Energy problems in the developing countries pose a policy dilemma. For the economy to advance from a subsistence and impoverished stage to a self sustained developed economy requires extensive energy fed modernization. In all sectors that could be targeted which include agriculture, industry and services, the energy implications depend on the strategy adopted. Both the capital and labour intensive strategies of development involve some basic energy implications. Especially since the 1973 oil price increases, these problems have been exacerbated with the oil importing developing countries like Tanzania being particularly hit. The little that had been achieved in terms of growth was subsequently wiped out. While this is true of the oil importing developing countries, oil exporting developing countries like Nigeria were able to temporarily weather the storm but these countries are still faced with enormous energy problems. The inability of Nigeria to achieve internal energy balances in the face of huge energy resource endowments, indeed, in overall development, opens a new dimension to the analysis of underdevelopment. It clearly indicates the need to shift emphasis away from the 'traditional' premise of 'lack of resources' as a focal point and platform from which underdevelopment is analysed. There is a need to focus on inefficient managerial capabilities and inept Leadership which are themselves problems of underdevelopment. With particular reference to energy, such incapability also throws some light to the technical problems highlighted, by the fact that relative to the dynamics of the underdeveloped economies, the possibility of fuel substitution in commercial energy on the one hand, and on the other, traditional energy for commercial energy is limited. Understanding the dynamics of these problems necessarily indicate the complexity of energy problems and indeed, overall development problems in the developing countries. Thus, while attempts to increase supply to satisfy demand may be necessary, we believe that other areas of policy such as effective energy management and energy conservation are also vital and important to the overall strategy. This aspect of energy is controversial. Whether energy privatisation or overhauling existing bureaucracy will provide the optimal solution is debatable. Thus, the thesis focuses attention on the role of energy in development, sources of energy in the two countries, and on the appraisal of energy institutions and management in developing countries.

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This study is concerned with the politics of gender formations and the role of communication media in the perpetuation of different and changing forms of patriarchal power and of women's oppression, and communication education as one crucial site for both professional socialisation into gendered values in mass communication practice and for re-visioning these values and assumptions that sustain hegemonic masculinity. The major argument here is that gender scholarship is essential to both understanding and undermining patriarchal devices which oppress women. In Malaysia, communication education is offered at the level of higher education - an important site for producing potential communication professionals. In this connection, it is important to examine communication education programmes to understand more precisely the gender composition of faculty staff, tutors' views towards gender issues and the significance accorded to the study of gender in communication courses. This study has advanced that the curriculum which forms the foundation of the educational system is socially constructed and that the relevant context has to give attention to both the socio-cultural and structural setting. At the socio-cultural level, this study has highlighted the 'state-centric' nature of Malaysia -- the ongoing interests of patriarchy, the functioning of global market forces and the collaboration of local and foreign governments that work in complex ways to perpetuate the subordination of women. It has further been observed that the Malaysian social-cultural milieu is one that grants ethnicity as a principle factor in the re-structuring of social relations and development activities. Gender criticism occupies a marginal position and the state development policies have not directly promoted the interests of women. At the structural level, taking the case-study of the USM Communication Programme, this study has revealed patterns of male domination within its formal organisation structure. A major problem arises in a general lack of understanding where most tutors still fail to appreciate the effects of gender oppression and differentiation, and perhaps more seriously, they often fail to recognise these issues as problematic. A study of communication courses has shown that gender issues are largely excluded from discussion through the choice of topics in course syllabus, in the selection of issues in examination papers and in the selection of reference materials. This has created a major gap in the curriculum -- a silence which leaves gender issues unheard in the study of communication. In the wake of the above findings, this study has attempted to outline some initial directions, immediate strategies and priorities for a gender agenda in communication education. In particular, the study has presented syllabus guidelines that chart some fruitful lines of inquiry that can contribute towards gender conscientisation and empowerment.

The emergence of Nigeria from the monetary anarchy of the turn of the century set forth historical processes for the establishment of modern monetary institutions. This was achieved at the cost of limited growth of currency in circulation because of sterling exchange standard without any fiduciary element in it and the domination of the commercial banking industry by the expatriates. The subsequent establishment of the Central bank of Nigeria and the control of the commercial banks still left the monetary instruments and institutions in an under-developed stage. A feature of that could be the complementarity of money with the physical capital, where a typical saver-investor had to do so only in the form of money with very little access to credit market, which itself was inadequate. The choice-theoretic basis of such a relation has been investigated and then tested for the period, 1960-1987. The results confirm the complementarity between narrow money and physical capital, whereas broad money turned out to be a substitute because interest rate could be earned on some deposit parts of it. The test also suggested an upward shift of the macro production function during the oil boom, and backward shift during the depression. The supply of money in the post-civil-war period has been analysed in the demand/supply format of money and of monetary base. The tests confirm the lack of interest-elasticity of demand/supply of money, though there is now a hint for such response. The endogeneity of money supply has been suggested in one set of results. The stability of the system is shown to depend on the partial adjustment of money only, and the results confirm that condition. Such findings have been used for a closed and open macroeconomic model for policy discussions, which ends with an enquiry into the stability of the open model.

This study is concerned with a cost-benefit analysis of university education in Iraq. The major purpose is the calculation of the monetary private and social rate of return to investment in particular forms of university education in Iraq, represented by University of Baghdad. The subjects chosen for calculating were fifteen different programs. The present study evaluated the decision to invest in various university subject groups at age eighteen (i.e. immediately after secondary school graduation) and at later age. Costs and benefits are calculated from point of view of three entities: Private; the institution; and society as a whole. Costs and benefits per student year and per graduate are also calculated. The results indicate that private rates of return are higher than social rates of return in all subject groups; that the social and private rates of return on investment in Engineering are the highest; that the private and social rates of return for Medicine program higher than other programs (four-year and five-year program) except for engineering; that the private rates of return to investment in five programs (Engineering, Medicine, Pharmacy, Dentistry, and Veterinary Medicine) are found to be greater than returns associated with other kind of investment i.e. to exceed 12%); that the social rate of return on investment in all four-year subject groups, except Engineering are found lower than 7%; that the social rate of return, while the social rate of return in Engineering is greater than 12%; that there is a negative relationship between the commencement age and private rate of return; that there is a positive relationship between commencement age and foregone earnings (private cost). The implications of these results for allocation of government spending on university education in Iraq are discussed.

This dissertation analyses the rise in consumer debt in developing countries over the last decade by drawing on the case of Turkey. It adopts a theoretical framework based on a political economy approach and examines the macroeconomic, institutional, political, and historical environment in which the rise in consumer debt has taken place. By locating the factors of indebtedness within an historically determined socioeconomic context the dissertation demonstrates the specific character of the rise in consumer credit in the age of financialisation. It is shown that consumer credit has grown markedly and its rise has been associated with related changes in the socioeconomic conditions within which the credit system operates as well as in the character of borrower-lender relations and in the perceptions and attitudes towards credit use within society. Analysis of the Turkish economy in the post-2001 crisis further shows that the interplay between the real and financial sectors has boosted consumer debt in the country. There is much publicly available evidence indicating the rapid expansion of consumer credit to low-income wage earners in Turkey. The empirical section of the dissertation focuses on how and why workers have become increasingly involved with the financial system. The research is based on empirical material collected through questionnaires and interviews with workers in the metal sector of industry. The results show that consumer debt in Turkey has become a part of the daily life of workers as a consequence of, first, growing dependence on debt to support basic reproduction of labour power and, second, of the aggressive marketing strategies of banks towards consumers. Further, the results provide evidence of a link between workers' debt and the type of wage employment by demonstrating that insecurity of employment and income have increased the tendency to borrow, and thus the vulnerability of workers to debt. Finally, there is an unequal power relationship between banks and workers which has allowed banks to extract profits out of wages and salaries.

The topics of this thesis are cycles and chaos in economic dynamics. Endogenous economic fluctuations are discussed in chapter 2 and 3. It is shown that persistent deterministic business cycles, and even chaos, appear in a purely endogenous fashion in an overlapping generations economy with decreasing returns production and profit distribution. To generate such cycles or chaos, the individuals' offer curve need not be backward bending. The origin of the cycles or chaos is sufficient inelasticity of labour demand at high employment levels. Chapter 4 deals with efficiency of competitive equilibrium allocations and monetary policy in overlapping generations models with decreasing return production. All competitive equilibrium allocations are Pareto Optimal. It is argued that monetary policy can not change the set of competitive equilibrium paths, but it is sufficient to "guide" the economy to converge to any competitive equilibrium path in the set. In particular, the government will prefer to lead the economy to converge to the stationary state in order to maximize social welfare. Chapter 5 concerns an allocation problem of renewable resources. The model discussed in this chapter is a non standard dynamic programming model. The existence of cycles and chaos is studied. The focus of this chapter is the relationship between the optimal policy function and the environmental function. Two questions are addressed; whether the optimal control can create chaos when the environment is non chaotic in the absence of control, and conversely, whether the optimal control can bring about a stationary state when the environment is chaotic in the absence of control. The anwser to both is "Yes".

This thesis analyzes the impact of three distinct development initiatives on measures of socio-economic behavior and well-being. Although thematically di erent, all three chapters methodologically utilize similar microeconometric models to estimate impacts based on individual and household level panel data. The rst chapter examines the impact of the Empowerment and Livelihood for Adolescents programme in Uganda. The analysis nds that the programme improves female adolescents' HIV and pregnancy related knowledge, increases condom usage and decreases the probability of reported motherhood. Furthermore, the intervention raises the likelihood of being engaged in income generation especially in self-employment activities. The second chapter investigates the e ectiveness of increased access to credit through the One Million Baht Village Fund programme in Thailand. Naive estimates indicate that participants increase their expenditures and debt level but not income. Correcting for a possible self-selection bias uncovers extensive impact heterogeneity rendering the programme's e ectiveness inconclusive. The third chapter evaluates the impact of the Saving Mobilization programme in Uganda designed to promote the utilization of formal saving products. The analysis nds that the intervention is successful in increasing the usage of saving devices at semi-formal nancial institutions. The total amount of savings, however, remains una ected. Importantly, the analysis uncovers substantial impact heterogeneity. Illiterate individuals and individuals who experienced theft in the recent past are far more likely to save at formal institutions in response to project participation.

This thesis presents analyses of households' decisions regarding housing and pension wealth accumulation, in forward-looking models. The first of three chapters on housing presents a model of housing demand over the life cycle, and examines its sensitivity to prices and borrowing constraints. Demand responses can be unusual: when the price of housing goes up, the demand for starter homes may increase if enough people "downsize" their homes. The next chapter involves carefully matching a life cycle model of consumption and housing choices, to recent episodes in the U.K., and using this structure to understand why house prices and consumption growth are strongly positively correlated. The model provides a good match to data on home ownership and consumption growth. The analysis gives a firmer theoretical footing to the claim that wealth effects from house prices are unlikely to have been the main driver of the correlation with consumption growth. The third housing chapter presents a model in which the prices of two types of home are endogenous. A perfect foresight set up is used, and transitions between steady states following shocks to income and mortgage markets, are studied. The findings suggest that credit shocks are more promising than income shocks as a potential explanation of large house price fluctuations and housing transactions level that covary positively with prices. The final substantive chapter uses a difference-in-differences strategy to evaluate the effect on private pension coverage of a recent U.K. reform to private pensions and pension contribution limits The reform is seen to have had a positive effect on pension coverage for lower earners. This pattern is consistent with forward-looking responses to the financial incentives involved.

This thesis deals with attrition in panel data. The problem associated with attrition is that it can lead to estimation results that suffer from selection bias. This can be avoided by using attrition models that are sufficiently unrestrictive to allow for a wide range of potential selection. In chapter 2, I propose the Sequential Additively Nonignorable (SAN) attrition model. This model combines an Additive Nonignorability assumption with the Sequential Attrition assumption, to just-identify the joint population distribution in Panel data with any number of waves. The identification requires the availability of refreshment samples. Just-identification means that the SAN model has no testable implications. In other words, less restrictive identified models do not exist. To estimate SAN models, I propose a weighted Generalized Method of Moments estimator, and derive its repeated sampling behaviour in large samples. This estimator is applied to the Dutch Transportation Panel and the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. In chapter 4, a likelihood-based alternative estimation approach is proposed, by means of an EM algorithm. Maximum Likelihood estimates can be useful if it is hard to obtain an explicit expression for the score function implied by the likelihood. In that case, the weighted GMM approach is not applicable.