Browsing by master's degree program "International Masters in Economy, State & Society"
Now showing items 21-30 of 30
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Navigating Temporality: The Experience of Highly Skilled Indian Immigrants in Finland’s ICT Industry (2023)This master’s thesis examines the interplay between personal experiences and the socioeconomic environment to understand the temporality experienced by highly skilled Indian immigrants in the information, communication and technology (ICT) industries in Finland. It begins with introducing the research context that highlights Finland's transformation into a technologically advanced nation attracting skilled migrants seeking better economic prospects and high quality of life. However, the acceptance of immigrants remains a polarized topic, necessitating a balance between economic growth and social inclusion. The theoretical framework incorporates temporality and locality considerations in migration studies to provide a comprehensive understanding. Drawing on interview data with four people working in the ICT industry, two in other sectors and two people involved in the policy-making process, the analysis demonstrates the significance of social factors in immigrants' decisions to stay, emphasizing the role of social networks in job hunting. However, discriminatory barriers and prejudice persist, hindering career progression and utilization of immigrants' qualifications and skills. Overall, immigrants face challenges in building long-term career trajectories due to deskilling, limited job prospects, and time-consuming application processes, creating obstacles to successful career integration in Finland. Considering the flexibility of ICT industry itself when relocating in different countries, it might not be a cost-effective choice for the immigrants to invest their time into integrating into Finland in the long term.
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(2023)This thesis focuses on studying Finland's entrepreneurship policy as the main research direction, specifically examining how to motivate high-impact entrepreneurship. The thesis provides a comprehensive theoretical discussion, addressing entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship policy, and entrepreneurship conditions in the Finnish context. It analyzes core concepts from multiple dimensions, including policy definitions, development processes, and potential challenges and barriers. Through innovative policy retrieval and classification methods, this thesis defines and reconstructs classification dimensions in the absence of previously collected entrepreneurship policy data. It systematically retrieves and summarizes Finland's entrepreneurship policies from 1993 to 2023. The research findings reveal that Finland is dedicated to constructing an innovative, full-lifecycle entrepreneurship policy driven by policy funding. This policy mix aligns with the characteristics of high-impact entrepreneurship and, to some extent, contributes to the development of high-impact entrepreneurship in Finland, as validated by data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. This thesis provides a certain degree of theoretical research foundation and data support for future studies.
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(2020)Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Kyrgyz society got entangled in discussions about what it means to be Kyrgyz. Even though Kyrgyzstan has experienced a surge in nationalism over the last decades, it is only since recently that non-heteronormative sexualities are increasingly constructed as a threat to the continued existence of the Kyrgyz nation. Based on five in-depth interviews with Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) individuals, I explore how they rationalise the increasing homophobia in Kyrgyz society and what kind of behavioural strategies they adopt to cope with the hostile environment. In particular, I assess whether the discursive exclusion of LGBT individuals from the Kyrgyz nation alters their relationship with the nation and the state. The research participants demonstrate an awareness for the connection between increasing nationalism and worsening attitudes against LGBT people and report corresponding adjustments in their behaviour, ranging from adaptation and hiding strategies to activism and emigration. While all respondents have a negative relationship with the Kyrgyz state, most report a decreasing sense of belonging to the Kyrgyz nation amid growing homophobia as well. These results suggest that the increased emphasis on the purportedly heteronormative nature of the Kyrgyz nation succeeds in redefining individual belonging to the nation and shifting the imagined boundaries of the nation.
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(2022)This dissertation explores the relationship between regime types, credible commitment institutions and FDI, aiming to answer the puzzle—how do autocratic countries solve the commitment issues and attract a high level of FDI. To achieve this aim, the dissertation was designed to include two empirical chapters and two additional chapters for the introduction and the conclusion. The first empirical chapter examines the effect of regime types and property rights institutions on FDI. The empirical analysis presents a significant and surprising finding that the regime type is not what foreign firms necessarily care about, and what really matters to foreign investors are specific institutional features of the host country—in the present chapter, the effect of property rights institutions is tested. In other words, countries with sound institutions are not necessary democracies. Autocratic countries with well-established institutions to protect property rights and enforce contracts can also attract high level of FDI inflows. The second empirical chapter only focuses on autocratic countries. No longer view all autocratic countries as a single type opposing democratic countries as in the previous chapter; the great institutional differences among autocratic regimes will be witnessed and discussed. I argue that, besides the property rights institutions, some other institutional features—the power-sharing political institutions in some autocratic regimes, as well as the additional protections from international commitment institutions could help autocratic countries attract more FDI inflows. These effects can also complement property rights institutions and jointly affect FDI. Overall, the major contribution of this dissertation is that it verifies what matters for FDI inflows is not regime types but certain credible commitment institutions. The autocratic countries that can solve commitment issues by establishing strong credible commitment institutions can also attract a high level of FDI.
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(2022)The 2008 financial crisis was a disaster for people around the world, which caused the downturn of the world economy and ruined the lives of countless people. However, the Nordic countries stood out with the resilience they showed during the crisis. They were capable of controlling the unemployment rate even during the crisis and recovering from the recession quickly. The reasons behind this are worth digging. Combining literature analysis and interviewing experienced scholars in the field of the welfare state, this thesis aims at providing a unique perspective, analysing the welfare scholars’ views on the performance of the Nordic welfare state in the context of the 2008 financial crisis, to explore the possible sources of the resilience power of the Nordic welfare state and the challenges for the Nordic welfare state during and after the crisis. As a result, several essential elements of the Nordic welfare state are identified. Among them, a high level of social security, strong labour unions and heavy investment in human capital and education are found to be essential sources of the Nordic welfare state’s resilience power. Funding issues stood as a significant challenge during the crisis. Other than that, the privatisation of public service, the ageing population, and migration also lay a great burden on the welfare state in the post-crisis era. Finally, the results also suggest that the 2008 financial crisis also have an impact on the status of the welfare state in Nordic branding.
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(2023)This thesis examines computational propaganda techniques employed by RT (Russia Today) on Twitter by analyzing tweet sentiment and propaganda dynamics. Through quantitative analysis of RT English tweets spanning a decade, the study reveals RT’s strategies in terms of sentiment manipulation, including positive portrayals of Russia and Putin and demonization of adversaries. It further identifies a discernible political bias in RT’s coverage of international relations. The analysis also explores changes in country depictions within RT reports over the past ten years, highlighting the stability of RT’s narratives towards Putin, which suggests the importance of maintaining Putin’s image for Russian state-owned media. Moreover, the study identifies a correlation between the sentiment of tweets related to Russia, the extent of coverage of Putin, and Putin's approval ratings, shedding light on the dynamic nature of RT propaganda and its possible influencing factors. In terms of methodology, machine learning and dictionary-based approaches conducted in sentiment classification yield robust results, indicating the potential of computational methods in social science studies. In general, the research contributes to the understanding of modern propaganda and offers insights into the application of artificial intelligence in social science.
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(2022)As a new pattern of international trade, Cross-border e-commerce (CBEC) has quickly captured the market with its convenience. Nevertheless, compared to total international trade, the volume of CBEC is relatively small. The non-efficiency of trade hinders the development of CBEC. As a major global economic power, China has an important position in the global CBEC and is committed to improving trade facilitation to better develop CBEC. The thesis aims to study whether and how trade facilitation in 16 Central and Eastern European Countries (CEE countries) affects China’s CBEC transaction scale with them. This thesis assesses trade facilitation in four dimensions: institutions, infrastructure, market, and technologies. Through principal component analysis (PCA), this paper calculates the trade facilitation index for China’s 16 CEE trading partners from 2011 to 2019. Based on some estimation techniques, this thesis regresses China’s CBEC trade scale on trade facilitation index, GDP per capita, weighted geographical distance, and total population and compares the different performance of the two income groups and (non-)EU membership. It is found that there is a positive correlation between the trade facilitation in 16 CEE countries and China’s CBEC transaction scale, and there is also a relationship between GDP per capita, weighted geographical distance, income group, EU membership, and CBEC transaction scale. The impact of infrastructure, market, and technologies in trade facilitation on the CBEC transaction scale is significantly positive. Finally, it provides some possible implications to promote CBEC.
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(2022)Belt and Road initiative (BRI) has provided by the Chinese government's global infrastructure development strategy in 2013. The New Eurasian Land Bridge (NELB) is the core of the land route of BRI across Eurasia. The main purpose is to build the modern railway infrastructure lines in the Eurasian region. The thesis hypothesis NELB effectively strengthens the capacity of Russia and China for railway transport trade. It influences the further participation of China and Russia in Global Value Chains (GVCs). The study has used the Eora MRIO database on GVCs' output in China and Russia, which takes the data from 2000 to 2018 as a sample. It has combined with the World Integrated Trade Solution (WIST), World Bank and OECD database on the country's trade volume of the export sector and NELB-related indices. It has applied the combination of panel data and time series. The thesis has found that NELB contributed differently to China and Russia. In general terms of GVCs participation, NELB has absorbed Foreign direct investment (FDI) and Information and Communications Technology (ICT) input to China and Russia trade. NELB has benefited China by strengthening its soft infrastructure in financial investment. Moreover, it has benefited Russia's hard infrastructure in the railway transit stations or port establishment. In terms of bilateral trade on GVCs participation. It has conducted China's export and transport of large-scale machinery and equipment to Russia. It also has enhanced Russia's export and transport of energy materials or raw materials to China. Furthermore, NELB has shown the influence on the China and Russia's main export sectors' upgrading and governance in GVCs.
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(2022)From the perspective of economic growth, this research observes the relationship between the trade between Eastern Europe and Germany and the economic growth of Germany since 1998. Since the drastic changes in Eastern Europe, the economic and trade cooperation and industrial integration between Germany and Eastern Europe have become increasingly close. After the European debt crisis, Germany's manufacturing advantages were combined with the higher level of productivity and consumer market in Eastern Europe, and a differential phenomenon appeared in the trade between different Eastern European countries and Germany. This research attempts to find out the factors that have an impact on German economic growth from two perspectives: the trade between Germany and Eastern European countries and the trade between Germany and the EU member states in Eastern European countries. By analyzing the data over the years by using VAR model, this research finds that Germany's economic growth has increased imports from Eastern European countries. If only focus on the EU member states in Eastern European countries, the EU has indeed promoted Germany's economic growth to a certain extent. Through data analysis, it can be seen that exports to Eastern Europe will not promote Germany's economic growth, while imports and exports to eastern and central European member states can promote Germany's economic growth. Therefore, European economic integration is a better choice. Considering the promotion mechanism of German economic growth, it can be found that Germany is more dependent on machinery manufacturing and agricultural product manufacturing. In order to better promote the trade, Germany has made a lot of efforts, such as improving product quality, increasing scientific research funds, paying attention to talent training, improving innovation mechanism, etc. What is more, Germany has continuously adjusted its economic policies to suit its foreign trade.
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(2022)The quantitative easing monetary policies released by the Big Four central banks since 2008 were expected to save these major developed economies from the financial recession, but there is a possibility that these policy changes have a spillover effect on other parts of the world. This thesis constructs a financial systemic risk index from stock market, money market, bond market and foreign exchange market for two groups of economies including 10 developed economies and 10 emerging economies and explained the hypotheses mathematically to prove that an increase in domestic interest rate will cause foreign systemic risks to decrease, while an increase in domestic money supply will cause foreign systemic risks to rise. Then, this thesis builds a time-series dynamic panel data model to evaluate the difference between the spillovers on the two groups, the difference among the Big Four spillovers and the difference between the spillovers of price-based and quantity-based monetary policies, thus answering the research questions and accepting the hypotheses which is consistent with the mathematical explanations. Moreover, the thesis provides possible suggestions for financial supervision and multilateral cooperation in the final part.
Now showing items 21-30 of 30