This dissertation presents an ethnography of market dynamics in India, following state-directed economic liberalization during early 1990's. The decade of the 90's convulsed Indian society deeply through an aggressive and top-down economic reform program, while at the same time, militant Hinduism and lower caste movements sought violently to capture and dominate social space. Engaging this social context my dissertation looks at the market forces, which hitherto were a subordinate partner to the paternalist Indian state in the cultural production of meaning and identities, take the center-stage and move out of the shadows of a tactically receding Indian state, and strive to re-establish hegemony in a highly contested, fraught and charged politico-cultural field. The dissertation then analyzes the corporatist understanding and viewpoints of contemporary India's economic standing and prospects, highlighting their own projects and ambitions that appear uniquely tied to their self-imagination of the role they are poised to play in the emerging shape of economy and society in India. In the process, I show that the concepts, frameworks and classificatory schemas used by corporate houses to understand, capture and represent the Indian social, which first and foremost involved constitution of an immense ethnographically based epistemological cartography of Indian society, are neither neutral, nor transparent, but rather, inflected and laden with a desire to conquer a social field that is already ideologically rife with neo-liberalism and Hindu fundamentalist motifs. I suggest that the aforementioned strategies of publicity and advertising - and the advertising industry is the focus of this dissertation- are not averse to symbolically borrowing and encoding neo-liberal and religious faith as everyday commonsense. By extension I show how the production of their vision of the `new India' quite undermines the Nehruvian vision of secularism and its juridical schemas of inter-religious tolerance and co-existence, of socialism and its ethic of labor and production, displacing it with a late-capitalist, neo-liberal, middle class conceptions of consumption and enjoyment.

O consumo domiciliar de microcomputadores cresceu de forma acelerado nos últimos anos. Apesar de grupos com determinadas características socioeconômicas terem um consumo maior de computadores, o consumo vem aumentando em todos os grupos. Ou seja, mesmo com diferenças grandes, o consumo de computadores não é mais uma exclusividade dos mais ricos, dos mais bem instruídos ou de determinadas regiões do país. Os modelos Probit e double-hurdle se mostraram adequados para analisar o consumo de computadores no Brasil. O modelo Probit ajustou bem os dados na análise da presença de um computador no domicílio. Já para a despesa com computador, o modelo double-hurdle se mostrou melhor que o modelo Tobit, uma vez que este separa a análise do processo de decisão de compra em dois, separando a decisão de gastar da decisão de quanto gastar. / Household consumption of microcomputers grew up fast in recent years. Despite some socioeconomic groups take highercomputer consumption, consumption is increasing in all groups. In other words, even with large differences, the consumption of computers is no longer uniqueness of wealthier, better educated or at certain regions of the country. Probit and double-hurdle models were suitable for analyzing the consume of computers in Brazil. The Probit model adjusted well the data set in the analysis of the presence of a computer at home. For the computer spending the double-hurdle model proved better than Tobit because separates the analysis of the purchase decision process in two, separating the decision to spend from the decision of how much spend.

The thesis addresses the research question of how and why ‘prosuming' solar electricity evolves over time among social housing tenants with prepayment electricity meters. Prosuming is defined here as deliberately and simultaneously producing and consuming electricity. Using a Social Practice Theory framework, but also drawing on Time Geography, the thesis analyses prosuming as a ‘project'. This sees practitioners actively mobilising elements (meanings, skills and materials), as well as orchestrating everyday practices (i.e. laundering) and projects (i.e. 'Feeding-the-Meter') to the fulfilment of the 'Prosuming Project'. The overarching research question is ‘How and why does prosuming evolve for social housing tenants?' It is broken down into four subsidiary questions that firstly explore the period before solar panels, and then the three stages of the conceptual framework – adopting, establishing and committing to the Prosuming Project. The first question addresses how householders use electricity prior to the installation of solar panels and the role of two dominant, institutional projects: 'Feeding-the-Meter' and 'Maintaining-Family-Routines'. The second examines the features of households adopting the Prosuming Project and the need to mobilise a set of elements from within a disadvantaged community. The third question explores how the establishing phase is marked by a complex relationship between prosuming as a secondary, voluntary project, and dominant, institutional projects. This is further complicated by the role of synchronicity, finances and the changing seasons. The final subsidiary question addresses how a new vocabulary of elements emerged as practitioners committed to the Prosuming Project. It also explores how a transformative process took place both for practitioner and the project itself. In particular it highlights the potential in the future for an Energy Shifting, Storing, Saving & Sharing Project that could support disadvantaged communities, if they are able to mobilise the elements they need to perform it. This case study adopts an in-depth qualitative methodology, using serial interviews with seven households over ten months. The interviewees live in an area that in 2010 was ranked as within the ten percent most deprived in England, according to English Indices of Deprivation (DCLG). The research explores their lived experiences of the Prosuming Project. The thesis focuses on UK social housing tenants, who appear not to have been researched before for a prosuming-focused, social practice study. This enables the research to contribute to topical debates about future sustainability ‘winners and losers'. It also offers methodological insights into undertaking a social practice case study that explored lived experiences within a disadvantaged community. The research provides insights into how prosuming solar power is embedded in everyday life: how it can be supported or challenged by dominant projects, and how householders may develop new skills, understandings, and ways of using materials as their performances evolve.

In the last twenty years, the way in which individuals consume news about politics has changed. As the internet becomes increasingly accessible, convenient, and inexpensive, more consumers than ever before choose to get their news online. As this migration continues, an understanding of online news consumption becomes increasingly important to the study of media systems. There are several ways in which the internet can be truly transformative - this thesis investigates some of these claims as they pertain to the comparative study of media systems. The primary dimension of analysis presented here investigates the internet's role in facilitating the homogenisation, or convergence of domestic media systems. Using a historical institutionalist approach, this thesis examines internet news in the United States and the United Kingdom, two cases at the centre of this debate. To adequately reflect the diversity present in online news consumption, this project uses a dataset comprised of news stories about two national election campaigns accessed via search engines, news aggregators, and social media. The analysis presented here demonstrates the complexity of the online news environment, highlighting key areas like source distribution and regional news content where path dependency has persisted despite the transition to online news, and those areas such as regional news sources where distinguishing between the two cases is more difficult. Where this is the case, the thesis explores alternative the explanations of Americanisation and technological determinism. Variance between Google, News360, and NewsWhip data collected for this thesis demonstrates how the way in which consumers get their news influences how converged or path dependent the media system appears.

Zhou Yu. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 52-57). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Chapter I. --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter II. --- Dynamics of A One-sector Growth Model with Consumption and Capital Externalities --- p.4 / Chapter III. --- Consumption Externalities and Individual Consumption --- p.26 / Chapter IV. --- Capital Externalities and Long-run Productions --- p.36 / Chapter V. --- Conclusion --- p.50 / Chapter VI. --- References --- p.52 / Chapter VII. --- Appendix --- p.58

Chan Chung Yan. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 57-59). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract --- p.i / Acknowledgement --- p.iv / Table of Contents --- p.v / List of Figures --- p.vi / Chapter 1. --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 2. --- An Illustration with a Small Open Economy Model / Chapter 2.1 --- Review of Obstfeld (1990) --- p.4 / Chapter 2.2 --- A Model with Socially-Determined Time Preference --- p.6 / Chapter 3. --- Small Open Economy Models with Socially-Determined Time Preference --- p.15 / Chapter 3.1 --- The Laursen-Metzler Effect --- p.16 / Chapter 3.2 --- Exchange-Rate Dynamics --- p.21 / Chapter 3.3 --- Capital Mobility and Devaluation --- p.28 / Chapter 4. --- Dynamics of a Small Open Economy Model with Non-Flat Bond Curves --- p.35 / Chapter 4.1 --- Downward-Sloping Bond Curve --- p.38 / Chapter 4.2 --- Upward-Sloping Bond Curve --- p.38 / Chapter 5. --- Investment and Saving in a Small Open Economy Model with Capital Accumulation / Chapter 5.1 --- The Model --- p.41 / Chapter 5.2 --- Productivity Shocks --- p.46 / Chapter 6. --- Saddle-Path Stability of a Closed Economy Growth Model --- p.49 / Chapter 7. --- Conclusion --- p.54 / References --- p.57 / Appendix --- p.60

Lundberg et al. (2003)主張的婚姻談判理論指出退休家庭消費驟降現象是由於夫妻間的相對談判能力在丈夫退休後出現變化而造成。而且該下跌的幅度取決於二人年齡的差異。本論文考慮到 Aguiar and Hurst (2005)的評論消費應該被視為支出和時間的輸出，嘗試修改 Lundberg et al. (2003)的婚姻談判模型，並從食物攝取量的角度重新探討它在退休消費決策中所扮演的角色。我利用美國全國食品調查的食品消費支出和攝取量數據，結果發現儘管退休已婚夫婦的消費支出有下降跡象，但無論是已婚還是單身家庭均沒有減少消費的數量或降低消費的品質。此外，我發現並無任何證據顯示在已婚家庭組別中，夫婦間年齡差距較大的家庭會傾向於丈夫退休後削減更多消費或支出。這些結果與理論預期不符合。因此，認為婚姻談判理論能充分解釋已婚家庭退休消費行為的推斷還是言之過早。 / The Marital Bargaining Theory proposed by Lundberg et al. (2003) suggests that a discontinuity in consumption expenditure at retirement is attributable to the change in the relative bargaining power of husbands and wives upon the husband's retirement, and that the extent of such a decline depends upon age differences in couples. This thesis responds to Aguiar and Hurst (2005)'s critique that consumption should be regarded as an outcome of market expenses and time. With this taken into consideration, I attempt to rewrite the marital bargaining model and reexamine its role in the retirement-consumption decision empirically from the perspective of food intake. By exploiting data on food expenditures and intake from U.S nationwide food surveys, I show that despite a drop in expenditures for married couples, neither married nor single households experience a decline in consumption associated with retirement in terms of food quantity and quality. Also, I find no evidence that married couples with big age gaps suffer from a larger decline in either expenditures or consumption relative to those who are closer in age. These results are inconsistent with a modified model of marital bargaining. It is thus premature to conclude that the Marital Bargaining Theory plays an important role in explaining the retirement-consumption behavior of married couples. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Wong, Lok Sze. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2012. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 81-83). / Abstracts also in Chinese. / Abstract --- p.ii / 摘要 --- p.iii / Acknowledgements --- p.iv / Chapter 1. --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 2. --- Literature Review --- p.4 / Chapter 3. --- Data --- p.13 / Chapter 3.1 --- Survey Description --- p.13 / Chapter 3.2 --- Sample Selection --- p.18 / Chapter 3.3 --- Summary Statistics --- p.20 / Chapter 4. --- Change in Expenditure and Time use at Retirement --- p.21 / Chapter 5. --- Modified Model of Marital Bargaining --- p.26 / Chapter 6. --- Methodology for Consumption Analysis --- p.32 / Chapter 7. --- Comparison of the CSFII and NHANES Estimates --- p.37 / Chapter 8. --- Retirement-Consumption Behaviors across Married Couples --- p.40 / Chapter 9. --- Discussion and Implication --- p.47 / Chapter 10. --- Conclusion --- p.50 / Chapter Figure 1: --- Retirement Rates by Age in the CSFII --- p.52 / Chapter Table 1: --- Demographic Statistics of Male Household Heads Aged Between 57 and 71 in the CSFII and NHANES by Marital Status --- p.53 / Chapter Table 2: --- Descriptive Statistics of Self-Reported Health Status and Specific Health Conditions of Male Household Heads Aged Between 57 and 71 in the CSFII and NHANES by Marital Status --- p.54 / Chapter Table 3: --- Instrumental Variable Regression of Changes in Log Food Expenditure and Shopping Frequency Upon Retirement by Marital Status --- p.55 / Chapter Table 4: --- Instrumental Variable Regression of Changes in Log Food Expenditure and Shopping Frequency Upon Retirement for Married Couples by Difference in Age --- p.56 / Chapter Table 5: --- Instrumental Variable Regression of Changes in Log Food Expenditure and Shopping Frequency Upon Retirement for Married Couples by Difference in Age (Three Groups) --- p.57 / Chapter Table 6: --- Comparison of Predictions Between Standard and Modified Marital Bargaining Models --- p.58 / Chapter Table 7: --- Comparison of Regression Results for Average Population Between the CSFII and NHANES (Nutritional Compositions) --- p.59 / Chapter Table 8: --- Comparison of Regression Results for Average Population Between the CSFII and NHANES (Propensity to Consume Food Categories) --- p.60 / Chapter Table 9: --- Comparison of Regression Results for Average Population Between the CSFII and NHANES (Propensity to Eat Away from Home) --- p.61 / Chapter Table 10: --- Instrumental Variable Regression of Changes in Nutritional Compositions Upon Retirement by Marital Status --- p.62 / Chapter Table 11: --- Instrumental Variable Regression of Changes in Propensity to Consume Food Categories Upon Retirement by Marital Status --- p.63 / Chapter Table 12: --- Instrumental Variable Regression of Changes in Propensity to Eat Away from Home Upon Retirement by Marital Status --- p.64 / Chapter Table 13: --- Instrumental Variable Regression of Changes in Nutritional Compositions Upon Retirement for Married Couples by Difference in Age (Three Groups) --- p.65 / Chapter Table 14: --- Instrumental Variable Regression of Changes in Propensity to Consume Food Categories Upon Retirement for Married Couples by Difference in Age (Three Groups) --- p.66 / Chapter Table 15: --- Instrumental Variable Regression of Changes in Propensity to Eat Away from Home Upon Retirement for Married Couples by Difference in Age (Three Groups) --- p.67 / Chapter Table 16: --- Comparison of Empirical Results and Predictions of Two Models, With and Without Change in Bargaining Power Within Marriage, for Married Couple Households --- p.68 / Chapter Appendix Table 1: --- The Median Annual Household Incomes in the 1999-2008 CPS March Supplement and the Corresponding Income Ranges in the NHANES --- p.69 / Chapter Appendix Table 2: --- Instrumental Variable Regression of Changes in Nutritional Compositions Upon Retirement for Married Couples by Difference in Age (Non-Household Head) --- p.70 / Chapter Appendix Table 3: --- Instrumental Variable Regression of Changes in Propensity to Consume Food Categories Upon Retirement for Married Couples by Difference in Age (Non-Household Head) --- p.71 / Chapter Appendix Table 4: --- Instrumental Variable Regression of Changes in Propensity to Eat Away from Home Upon Retirement for Married Couples by Difference in Age (Non-Household Head) --- p.72 / Chapter Appendix: --- Proof 1 --- p.73 / Chapter Appendix: --- Proof 2 --- p.76 / References --- p.81

Kong, Kwok Ho. / "August 2011." / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2011. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 67-68). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract --- p.ii / 摘要 --- p.iii / Acknowledgements --- p.iv / Chapter 1. --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 2. --- Literature Review --- p.4 / Chapter 2.1 --- The Retirement-Consumption Puzzle --- p.4 / Chapter 2.2 --- Food Expenditure and Food Consumption --- p.7 / Chapter 2.3 --- Heterogeneous Impact of Retirement on Consumption Expenditure --- p.7 / Chapter 3. --- Data Sources and Description --- p.10 / Chapter 3.1 --- Surveys --- p.10 / Chapter 3.2 --- Sample --- p.12 / Chapter 4. --- Methodology --- p.16 / Chapter 5. --- "Comparison of the NHAPS, ATUS, and ASEC Estimates" --- p.18 / Chapter 6. --- Empirical Results-Demographic Characteristics --- p.21 / Chapter 6.1 --- Male and Female Householders --- p.23 / Chapter 6.2 --- Marital Status --- p.25 / Chapter 6.3 --- Education --- p.27 / Chapter 7. --- Empirical Results-Financial Characteristics --- p.29 / Chapter 7.1 --- Housing Ownership --- p.30 / Chapter 7.2 --- Interest and Dividend Income --- p.32 / Chapter 8. --- Empirical Results-Dependency Status --- p.35 / Chapter 9. --- Potential Bias of Using Age as an Insturment for Retirement --- p.38 / Chapter 10. --- Robustness Checking --- p.40 / Chapter 10.1 --- Estimation with Restricted Samples --- p.40 / Chapter 10.2 --- Ordinary Least Square (OLS) Estimation --- p.41 / Chapter 11. --- Conclusions --- p.43 / Chapter Figure 1 --- Level Changes of Time Spent on Food Production for Household Members by Three-year Ranges --- p.46 / Chapter Figure 2 --- Percentage Change of Time Spent on Food Production for Household Members by Three-year Ranges --- p.47 / Chapter Table 1 --- "Descriptive Statistics of Non-retired and Retired Individuals in NHAPS, ATUS, and ATUS-ASEC" --- p.48 / Chapter Table 2 --- Descriptive Statistics of Time Spent on Home Food Production (in minutes per day) of Non-retired and Retired Households --- p.49 / Chapter Table 3 --- Comparison of Regression Result between the Estimation of Aguiar and Hurst (2005) and the Author's Estimation --- p.50 / Chapter Table 4 --- Descriptive Statistics of ATUS Non-retired and Retired Individuals by Gender --- p.51 / Chapter Table 5 --- 2SLS Estimates of ATUS-ASEC Householders by Gender --- p.52 / Chapter Table 6 --- 2SLS Estimates of ATUS-ASEC Female Householders by Marital Status --- p.53 / Chapter Table 7 --- 2SLS Estimates of ATUS-ASEC Male Householders by Marital Status --- p.54 / Chapter Table 8 --- 2SLS Estimates of ATUS-ASEC Householders by Education Attainment --- p.55 / Chapter Table 9 --- 2SLS Estimates of ATUS-ASEC Householders by Housing Ownership --- p.56 / Chapter Table 10 --- 2SLS Estimates of ATUS-ASEC Householders by Interest Income and Dividend Income during the Survey Year --- p.57 / Chapter Table 11 --- 2SLS Estimates of ATUS-ASEC Householders by Dependency Status during the Survey Year --- p.58 / Chapter Table 12 --- Comparison of Regression Results under Full Samples and Restricted Samples --- p.59 / Chapter Table 13 --- Comparison of Regression Results between the Use of 2SLS and OLS Methods --- p.60 / Chapter Appendix: --- Data --- p.61 / Chapter Appendix Table 1 --- Time Spent on Home Food Production (in Minutes per Day) of Householders by Marital Status --- p.62 / Chapter Appendix Table 2 --- Time Spent on Home Food Production (in Minutes per Day) of Householders by Education Attainment --- p.63 / Chapter Appendix Table 3 --- Time Spent on Home Food Production (in Minutes per Day) of Householders by Housing Ownership and the Sum of Interest Income and Dividend Income --- p.64 / Chapter Appendix Table 4 --- Housing Ownership and Education Attainment of Individuals in 2003-2009 ATUS-ASEC --- p.65 / Chapter Appendix Table 5 --- Time Spent on Home Food Production (in Minutes per Day) of Householders by Dependency Status --- p.66 / References --- p.67

The sex shop aimed primarily at the female consumer is a phenomenon which forms part of our everyday understanding of the sexualisatian of culture or the mainstreaming of sexual representation and consumption. The women's sex shop privileges notions of female empowerment achieved through the consumption of goods and spaces dedicated to the pursuit of female erotic pleasure. Prioritising women's interpretations of the visual presence of the women's sex shop, this project establishes how the sex shop is re-made for its female consumers, making it both acceptable and desirable to a new audience. Primarily its aim is to interrogate the ways in which design is put to use to reflect, materialise and contribute to discourse around feminine sexuality and sexual pleasure. Utilising a feminist research methodology this thesis takes as a starting point the voices of women consumers and retailers, facilitating a new reading of the ways in which women negotiate the meanings invested in the spaces of gendered sexual consumption. In line with the testimony of participants, investigation begins by positioning the women's sex shop in relation to its progenitor, the traditional male sex shop, the model without which the women's shop could not be envisaged or designed. Secondly it investigates the ways in which the design of the women's sex shop and its goods, appropriate or resist established , normative and classed representations of female sexuality expressed in the geographical position of the shops, the interior layout, the external façade and the use of visual references. In conclusion, drawing on consumer narratives, research exposes a visual and spatial symbiosis between the 'seedy' masculine and the stylish women's sex shop. Key tensions and contradictions are unearthed in the things and spaces of the women's shop, calling into question the notions of female sexual agency and empowerment it proposes.

A large proportion of energy demand comes from urban areas, mostly from buildings and transport, the use of which has impacts on climate and air quality through the emissions of greenhouse gases and other pollutants. To effectively mitigate these impacts, a better understanding of the relationship between energy and urban form variables is crucial. The link between energy and urban variables has been demonstrated before and it is recognised in many aspects of the cities, such as human behaviour and transport dynamics. This research goes forward by analysing the correlation and scaling between energy consumption and different land use typologies derived from urban form variables, as well as at other scales. The work is built on readily available datasets for England to guarantee the replicability of the methodology and ensure the reliability of the results. A combined energy use metric integrating buildings and commute transport produces helpful insights into energy consumption patterns and it is obtained at a large geographic scale. The identification of local scale consumption patterns is attractive to policymakers and planners by providing them detailed information to direct local-level policies. On the other hand, the derived land use typologies deliver new knowledge about the spatialisation of the urban system and to establish the link with the energy use. The results reveal that the relationship between energy and urban variables favours the application of compact city to reduce carbon-based energy consumption. This means that better energy efficiency is achieved by areas with higher population density. The analysis also shows that socio-economic variables have higher impact on energy consumption than physical variables. Moreover, differences at city scale and for the land use typologies are identified, demonstrating the importance of focusing the analysis according to the goal. In sum, the results from this work provide new insights about the relationship between energy and urban characteristics that can be used by policymakers and planners to outline more focused and detailed actions to mitigate energy use in England.