The international impact of productivity shocks

Even though many studies have confirmed the Feldstein-Horioka (1980) finding that savings and investment rates are highly correlated, there is no consensus on the major reason for this correlation. The purpose of this dissertation is to develop theoretical models and calibrate and simulate these to compare their implications to explain the observed time-series comovement between savings and investment in an attempt to show that this high correlation may stem from technological shocks.^ The dissertation is comprised of three studies. The first two studies construct overlapping-generations, two-economy models of saving and investment under conditions of perfect international capital mobility. The second study differs from the first by endogenizing the labor supply. Employing simulations, the models are used to generate time-series for savings and investment. These are then compared with the actual data for specific economies. The models show that productivity shocks produce a high correlation between savings and investment. Further, while the model with exogenous labor supply displays monotonic adjustment, the economy with endogenous labor supply adjusts cyclically.^ The third model, on the other hand, constructs a general equilibrium model for a small open economy. The study is based on two important elements: adjustment costs in investment and endogenous, recursive time preferences. Again, the simulation results show that the model generates, at least in a significant part of the adjustment path, a positive correlation between domestic savings and investment in response to a supply shock. ^

Towards the formation of a sustainable South Florida: An analysis of conflict resolution and consensus building in the South Florida Everglades Ecosystem Restoration Initiative

This dissertation examines the sociological process of conflict resolution and consensus building in South Florida Everglades Ecosystem Restoration through what I define as a Network Management Coordinative Interstitial Group (NetMIG). The process of conflict resolution can be summarized as the participation of interested and affected parties (stakeholders) in a forum of negotiation. I study the case of the Governor's Commission for a Sustainable South Florida (GCSSF) that was established to reduce social conflict. Such conflict originated from environmental disputes about the Everglades and was manifested in the form of gridlock among regulatory (government) agencies, Indian tribes, as well as agricultural, environmental conservationist and urban development interests. The purpose of the participatory forum is to reduce conflicts of interest and to achieve consensus, with the ultimate goal of restoration of the original Everglades ecosystem, while cultivating the economic and cultural bases of the communities in the area. Further, the forum aim to formulate consensus through envisioning a common sustainable community by providing means to achieve a balance between human and natural systems. ^ Data were gathered using participant observation and document analysis techniques to conduct a theoretically based analysis of the role of the Network Management Coordinative Interstitial Group (NetMIG). I use conflict resolution theory, environmental conflict theory, stakeholder analysis, systems theory, differentiation and social change theory, and strategic management and planning theory. ^ The purpose of this study is to substantiate the role of the Governor's Commission for a Sustainable South Florida (GCSSF) as a consortium of organizations in an effort to resolve conflict rather than an ethnographic study of this organization. Environmental restoration of the Everglades is a vehicle for recognizing the significance of a Network Management Coordinative Interstitial Group (NetMIG), namely the Governor's Commission for a Sustainable South Florida (GCSSF), as a structural mechanism for stakeholder participation in the process of social conflict resolution through the creation of new cultural paradigms for a sustainable community. ^