Search

Policy instruments have significant impacts on the fintech (financial technology) industry, and many studies have been concentrating on the policy instruments' roles in the fintech industry and fintech regulation studies. Existent literature has identified four crucial structural elements of the fintech industry: actors, interactions, institutions, and infrastructure, and the significant impacts of the policy instruments on each element. Most analysis in the field is, however, with regard to policy instruments' roles in the structural elements; it tends to be static and limited to focus on only one or two elements. This thesis aims to understand how all four structural elements of the fintech industry are affected by policy instruments dynamically. Through a case study of the fintech industry in China, this research reveals the six policy instruments' roles in the fintech industry through the four structural elements. The research findings further existent knowledge with regard to both the fintech industry and regulation studies, and this research also provide an analytical framework for further fintech industry research. The practical implications of the roles of the policy instruments for policy-makers and other practitioners in the fintech industry are given. Finally, research limitations and future research directions are illustrated.

On April 20th, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon (DWH), a semi-submersible drilling rig, located about 120 miles off the coast of Alabama, exploring for oil in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM), experienced a catastrophic blowout and exploded. This event resulted in one of the largest marine oil spill disasters in U.S. history. Until the leaked oil gusher was capped on July 15th, 2010, approximately 4.9 million barrels of crude oil was released into the waters of GOM. About 40 days after the accident, the spilled oil started to wash along the shorelines of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. The State of Alabama has approximately 50 km of sandy shoreline that are classified as amenity beaches. These beaches are priceless due to their economic and environmental values. To understand the environmental impacts of DWH oil on these amenity beaches, our group has been continuously monitoring this 50 km region over the past five years. The overall goal of this study is to characterize and fingerprint the field samples collected from these monitoring efforts. In the first part of this study we compare the chromatographic signatures of petroleum biomarkers present in DWH source crude, three other reference crude oils, emulsified mousse that arrived on Alabama’s shoreline in June 2010, and seven tar balls collected from Alabama beaches from 2011 to 2012. Characteristic of hopane and sterane fingerprints show that all the tar ball samples originated from DWH oil. The diagnostic ratios of various hopanes indicated an excellent match. Quantitation data for C30αβ-hopane concentration levels show that most of the weathering observed in DWH-related tar balls found on Alabama’s beaches is likely the result of natural evaporation and dissolution processes that occurred when the oil was transported across the Gulf of Mexico, prior to beach deposition. Based on the physical and biomarker characterization data presented in this study we conclude that virtually all fragile, sticky, brownish tar balls currently found on Alabama shoreline originated from the DWH oil spill. In the second part of this study we present a four-year dataset to characterize the temporal evolution of various polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and their alkylated homologs trapped in the residual oil buried along the shoreline. Field samples analyzed include the first arrival oil collected from Perdido Bay, Alabama in June 2010, and multiple oil spill samples collected until August 2014. Our field data show that, as of August 2014, DWH oil is still trapped along Alabama's beaches as submerged oil, predominately in the form of surface residual oil balls (SRBs). Chemical characterization data show that various PAHs present in the spilled oil (MC252 crude) weathered by about 45% to 100% when the oil was floating over the open ocean system in the Gulf of Mexico. Light PAHs, such as naphthalenes, were fully depleted whereas heavy PAHs, such as chrysenes were only partially depleted by about 45%. However, the depletion rates of PAHs appear to have decreased significantly once the oil was buried within the partially-closed SRB environment. Depletion levels of several heavy PAHs have almost remained constant over the past 4 years. Our data also show that evaporation was the most likely weathering mechanism for PAH removal when the oil was floating over the ocean, although photo-degradation and other physico-chemical processes could have contributed to some additional weathering. Chemical data presented in this study indicate that the submerged oil containing various heavy PAHs (for example, parent and alkylated chrysenes) is likely to remain in the beach system for several years. In the third part of this study we have analyzed the first-arrival oil spill residues collected from two Gulf of Mexico (GOM) beach systems following two recent oil spills: the 2014 Galveston Bay (GB) oil spill and the 2010 Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill. This is the first study to provide field observations and chemical characterization data for the 2014 GB oil spill. The primary purpose of this chapter is to present the similarities and differences between these two oil spills. Our data show that both oil spills had similar shoreline deposition patterns; however, the physical and chemical characteristics of their residues differed considerably. In the final section we summarize the key outcomes of this research effort and also point out some future research directions.

This thesis consists of three related essays on financial literacy in Indonesia. The first essay investigates the significance of financial literacy and seeks to address whether the poverty level is explained by differences in individuals financial literacy. The study proposes a measure of financial literacy based on polychoric Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to address the limitations that have emerged from existing measures. The analysis is carried out employing the Ordinary Least Square (OLS) and the Instrumental Variable (IV) method, followed by the Propensity Score Matching (PSM) technique. The empirical findings suggest a significant association between financial literacy and poverty. The second study aims to assess the transmission channels through which financial literacy affects poverty. A simultaneous equation approach, which allows precise inferences to be made regarding the channels of influence from financial literacy to poverty is used for this purpose. The results reveal that financial literacy affects poverty by promoting the use of financial services and by increasing savings. On the other hand, insufficient financial literacy hinders poverty reduction by raising the probability of over-indebtedness. The overall indirect effect of financial literacy on poverty is robust to various robustness checks. The last essay focuses on the role of money attitude, which has received little attention in the literature. By employing a logistic regression technique and an average treatment effect estimation, this study aims to examine the impact of money attitude on the poverty level. It also offers an analysis of whether an interaction effect exists between money attitude and financial literacy. This essay has shown that persons with a healthier attitude towards money are more likely to avoid financial trouble. Furthermore, this empirical analysis reveals that the relationship between money attitude and financial struggle is not straightforward; instead, it is conditional upon the level of financial literacy and vice versa.

Innovation system approach has been adopted widely to explain the differences in innovative performances systematically in recent decades. However, most analyses in the field are quasi-static and the evolutionary features in innovation systems are ignored. Scholars called for solutions to realise a more dynamic analysis, and the ecosystem concept, which emphasises the dynamic evolutionary characteristics in an innovation system, emerged. Scholars have pointed out that the evolution process in an innovation ecosystem is to be explored. This study aims to bridge this gap. Drawing upon the Triple Helix model, the study engaged in a cloud computing innovation ecosystem in China (the ACC ecosystem) to reveal how an innovation ecosystem evolves in terms of actor interactions. The case ecosystem was divided into three stages to identify its evolution process: birth stage, expansion stage, and maturity stage. The findings revealed that in the birth stage, the industry helix is a main contributor by building the ecosystem platform for actors to innovate on, and the government helix supported the ecosystem formation by providing a good environment. In the expansion stage, the government helix exerted significant influence on the ecosystem by raising the ecosystem reputation and guided the development of the ecosystem. The industry helix contributed in expanding markets by service and region and solving problems caused by the rapid expansion. The three helices collaborated to increase innovation variety in the ecosystem to support its expansion. In the maturity stage, collaborations among the three helices increased and the academia helix began to take more responsibilities. To conclude, a dynamic evolution process of helices' interactions was disclosed in the study, which is the main contribution of this research. By integrating the Triple Helix model to classify actors, the study provides a framework for future studies to analyse actor roles and interactions in an innovation ecosystem. In addition, the study provides an empirical contribution to the cloud ecosystem field. Practical implications for the three helices to contribute to innovation ecosystem development are given. Research limitations and future research directions are delineated.

This dissertation examines the effectiveness of the welfare system, while taking into account the behavioral changes which the system may induce in welfare recipients. The analysis focuses on the major welfare program, Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), this dissertation provides several significant empirical findings. The first essay examines the effect of welfare participation on women's wages. The hypothesis is that welfare participation depreciates recipients' human capital due to their withdrawal from the labor market. Regression results from a wage change model suggest that AFDC participation reduces women's wage rates by 2.2 to 3.2 percent per year. Preference transformations in welfare recipients are the central concern of the second essay. These transformations, including reductions in the transaction costs and the stigma associated with program participation, lead to a higher probability of welfare receipt among those who have welfare experience. Using 2SLS and a bivariate probit model, my estimations indicate that previous welfare participants are 20 percent more likely than previous non-participants to be on AFDC in a given year, suggesting preference changes during welfare participation. The third essays explores the welfare system as consumption insurance. As marital dissolution is often a reason for women and their children to slip into poverty, public transfer programs to single-parent households provide the benefits of allowing for consumption smoothing after divorce. This essay measures the consumption smoothing benefits and examines one factor that undermines these benefits: the crowding out effect of public transfers on divorced mothers' private income. My analyses show that public transfers play an important role in mitigating the consumption drop after divorce for women and their children. An increase in AFDC income and Food Stamps combined by $100 helps divorced mothers mitigate the consumption decrease by \$60 in food and rents. I also find evidence that AFDC crowds out several sources of private income. In particular, savings and women's labor supply before divorce, ex-spouse's transfers, and the incidence of relatives' financial aid are negatively associated with state AFDC generosity.

The concept of corporate governance and its impact on sustainable growth and profitability of banks has been embraced worldwide. Whilst most studies on banks in Ghana were related the financial sector reforms to performance, no work has been done on the effect of the reform on corporate governance. Specifically, no study is known to have related privatisation to corporate governance of banks in Ghana. Meanwhile, such studies are relevant to evaluate whether the divestment of state ownership improved corporate governance of banks. Using the generalised agency theory combined with the institutional perspective, the study has established that the problems relating to privatisation and the corporate governance are complex and multi-dimensional. Using desktop analysis, questionnaire surveys and case studies, this study examined how corporate governance changed since the banking sector privatisation in Ghana between 1995 and 2000 and its possible effect (s) on the corporate governance outcomes. To effectively analyse how corporate governance in Ghanaian banks has changed since the sector privatisation, the thesis addressed the following research areas: the state of corporate governance before privatisation, how states continuous residual ownership affected corporate governance of banks, how foreign investors' involvement in privatisation affected corporate governance of banks and whether or not the ownership forms affected the internal control and risk issues differently. The state of corporate governance did not change significantly in state owned banks after the sector privatisation. The questionnaire survey and case studies showed that corporate governance weakness was widespread in state owned banks resulting in outcomes such as frauds, insider lending and the abuse of depositor's funds by agents of government prior to the sector privatisation before the sector privatisation. This however changed after divestment of government's shares some of these banks. All the banking forms studied experienced concentrated ownership due to the strategic privatisation adopted by government of Ghana. The studies confirmed that, the continued government influence adversely affected top management performance. For example COOP and NIB continued to use their pre-privatization top managers after privatization experienced more managerial entrenchment. Thus, continuity in top management from SOE to privatized firm reduced the likelihood of organizational restructuring, since managers lacked the skills or knowledge to introduce initiatives that enhance bank firm performance. It also confirmed that the continuous government residual ownership and interruption resulted in minimum restructuring and or persistence of old corporate structure, and limited management evaluations. As a result, corporate governance weaknesses such as poor internal control systems and poor risk persisted during and after the sector privatisation. These weaknesses led to problems such as related party transactions, frauds, abuse of depositor's funds and sectoral lending. Even in partially privatised banks, the activities of cartels led to collusion and fraudulent practices during the study period. Privatised banks in the foreign control reported stronger corporate governance structures before and after their acquisition of \government shares. Foreign investors who held sufficiently high proportion of a company's shares justified their combining ownership with degree of board control, in contrast to the state owned banks. FOBs studied registered no irregularities in top management after government buyout. FOBs Consistent with their reputation and experienced in the banking business, foreign investors maintained strict control of managers' actions and exerted close monitoring of management activities to ensure superior performance. Even the former SOB (SG-SSB) experienced no weaknesses after privatisation. This confirms that, when majority shareholdings were sold to foreigners, corporate governance improves. The findings also re-enforced the importance of the legal and regulatory enforcement in liberalised or privatised banking environments. Whilst it was the intention of the law to tackle agency problems between insider controller (controlling agents) and other stakeholders, the pre-privatisation regulation framework, paid insufficient attention to another type of agency problem. The empirical findings indicated weak and lax enforcement of the rules by the regulators. Poor enforcement of the regulation as reported by the cases negated any merits of the pre-privatization (1989) regulations. The corporate governance problems experienced appeared to have been curtailed by the post privatisation banking Act 673 of 2004, which was noted to be more robust and enforceable across ownership types. The new regulations, which set a new standard on the quality of bank owners, managers and internal control system, appeared be more effective in tackling corporate governance weaknesses in most banks, hence the near absence of poor corporate governance practices between 2004 and 2010.

Banks play a primary role in the intermediation of savings and investments. As a result, the stability and development of the financial sector is of paramount importance to most countries. In developed countries, the global financial crisis which led to the shocking collapse of Lehman Brothers and distress in other global financial giants such as AIG, Merrill Lynch, Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Northern Rock have raised concerns about corporate governance in the financial sector and more specifically, the importance of a stable banking sector worldwide. In developing countries, financial systems are heavily reliant on banking firms since they are the largest intermediaries. The institutional environment which includes substantial ownership by insider owners, poor legal and regulatory systems, corruption and the existence of distributional cartels underscore the need for effective regulation and sound corporate governance aimed at curbing excessive risk taking by owners. The effects of different ownership structures on banks have received little attention particularly in developing countries. Literature suggests that whether the ownership rights of a bank are held by just a few shareholders or by many and whether these shareholders are insiders or outsiders has differing effects on corporate governance. This study analyses the effects of ownership structure on corporate governance in Zimbabwean banks. The Zimbabwean banking sector has experienced major changes since the liberalisation of the financial markets in 1991. The sector expanded due to the entry of a significant number of private indigenous banks in a market previously dominated by foreign banks. Following this expansion, the sector suffered a near-systemic crisis in 2003 which resulted in the collapse of 13 of these newly registered banks and the arrest of several owner managers for abusing depositor’s funds. After the financial sector crisis, the central bank implemented new corporate governance regulations in 2004 which introduced a separation between ownership and management. The objective of the regulation was to address the problems relating to insider ownership concentration address corporate governance weaknesses in banks. The findings from this study indicate ownership concentration in all the banks across ownership types, and insider ownership concentration in private indigenous banks before and after the 2004 regulations. The empirical evidence also find that banks with insider ownership concentration suffered corporate governance weaknesses which resulted in problems such as related party transactions, frauds, tunnelling and abuse of depositor’s funds compared to those with outside ownership concentration. In this regard, the study finds that in developing countries, insider ownership concentration may result in corporate governance weaknesses whilst outsider ownership concentration can result in increased monitoring. The study also finds evidence of a weak legal and regulatory framework, poor enforcement and regulatory forbearance as some of the institutional arrangements which affected ownership structure and corporate governance in banks. The analysis in this study also indicate that the regulatory changes introduced by the central bank in 2004 have not been ineffective in tackling the corporate which resulted from insider ownership concentration. As a result, the study questions the a wholesome adoption of Anglo-Saxon type provisions relating to separation between ownership and management without an empirical analysis of their appropriateness to developing countries in developing countries.