suffering and trying to recover. The problem was acknowledged to be the difference of international competitiveness between the countries of these two groups, while its increase was considered to be substantial for the recovery of those countries which were most forcefully hit from the crisis. Countries of the periphery tried to improve their price/cost competitiveness by implementing internal devaluation and fiscal consolidation policies expecting an improvement on their international competitiveness and balance of payments performance. However, the adopted policies did not bring about the anticipated recovery and extended the period of turbulence for the Member States of the Eurozone and especially for those in South Europe like Greece. The negative experience of Greece and other countries of the periphery confirmed the perceptions of those economists who argued that a country could enhance its international competitiveness in a meaningful and lasting way only through the development of its non-price/technological competencies and structural strengthening of its technological capabilities and national innovation system. Thus, this research investigates how the international competitiveness of Eurozone Member States is affected on the one hand, by its international cost/price competitiveness, and on the other hand by its technological competencies. The econometric findings of this research lead to the recommendation of a policy orientation focusing on the case of Greece.

Recent years have shown an increased level of food insecurity: a surge in the level of poverty and hunger in low-income countries caused by higher global food prices. One of the potential causes of the commodity price spikes is the process of financialization, including an increased level of financial speculation in food commodity markets. Because the literature is inconclusive on the exact effects of speculation, this research aims to provide a fresh analysis of the potential impacts of financial speculation on food commodity prices as well as to explore policies that could influence the level of financial speculation. The main question to be answered through this research is: ‘What are the likely effects of the increase in financial speculation on the behavior of commodity prices in the current soybeans market, and which policies can be used to regulate these effects?’ First, a literature review was conducted to study sources on the potential theoretical effects of speculation, as well as sources on the current regulatory measures to counter speculation. Next, the system dynamics approach was used to investigate the role of speculative activity in price-setting behavior. Lastly, expert interviews were conducted to validate the behavior of commodity prices as shown in the model, as well as to gain knowledge on policy interventions. Guided by the literature review, three important interacting markets were identified for inclusion in the conceptual system dynamics model for the soybeans market: the market for storage, the cash market, and the futures market. The results show how interactions between these markets determine the behavior of spot prices. Furthermore, in the literature review, speculators were found to be trend-following, fast-reacting entities who contribute to strengthening of price expectations and spot prices. The quantitative system dynamics model shows how speculators are able to amplify the oscillation of spot price behavior, which can be compared to the forming and crashing of price bubbles in a commodity market. This amplification occurs because speculators react faster to changes in spot prices than other market participants. While the model is still relatively simplistic, it creates an understanding of the system structure of financial markets that determines spot price behavior. The research describes how experts agree on the fact that some kind of policy intervention is required to limit the negative effects of speculation. Policy makers should pay attention to the level of transparency in setting position limits and focus on clarifying and explaining the classification of speculators and hedgers. Furthermore, it is recommended that only traders with an active and real interest in the commodity should be allowed to participate in the futures market.

In the face of environmental challenges of unprecedented scale and urgency, the European Commission enacted in 2019 a new comprehensive growth strategy with the aim of reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions in 2050. Named as the European Green Deal, this strategy includes energy, biodiversity, pollution, and climate adaptation targets, and envisages that all EU actions and policies will contribute to its objectives. However, to date, specific actions addressing biodiversity, climate adaptation, and health issues from within the energy sector are still missing or lagging behind. This research proposes a new form of Renewable Energy Community (REC), which combines the use of solar photovoltaic panels with green, namely vegetated, roofs to address multiple Green Deal’s objectives. First, this form of REC was grounded in the current European legislation so to ensure its eligibility for the support schemes that Member States are currently required to devise. Next, the costs and benefits of this REC were determined with value transfer for a case study in Esch-sur-Alzette (Luxembourg) and a probabilistic cost-benefit analysis (CBA) was conducted. By applying Scenario Discovery, the CBA was simulated under different combinations of input parameters and rather than only providing multiple net present values (NPVs), the ranges of input values resulting in desirable NPVs were determined. As a result, the conditions under which the photovoltaic-green roof energy community becomes economically convenient were determined, providing guidance to national policymakers designing RECs’ incentive schemes at present.

Real investment within non-financial corporations has been steadily decreasing in the last fifty years, as increased payout to shareholders is seen as one of the main causes . Chetty & Saez (2006) argue that taxes on profits, dividend payout and capital gain also have a negative impact on payout, and thus real investment in non-financial firms. However, it is unknown if corporate governance can explain this relationship between taxes and real investment. An agent-based financial market was built to research which types of corporate governance can explain the effect of taxes on the real investment rate. The results show that a corporate governance based on maximizing shareholder value and minimizing interest payments can explain the effect of taxes on the real investment rate. To further define the effect of corporate governance on the real investment rate, an agent-based macroeconomic model can be built that would incorporate more feedback loops of investment and payout and endogenous growth of earnings of firms.