Thesis (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1964. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Bibliography: l. 88-91.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1946. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 98-99).

Issued also as Thesis--Fribourg. / "Bibliographie": p. [191]-195.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Columbia University, 1930. / Vita. "Literature cited": p. [111-113].

Inaug.-diss.--Jena. / Lebenslauf. "Benutzte literatur": p. [53]-54.

Thesis, PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references.

No description available.

Diss.--Bamberg, 2001.

This thesis contributes to our understanding of the economics of international migration. It consists of three chapters exploring some of the consequences and implications of human migration. Chapter 1, ‘No Country for Young Men’, studies the effects of international migration on the schooling and labour outcomes of left-behind children. While a large literature on the topic already exists and focuses on Latin America and China, little is known about how migration affects left-behind individuals in other parts of the world; and Central Asia in particular. The study concentrates on Tajikistan, the country with the highest level of remittance inflows relative to the size of the economy. Using panel data tracking the same children over time, I find important and gender-differenced schooling and labour supply responses. In a nutshell, young males are found to benefit from the migration of one of their household members, while young women are not. The second chapter, ‘Invasive Neighbours’, provides new evidence on the effect of immigration on electoral outcomes in developing countries. The Dominican Republic is used as case study as it provides a highly interesting context to analyse this issue. The vast majority of its immigrants come from neighbouring Haiti, and together the two countries share the island of Hispaniola. I find robust evidence that higher immigrant concentration is associated with greater support for the right-wing political coalition that has traditionally been more opposed to immigration. At the same time, the popularity of the centre-left coalition is found to decline in localities experiencing larger inflows of foreigners. Political competition, citizenship and identity considerations seem to be shaping voting behaviour and individual attitudes towards immigrants in the Dominican Republic. The third and last chapter, ‘The Elusive Quest for Social Diversity?’, analyses the effect of social housing supply on ethnic and social diversity in France’s largest metropolitan areas. High income countries generally rely on the provision of affordable housing through various schemes to both facilitate access to decent accommodation and encourage social diversity at the local level. The analysis takes advantage of a national policy reform to shed light on the issue. I find strong evidence of a positive relationship between social housing and ethnic diversity in local labour markets with large immigrant networks and strong labour demand. Social housing provision also affects the distribution of households’ income at the local level. This chapter contributes to the small but growing literature on the impact of social housing developments on the neighbourhoods in which they are built.

This thesis consists of three essays on the political economy of development and focuses on topics related to democratization, redistribution and conflict. It studies one the largest countries in Latin America, Colombia, and examines mostly his history during the 20th century. The first chapter, "Buying off the Revolution: Evidence from the Colombian National Peasant Movement, 1957-1985", studies the relationship between democratization and redistribution during periods of revolutionary threats. Far from causing an increase in broad redistribution (e.g. social spending), I show that the state organization of a social movement that extends the political rights of the threatening group can be used to identify rebel leaders and provide private goods to them, in return for preventing social unrest and demobilizing their supporters. I study the context of the organization by the state of the most important social movement in Colombian history -the National Peasant Movement (ANUC)- during the decades of a threat of Communist revolution (1957-1985), when the government gave ANUC direct political participation in the executive branch and economic support. Using three newly digitized data set of the Colombian municipalities, I find that this reform did not lead to higher broad redistribution towards the peasantry but it led to an increase in targeted redistribution in terms of public jobs and lands. By matching the names of the peasant leaders to the beneficiaries of the land reform, evidence suggests that peasant leaders disproportionally benefited from land reform and that targeted redistribution towards the peasant leaders was a mechanism to restrain the Communist threat. Finally, I find suggestive evidence that buying off the rebel leaders was an effective counter-revolutionary strategy as it led to less revolutionary activities after the support to ANUC was terminated (1972-1985). The second chapter, "Roads or Schools? Political Budget Cycles with different types of voters" also studies one form of democratization: the franchise extension. It uses a new Colombian data set (1830-2000), to analyze how changes in the electoral legislation with regard to the characteristics of voters (in terms of education and income levels) have affected fiscal policy in election years. In line with economic theory, I show that after the male universal suffrage law was reformed in 1936 the composition of the expenditure shifted towards social spending (like education, health, and welfare benefits) but there was a decrease in spending on infrastructure and investment projects (like roads). Consistent with the literature, I also find: 1.The timing and the size of the political budget cycles changed after 1936 and 2. After 1936 there was a shift in the funding mechanisms from indirect tax revenues to more debt. In addition to democratization and redistribution, the third chapter examines the causes of the civil conflict in Colombia. The third chapter "On the agrarian origins of civil conflict in Colombia", co-authored with Fabio Sanchez, investigates the impact of land dispossessions by landlords on the origin of the civil conflict in Colombia. The study exploits variation in floods to identify how peasants’ land dispossessions during the export boom (1914-1946) determine the rise of rural guerrilla movements and the consolidation of their rebel activities. It uses a novel municipal-level dataset on natural disasters and land dispossession, and documents that municipalities experiencing floods during the years 1914-1946 were substantially more likely to have land dispossessions than municipalities where floods was not severe. Floods reduced temporarily the conditions of the land and its value, facilitating the dispossession of the peasants of their lands by large landowners. Using a matching-pair instrumental variable approach, we show that the historical dispossession of lands by landlords that led to the rise of peasant grievances is associated with the presence of the rural guerrilla movement -The Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (FARC)- during the first stage of the Colombian civil conflict. We propose two mechanisms through which previous land dispossessions facilitated the emergence of rebel armed groups and use a mediation analysis to test the indirect effects. On the one hand, exposure to previous civil wars gave military training and access to weapons and military experience to the rural population that likely created incentives for the formation of rebel groups. On the other hand, the ideological politics of rebellion by the Communist party exacerbated the grievances and helped to the emergence of rebel armed groups.