Doctor of Philosophy

Recent empirical studies on agricultural productivity growth in African countries have produced mixed results; some find that uptake of new technology (technical progress) is the main source of total factor productivity growth while others point to improved use of existing technology (efficiency...

This paper investigates how responses of US macroeconomic activities to monetary policy shocks depend on the state of broker-dealer leverage. The analysis makes use of leverage data to create an indicator series that distinguishes above and below trend leverage states for the economy which is...

We investigate how the high and low volatile states of oil prices affect the unemployment rate in the U.S. economy. We model the monthly unemployment rate data using a logistic smooth transition autoregressive process with allowing oil price uncertainty as a transition variable between high and...