This dissertation studies a number of issues related to Development Economics. The first chapter explains how we can use multiple correspondence analysis to calculate an asset index, and then offers an inequality analysis using the asset index. The second chapter provides a theoretical explanation of an odd relationship between child labor and per capita land holding in a household, and then provides empirical evidence for the explanation. Finally, the third chapter represents the results of a study of the behavior of rural households during shocks. Across the entire dissertation, we use three cross sectional surveys, conducted in 2001, 2007-8 and 2010-11 in Zimbabwe. / Ph. D.

Poverty persists as one of the critical challenges in South Africa, predominantly because it is inbred. Currently, the majority of South Africa’s children live in households that are incapable of providing basic needs. Children born from deprived households have a high chance of being trapped into the cycle of poverty. Thus, household poverty affects child differently from adults; children tend to be more vulnerable to deprivation and poverty. The purpose of this study was to analyse the relationship between household poverty and child deprivation in Jabulani, a South African township. The study used an asset index and a child deprivation index to measure the scope of household poverty and child deprivation in Jabulani Township. The main focus of the study was to determine if household poverty has an impact on the deprivation status of a child living in a particular household. Therefore, analysing demographics of the household and its poverty status was also important. The empirical analysis of the study was centred on data collected from Jabulani Township in May 2015 by means of a survey questionnaire with a sample of 178 randomly selected households. Several statistical methods were used such as descriptive statistics, correlations and regression analysis to identify the overlaps between household poverty and child deprivation. The asset index was used to determine the poverty status of the household by measuring its wealth, thus identifying if a child from a poor household will be deprived of certain items by comparing it to the child deprivation index. The child deprivation index was constructed based on specific items a child may lack. The relationship between household poverty and child deprivation was determined and it was found that most of the children from poor households are not severely deprived; they are either less deprived or moderately deprived at most. Similarly, there are children from the well-off households who are deprived moderately and severely. However, the majority of the children living in less poor households are also less deprived. Thus, it was concluded that household needs are different from child needs, hence we find children who are not deprived in poor households and vice versa. The Relationship between Household Poverty and Child Deprivation in Jabulani Township Page vii The extent of household poverty was determined and as defined by the asset index the study found that 59 percent of the households in Jabulani Township are not poor, 31.5 percent have poverty levels just below average (based on the asset index measuring long-term wealth) and 9.6 percent are poor. Furthermore, it was found that the majority of the sampled population of Jabulani Township has low income levels, most of the asset poor households were also found to be income poor and vice versa. The study revealed that females head most households in Jabulani Township; female heads of household were found to have lower poverty levels compared to male heads of household. It was found that the majority of the heads of household have no schooling and quite a few of them have tertiary level education. The largest source of income in Jabulani Township is child support grant (87.1 percent) and wages or salaries contribute 77 percent to household income. The prevalence of child deprivation was determined based on the child deprivation index. It was found that 62.9 percent of the children in Jabulani Township are less deprived, 29.2 percent are moderately deprived and only 9.9 percent of the children are severely deprived. Therefore, the majority of the children in Jabulani Township are not severely deprived. The regression analysis results revealed that the total income of the household is a significant determinant of the asset index and the child deprivation index. Based on these findings it is recommended that more investments should be made towards education in Jabulani Township, as this could be a great move towards the alleviation of household poverty and, in turn, child deprivation. There is a need for skills empowerment especially in baking and sewing as most of the unemployed heads of households are skilled in those areas, this will curb dependence on the government and create more job opportunities so that the parents can provide for the needs of their children.

Poverty persists as one of the critical challenges in South Africa, predominantly because it is inbred. Currently, the majority of South Africa’s children live in households that are incapable of providing basic needs. Children born from deprived households have a high chance of being trapped into the cycle of poverty. Thus, household poverty affects child differently from adults; children tend to be more vulnerable to deprivation and poverty. The purpose of this study was to analyse the relationship between household poverty and child deprivation in Jabulani, a South African township. The study used an asset index and a child deprivation index to measure the scope of household poverty and child deprivation in Jabulani Township. The main focus of the study was to determine if household poverty has an impact on the deprivation status of a child living in a particular household. Therefore, analysing demographics of the household and its poverty status was also important. The empirical analysis of the study was centred on data collected from Jabulani Township in May 2015 by means of a survey questionnaire with a sample of 178 randomly selected households. Several statistical methods were used such as descriptive statistics, correlations and regression analysis to identify the overlaps between household poverty and child deprivation. The asset index was used to determine the poverty status of the household by measuring its wealth, thus identifying if a child from a poor household will be deprived of certain items by comparing it to the child deprivation index. The child deprivation index was constructed based on specific items a child may lack. The relationship between household poverty and child deprivation was determined and it was found that most of the children from poor households are not severely deprived; they are either less deprived or moderately deprived at most. Similarly, there are children from the well-off households who are deprived moderately and severely. However, the majority of the children living in less poor households are also less deprived. Thus, it was concluded that household needs are different from child needs, hence we find children who are not deprived in poor households and vice versa. The Relationship between Household Poverty and Child Deprivation in Jabulani Township Page vii The extent of household poverty was determined and as defined by the asset index the study found that 59 percent of the households in Jabulani Township are not poor, 31.5 percent have poverty levels just below average (based on the asset index measuring long-term wealth) and 9.6 percent are poor. Furthermore, it was found that the majority of the sampled population of Jabulani Township has low income levels, most of the asset poor households were also found to be income poor and vice versa. The study revealed that females head most households in Jabulani Township; female heads of household were found to have lower poverty levels compared to male heads of household. It was found that the majority of the heads of household have no schooling and quite a few of them have tertiary level education. The largest source of income in Jabulani Township is child support grant (87.1 percent) and wages or salaries contribute 77 percent to household income. The prevalence of child deprivation was determined based on the child deprivation index. It was found that 62.9 percent of the children in Jabulani Township are less deprived, 29.2 percent are moderately deprived and only 9.9 percent of the children are severely deprived. Therefore, the majority of the children in Jabulani Township are not severely deprived. The regression analysis results revealed that the total income of the household is a significant determinant of the asset index and the child deprivation index. Based on these findings it is recommended that more investments should be made towards education in Jabulani Township, as this could be a great move towards the alleviation of household poverty and, in turn, child deprivation. There is a need for skills empowerment especially in baking and sewing as most of the unemployed heads of households are skilled in those areas, this will curb dependence on the government and create more job opportunities so that the parents can provide for the needs of their children.

La reducción pobreza es un tópico importante en la agenda de país que tiene Perú, sin embargo, para 2017 la pobreza aumento un punto porcentual. Del mismo modo, el gasto en programas sociales ha ido en aumento, pero la variación porcentual en el número de hogares pobres ha ido reduciéndose. Esto podría significar que el efecto positivo que estos deberían tener , como lo propone Sachs (2005), está siendo mitigado o eliminado por otro proceso subyacente que no está siendo observado. Este proceso subyacente podría ser síntoma de trampa de la pobreza, para determinar la veracidad de esta afirmación se utilizará como base el trabajo de Carter y Barret (2006), adaptándolo para la base datos de la ENAHO panel. Dicha metodología propone el uso de un índice que mida el nivel de activos de un hogar, y mediante la observación de la dinámica de la función resultante se puede determinar la existencia de una trampa de pobreza a nivel de activos. Los resultados de las estimaciones muestran que no existe una trampa de pobreza, pero la sensibilidad de los datos con respecto a la especificación índice de activos hace que sea necesario una extensión del trabajo con métodos econométricos más recientes. / Poverty reduction is an important topic in Peru's country agenda, however, by 2017 poverty increased by one percentage point. Similarly, spending on social programs has been increasing, but the percentage variation in the number of poor households has been decreasing. This could mean that the positive effect that these should have, as proposed by Sachs (2005), is being mitigated or eliminated by another underlying process that is not being observed. This underlying process could be a symptom of the poverty trap, to determine the veracity of this statement, the work of Carter and Barret (2006) will be used as a basis, adapting it to the database of the ENAHO panel. This methodology proposes the use of an index that measures the level of assets of a household, and by observing the dynamics of the resulting function, the existence of a poverty trap at the asset level can be determined. The results of the estimates show that there is no poverty trap, but the sensitivity of the data with respect to the asset index specification makes an extension of work with more recent econometric methods necessary. / Trabajo de investigación

Questa tesi studia la possibilità di costruire diversi indicatori di benessere socio-economico della famiglia, indicatori che possano tenere conto delle dimensioni del rischio e dell'incertezza. Indicatori che, in qualche modo, catturino la capacità di far fronte ad un eventuale shock negativo. La costruzione di indicatori basati sulla proprietà di beni durevoli è applicata al contesto albanese. / This thesis aims at investigating the different possibilities of measuring indicators of socio-economic status at the household's level. These indicators should be able to take account of the dimensions of uncertainty and risk, thus catching the ability of people of coping with negative economic shocks. The construction of such indicators asset-based is focused on the Albanian context.

This dissertation is composed of three essays; the first two examine the decisionmaking of potato producing households in Bolivia and the third examines well-being changes among Zimbabwe households. The first essay entitled “The role of risk mitigation in production efficiency: A case study of potato cultivation in the Bolivian Andes” estimates the costs of self-managing environmental risk through activity and environmental diversification. Risk management has the potential to reduce income variability but at the cost of increasing production inefficiency, which we measure employing a stochastic production frontier. Among variables capturing environmental diversification, discontinuity between fields has the most detrimental effect on production efficiency. Activity diversification, measured by the ratio of potato to total crop revenue, has a stronger impact on inefficiency and yield losses than any of the environmental diversification variables. The second essay entitled “Determinants of market participation decisions and marketing choices in Bolivia” examines three decisions related to potato market participation: market entry, volume sold, and market choice. The first two are analyzed using a Heckman selection model. Results indicate that isolation, measured by population density and distance to markets, negatively impacts market entry. The most important determinant of quantity sold is land holding. Market choices are judged according to second-order stochastic dominance (SOSD). Market choices meeting the SOSD criterion are referred to as optimal marketing strategies as they have the higher expected payoff for a minimal income variance. Results suggest that the probability of selecting an optimal marketing strategy increases with quantity sold, access to market information, and access to liquidity while it decreases with distance to markets. The third essay entitled “A profile of changes in well-being in Zimbabwe, 2001- 2007/8, using an asset index methodology” shows that it is possible to examine intertemporal and spatial changes in well-being in the absence of consumption expenditures data by using an asset index. The asset index was constructed using Polychoric Principal Component Analysis. Results indicate that poverty and extremely poverty grew significantly in rural Zimbabwe while in urban areas, poverty diminished and extreme poverty grew. / Ph. D. / LTRA-7 (Pathways to CAPS in the Andes)

McMaster University DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (2019) Hamilton, Ontario (Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact) TITLE: Measuring International Health Inequalities and Socioeconomic Status Using Household Survey Data AUTHOR: Mathieu J.P. Poirier, B.Sc., M.P.H. (McMaster University) SUPERVISOR: Dr. Michel Grignon NUMBER OF PAGES: xii, 231 / The methods underlying the quantification of health inequalities have profound consequences for measuring progress in achieving health for all. In Chapter two, associations between household wealth indices, income, and consumption were systematically compiled and different methods of wealth index calculation were evaluated for appropriateness of use in a variety of settings. Researchers are presented with a synthesis of existing evidence about the appropriateness of use of wealth indices in urban and rural areas, their robustness to changes in the asset mix, future applications, and advantages and disadvantages of primary competing methods of quantifying SES using household survey data. In Chapter three, international microdata were analyzed to evaluate how magnitudes of health inequality are affected by different methods of quantifying household socioeconomic status (SES), including income, consumption, and asset wealth. In Chapter four, the need for a transnational approach to measuring health inequalities was justified and the new method was developed using an empirical example. Substantively, these chapters develop the most complete evaluation of the association between the asset wealth, consumption, and income using both critical interpretive synthesis and microdata analysis, as well as the first meta-analysis evaluating changes in health inequality magnitudes according to the SES measure used over time and across country-income levels. The transnational analysis of health inequalities uncovered previously hidden health disparities in the island of Hispaniola, and detailed instructions for all methodological aspects of the new method were presented. The distribution of disease between nations, subnational regions, and urban-rural areas in Hispaniola were analyzed from 1994 to 2013, and the first relative geospatial wealth ranking between Haiti and the Dominican Republic was presented. Global health researchers should strive to measure the equity of health between people, and this sometimes requires analyzing populations that are not neatly contained by national boundaries. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This thesis investigates social inequalities in health and how to measure socioeconomic status (SES) using household surveys in a way that is robust across jurisdictions. It examines how wealth indices compare to income and consumption, and develops a new method to calculate transnational health inequalities. Chapter two conducts a comprehensive evaluation of evidence surrounding the use of wealth indices in urban and rural areas, robustness to changes in assets, future applications, and the advantages and disadvantages of the primary competing methods for quantifying household SES. The third chapter systematically evaluates how health inequality magnitudes evolve over time and across country-incomes according to SES measure. Finally, a transnational measurement of health inequalities was calculated for the island of Hispaniola in chapter four, uncovering the distribution of disease between nations, subnational regions, and urban-rural areas. Detailed instructions for all methodological aspects of the new transnational method are presented.