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The social and labour effects of minimum income schemes – evidence from Spain
No full textThis thesis examines the social and labour market effects of minimum income schemes through the case of the Ingreso Mínimo Vital (IMV), a national policy introduced in Spain in 2020. While minimum income schemes are widely used in high-income countries, there is limited understanding of their impacts beyond narrow poverty metrics, especially in Southern European contexts marked by high unemployment, informality and fragmented welfare provision. The thesis adopts a mixed-methods approach and investigates three critical dimensions: financial wellbeing effects (including both objective material conditions and subjective perceptions), labour market outcomes and recipients' lived experiences of navigating employment decisions under uncertainty generated by the welfare system. The thesis is organised into five chapters. Chapter 1 sets out the contextual and theoretical framework in which the study is situated. Chapters 2, 3, and 4 present the three empirical papers that constitute the core of the research. Chapter 5 reflects on the broader implications of the findings. Chapter 2 uses a Synthetic Control Method to estimate the IMV’s effect on financial wellbeing. While no significant changes are observed in objective measures (poverty rate, poverty gap, mean income) during its first two years of implementation, high-frequency data reveal improvements in households’ perceived financial situation, underscoring the need to integrate subjective wellbeing into policy evaluation. Chapter 3 uses regional variation in pre-existing benefits in difference-in-differences and event study frameworks to analyse IMV’s unemployment effects among single-person households. It finds that increased income support generosity led to higher unemployment – particularly among men, highly educated individuals and those under 50 – while the IMV did not lead recipients to withdraw from the labour force and become inactive. Chapter 4 draws on 31 in-depth interviews with IMV recipients and six additional interviews exploring non-take-up to examine how welfare system uncertainty affects decision-making. It identifies three behavioural responses – “Escapers” who deal with uncertainty by accelerating employment exit, “Diversifiers” who navigate towards alternative benefits and “Stabilisers” who avoid formal work to preserve existing support. These responses are mediated by individual psychological orientations – including risk tolerance, locus of control and time orientation – as well as by certain demographic characteristics. Uncertainty also drives non-take-up among eligible households. This thesis demonstrates that effective social protection requires (1) complementing traditional poverty metrics with subjective financial wellbeing indicators, (2) adopting differentiated activation strategies that recognise heterogeneous employment responses across demographic groups and economic contexts and (3) reducing welfare-induced uncertainty through predictable payments, clearer communication and simplified administration
Can easing financial constraints reduce carbon emissions? evidence from a large sample of French companies
No full textThis paper studies how monetary policy can shape firm-level carbon emissions and energy efficiency. It also looks at the heterogeneity of these effects by firm size, the underlying transmission channels and interaction with climate policies. The authors draw on administrative and survey data on French manufacturing firms for the period 2000–2019, including emissions, energy use, financial conditions, environmental protection investments and productivity. They examine the effect of credit easing following a variation to interest rate policy made by the European Central Bank in July 2012. They find that financially constrained firms cut emissions by about 9.4% more than unconstrained ones. This effect primarily stems from improvements in energy efficiency, reduced carbon intensity of energy, and general productivity improvements associated with capital deepening that outweighed modest scale effects. The results are driven by small and medium-sized firms. Large firms including those regulated by the EU emissions trading system (ETS) showed no significant response. On average, emissions fell by 3.3% per year, summing up to 5.3 million tonnes of CO2 saved (comparable to the savings from the EU ETS), highlighting the untargeted nature of the policy
Operation of Power Through Gratefulness/gratitude: Experiences of Syrian Refugees and Asylum Seekers in the United Kingdom
No full textThis research constitutes a rare effort in examining how gratefulness/gratitude constructs refugees’/asylum seekers’ lived experiences by centring underlying presence of power. Power in gratefulness/gratitude is here de fined by using colonialism/coloniality framework to establish asylum as a continuation of those processes. Types of manifestations of gratefulness/gratitude that were explored were expressing signs of appreciation, confirming white saviourism and making concessions through integration, contribution to the new society and humility. Two main conclusions were made. Firstly, the study found that involuntary and voluntary expressions of gratefulness/ gratitude can overlap, meaning that even voluntary expressions can be tied to power. Secondly, gratefulness/ gratitude can take different forms; as a tool of control and marginalisation of refugees/asylum seekers, for obtaining benefits or as actual gratefulness/gratitude
Interpretable company similarity with sparse autoencoders
No full textDetermining company similarity is a vital task in finance, underpinning risk management, hedging, and portfolio diversification. Practitioners often rely on sector and industry classifications such as SIC and GICS codes to gauge similarity, the former being used by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and the latter widely used by the investment community. Since these classifications lack granularity and need regular updating, using clusters of embeddings of company descriptions has been proposed as a potential alternative, but the lack of interpretability in token embeddings poses a significant barrier to adoption in high-stakes contexts. Sparse Autoencoders (SAEs) have shown promise in enhancing the interpretability of Large Language Models (LLMs) by decomposing Large Language Model (LLM) activations into interpretable features. Moreover, SAEs capture an LLM’s internal representation of a company description, as opposed to semantic similarity alone, as is the case with embeddings. We apply SAEs to company descriptions, and obtain meaningful clusters of equities. We benchmark SAE features against SIC-codes, Industry codes, and Embeddings. Our results demonstrate that SAE features surpass sector classifications and embeddings in capturing fundamental company characteristics. This is evidenced by their superior performance in correlating logged monthly returns – a proxy for similarity – and generating higher Sharpe ratios in co-integration trading strategies, which underscores deeper fundamental similarities among companies. Finally, we verify the interpretability of our clusters, and demonstrate that sparse features form simple and interpretable explanations for our clusters
Pharmaceutical patent examination in developing countries: lessons from Brazil
Get PDFSince the enactment of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), almost every country in the world has introduced patent protection for pharmaceutical inventions. However, there is considerable variation in the implementation of policies that address developmental and public health challenges. There is a wide agreement that developing countries should implement preventive (ex ante) measures to strengthen patent examination and promote balance in the public and private incentives in the patent system instead of relying on corrective (ex post) measures to address the negative consequences of lax examination. This thesis draws lessons about flexibilities in patent policy from the Brazilian experience of implementing pharmaceutical patenting since conforming to TRIPS in the late 1990s. In 2018, Brazil started basing the examination in Brazil on reports published by other offices for applications covering the same invention, in a wide movement that seeks to simplify examination to expedite prosecution and reduce the backlog of pending applications. Chapter 2 shows that this has significantly increased the grant rate, and examiners tend to make fewer objections before issuing a grant. Combining these results with a comparison of grant rates with 14 other offices, the analysis concludes this approach has reduced the standard for granting patents in Brazil and produced more negative side effects than its intended goals. Brazil also abolished the dual examination system where the patent office and the health regulator both had to examine pharmaceutical applications from 2001 to 2021, with the changing arrangements. Analysing the many arrangements for this system over two decades, Chapter 3 shows how the entities converged to high patenting standards and raised the scrutiny of all patentability criteria, especially invention description, despite the intense conflict over each entity's jurisdiction. Therefore, the regulator’s non-binding opposition to strategic applications contributed significantly to examination in an almost symbiotic relationship. Lastly, Chapter 4 investigates the Brazilian government’s history of Hepatitis C drug procurement to assess the repercussions of these policies outside the patent office. Based on an understanding that the recommended treatments were equally effective and therefore great substitutes, the government shifted procurement to centralised tenders and induced competition by having originators of different drugs compete, regardless of each drug’s patent exclusivity status. Given the high patenting standard and originator’s commercial strategies, generic manufacturers could join those tenders, significantly boosting the government’s bargaining power. However, and tying together the three chapters, pressuring examiners to decide faster based on other patent offices’ reports and removing the dual examination system has led newer drugs to obtain patents more often, threatening the potential future benefits for the government of using this strategy of induced competition. This thesis shows that Brazil has successfully explored policy flexibilities to strengthen examination but should be wary of policies that simplify examination to expedite prosecution, given the importance of promoting the balanced stimuli in patenting that generate positive externalities for public health strategies
Beyond birth outcomes: the impacts of perinatal conditions on child development
Get PDFThis thesis investigates the impacts of perinatal conditions on children's health and development, focusing on two exposures in utero: ambient heat exposure and a temporary reduction in means-tested benefits. Existing research demonstrates that perinatal conditions can influence health at birth, as well as health, education, and employment in adulthood. However, less is known about how these processes manifest, if at all, in childhood. My thesis analyses the impacts of prenatal exposures on outcomes at birth and in childhood, through four empirical chapters. I use linked administrative data from the Northern Territory of Australia, which allows for longitudinal analysis. Chapter 2 investigates what drives seasonality in birth outcomes, identifying heat exposure as the primary driver. Chapter 3 examines which specific aspects of heat exposure matter most for health at birth. I find that prenatal exposure to both moderate and extreme heat affects newborns’ health. In Chapter 4, I find that prenatal exposure to extreme heat increases the risk of hospital admissions in early childhood and lowers test scores at ages 8, 10 and 12. In contrast to my findings in Chapter 3 on birth outcomes, I see little impact in childhood of moderate heat exposure. Chapter 5 analyses the impact of a reduction in means-tested benefits in pregnancy, finding that this led to increased hospital admissions in childhood. In contrast to the more general increase in admissions from heat exposure, the impact of the reduction in family income was driven by admissions for infections. Together, my analysis reveals that while the effects of various prenatal exposures may look similar at birth, their impacts in childhood are different. Furthermore, the effects I measure on health at birth do very little to explain or predict effects in childhood
Essays on the economy of 19th century England
Get PDFThe thesis consists of three chapters that examine the economy of England in the 19th century. Chapter 1 studies the impact of the construction of the railroad network on local patenting. Using novel data, I find that, by increasing market access, the railroad caused an increase in local patenting. Chapter 2 studies how the Panic of 1825 affected the local economy. The financial system was subject to strict rules requiring small, local banks to have a working relationship with a London agent bank, and we exploit the sudden financial collapse of these London agent banks to establish how the collapse of a local bank connected to a failed London agent caused an increase in local non-financial firm bankruptcies. Chapter 3 studies how the railroad affected economic growth. I find little evidence that the construction of the network increased local land values or had any impact on local bankruptcies. I provide evidence that this could be due to a creative destruction effect in which the destruction element was particularly strong
Colours, giants, and games
Get PDFThis thesis focuses on three independent areas of research. In the initial part, we study the occurrence of monochromatic substructures in coloured combinatorial objects across two different settings. First, we investigate the presence of monochromatic products in arbitrary, random, and randomly perturbed colourings of the integers —varying a classical line of research which originated with Schur and has since drawn considerable attention. Our results mark the first contributions in this new direction and lay the foundation for further work. Next, we determine the exact value of the Ramsey number of the squares of long paths and cycles, expanding the limited class of graphs for which this number is precisely known. In the middle part, we extend and address works and conjectures of earlier authors. First, we resolve a conjecture by Letzter and Snyder on the chromatic number of graphs with large minimum degree and no short odd cycles. Second, we extend the Transference Principle of Conlon and Gowers, thereby paving the way to strengthen and generalise existing counting results in sparse random settings. As an application, we obtain an asymptotically optimal counting version of the KŁR Conjecture. In the final part, we analyse the dynamics that arise when learning agents repeatedly interact in the framework of games. We first consider the case of players with finite recall under various monitoring conditions in repeated games. Here, we establish a Folk Theorem-like result, characterise the set of payoff vectors attainable under these dynamics, and uncover a wide spectrum of possibilities for the emergence of algorithmic collusion. We then investigate best-response dynamics in random potential games, and demonstrate the robustness of this approach across different regimes of payoff correlation
Navigating political dynamics, institutions and ideas: climate finance trajectories in Brazil
Get PDFThis thesis examines the evolution of climate finance in Brazil, focusing on its conceptual, policy, and institutional dimensions within the country’s governance and political landscape. It conceptualises climate finance as both a governance tool and a contested political space, shaped by institutional legacies, ideas, and stakeholder negotiations. By tracing Brazil’s climate finance trajectory from 1995 to 2020, the research highlights the interplay between structural constraints - such as entrenched policies and institutions - and ideational shifts that frame low-carbon development as either an economic burden or an opportunity. It reveals the fragility of institutional progress amid shifting political contexts, demonstrating the enduring “stickiness” of entrenched logics and practices. The study also introduces the concept of climate finances, drawing on boundary objects, to capture the multiple, often conflicting, meanings ascribed to climate finance by different actors. While this interpretive flexibility enables collaboration, it also obscures power asymmetries, reinforcing dominant financial and governance structures. Finally, the thesis examines the role of the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES) as an institutional actor in climate finance governance. It posits BNDES not just as a financial intermediary but as an agent of institutional work, actively shaping norms, investment priorities, and governance structures. However, its reliance on project-level interventions and susceptibility to political volatility constrain its ability to drive systemic transformation. Theoretically, this thesis contributes to debates on the politics of climate finance, institutional change, and power asymmetries in governance. Empirically, it sheds light on the dynamics of climate finance in an emerging market context, offering insights into the interplay between international pressures and domestic dynamics. Together, these findings advance the understanding of climate finance as a critical, yet deeply contested, tool in addressing the climate crisis
Essays in corporate finance and asset pricing
Get PDFThis thesis contains three chapters in asset pricing and corporate finance. In the first chapter I investigate the hypothesis that (i) poor quality mutual funds gamble to increase their volatility and (ii) they can be found in both tails of the return distribution. Sorting funds into buckets based on their return realizations, I find evidence that poor quality funds sometimes earn extremely high returns over short horizons. These funds have lower excess returns, Sharpe Ratio, and alphas than comparable funds in one to five year horizons. I find that bad funds with high short-term returns follow extreme and transient strategies with high average factor exposures and high turnover. In the second chapter I investigate the optimal re-hiring rules of investors in mutual funds. Good and bad fund managers are compensated over multiple periods and choose behavior in the presence of career concerns: their performance is evaluated by investors making re-hiring decisions. If investors cannot commit to a re-hiring rule with profitable deviations, they only re-hire a manager who trades exactly like a good manager, forcing the bad manager to engage in costly imitation. If investors can commit to a re-hiring rule with profitable deviations, they optimally choose to re-hire any manager with any positive return. The model results match empirically observed flows in mutual funds. In the third chapter I investigate limited liability, unlimited liability, and bankruptcy for entrepreneurs with credit constraints. Limited liability offers a strictly larger choice of contracts than unlimited liability for fully liquid and illiquid entrepreneur wealth. Bankruptcy is redundant with limited liability under liquid wealth, although it is useful for entrepreneurs when access to limited liability is exogenously restricted or costly. Making bankruptcy more generous with illiquid wealth strictly reduces the choice of viable contracts. The model results match empirical findings that lower barriers to entry boosts entrepreneurship while generous bankruptcy has mixed impacts on entrepreneurship